"The easiest gains are not in conversion optimization but in tax optimization."

Last year, Kat Risen went from a job and a side hustle to freelance and a side hustle. This year, she's just side hustling.

Now that she can put all of her focus into her newsletter, No-Code Exits, she's got big goals. Let's take a peek at her finances to see how it's going. 👇

Setting big goals

💰 "The ultimate dream is having enough money coming in that I don’t have to work to finance my purpose in life. I see this purpose changing with the seasons in life, but to have the freedom to work less and still finance it… that is gold." —Katt

Katt says she doesn’t have this freedom yet. But she’s focused on creating it.

That’s why she is setting a big goal for herself: She wants to hit $75k in 6 months, more than doubling her revenue

💰 "It forces me to narrow my focus on what matters most. I could easily keep myself busy for months on a million different things, but that would not bring me any closer to my goal. As it says in The One Thing, ‘Activity is often unrelated to productivity. Busyness rarely takes care of business.’" —Katt

She’s laser-focused now. Katt started her newsletter as a side hustle in September of 2022. In February of 2023, she quit her job and freelanced ($5-8k/mo) to give her more time and flexibility. Now, in 2024, she decided to drop everything and focus solely on the newsletter.

She says that means no freelance gigs and no shiny objects. Just growth.

Hard numbers

Here’s what she’s bringing in:

• Total revenue to date: $32k

• Monthly revenue: Variable (~$2k in December)

• Other sources of income: N/A

• Founder pay: $3700/mo total for her and her husband (more on this below)

• Bank accounts: Undisclosed — one year of runway

Katt keeps her business expenses low by using free plans.

• Softr.io (for website): $0/mo

• Airtable.com (as database): $0/mo — she has a pro account that she pays with credits from referrals

• Microsoft Clarity (for analytics): $0/mo

• Substack: $0/mo

• Crisp chat: $0/mo

• Typefully (for X): $0/mo

• Pika (screenshot editor: $0/mo

• Domain name: $9/year

• ChatGPT: $20/year

• Twitter Blue: $90/year

• 1 Password: $10/year

And here are her personal expenses:

• Mortgage: Undisclosed

• Utilities: €150/mo

• Groceries: €800/mo

• Internet: €120/mo

• Digital subscriptions: €19/mo

• School and daycare: €400/mo

• Sports and entertainment: €200/mo

Exploring monetization

No-Code Exits makes money through sponsorships, affiliate partnerships, products, and the Medium Partner Program. She’s also currently experimenting with other monetization methods.

Sponsorships

When she started, she was charging €50 per classified ad and she was selling them through Passionfroot, but she didn’t like the cut that they took so, in true no-code fashion, she no-coded her own solution.

• Partnership page with rates via softr

• Form with Airtable

• Airtable automation that sends an email with a payment link from Stripe

• New sponsors are added in her Airtable database

• Notification is sent to her Slack channel

💰 "That is the power of no-code. You can save money and level up your efficiency by building simple solutions tailored to your needs." —Katt

And now, she’s charging €125 for a classified ad and €250 for a primary sponsor placement.

Affiliates

She has affiliate links for most of the no-code platforms that are mentioned in her interviews, but she only makes about $5-10 per month from these.

Products

She directs her readers to her other products, which include infoproducts and an accountability product called sprints.so.

Partner program

And finally, she uses Medium as a distribution channel, adds 2 clear CTAs to subscribe to her newsletter, and brings in a small ~$100/mo stream of revenue from their partner program.

Growing calmly

Katt’s got big ambitions for this newsletter. But she’s looking to build a lifestyle business, not the next unicorn.

💰 "As parents of two young children we are not looking to build the next unicorn. We want to build a calm business where we can balance working on something we love while being there for our kids in these crazy toddler years and having some room for adventure now and then." —Katt

She currently has about 9,000 subscribers, growing at over 1k subs per month. To grow, she repurposes every issue into social media posts for LinkedIn and X, a Medium article, an Indie Hackers post, and a Substack note.

