The Design Business Show 236: Getting Support For Brave Life Changes with Fresh Starts Registry Co-Founder, Olivia Howell

Olivia Dreizen Howell is the co-founder and CEO of Fresh Starts Registry, the first and only platform for everything you need to begin again, including divorce or breakup, moving, career changes, stepping into your truth, or starting again after grief. Her background is in social media marketing, and she is also the founder and CEO of March Lion Media. She’s a single mom of two amazing boys on Long Island (born and bred!), and in her spare time, she loves to watercolor, make handmade cards, read about generational trauma, listen to 90s music, and collect crystals I know nothing about, but love the way they feel.

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How Fresh Starts Registry Started + How it Works

How I came across Olivia on Twitter when she was doing a challenge involving reaching out to people in business that you normally wouldn’t shoot your shot with
Olivia says that everything she’s done in life, she hasn’t had a background in – if you want to do something, go for it
The story of how Olivia got into teaching and then left after 8 years to run local businesses’ Facebook pages which grew into a global agency that her sister eventually joined
Olivia’s marriage ended in 2019, and after her husband moved out of their house, she wondered why there wasn’t a registry for divorce, breakups, job loss, moving – any of the hard moments in life
How Olivia and her sister created Fresh Starts Registry, which is the first and only platform for everything you need to start again
Olivia explains how to use the registry builder on their site and shares that they have over 60 experts in all different categories to use as resources
When you become an expert, you get all these amazing resources and benefits like workshops, seminars, and public relations
Usually, Olivia charges $100 – $200 an hour to work with them one-on-one, but when you’re an expert, you pay $37 a month and can come in to get help as many times as you want
How Olivia got 5 clients before she had a website when she was starting, all because she talked to people
If you’re starting a business; you need to be able to vocalize what you do, be confident, and network within your industry
The reason why Olivia didn’t want to niche down to just divorces was in order to celebrate all brave life decisions
It was important when Olivia and her sister started building Fresh Starts that it was a safe place for people on the internet, which is why they don’t collect user data of the people going through life changes

Olivia’s Talent for Connecting Others + Teaching

One challenge they had at the start was keeping experts, but once they started supporting them, giving them resources, and teaching them all the marketing tools they knew to help them grow their businesses, the experts were multiplying
Olivia explains that Fresh Starts is in start-up mode and that revenue comes from the expert memberships
How female founders make up 40% of founders but get less than 2% of the capital deployed by venture capitalists a year – Olivia shares this because it can be a very sexist world to be in, and there needs to be a change
Fresh Starts is very picky about who they work with because they aren’t in it for the money; they’re in it to change the narrative around brave life changes
One thing Olivia realized early on in life is that she has a passion for connecting people with jobs and connecting people with people, which is why she has her personal brand, Digital Yenta, and one thing she does is update a job board (Yenta List) each day with jobs in the marketing world
This year Fresh Starts wants to add vendors like copywriters, designers, SEO specialists, etc., to come into the community as well
Olivia shares how it is working with her sister when they have different personalities but says it makes for a beautiful partnership where they can grow together
Connect with Olivia on Twitter, Instagram and check out Fresh Starts Registry