The Life-First Solopreneur

Spending five or more hours a month on invoicing makes you nearly three times more likely to face cash flow problems. That’s just one of the eye-opening stats Faye Pang of FreshBooks brings to this episode of The Life-First Solopreneur.

Faye grew up watching her immigrant parents run a small wholesale meat business, tracking every dollar in a blue ledger book at the kitchen table at midnight. 

Today she spends her career helping solopreneurs and small business owners adopt technology that gives them time back. She joins Carly Ries and Joe Rando to talk cash flow, automation, AI, and why she believes we’re entering the era of the solopreneur.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
  • Why admin tasks like invoicing and chasing payments act as a handbrake on your cash flow
  • The first thing solopreneurs should automate to win back hours every month
  • Where AI genuinely helps and where it’s still overhyped
  • Why AI output is only as good as the context you give it
  • How to start with AI when you feel behind (spoiler: everyone feels behind)
  • Why 86% of solopreneurs turn to AI before hiring a person
  • What to automate and what should always stay human
  • What solopreneurs really want to do with five extra hours a week
Connect with Faye Pang on LinkedIn
Learn more about FreshBooks

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What is The Life-First Solopreneur?

You didn't become a solopreneur to build a business that runs your life. You did it so your business could serve it.

The Life-First Solopreneur is the twice-weekly podcast at the heart of the Life-First Movement. It's for solopreneurs who believe the business should be designed around life, not the other way around.

Hosts Joe Rando and Carly Ries, co-authors of Solopreneur Business for Dummies, sit down each week with solopreneurs who are building Life-First Businesses and experts who are helping others do the same.

Every episode explores what it really takes to design, run, and evolve a one-person business with your life at the center.

Basically, what we're trying to say is:

Life First. Then Business.

Carly Ries:

What would you do with five extra hours a week? Take a nap? Binge a show? Well, according to new data from FreshBooks, solopreneurs said, nope. Rest came in dead last.

Carly Ries:

Today, we're talking with Faye Pang from FreshBooks, who has spent over a decade studying what makes solopreneurs tick, about why five hours a month on invoicing can triple your odds of cash flow trouble, where AI is actually saving solopreneurs time, and where it's just making more work, and why we're entering the era of the solopreneur. Plus, we discover Faye and I share the exact same dream job, and it involves eating our way through Chinatown. So grab your coffee, maybe a snack, and let's get into it. You're listening to the Life First Solopreneur, the podcast for those in pursuit of a life first business.

Carly Ries:

I'm Carly Ries, and my cohost, Joe, and I spend every episode with solopreneurs who are proving there's a better way to run a one person business and experts who are helping make it happen. We like to say life first then business. So let's get right to it. Faye, it's so funny.

Carly Ries:

Joe's schedule has been hectic, the past few days after coming off of Unbound, HubSpot's conference last week. And so we had to shift a few things and he was like, I can't miss this episode. I have to make sure we're on this episode. So no pressure, but, we kinda have a high bar for you. So, We'll start with that.

Faye Pang:

wow, and thank you for the flexibility. I know, we had to reschedule. So thank you so much for that.

Carly Ries:

Oh, no. This is great. But before we even get to our icebreaker question, you're not a solopreneur. Let's do a quick... Why are you here? What makes you qualified to speak to solopreneurs? Because you are incredibly qualified to speak to our audience.

Faye Pang:

Yeah. So I am not a solopreneur, but I am the daughter of two immigrants, small business owners here in Canada that had a very small team and ran a small business for twenty three years. And then on the professional front, I've spent the last over decade at tech companies helping solopreneurs and small business owners adopt technology, whether that was helping with food delivery or financial management of their small business. And so I have met many solopreneurs over the years.

Faye Pang:

I have studied them in a non creepy way in terms of what their hang ups are and how they're thinking about technology and where they're spending their time and what their pain points are. so I feel like I've got a unique vantage point into this profile and business owner.

