750. Growing a $2M Product Business While Working Full-Time with Caroline Gilman

·1 hr 6 min·5 clips

Caroline Gilman built a $2 million needlepoint canvas business while still working full-time as a corporate CPA.

Host Jacqueline Snyder welcomes Caroline Gilman, founder of Atlantic Blue Canvas, a needlepoint canvas business. Caroline explains she started the business during COVID while her husband was deployed, painting canvases herself and selling on Etsy. She quickly scaled, outsourcing painting overseas and hiring part-time help for fulfillment. Caroline reveals she grew the business to $2 million in revenue while still working as a senior manager at a Big Four accounting firm. She describes the 'corporate handcuffs'—benefits like a 401k and maternity leave—that made leaving her CPA identity difficult. After hitting revenue milestones and experiencing burnout, she quit her job to focus full-time on the business. Caroline discusses hiring contractors, many of whom were side hustlers, and now transitioning them to full-time roles. She shares a strategy shift: instead of launching 200 new products twice a year at trade shows, she tested a monthly drop of 25 items, generating $60,000 in a day. Jacqueline and Caroline explore mindset barriers, such as fear of outsourcing and control issues, and the importance of community and coaching. Caroline plans to double revenue this year, hire full-time employees, and take a month-long trip to the Philippines. The episode concludes with advice on bootstrapping, financial management, and 'firing yourself' by hiring better talent.

As heard by us

Revenue gives a corporate CPA the proof she needs to treat her product business as the real path.

A corporate accountant's sense of identity runs into the practical reality of building a product business, with revenue becoming the point where a risky leap starts to feel rational.

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Why you'd press play

You are juggling corporate credibility, excellent benefits, and a product business whose revenue has started making the decision harder to ignore.

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