This week I’m pumped to welcome the founder of a service I use myself (and am obsessed with!) I’ve got Allison Schaaf, the founder of PrepDish, a subscription service offering handcrafted gluten-free and paleo meal plans week after week. 

Aside from loving PrepDish as a customer, I wanted to have Allison on the show for a very specific reason:

Her product is incredibly simple. Like, “can this actually be a business?” simple. It’s a PDF.

I hope these episodes with Allison challenge you to strip away all the scary beliefs that you need to buy course after course to figure out how to launch a business. 

Allison’s the master of putting the customer’s needs first, and getting laser-focused on what people actually NEED (hint: it’s not a crazy app or 35 module course.)

In this Courage story, we’re exploring how Allison got here via her Personal Chef business. I love that Allison started out with a service-based business, and how she worked out the kinks in her workflow before launching a digital product.

Through perfecting her process in people’s kitchens, she was able to create a hard-hitting digital product that nails a specific need. 

Here’s what we’re getting into in this episode: 

• Getting clients: How Allison got her very first client as a personal chef (spoiler: it’s not fancy) 
• Refining your services: How to figure out what makes you unique — and how that translates to your offering
• Networking: How the hard work you do in the beginning may pay off later in surprising ways 
• Idea validation: How Allison’s Personal Chef business actually served as the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for her digital product, PrepDish
• Batching: How Allison shifted to a year-long or season-long view of her meal plans, and how she gets more done with less effort 

“I figured out what was unique for me — I was not only a chef, but I was also a dietician.”

“I just had to stop doing anything except the process that I wanted to do. I know you want me to cater your party, but I can’t — this is the one thing I want to do. It really was a decision, this is the way I do things, and I’m only going to work with clients THIS WAY.”

SHOW NOTES:

• My Clarity Jump-Start Guide — grab yours free
• Special PrepDish offer for C&C Listeners