Carly Ries:

Well, we're gonna get into some of that technology and ways that it can help people. But before we do, I am gonna ask you an icebreaker question, which is if you had to run a solo business tomorrow in a completely different industry than what you're used to, what would you pick?

Faye Pang:

Yeah. I think about this a lot and daydream about it a lot. But, maybe just for some context, I'm based here in Toronto, Canada, and I live in Chinatown, here in Toronto. And the Toronto Chinatown just has an amazing collection of restaurants and small businesses, small shops that are family run , have been family run for decades, and new up and coming restaurants. And so my solopreneur business would be running a food tour in Chinatown and just highlighting and showcasing my neighborhood to the world.

Faye Pang:

I would absolutely love to do that at some point. You know what's so funny that you say that? My dream growing up, I wanted to be a talent agent. But if I wasn't a talent agent, I wanted to either guide food tours or be a food tour critic, and then also be a personal trainer or marathon.

Carly Ries:

So I could balance out the scales of like eating my way through Chinatown, and then also, working out. And then I would get paid to do both. And I still think that that is a brilliant idea, whoever wants to steal it.

Faye Pang:

Love that, Carly. When I get my food tour spun up, you'll have to come visit and critique it.

Carly Ries:

You do not have to twist my arm very hard to, sign up for that. I'm sure audience doesn't care that much about my dreams of being a food tour and you being a food tour guru. But I'm sure the whole technology side of things may have piqued their interest when you were introducing yourself. I feel like so many people hear about AI, automation, outsourcing, blah blah blah blah blah. And you are a great person to ask a lot of these questions to because this is kind of your realm. But let's start with cash flow management.

Carly Ries:

That is often the most stressful place for a solo business owner who wears every single hat. It's kind of that, like, it weighs them down when they could be focusing on other things. How is automation changing that day to day reality right now?

Faye Pang:

Yeah. it's so true. And I'm sure resonates with folks that are listening to this podcast right now. And, we do have the data that backs us up from a couple of recent reports that we've commissioned here at FreshBooks. You know, one data point I'll just share with you both is inefficiency has a really measurable impact on cash flow.

Faye Pang:

And what we see is businesses that are spending five plus hours a month on invoicing are nearly three times more likely to face cash flow problems. So 28% of those versus the average of 10%. If you think about five hours a month, that's one afternoon. It's one of the biggest things that popped out to me from this financial flow report study that we did as it relates to where the cash flow pressure is and maybe one of the pieces that may be driving that.

Faye Pang:

When I think about how automation is changing the game for solopreneurs, I think about invoicing, and especially the recurring ones where you've got you know, always one customer that you go back to and support on a regular basis, how might you automate that invoicing? Embedding the option now is just such a no brainer for your clients to pay online. Helps to speed up those cash flow cycles, and you can kinda set it and forget it, and just know that that is coming in. I think for many solopreneurs, the notion of, looking ahead feels almost like a luxury. And so using tools and automation to help with reporting and insights to help predict where you might be, you know, at the end of the month, next quarter, and where you might need a cash injection to help manage any crunches or pinches that you might feel.

Faye Pang:

And then the last part of that whole equation is were you to anticipate a cash flow pressure, having easy access to capital to help uncover and to help you cover that upcoming expense. So the really cool thing about automation is I think it's really helping to alleviate some of the stressors that many solopreneurs feel.

Joe Rando:

Yeah. I want to second that because especially my last startup, which I sold in 2020. It's a long time ago now. But we used really rigorous invoicing, like you said. You know,

Joe Rando:

The invoices went on time. They were followed up. If people didn't pay on time, we made phone calls. And we very carefully tracked our cash flow and our projected cash flow, and we were able to grow that business to, many, many millions of dollars in revenue without any venture capital, without any outside investment.

Faye Pang:

Right.

Joe Rando:

And it was just about knowing what was gonna come in, knowing how much we could invest in the business without going negative, again, getting that access to some capital. You know, just going to the local bank, nothing crazy, but, you know, $25,000 line of credit just for that month You know, didn't have a lot of bills coming due or a lot of, invoices coming due, I should say. But it was magic.

