Left Standing

This is the first episode of Left Standing in a really long time. If you’ve been following along, you know the last year has been a lot…I lost my grandfather on New Year’s Eve, my grandmother in March, my dog in May, and somewhere in there I had to rebrand the entire podcast off the back of a trademark claim. This is not me making excuses, more just giving context.But we’re back, because Feminist Business Framework is opening again, and I wanted to talk about what launching this program eleven times-and making close to a million dollars off of it-has actually taught me about launching. Especially the parts of launching that nobody advertises.Like the fact that it cost me about $30K to build before a single person enrolled. Or that the first launch made $24K when I was convinced I’d make $100K, and I was pissed. Or the second launch, where I sold half that and spent my 33rd birthday in a Mexico City hotel room refreshing the enrollment page, fuming, while my best friends were downstairs.I also get into the industry I came up in, the $150K-a-year masterminds, the “most committed person will figure out how to pay in full” rhetoric, people from marginalized communities being told to get private bank loans for high ticket containers while the older white men paid cash with no interest, and the refund situation that almost made me leave this business entirely. And what it took to build a model that doesn’t rely on any of that. (For the record: over 50% of my students re-enroll.)If you have an online service-based business and you’ve been avoiding the business side of your business because it was only ever positioned to you through a bro-marketing, toxic-capitalist girlboss lens that was antithetical to your morals... I hope you feel called out AND held by this episode. And I hope you come to Burn It Down and Build It Better, my free webinar happening live on Zoom October 6th and 7th, where I’ll teach you the fundamentals of marketing, selling, and business strategy with a feminist lens. Come live and you’re entered to win a free one-on-one deep dive on your business strategy with me.Doors to Feminist Business Framework open October 6th with early bird pricing. The waitlist gets earliest access plus an extra $100 off, or you can just go look at the curriculum on the sales page.And tell me in the comments: do you still listen to business podcasts? Do they actually impact what you buy? I’m genuinely curious. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

There’s a specific kind of conversation that makes you want to pull over the car. Or text someone. Or sit with it for a few days before you can fully articulate why it rattled something loose in you.This one did that.Nisha Moodley — founder of the Center for Devotional Leadership, guide for women leaders, and someone who has been doing this work for nearly twenty years — came on Left Standing and we went places I genuinely didn’t expect.We started, sort of accidentally, with late-stage capitalism looking like a South Park episode. (She said it first. I just agreed.) And then we went to the exact moment I found myself looking at a bill for $14,000 in car depreciation attached to a sympathy card eight months after my father died. And then somehow we ended up somewhere much more tender than either of us anticipated.This is an episode about a lot of things:What leadership actually is — and why most of us who care the most have been opting out of a word that was never meant to describe us in the first place.The difference between marketing that triggers shame and desperation and marketing that speaks to the deeper calling in people. Nisha has a way of naming the mechanics of bro marketing so clearly that you’ll never be able to un-see it, and then immediately offering you something real to plant your feet in instead.What she calls putting two feet in — and why the wobble between paradigms is exactly what’s keeping so many of us unclear.Women in midlife, postmenopausal table-flipping, and why culture’s story about who we’re becoming is opposite land from the actual truth.And then — because grief has a way of finding its way in — we talked about death portals. In business. In life. In the specific kind of season where you don’t know how long you’ll be in it or what’s waiting on the other side, and the only honest thing you can do is nourish yourself and fall back into community.Nisha is the kind of person who has won national sales competitions and opens ceremonial space with altars. She holds both with such ease that it stops being surprising about five minutes in and starts feeling like the most obvious thing in the world. I wanted to put her on mic specifically so that anyone who feels like their work is too spiritual or too “woo adjacent” to market could hear what it sounds like when someone has fully integrated those things — not as an aesthetic but as a foundation.We also built an altar for my dog the night before this episode went out. I didn’t even realize until we were already recording. The divine keeps tapping me on the shoulder.Go listen.Find Nisha at nishamoodley.com — she has a guided meditation on her homepage for connecting with the soul of your work and an ancestral gift waiting to come through this season. She’s also on Instagram @nishamoodley.The Ethical Sales Method, mentioned in this episode, is linked here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

