November 2024 STEM Grant Awarded to Studiocart

Congratulations to Nicole Evans, founder of Studiocart for being the WomensNet $10,000 November Business Specific Grant recipient in the category of STEM

Recently, WomensNet Advisory Board member Jama Hernandez sat down with Nicole for an exclusive interview. You can listen to their conversation and view the transcript below.

Video Transcript

WomensNet: Hi everyone. My name is Jama with WomensNet, and we’re so excited to introduce our November 2024 winners. Today we have with us Nicole from Studio Cart, and she’s our business category STEM winner. We’re so excited to know what you are doing, and how you’re making a really great impact and positive things to happen in this world. And so thank you for taking the time to be here and welcome. Nicole, can you tell us a little bit about what Studio Cart is?

Nicole: Sure, it is a WordPress plugin. It is a shopping cart, I basically created it as a easy way for coaches and course creators to easily sell their products online. And not only that, but also to automate all the things that happen after you sign someone up for like a program or a course. So like getting them into the right mailing list, adding them into the course, sending out their login information welcoming, and onboarding them into the program. That’s basically all it is.

WomensNet: That’s pretty awesome. And we know that this fills such a big need. We know that this was something that you developed because you saw a need, created the solution to the difficulty, and you’re just helping so many businesses out there. So thank you so much. I talked a little bit about how you developed Studiocart, but please tell us the full story and who or what inspired your business.

Nicole: Sure. So I started out as a web designer and developer and a lot of my clients for some reason wound up being coaches, consultants, and course creators. And obviously they were building websites because they had these coaching programs or online courses that they wanted to sell and they’re doing everything online. So of course I would help them with their website, but then when it came time to actually create the products that they were selling that was like the backbone of their business, I saw how difficult it was to create those processes and set that up and that how much they needed me to do what I felt like should be simple things- like email somebody or, create a profile for somebody on your course platform. You shouldn’t have to hire a developer to automate those processes.

And I could see where there was a disconnect between the solutions that were already out there and what my clients were looking to do, and what they needed to do in order to grow their businesses and make that easier for them. So, I was, like I said, working as a web designer developer, and kind of started pulling back a little bit from that. I had a baby, and I was doing everything myself and I was starting to get really worn down- juggling multiple projects at the same time. And I was pulling back a little bit from working one-to-one with my clients on their websites. But, in that time, (this was around 2020 again with covid and everything), things were slowing down. In my downtime I started thinking again about how difficult it was with the existing solutions for my clients to build these processes and automate their sales and to sell their courses and their programs.

And I was like, let me see if I could try to put something together. because I had an idea in my mind of how it should work and how it should work for non-technical people. And I started playing around with, with the code and didn’t know if it for sure was something I was actually going to sell. It was just a little project that I was doing in my free time. And then eventually, as I started working on it, I was thinking I’m onto something here and wound up throwing myself into that whole thing and building it out. And in late 2020, I launched it on the WordPress plugin for free, and then I eventually got it onto a premium version with more features onto software deals platform.

And no one had ever heard of me. I’ve never sold software or anything like that before- not known as a software founder or anything, but people found me on this platform. They were intrigued because there really wasn’t anything else like it at the time. And I took a gamble, tried it out, installed it on their sites, used it, and were like, this is really good. This is really easy to use and put together. And I’m able to sell my stuff and I don’t have to hire a team to put it together for me. This is amazing. And, you know, word spread and it took off from there. So, happy to say, we’ve acquired thousands of customers and a lot of them are very happy with how easy it’s made it for them to sell their products that are like literally the backbone of their business.

And it’s opened up the door, like in the WordPress space for other shopping cart solutions to come in because for much of that time, if you wanted to sell something on WordPress, you had to use an existing solution called WooCommerce. And yeah, everything was either WooCommerce or an add-on of that, but this was like, kind of like a self-contained system, completely separate from WooCommerce. And I think since launching Studiocart in 2020 we’re starting to see more people taking the risk of building their own self-contained solutions and moving away from WooCommerce- which is great for selling physical products and traditional e-commerce setup with a shopping cart like you know, you want to buy notebooks or pencils or things that need to be shipped. But for digital products, like online courses and coaching programs, there’s a lot more nuances to it that WooCommerce isn’t built to accommodate. So I’m really happy with this idea that I had years and years ago. I did decide to go ahead and try to execute it and Studiocart was born, so that’s how it came about!

WomensNet: Wonderful. And so Nicole, you’re in a tech industry that has so much noise. And so what effective strategies have you used to let others know about your business and the service that you provide?

Nicole: You’re absolutely right. Definitely crowded, a lot of noise. I will admit in the beginning I struggled to cut through. I struggled to get any attention or users or people who were just willing to risk their business, like literally on my solution. Again, I’m completely unheard of and no experience in this industry. So, along the lines of what Benita was saying I had to believe in myself and put myself out there and reach out to platforms like AppSumo, partner with other software developers like Freemius for example, who handles our licensing. And also with influencers and voices in the WordPress space like Chris Lema and reaching out to them and getting their attention and saying, hey, I do have this product that’s kind of new.

It’s unique in that it’s like a self-contained system. As I did acquire users I was getting good feedback and asking, could you take a look at it and let me know what you think? And AppSumo, they brought me on they have like a very extensive vetting process, especially back then. They took a shot and allowed me to place a listing on their platform. They promoted me and it was able to take off and that got the attention of other people. Chris Lema then wrote about my plugin and the solution that it was solving for coaches and course creators. Freemius then invited me to write a blog explaining my experience getting started in the software business. Just all of that exposure from those bigger platforms with people with bigger audiences. And it definitely really helped to grow my business and, my customer base and I’m super thankful that-they did take a chance on me as unknown.

WomensNet: That’s amazing- just to know who to reach out to and take that chance. I’m really glad you did reach out and connect with these ones. And here you are today!. So thank you so, so, much for sharing a little bit about what you’re doing, Can you tell our network how to find Studiocart?

Nicole: So you can find our website at studiocart.co and we also have a Facebook group. We have resources on building your own course and getting that set up and ready to sell. And of course you can sign up for our mailing list for additional tips on how to get your business funnel sales funnel set up.

WomensNet: Thank you for taking the time. We really appreciate it.