Joe Rando:

And so I just wanna really, really second what you're saying here that this is a place where solopreneurs can grow their business more effectively, make their business serve their lives more effectively by paying some attention here. Yeah. And Joe, what I love about your story, It wasn't just the clarity, but it was giving you and your team the confidence. Like the confidence in knowing this decision that I'm about to make is grounded in data. I've a very clear understanding, and I know that it's the right thing for me to do.

Carly Ries:

Right. Well, so beyond cash flow, where do solopreneurs waste the most time? Is there, like a highest impact task to automate first to win hours back Do you think?

Faye Pang:

I've just given a bunch of examples of, what I would classify as admin. Like invoicing, chasing payments, filing receipts, reconciling those. In so many cases, the admin tasks are the handbrake to cash flow. And I mentioned that stat earlier around, owners that spend more time on invoicing are nearly three times more likely to face cash problems, that really, stands out to me as an opportunity. And so if we think about the first task to automate, to me, it's the behind the scenes. It's the invoicing. It's the payments.

Faye Pang:

Those are predictable, repeatable. They don't add that much customer value from an experience perspective, but it's hours back a month that you'll save. And for many of the folks listening to this podcast, I bet you may not be using invoicing or accounting software at all. And what we see in our data is 41% of business owners aren't even using online payment tools.

Faye Pang:

So there's just a really big opportunity to adopt, great technology that's out there today to give you your time back, but also to help you manage through, cash flow.

Carly Ries:

Does anybody else get just really giddy when people throw out stats? Like, when you gave that percentage, I was like, oh, like that Gives me all the warm and fuzzies to your comparison. Just me, okay. But, AI tools have lowered the barrier now to starting a business.

Carly Ries:

But managing one alone is still so hard. So we're talking about automation and everything. Where does AI genuinely help a solopreneur do you think? And where do you also think it's maybe overhyped?

Faye Pang:

Yeah. I think for a lot of small business owners, AI is a bit of a double edge sword. There's this huge promise of efficiency and what it might unlock for you as a small business owner. But then there is, the trough of disillusionment and the disappointment that you go through as you're adopting any new technology. We actually recently surveyed solopreneurs and micro business owners. And so Carly, here's some more data for you to geek out

Joe Rando:

I thought I was the data geek.

Faye Pang:

I know.

Carly Ries:

Joe, you're rubbing off on me. I'm like, why aren't you backing me up?

Faye Pang:

No. I love it too. And it just helps us understand where business owners are today. 90% of them told us that AI makes it easier for them to start and run a business.

Faye Pang:

I mean, 90%. 60% responded back in our survey and said, it's actually helping me launch something that I couldn't have done alone. So those are staggering stats when you think about, okay, like, they're adopting it, they're using it, they're seeing the benefit. But the other side of that double edged sword is that it's still not fully transforming how people are running their business. So maybe it's helping them build it a bit faster, but still less than half or 46% are actually using it for things like their financials. So, you know, I think there's still a massive opportunity for owners to get unlock here as they think about where else in their business they might apply it, and how they may sort of challenge traditional workflows that they've used, where they might get more efficiency, or they may be able to, again, to extend themselves.

Joe Rando:

One of the things that I'm hearing a lot, and I just got back from the Unbound conference, I think Carly might have mentioned, and hearing it there too, but also hearing it from our solopreneurs, is that they're not getting the time savings that they expected in terms of daily operations. That it's helping, it may even be sometimes making things a little better, but it's not this incredible time saver because you can't trust it. So you have to go through and review it. So instead of writing something that you kinda go, okay. I know this is where I wanted to be.

Joe Rando:

You gotta generate it. You gotta prompt it. You gotta take that. You gotta take the output. You gotta check it and make sure it's right and decipher some of the things it's saying, maybe not as clearly as you would have. So that's what we're seeing , that People aren't getting that time savings. Are you hearing that as well? Yeah. you know, I mentioned earlier, so the trough of disillusionment. There's this notion of a Gartner hype cycle. I'm not sure if you two are familiar with it, but it's pretty tried and true. And I think there is this huge, like, sort of inflated peak of expectation of what it's gonna deliver.

