It's been hard to introduce SoloOps, because the apps are the product, but they're also the middle of the story. The story I'm telling is too long to tell all at once. To explain it in a way that makes sense, I made a timeline. I plan to tell the full story, but that will come over time. For now, I want to give you the story at a glance.
The way out
I just wanted something that was mine
When I first left my job and had no idea what to do next, I knew the concept was to build something of my own that helped other people. I was frustrated that I had spent so much time building someone else's business. I wanted something that was mine. I thought the answer to that was the products. I was exploring ways to present those products while trying to learn who I was. I had no clue what I was building yet. I just wanted a way out.
My own website
Not someone else's rules
When I started designing my website, I was looking at the platforms that build websites for you. I knew right away that wasn't going to work for me. I wanted something that belonged to me, and those platforms felt like someone else's business. I didn't want to be stuck to someone else's rules. I wanted something that was my own.
Meeting AI
The excuse that I didn't know how, removed
Meeting AI, I know, sounds scary to a lot of people, but it gave me hope. It's kind of hard to explain. I knew I wanted something that was mine, and AI gave me the first sign that maybe that was actually possible. Perplexity was like my smart friend who knows too much information. Claude was the friend who could build safely, with boundaries I didn't know I needed. ChatGPT was my motivational coach, the one I leaned on for support, who gave me the encouragement I desperately needed.
AI helped me build, but more importantly, it removed the excuse that I didn't know how. AI became the turning point in my story. It gave me the belief that software was no longer inaccessible. Maybe I could actually build this.
Route Ready & SoloOps Beauty
Where a lot of people think the story starts
This is the part of the story where I started building the solutions, solving the problems. I was focused on software and building, and I still hadn't realized what was actually happening. This is where a lot of people think the story is supposed to start, but starting it here doesn't make sense. This chapter came when I started to see the light. This time is important, but what came before it is the lesson.
The name change
SoloOps was becoming a company
Route Ready and SoloOps Beauty became SoloOpsOS and SoloOpsCO. I was learning how to brand, but this is also when I discovered SoloOps was actually becoming a company.
The realization
What do I want? What do I believe?
I was building for everyone else and not myself. For as long as I can remember, my focus has always been what everyone else wants, what everyone else needs, what sells, what businesses need. At some point I finally started asking, what do I want? What do I believe? This is when the pattern started to reveal itself. They weren't things I found in all my research. They were words I kept repeating in different ways. I just didn't put them together for a long time.
Never about software
The apps were pieces, not the whole story
I thought my excitement and hope were for the software. SoloOps started as software, and it became systems, visibility, stewardship, the library. The apps weren't the whole story. They were pieces of it.
Doubt, and the pattern
This time the pattern was, you have to do this
This whole process has been challenging, full of doubt, abandoned ideas, Etsy workbooks that never became a business, website rewrites, logo and name changes, and a lot of nights wondering if any of it would even matter. In the end, all of the steps in the process had patterns that ran through them. This time the patterns weren't about what wasn't possible, what I didn't know, what I could never do. This time the pattern was, you have to do this. Maybe it's best this way. Maybe it's better this way. I have to do it this way. Every day, SoloOps becomes much more than a software company.
What it is really for
The thing you can't put a price on
I want the products to help people, but I think the thing that can help people the most is the thing you can't put a price on. Finding hope in the middle of darkness, darkness that didn't reveal itself until it was almost too late.
I have to tell that story carefully. That story isn't about helping me. I made my way out. I found the light that made me unapologetically okay with being myself, not asking for permission, because the permission doesn't belong to anyone here.
This story is to find the people who might be living in the dark and not even know it. Losing trust in yourself is uncomfortable, but losing trust in yourself and not even noticing, that is dangerous. SoloOps is important, and the products are meant to help people, but I don't think I've even fully realized how tragic that story could have become.
“The apps weren't the whole story. They were pieces of it.”
The full story will come, over time. For now, this is how I got here.
More to come.