#253 How to Reach a Million Dollars Without Launching with Caitlin Bacher

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Are you planning your next launch? Did your previous launch not yield the results you wanted? Caitlin Bacher is a seven-figure entrepreneur who grew her business without launching!

In this episode, Caitlin shares her beginnings as a makeup artist in the entertainment industry, why she transitioned to online coaching, and how her unique business strategy has earned her millions!

Listen now to learn Caitlin’s tips for entrepreneurs who feel stuck, and learn how Caitlin uses evergreen content to grow her business!

Ina Coveney
Today I have the amazing pleasure of interviewing Caitlin. Thank you so much for being here.

Caitlin Bacher
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Ina Coveney
Oh, me too! And before we get started, why don’t you share with everybody what you do right now and who you serve right now?

Caitlin Bacher
Okay, so Caitlin Bacher. Thank you, by the way, for pronouncing my name correctly. So many people mispronounce my last name. I know you said people mispronounce your first name, but they mispronounce my last name all the time.
So my name’s Caitlin Bacher, and I help online course creators scale their business to six or seven figures per year without launching. We primarily focus on evergreen strategies, selling your course on autopilot—all that kind of thing.

Ina Coveney
Okay, so everybody needs to know this. I first became aware of you back in, like, 2018 when I was listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast.
And back in the day, you were the go-to person all about monetizing Facebook groups, and I want everybody to know that because the reason we’re here is that I saw an ad for your masterclass, and I went, “That sounds like something I need. Wait a minute, I know Caitlin,” and I reached out. You were so nice to agree to sit down with me. But I’m like, okay, here on this podcast, we care about the story, and you have definitely gone through several pivots, at least. I want to hear it all from the beginning. But you know where we start.
We start way back. Tell everybody where you were born, where you’re from, and what your parents did for a living. We start way early.

Caitlin Bacher
Okay. So I actually grew up in New Mexico. A really, really teeny, tiny town. It was like, there was—it was on a dirt road. There were lots of cows walking around.
And I grew up there for many years, and then when I graduated from high school, I moved to California.

Ina Coveney
Okay. What brought you to California?

Caitlin Bacher
So I was actually a theater major at the University of California, San Diego. Not for acting, but I loved theater design—set design, costume design, makeup design—all the behind-the-scenes stuff. That’s what I really loved, which is kind of funny because now I’m the face of my business. But design has always been a passion of mine.

Ina Coveney
Okay, hold on. Let’s go back to childhood. I’d love to know, what kind of kid were you? Like, if your parents were to describe you from back in the day? Did you have any siblings to compare you against? Were you an only child? What was that like?

Caitlin Bacher
Yeah, so I did have a younger sister. And we’re very close now. We definitely had little squabbles and things like that from time to time.

Ina Coveney
How did you two differ? If I were to put you and your sister side by side, how would your parents describe you?

Caitlin Bacher
Let’s see. Oh, I don’t know. That’s hard. I’m always looking for how we can come together. I love conflict—I love digging into why someone feels a certain way and what’s the problem, and let’s face it head-on. I love that. But I also like being able to come to, “Okay, so what’s the plan moving forward?”
And my sister has always been great at just arguing her point—she actually ended up becoming a lawyer.

Ina Coveney
Where do you think your personality and drive come from? Because just from doing research on your career and everything you’ve done, I can totally see that you’re in constant search for, “Okay, if this isn’t working, we’re going to change it—even if it’s risky, even if it’s big.” And we’re going to get into this because I want everyone to hear about your trajectory.
But now you have to explain to me how you go from studying the behind-the-scenes of theater to starting your career in 2014 as a social media manager. Something happened between A and B to get you there. Tell us that story.

Caitlin Bacher
Well, it’s kind of funny. So when I was in college, I always had a full-time job, and my full-time job was always related to makeup. It was either makeup for TV shows and films being shot in San Diego, or I would assist makeup artists. My full-time job in college, though, was working in cosmetic sales.
While I was doing that, it came to a point where I kind of had to make a decision about whether I really wanted to pursue a career in makeup for TV and film. The reality is that it’s really, really difficult to work in that industry if you want to start a family, get married, have kids, and all that. The hours are insane.
At the time, I had a boyfriend whose mom was a teacher. I always loved kids—I grew up babysitting all the time—and I loved telling people what to do and giving advice. So I remember helping out in her classroom and thinking, “You know what? I think I’m going to become a teacher.”
So I kept my full-time job while I got my teaching credential. Then I started teaching in public school, and I taught elementary school for eight years.

Ina Coveney
What happened? You were there for several years. What started to feel like something needed to change?

Caitlin Bacher
Toward my later years of teaching, I started managing the school’s social media accounts—just because I was looking for extra income, and it sounded fun. So I kind of did that on the side.

Ina Coveney
What year are we talking about here?

Caitlin Bacher
It must have been like 2005 or 2006.

Ina Coveney
That’s pretty avant-garde for 2005.