Faye Pang:

But we have to admit, we're all learning new skills about how to use it, how to prompt it, how to give it feedback, you know, where best to apply it. Is it front office, customer service, and email drafting, social media posting, back office, totally different set of tasks on financial administration, etcetera. And you have to, learn to use the tool.

Faye Pang:

And so I think we're very much in that adoption phase as we think about, these small business owners having to build new muscle around how to use AI and where best to deploy it. I think for me, it's a very natural part of new tech adoption, and I've seen it time and time again, as I mentioned in my time working with small businesses and Helping them to adopt technology. I think the important thing is to not give up and to keep at it and to keep experimenting and recognize that these models are getting and these tools are getting better every single day. And so if something didn't work last month, do not be shy about trying it again because you could get a completely different outcome.

Joe Rando:

One of the things that I took away from Unbound last week, we were also thinking of it here for our products, and they confirmed it, and I bet you will too, is that the thing with AI is that it doesn't do all that well unless it has a great deal of context. And so from, HubSpot's perspective, it's knowing about the customer and having all that stuff available to the AI. For us, for our product, it's understanding what's going on with a particular task or project and taking all that stuff and combining it. And for you, I assume it's having an understanding of the details of the financials that could be powerful. Is that fair?

Faye Pang:

I completely agree with that. And an analogy that I've heard that I really love is it's like you've hired an intern to help you with the life first solopreneur podcast. You've told them nothing about the podcast. They haven't listened to a previous episode. They have none of your files, and you give them a task like, go write us a social media content calendar.

Faye Pang:

You're going to get a poor output. Right? You're going to get slop. And it's the same with, these AI tools.

Faye Pang:

If you don't feed it context, if you don't properly give it guidance, you're gonna get the same, you know, similar output as you would hiring a human to do the thing. They're just gonna do it faster, and they're gonna use more words. And so, I think you have to be very thoughtful about how you prompt and how you provide the context, Joe, as you mentioned, to make sure that if it's garbage in, it's gonna be garbage out.

Carly Ries:

Quick question before we get back to the show. Did you leave your job for freedom only to build a business that bosses you around more than any manager ever did? Well, we call that the ownership trap, and it's why we built Lifestarr. Join us in Lifestarr intro, and you'll gain access to the Lifestarr Academy, which is full of free courses and videos on building a life first business, including topics on marketing, sales, AI, money, and we also have routes that walk you through each topic step by step. As part of Lifestarr Intro, you also get the Lifestarr app, which keeps track of every promise in your business, the ones you made and the ones made to you, and of course there's the community.

Carly Ries:

Monday meetups, live sessions, and people who actually get it and are also trying to build a life first business. So the academy, a free version of the app, and the community, they are all free. I don't know how many times they could say that. They are free forever. Of course, we have paid tiers too where you can get some extras. But guys, that is all free. So, here's my question for you. If you designed your life first, what would your business look like today? Come find out at LifeStarr Intro, and that's at lifestarr.com/intro and sign up. It's quick. It's easy. Can't wait to see you there.

Carly Ries:

Well, so for solopreneurs that are like, yeah, I know I need to be focusing on AI to help me streamline things, save the time, provide the context and all that, and they know they need to upskill in that area. Where should they start? I think some people, it's kind of intimidating to just take that first step forward. So like you said, you messed up this month, you could try it again this month. But people are like, but I don't even know where to begin. What would you say?

Faye Pang:

Yeah. I wanna address the feeling behind piece first because I think I just want to normalize that for listeners, and say, I hear it all the time. And, you know, this is one of the things maybe with social media where it feels like everyone on TikTok has got 10 agents working for them and works fifteen minutes a day and doesn't have to do anything because it's all on autopilot. And the truth is, most people I speak to, most small business owners would tell me, I feel behind, which tells me, you're not all behind.