Hello dear ones,I get asked constantly whether people are still buying coaching in 2026. And I have thoughts. A lot of them. Including actual numbers from my business, which I am going to share with you because I think you deserve to make decisions based on real data and not vibes (though personally I have wasted a lot of money buying because of vibes…).This episode is a sneak peek behind the strategy I use to launch — not the inspirational version, the actual version. What I spend on ads, what my conversion rate is, why my October launch made $30k instead of $50k and what I did about it, and the behind-the-scenes of an $108k month in February.Here is what we get into:The real math. 650 webinar signups, $2,500 in ads, an 8% conversion rate, a $108k month. What all of that actually means and why you can’t just copy the numbers without understanding the system underneath them.Why ads will not save you if your organic marketing isn’t already working. I know that’s not what you want to hear. I’m telling you anyway.Why free calls are basically dead as a lead gen strategy in 2026 and what actually works instead.The meta thing I do when I teach a webinar that most coaches never figure out — which is that I’m selling the entire time and it doesn’t feel gross, and that is not an accident, and you can learn how to do it.What happened to my October launch when someone threatened to sue me over my podcast name in the middle of open cart, got it deleted from the internet, and how I made the revenue back anyway.Why entrepreneurship is a gamble no matter how long you’ve been doing it — and what it actually feels like from the inside when you’ve been at it long enough to stop fully panicking about that.Feminist Business Framework is open now. This is the last round at this price — it increases permanently after this cohort. Doors close May 20. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

Stacey Champagne is a cybersecurity executive, an insider risk specialist, and the founder of Women’s Cybersecurity Alliance — a private network built for experienced women in cyber who are done being the most qualified person in the room and somehow still getting passed over for the next thing.She joined the Feminist Business Framework in September 2025, became a 1:1 client, and had her first five-figure launch in March 2026. This episode is her telling you exactly what that journey looked like from the inside.Some of what she said that I’m still thinking about:She originally underpriced her offers because of the feedback you may have gotten, too (someone insinuating they were “too high”). The low prices felt safe. What she didn’t realize until we worked through it together was that the low prices were building the wrong room — attracting people whose values weren’t aligned with hers, who had opinions about what she should be charging, who were never going to be her people. The moment she priced for who she actually wanted to work with, those people showed up. Immediately.She also talked about the days mid-launch where nothing was happening. No sales, just silence, and a completely relatable inner dialogue of “what if nobody buys.” I told her what I tell everyone: people buy on the last day, often in the last hour, but there is no fix for normal feelings. And then the launch closed and she had her first five figures.We got into the coaching industry, specifically the gap between what ICF certification programs teach you — essentially, ask good questions and never share your own experience or expertise — and what people actually need when they hire a coach. Stacey is a coach herself and came into the Feminist Business Framework partly to learn the tactical stuff nobody had given her, and partly, in her words, to watch how I sell so she could understand it from the inside. That part of the conversation is worth the listen if you have ever felt like the business side of your practice is a language you were never taught to speak.She is also a decade deep in cybersecurity and has things to say about using AI tools as an entrepreneur that are not scary and not hype — just: here is what you are actually opting into by default, here is why clicking allow all is the kind of decision that feels fine until it isn’t, and here is why the idea that women are behind on AI might be less of a data point and more of a narrative someone is running on purpose.Stacey is brilliant, honest, and very funny. This is a good one.If you want to get into the work that took her from underpricing to a five-figure launch, I’m hosting a free workshop next week. Details here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

Leah Gervais has built close to $4 million in revenue all while being the stay-at-home-parent of two kids under five in New York City. She is strategic, pragmatic, and genuinely one of the most generous people I know. She showed up in a big way the morning my grandmother died and didn’t ask a single question. That’s the kind of person she is.In this episode we get into the mechanics of scaling:* What it actually looks like when you decide to go from $50k months to $65k months. * Why the first thing you often have to do to scale is spend more money * How to tell the difference between a business decision that needs data and one that just needs you to trust yourself. * Leah shares what her top five lead generation sources actually are right now (freebies didn’t make the list — listen before you panic) * And, why webinars aren’t dead, they’re just slower than they used to be.We also talk about something that I think will land differently depending on who you are and where you’re coming from: the tension between holding a structural critique of the system you’re building inside of, and actually building inside it anyway. Leah and I are not identical in how we hold that tension. She is pragmatic in a way I deeply respect and occasionally push back on. I carry more of the systemic weight in how I frame this work, in part because of the specific clients I serve and in part because of my own lived experience as a disabled person who built this business because I needed to, not because it sounded freeing.We don’t resolve the tension neatly. I don’t think it can be resolved neatly. But I think it’s one of the more honest conversations I’ve had on this podcast about what it actually means to build a values-aligned business inside a system that was not built for most of us.If you have found yourself stuck between your politics and your pragmatism — or between your grief about the system and your need to build inside it anyway — this one is for you.Leah Gervais is a business and marketing mentor based in New York City. Find her at leahgervais.com and on Instagram. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