Caitlin Bacher
I guess so, yeah. There was Twitter, there was Facebook—I don’t think there was Instagram yet, or if there was, I wasn’t cool enough to know about it.
So I started out doing that on the side, and it was really fun. Then my husband had a job opportunity in Northern California. I knew I wanted to take some time off for maternity leave, which I had planned to do while teaching. But since he was moving, I thought, “Okay, I’ll go on maternity leave, and we’ll see how this works out.”
We did that, and maternity leave was an intense period. The first year I was home with my daughter, there were highs and lows—anyone who’s stayed home with their kids understands.
One of the things I found myself doing was organizing. I joined one mommy group, then expanded it. I created a system for sign-ups and recruited other moms to join. It kind of turned into this mom-group enterprise.
After a while, it made sense for me to go back to work and start earning money. I wanted to continue pursuing the social media angle, but I didn’t have the experience to land a job in it—nobody cared that I managed social media for my school.
So I asked a few people in my mom group who had businesses if I could manage their social media for free, just to gain experience. At the time, I still thought I would get a corporate social media job.
I started doing that for a while, got some results, and thought, “Whoa, this is fun.” I was basically doing social media management—tweeting, promoting, networking—all of that. After a while, I realized, “I hate this. I don’t want to be in the done-for-you service game anymore.”
It was very time-consuming. Even on vacations, I had to bring my laptop because I had to be tweeting for people. After that, I transitioned to social media consulting.

Ina Coveney
What was that transition like?

Caitlin Bacher
I started meeting with people, telling them what to do, and letting them figure out how to execute. A few months into consulting, around early 2015, I realized I was saying the same thing to every client. That’s when I thought, “It’s time to turn this into a course.”
The funny thing is, I had never purchased a course in my life when I decided to create my first course on social media marketing. I had no clue how to handle the tech, but I figured it out.

Ina Coveney
Wait, tell us about that first course.

Caitlin Bacher
It was about social media because that’s what I knew. I called it "Bossy Biz Ladies." I put it together using a Squarespace blog because that’s what I knew how to use. At the time, Squarespace had a password-protected feature, so the password was “bossy.”
I used the free version of Screencast to record videos, so there was a giant watermark on them. I manually emailed buyers the password and the link to access the course. It wasn’t fancy, but people loved it, got results, and transformed their social media accounts.
If I had waited until I figured out all the tech, like how to remove the watermark or set it up on a fancy platform, I never would have launched it. The key was putting something out there and focusing on the marketing.

Ina Coveney
So, in my research, I found that when you started consulting in January 2015, you gave yourself three months to make it work. You had a young child and put her in full-time daycare to focus on your business. In the first month, you made $200. By the second month, you made $6,000, and within six months, you had your first five-figure month.
What I see here isn’t just experimentation—it’s putting things in place, learning what works, and building from there. But some people stay stuck, doing the same thing over and over without results, thinking, “I’m building a brand.” What would you say to them?

Caitlin Bacher
One of the best lessons I learned from a mentor was this: A CEO has two jobs—manage their emotions and measure their results. That’s it.
If you’re putting things in place and not seeing results, you’re not doing your job as a CEO. It’s time to change. Hope is not a business strategy. If something isn’t working, pivot and try something new.
Some people stay stuck because, even though they’re unhappy with the results, it feels safe. They’re comfortable in their discomfort. Often, it takes some form of pain to force a change.

Ina Coveney
Have you ever been in that spot, feeling stuck?

Caitlin Bacher
Many times. For me, it’s always been about having a bigger mission. When I set the goal to make $1 million in a year, it was about providing for my family—getting a house with a backyard and sending my daughter to a good school.
Once I achieved that, I could have coasted at a million dollars a year. But I needed a new mission. That’s when I decided to help women escape the launch cycle and find a better way to generate consistent revenue.

Ina Coveney
Let’s talk about your pivot from launching to evergreen. Back in 2016, you said on another podcast, “I’m moving away from evergreen courses and into open and close courses because that’s my personality.” But now you swear by evergreen. What changed?

Caitlin Bacher
About six months after saying that, I realized launching wasn’t for me. Initially, I went all-in on launches because that’s what business coaches were telling me to do.
I had one successful launch and thought, “Great, I’m in!” But then I realized, “What do I do for the next few months when there’s no income?” It was stressful. My results worsened with each launch, and I started feeling like something was wrong with me.
Eventually, I met someone making $300,000 a month from an evergreen course about decluttering. That blew my mind. I realized it was possible and shifted to evergreen.

Ina Coveney
Can you define evergreen for everyone?

Caitlin Bacher
Evergreen means selling something continuously, every day. Unlike launching, which has distinct periods for building demand, selling, and delivering, evergreen is a system where everything happens simultaneously.
Every day, you attract new leads, build demand, make sales, and deliver. It’s more of a constant cycle than a one-time push.

Ina Coveney
What was the first year like when you switched to evergreen?

Caitlin Bacher
It was a huge mindset shift. I had to let go of a lot of limiting beliefs. One of the biggest was feeling like I wasn’t enough. I used to push myself with negative self-talk, but that only got me so far.
Switching to evergreen required building systems, scaling, and believing I could handle it. It was hard but transformational.

Ina Coveney
What’s the biggest misconception people have about you?

Caitlin Bacher
That it’s easy for me. It’s not. I set big goals that push me out of my comfort zone. Scaling a business is hard work, no matter how far along you are.

Ina Coveney
If everyone listening had to take one action in the next 24 hours, what would it be?

Caitlin Bacher
Just start. Whether you’re launching a business, pivoting, or scaling, take the first step. Don’t worry about whether it’s the right or wrong step—it probably will be the wrong step—but action creates results.

Ina Coveney
This conversation has been amazing. Caitlin, where can people find you?

Caitlin Bacher
You can find me at caitlinbatcher.com. I have a free masterclass on generating launch-sized revenue without launching. You can also follow me on Instagram at @caitlinbatcher.

Ina Coveney
Thank you so much for sharing your story and insights. This has been incredible.

Caitlin Bacher
Thank you, Ina. This was so much fun!

Let the BINGE begin

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