Faye Pang:

Like, there' actually quite a bit of experimenting happening, and I think that's great. But if someone tells you, I figured it out. I've solved it. They're just not being truthful. everyone is in this sort of learning mode. So I want to just normalize that for listeners and just encourage folks to, experiment. But also, dream big, start small. Pick something realistic that you can really lean into, whether that is, automating email follow ups, proposal formatting, your weekly social media content calendar. You know, pick a part of your business that feels, like it is repeatable, predictable, or, something that you wanna try to solve, and tackle that first.

Faye Pang:

Iterate on it. Get really good at leveraging the tools versus trying to solve everything all the same time. And again, from our data, we see a lot more front office application than back office. We think there's a big opportunity with back office, but things like customer support, things like emails, things like marketing materials, those are great places to start. So dream big, but start small.

Carly Ries:

Well, and some people are picking up on it really quickly. And they're adapting the AI really, fast. What are they doing differently from everybody else? Like, where are they getting the extra hours of the day to take this on?

Faye Pang:

I mean, I'll share some data in case it's helpful for listeners on what FreshBooks data shows around where people are applying this. And as I mentioned previously, a lot of it is front of house focus. So 56% of them are using AI for marketing and design, 51% for customer service. And so there's much more of a focus on the front of house.

Faye Pang:

And I think that they are experimenting. They're pushing through the discomfort. They are looking to their community and other folks around them to understand what they were doing, and really just taking a very much a growth mindset to trying AI and experimenting.

Carly Ries:

Okay. So I'm gonna start calling you the data queen. I feel like you're uniquely qualified to answer this. Because you might have a number behind this.

Carly Ries:

How do you think solopreneurs are gonna reshape the broader business landscape over the next five or Five to ten years or so?

Faye Pang:

Oh, crystal ball question.

Carly Ries:

Yes. But you have the data to back it up.

Joe Rando:

You remember what Yogi Berra said about forecasting, about the future? You know, forecasting is hard, especially about the future.

Faye Pang:

Yeah. Exactly. Listen, As I mentioned in my intro, I've been working with small businesses for well over a decade now in the tech space.

Faye Pang:

And I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to build a single person business. I'm really excited because here at FreshBooks, we're seeing signs that we are truly entering the era of the solopreneur. And there is US Census Bureau data. I won't cite it. But nonemploying businesses are growing at a faster clip than employing ones. The old formula used to be get a customer, win more customers, do more work, hire more people to help you do that work. And that linear path, I think, is really being challenged by the tools that are now available to small business owners. In our most recent study, 86% of respondents go to AI before they go to, naturally go to hire a person when they hit a wall.

Faye Pang:

That's a really interesting data point for me to say, okay, that may have been a scaling challenge in the past, but now they're leveraging the tools to help them break through that and get to the next level. That doesn't mean they're never going to hire that next person. It just means they can get to the next stage of their business without necessarily needing to deploy that capital or take that risk. They can find product market fit without taking on the additional risk.

Faye Pang:

And so, for me, what that means is I think we're gonna see more one person companies in the next five to ten years. And I think we're gonna see You know, my hope is We've all seen this at fifty percent of small businesses fail after the first year. I would love to see that number come down because we're leveraging AI to actually help small business owners become more successful quickly, get to that critical scale, and then ultimately be sustainable.

Joe Rando:

Just an interesting article I read today in the Wall Street Journal, today being 09/22/2026, talking about these startups. And these are funded startups, a lot of them, you know, venture capital backed, and they're reducing headcount as they grow. They're actually laying people off, not rehiring people. One company had two marketing people. They're growing like crazy, but didn't need any more marketing people.

Joe Rando:

Hate to tell you that, Carly, but

Carly Ries:

They just need my personality, Joe.

Joe Rando:

Exactly. But they're scaling, but they're not adding or even decreasing number of employees because of the change in the tech. I'm not thoroughly convinced it's gonna be perfect doing that.