And now that she has some more time on her hands, she’s running other experiments as well, like posting on Reddit, HackerNews, ProductHunt, Inside.com, etc.

Keeping expenses down

Katt likes to keep expenses down, both in her business and in her personal life.

💰 "We’ve never been big spenders on material things. But going all-in on our businesses made us so much more mindful about our personal expenses." —Katt

To that end, they’ve created a process that helps them to keep an eye on their spending.

💰 "Every month we go through our expenses, categorize them, and discuss them. Especially in the first months, this was a true eye-opener to spot money leaks: Subscriptions we didn’t use, expensive kids outings, pricey groceries, etc." —Katt

She does the same for her business.

💰 "For my business, this especially helps in thinking twice before you buy another course, software subscription, or… a domain name. 😂" —Katt

None of this is particularly easy, despite the fact that they aren’t big spenders. But she’s got a few tricks up her sleeve.

• Online grocery shopping once per week at the grocery store with the best prices instead of trips every other day to the expensive supermarket when she’s hungry.

• Freezer meal prepping so that it’s ready when she doesn’t feel like cooking and takeaway seems like an attractive solution.

• Always waiting a few days before she buys something to see if she really needs it.

• Buying second-hand items like baby furniture and legos.

💰 "It is not always easy. We are parents of two young kids — I mean, have you ever paid attention to the price of kids shoes? 😅 And we also love to travel. But being mindful about money makes you much more creative." —Katt

Knowing where to spend

Katt and her husband both like to stay active. And that means that if she ever needs new winter mountain biking clothes or a pair of running shoes, she buys it, no questions asked… within reason.

These investments pay dividends in the form of happiness. And interestingly, they also bring her friendship and time.

💰 "As a busy parent, I see working out with friends as the ultimate life hack. It is the perfect way to see friends regularly while working on your (mental) health. It is what gets me away from the screens once my kids are in bed. And when I return: warm shower and reading. Perfect evening!" —Katt

It's mainly outdoor sports, which keeps the cost low, other than the initial investment in equipment. A good example is her €800 mountain bike, but she’s had that for over 10 years now.

She says her biggest splurges are ski trips and travel. But she saves money there too.

💰 "It helps that we are the crazy people that climb the mountain instead of taking a ski lift." —Katt

Last year, she and her family traveled in an RV all over the USA for 2 months. They saved up for years and got some priceless memories out of it.

Right now, though, she's focused and trying to save money, so she doesn't have any big trips planned. But she does have a small, budget-friendly trip lined up for the summer: Bikepacking through Slovenia for 2 weeks.

Passive income from staking

Going along with saving some cash, she isn't investing much right now. But her husband did have some luck in crypto early on.

💰 "When we graduated we went traveling for 6 months. In the last month of our trip, we were in Australia, sleeping in a camper van and living on cheap granola, noodles, and carrots. We were chilling in the van when my husband read about Bitcoin on Reddit. We decided to invest a few hundred euros. We didn’t touch it for a long time. That paid off." —Katt

She says it was nothing life-changing, but now they've invested it in ETH staking, which brings in a small monthly revenue stream for them.

Tax optimization > conversion optimization

Katt recommends setting up a system to track your finances properly every month.

💰 "Do it manually. Once you have the systems in place (this can be a simple spreadsheet), it will become easier to track everything every month, and it is a great moment to reflect." —Katt

And she suggests spending time with an accountant to understand your finances and think about what can be optimized.

For example, Katt’s husband set up a private limited company (called a BV in Belgium), when he started working on his own, and now she is using the same company for her endeavors.

She says that, in Belgium, it’s beneficial to pay yourself with dividends instead of taking a salary. as they get taxed at 30% instead of 50%. That's why they’re taking so little as salary right now. The only problem is that they can only be paid out after 3 years.

Without speaking with an accountant, they might never have saved themselves that 20%.

💰 "The easiest gains are not in conversion optimization but in tax optimization." —Katt

You can find Katt on X or check out No-Code Exits.

Please note that the above are opinions. This is meant for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be financial advice.

And if you'd like to be featured as a guest in a future interview for this series, let me know in the comments!