This episode is a continuation of my last post—about grief, work, and what it means to keep showing up inside a system that doesn’t pause when things fall apart.Today, I’m speaking more directly about the tension I think so many of us are quietly holding:What it means to be a human being living through real pain… while also being someone who is expected to function, produce, lead, and show up. (Also show up for who? For our community, for ourselves, for the capitalist?)We’re living in a time where grief is not rare. It’s not exceptional.It’s ambient. It’s layered. It’s ongoing.And yet, most of us have never been taught:* what grief actually does to the body (I think this and classes on how to have hard conversations and do your taxes would have been more relevant than say, geometry…)* why your capacity changes when you’re in it (from a biological perspective)* how to navigate work, relationships, and visibility while your internal world is fundamentally altered (as it would be, of course, if something traumatic happened to you)So instead, we make it mean something about us.That we’re less disciplined.Less focused.Lazy, even.What if nothing is wrong with you?What if the exhaustion, the brain fog, the emotional volatility, the desire to pull back—or the need to keep going—are not personal failures, but biological and psychological responses to what you’re carrying?I also talk about something I don’t think we name enough:The way capitalism—and more specifically the attention economy—intensifies our experience of grief.Not just because we’re expected to keep producing,but because we’re continuously exposed to crisis, trauma, and information in a way no human nervous system was designed to process.So we’re not just grieving our own lives.We’re absorbing the world.And then asking ourselves why we can’t focus.This is not an episode about doing grief perfectly. It’s about removing the expectation that you should.If you’re in a season where things feel heavy—personally, collectively, or both—this episode is for you.🤍 A NoteYou don’t owe anyone a perfectly articulated explanation of what you’re going through.You don’t have to perform being okay.And you are allowed to both:* need support* and continue showing up in ways that feel sustainableThose things are not in conflict.🔗 Sources & Research Mentioned* Stahl, S. T., et al. (2019). Bereavement leave and its impact on employees. * National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (2022). Impact of repeated exposure to trauma and stress.* NBC News – Your Brain on Grief (video segment on neurological effects of grief)* Reuters (2026). Attention economy, infinite scroll, and user engagement research This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

This week’s episode is a conversation with Xenia Marie Ross Viray, who is the creator of the platform and iterations of Myths of Creation, an interdisciplinary artist who—quite literally—gets paid to be herself.Not in a “personal brand” way.In a devotional to creativity, consciousness, and resonance kind of way.We talk about what it actually looks like to build a body of work—and a business—without contorting yourself for the algorithm.Inside the episode:* Why your “content” might actually be your laboratory, not your marketing* The difference between authenticity and unmasking (and why one of them is much scarier)* How trying to “perform for the algorithm” quietly erodes the very thing that makes people choose you* What it means to create from resonance instead of strategy—and then translate it into something people can understand* The trap of constant visibility, especially nowWe also go deeper than business.Into the emotional, political, and psychological reality of being online right now:* The dissonance of building a business on social media while being harmed by it* What it means to be a sensitive, creative person in a time of constant crisis and information overload* How algorithms fracture reality—and why it’s getting harder to actually talk to each other* The grief of losing intergenerational understanding (and the question: where are our elders?)And then—because we can’t not—we go cosmic.We talk about:* Creativity as a portal for new consciousness* Art, music, and even the Olympics as evidence that joy and expression can shift collective energy* The idea that we’re not just resisting broken systems—we’re being asked to create entirely new onesOne of the most grounding threads throughout the conversation:You don’t have to do it all the same way.Some people are here to resist.Some are here to rebel.Some are here to create.Most of us are doing all three—just in different proportions, at different times.And none of those roles are more valuable than the others.If you’ve been feeling:* burnt out by social media* confused about what to share (or whether to share at all)* caught between wanting to grow your business and wanting to opt out of the noise* or quietly craving a more human, more magical way of moving through your workthis episode will meet you there.Not with a formula.But with a reorientation back to yourself.PS. At the end of this episode I got a push notification that reminded me it was recorded on my grandfather’s birthday. When you get to the end, you’ll be glad I mentioned that. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