Joe Rando:

But I just think what you're saying is right on, but I had a question on the topic of using AI and these companies that are starting with no employees. Do you think they're doing it? Do you think most of them are doing it because they just wanna build a scaling business and they just can get away with not having employees sooner? Or are most of them doing it because they wanna build a life first business and employees obviously make it harder to do that because you're now responsible to a number of people that you aren't if you're just using contractors. I just wonder if you have any opinion or data or opinions and data on that.

Faye Pang:

I don't have any data, but I do have an opinion. I mean, I think it's probably a mix of both, Joe. I mean, I think for some folks, they've got a really great idea. And a lot of the times when people say they wanna break out and do their own thing, it's about that passion around the idea. Do they love managing teams?

Faye Pang:

Do they love managing people? Like, I think for a portion of solopreneurs, the answer would be absolutely not. Like, I wanna have complete control. I want to own the end product. I wanna be front and center with the client or customer relationship.

Faye Pang:

And so I think for a lot of folks, the idea of, needing to hire someone, manage them to manage your overhead is daunting and unattractive. I also do think that there's a portion that are doing this that are very much just saying, hey, I wanna try to get in tech we use the term product market fit as fast as I can. And if I can use these tools to help me bang out my marketing materials really quickly to, you know, have customized proposals for folks in faster lead times than I would have historically to be able to design a website when I'm not a designer, and to get that up without needing to rely on someone else. So that I could get market signal and so that I could build my business to eventually be able to hire and grow.

Faye Pang:

I think a lot of folks would take that path, to be able, again, to derisk and to speed up the cycles of getting to see their idea come to life.

Joe Rando:

But with scaling, you know, scaling being the goal, not life first. Okay. So... Yeah. So it makes sense. Some of each.

Faye Pang:

Yeah. Some of each, I think. But Yeah. It would be a really interesting study to run.

Joe Rando:

Mhmm. Maybe we should do that, Carly.

Carly Ries:

Yeah. I was like, I'm stealing it. So we can have our own data. So as we move into this era, what do you think should stay automated?

Carly Ries:

And what do you think is worth keeping as like a human responsibility? I think that's a really big, like moral, obstacle that people experience with AI and everything in automation. So what would your take on that be?

Faye Pang:

Yeah. I think so much of the answer to this question is really dependent on like, what's your business and how important is this. But I think you know, the core of it, which is probably fairly evident is that client relationship, the humanness in the human side of your business, and really ensuring that you are front and center in that as a business owner, I think is super important. And so being very cagey about that. The rest, invoicing, follow-up, payments, you know, receipt filings, you should be very glad to pass off and automate. The things that require that human interaction that really take service delivery from good to great. Like, those are the things that you should make sure that you are, very reticent to let go.

Carly Ries:

Well, so speaking of the human side of things, I want to circle all the way back to when you're explaining why you're qualified because you grew up as the daughter of immigrant entrepreneurs. How did watching your parents build something shape the way you lead now and think about business today?

Faye Pang:

Yeah. Maybe for some context, my parents ran a very small wholesale meat distribution business for twenty three years. It was not glamorous whatsoever. I learned a lot from watching them run that business. It was, working crazy hours regularly, six or seven days a week. They were not very tech enabled. I still remember my mom in a blue ledger book, if anyone listening knows what those are. Sitting at the kitchen table at midnight, writing down, this is what came in, this is what's going out, are we gonna be able to make payroll next week? And I think about them often as I do this work, which is like, wow, what could they have done with, the technology that we all have today? How much more time could they have had maybe with me and my brother or for themselves, you know, to really be a bit more life first in their approach. And so that has really stayed with me in terms of, the impact that adopting technology can have on business owners, and how we do the work that we do here at FreshBooks. Which is really trying to give that time, efficiency, insight, capability back to our owners, so that they can be really successful in what they're trying to do.

Carly Ries:

Well, so on the time efficiency note, we end all of our interviews with the same question, and I can't believe we're getting to the end of this because you are so easy to talk to. You're just so smooth in your responses. I'm just like, oh, can we keep this interview going for an hour? But we ask all of our guests, what is a life first piece of advice you have for our listeners?

Carly Ries:

Do you have any parting words with that?

Faye Pang:

Yeah. I would say, so one of my, personal core beliefs is time is our most valuable resource. And I think about that a lot as I think about, where I spend my time, how I'm guiding my teams, but, even on the life front, how I'm dividing my time and spending it between family, friends, myself, etcetera. And so really being very protective of that resource... That limited resource that we all have as humans and as business owners.

Faye Pang:

Maybe my last bit of data that I'll share with you, Carly, which is when we ask solopreneurs, what are you gonna do with five extra hours a week? Interestingly, the top answer was not rest. And that's probably like why you all are listening to this podcast, and why you're solopreneurs, and why you're doing what you do. You know, you're just wired a different way. But the top answer was learning a new skill.

Faye Pang:

38% said I would spend that extra time learning a new skill. I couldn't sit still. I'd wanna keep growing. Family and friends, second at 24%. Rest and recharge actually came in at last at at 9%.

Faye Pang:

So, what I take away from that is, if you're listening to this podcast and you had an extra hour, it would not be about lying on the couch, you wouldn't be able to sit still. It would be about how do I go grow and learn something else? How do I go, scratch an itch that I've got? Solopreneurs aren't trying to work less.

Faye Pang:

They're actually trying to think about how they optimize and spend their time on the things that compound themselves as an individual or their business. And I really encourage folks to think about that. Like, everything we've talked about on this podcast about using automation, leveraging and leaning into the newest technology, getting that time back for yourself for helping to grow your business. You know, part of that if we take a life first approach is what does that free up for you and your ability to lean into other passions or side projects you might have to spend a bit more time with your family and friends, and how that might help you, like, really maximize this finite resource that we have around time.

Joe Rando:

I love that. I think we got a new, I don't know, piece of wisdom, which is solopreneurs are not couch people.

Faye Pang:

No. They wouldn't be in this business if they were. Like, I think that's really For sure what I've learned in working with so many small business over the years

Faye Pang:

is It takes a rare breed to wanna go out and do something on your own. So I applaud all of you listening to this that are doing it. And Time back is really interesting for you, but in the sense that you'd wanna spend it on going and doing something else amazing.

Carly Ries:

Do you guys remember that social media trend from a few years ago that was like, what my parents think I do, what my spouse thinks I do, and all of that. I feel like some people are like, oh, solopreneurs, they probably just work a few hours then, and it's like, no. And it's what I actually do , It's like upskilling and everything. I feel like we could bring that trend back with this conversation. Well, Faye, I have just loved this conversation. You are with FreshBooks. Can you send us the links where people can learn more about the company, but also learn more about you if you want to share your LinkedIn information or anything?

Faye Pang:

Absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn, so look me up, Faye Pang. As I mentioned throughout this conversation, which has been great, thank you both. We really firmly believe it's the era of the solopreneur. we're standing behind all of you, really excited to be supporting folks in this space. I hope if we talk again in five to ten years, Carly and Joe, that we're talking about this massive trend around new business starts across North America and how more and more of them are being successful bolstered by the tools that we spoke about today. And if you're interested in learning more about FreshBooks, we'll make sure that we get Carly and Joe a link so they can post it with the podcast, and you can give it a shot.

Carly Ries:

Absolutely. I would love to speak in five to ten years as long as both of you, pinky promise that we will all show up and not send our AI clones to have this conversation for us. Deal?

Faye Pang:

Promise.

Carly Ries:

Great. Well, Faye, thank you so so much for coming on the show today. I had a blast. I learned so much, and we just really appreciate your time.

Faye Pang:

Thank you both. Thanks for having me.

Carly Ries:

And listeners, as always, thank you so much for tuning in. Please leave us that five star review. It really helps us spread the word to other life first solopreneurs. Share this episode with a friend that's really struggling with automation, AI, everything. I think this is really valuable information for them.

Carly Ries:

And subscribe to our show on any podcast platform including YouTube. We'll see you next time on the Life First Solopreneur.