This week on the podcast, I’m breaking down the most profitable month I’ve had: $108,500 in sales.But this isn’t a “here are my secrets to making money while you sleep” episode. Because sure, the money came in over the course of a month, but it is because of the systems, community and IP I have spent years building.This is a conversation about what it actually looks like to build a profitable business when you’re a feminist, a service provider, and someone with complicated feelings about capitalism.Inside the episode, I talk about:* Why getting money into the hands of marginalized people is an important part of our political work* The strange reality of being good at capitalism while actively critiquing it* The long, messy path from not qualifying for an apartment lease to being approved for an $800k mortgage* What most people get wrong about “six-figure months” in the coaching industry* The less glamorous truth behind this launch—including personally reaching out to 400 people and still getting ignored by most of themI also share the real throughline behind my results: not viral content, not hacks, not a brand-new offer.Just relentless iteration, deep attention to what clients actually need, and a business model built around making people feel seen at every stage—from first contact to long-term client relationships.If you’ve ever wondered:* whether making money while critiquing the systems that force you to work without protecting your basic rights can coexist* why your offers aren’t converting even when the work is good* what ethical selling actually looks like in practicethis episode pulls back the curtain.Not on a fantasy version of entrepreneurship—but on the slow, strategic work that actually builds a sustainable business.Listen to the episode and join my email list to get first access to the next time I launch.Grab a sneak peek into my business model here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

This week on Left Standing, I’m joined by Taylor Tieman, founder of Legalmiga — and one of the few internet-savvy attorneys actually translating legalese into language you can understand. (She also loves astrology! Big plus!)If you’re a creator, coach, course seller, influencer, or small business owner… this episode is basically your gentle (but firm) legal wake-up call.Taylor breaks down:* Why securing the Instagram handle is not the same thing as protecting your brand* What most entrepreneurs forget to check before naming a podcast, course, or program* How trademark issues usually only come up after someone gets a scary letter* Why legal documents are written to be confusing — and who that benefits* The checklist every online business should have (even though no two businesses are the same)We also get into the reality creators don’t talk about publicly:* Speech clauses in brand contracts that can legally restrict what you say online* The financial consequences of breaching a sponsorship agreement* Why some creators stay silent during political moments (and why it’s not always cowardice)* The real tension between personal values and contractual obligationsTaylor also shares her perspective as a lawyer navigating a time when the legal system feels slow, reactive, and often outpaced by harm — including her thoughts on corporate PR language (including statements from companies like Home Depot) and the mishandling of sensitive document releases related to the Epstein Files.If you’ve ever thought:* “I formed an LLC, so I’m good, right?”* “I’ll deal with trademarks later.”* “That clause probably won’t apply to me.”This episode is your sign to listen first and Google later.Because sometimes the most radical thing you can do as a business owner… is read the fine print. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe

* “No one signed up.”* “My audience doesn’t engage.”* “People can’t afford to work with me.”* “The algorithm hates me.”You’re spiraling about whether your content is cringe, too political, too woo, too much.In this episode, I make a bold (and admittedly spicy) claim:It’s not your people or the algorithm, babe. It’s you.Not in a shamey way.In a liberating way.The real problem with most marketingMost people aren’t thinking about their clients when they post.They’re thinking about:* their ex’s mom’s opinion of their content* that girl from high school who may see you calling yourself a coach and judge* former coworkers who could be lurking* their MAGA auntBasically, people who would never hire you anywayIf you’re contorting your message to avoid being judged by people who aren’t your clients, you’re not doing marketing—you’re doing reputation management for an imaginary audience.And that is a terrible business strategy.The relief no one talks aboutHere’s the exhale:Your marketing isn’t about you.Yes, people will misinterpret you.Yes, parasocial weirdness will happen.Yes, someone will project something untrue onto you.They’d do that anyway.So tell me again why you want a business on the internet if you’re unwilling to be seen by the people you’re actually trying to help?Being a business owner ≠ just doing the workIf your dream is to open your laptop and have clients magically appear so you can stay in your zone of genius all day, there are jobs for that. Truly.But owning a business means:* helping people find you* giving them a reason to trust you* showing up even when it’s uncomfortable* understanding that being “in service” also requires visibilityYou don’t get to skip the part where you’re the one steering the ship.The bottom lineYou get to be scared.You get to be uncomfortable.You get to be annoyed, frustrated, and triggered.But if you want impact, untapped income, and actual autonomy?It’s not the algorithm.It’s not your audience.It’s not “them.”It’s you.And if you want it—I believe in you.🎧 Listen to the full episode for the unfiltered version, the metaphors, and the tough love that makes this all land. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit carakovacs.substack.com/subscribe