Parul Saini 0:00

Welcome to the Courage Curve. I’m your host, Perole. My guest today is Paige Weiss, founder and CEO of Tree Ring Digital. Her story is a powerful reminder that sometimes the life we carefully design for ourselves is not the life we ultimately live. Paige began her career in architecture, a profession built on structure, precision, and vision. But when 2008 recession upended that path, she found herself at an unexpected crossroads. Around the same time, she was diagnosed with epilepsy, a life-altering condition that forced her to navigate uncertainty not only in her career, but in her relationship with her own body. What followed was not simply a professional pivot, but a complete reinvention. Over the last 16 years, Paige taught herself web development and build of a pre-ring digital into a thriving agency serving more than 1,500 clients. Beneath the entrepreneur’s success is a much deeper story. One about identity, resilience, and what it takes to rebuild when the blueprint you were following no longer fits. In this conversation, we explore the influences that shaped her early life, the collapse of the path she once imagined, and how she found the courage to build something entirely new in its place. Welcome to the Courage Curve. A space for women who are standing at the edge of a ship or already moving through one. I’m Perul. My life has been shaped by steady decisions, inner resilience, and the moments where I had to choose courage long before I had clarity. Each week I will speak with women who simply didn’t arrive at a breakthrough. They built it step by step. From the outside, the transformation can look instantaneous. But together we will uncover the real story, the pressure, the truth telling, the small choices that create the inflection point that we call the courage curve. Let these conversations stay close to you as you move through your own curve with strength, honesty, and companionship. Paige, welcome to the Courage Curve. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you.

Paige Wiese 2:28

Thank you. Excited to be here. I enjoyed our initial conversation and really looking forward to continuing here.

Parul Saini 2:34

Tell me about your early life. Where did you grow up? What were some of your early influences as you were growing up?

Paige Wiese 2:42

I grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. Uh small, not a small town, but college town. So a good size, super safe, walkable, just a really good environment to be in. And at the same time, I was learning school’s not really for me. I don’t really know where I’m fitting in. I don’t really know where I belong. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing with this life. So really just trying to navigate what that looked like, but at the same time, just really enjoyed being active, playing different sports and doing what I could to kind of be outside. I was never really into video games and all of that. So finding ways to stay busy in other ways.

Parul Saini 3:16

What was the challenge with fitting in? What were some of the thoughts? Did you not fit in with the crowd? Were you trying to excel at something and you couldn’t? Like, what was that like?

Paige Wiese 3:26

Yeah, I would say for me, it was more I was a big tomboy at the time. I mean, still I didn’t like understanding my identity, not entirely knowing, you know, where I’d fit in in that capacity of like, I don’t really want to wear those clothes just because I’m not comfortable in them. Like, it’s just not what I want to do. I wanted to slide down the slides and then I’d get made fun of because my skirt’s all the way up, or playing on the hanging bars, the mucky bars. And nope, you can still look up your skirt. And it’s like, every time I turn around, I’m like, something else. I can’t play kickball because it it was something that I was like, why does everybody else do this? But a lot of the other girls weren’t doing that. They were off doing something else. And so I was usually doing more of the active things. And so that’s where I say I really wasn’t fitting in as much because the boys didn’t have that problem.

Parul Saini 4:13

And how old were you at the time when you had this realization?

Paige Wiese 4:17

I think around that time I was probably closer to like fifth grade to seventh grade.

Parul Saini 4:23

So old enough for people to even notice, hey, you’re a girl, you need to behave a certain way.

Paige Wiese 4:29

For sure. I mean, I think even as I was a kid, I remember like walking into a bathroom and people be like, You’re in the wrong one, honey. And I’m like, No, I’m not. Like, not at all. I’m actually completely in the right one. But I mean, that was a really young age, and this was well before a lot of the gender identity stuff coming out. And while I use she, her pronouns, no one knew what was going on back in that time. So it was even more of just like, no, I that’s why I say tomboy, because that’s what it was. It wasn’t a gender thing at all. It was just, they didn’t think I fit in there.

Parul Saini 5:01

It’s just interesting, like how black and white we make gender identity or we made gender identity. I’m glad that it’s different now. It can be really, really limiting. What was your family life like? What were your parents like? Do you have any siblings? How did you grow up?

Paige Wiese 5:16

So my parents were divorced at a very, very early age and um primarily lived with my mom. And I have an older brother. And we lived in Iowa City. My uh father lived in Davenport, so it was a little bit of a drive every other weekend to go visit him and see him. But I’m really, really close with my mom, and uh, she got remarried to my stepdad. So he was in my life or has been in my life for the better part of maybe 25 years or so. So very much a father figure there. So as we say divorced parents, it definitely came back to feeling more like a full family and growing up in that capacity. Brother, though, straight A kid, me struggling in school, as I mentioned. So definitely created some pieces there of but he fit in because he was doing well in music, doing well in all of his classes, and so he in sports and all of that. So it was just a lot of those differences that I think have really grown to shape who I am today, though, to realize there’s so many different levels of success, or there’s so many different learning styles that people don’t talk about. Like it really has to be like you have to follow this path, and this is the only way to get there. So it was hard growing up to understand any of that or know I’d be here today, right? And at the same time, like it taught me so much going through that journey. So I’m really grateful for it.

Parul Saini 6:35

That’s so interesting. When I was growing up, I always always had this existential issue as to why are we here on this earth? And I thought it was common for kids to have that question, but turns out it was not because my point is I’m I’m struggling with this. I’m sure other kids are, but turns out they were not. So I can understand if you’re if you’re trying to live with a very large question and you’re trying to find answers, and your capacity at the time is limited and your environment doesn’t support, uh it can be very confusing. So then what did that evolve into for you? So you became a teenager, and then like what did that journey look like? How did you get into an architecture college? How did you find answers to these questions growing up?

Paige Wiese 7:18

It was hard for sure. And honestly, I just I learned to work a system. That’s how I have created a lot of the success. Uh, one of them being I I failed miserably at foreign languages. I could still try today and still fail miserably. And I found out if you wanted to graduate from a four-year school, you had to pass the foreign language. And I was like, well, that is gonna check that box as a no. And then I’m just terrified to take the SAT year ACT at the time. I didn’t want to know. I I knew the answer. It was not smart. Like there was no reason for me to even put that number in front of my face, right? And so I was like, well, that also now automatically rules out a four-year school. Like those two things by design won’t get me there. So I chose the community college route. And thankfully, the one in a nearby town, Cedar Rapids, had just a straight up architectural program for the community college. So that also got me bypassing all of your English classes, all of your geography and history and all these things that I knew I wasn’t good at. That was not classes I should be taking. But instead, what it did was help me understand, again, learning styles. I went from passing, I did okay in school to on a roll straight A through the like both the two years of school through community college, handing in homework assignments early, being like, I don’t need to come to class because I already, this is already done. And so it really showed like once you start to see like interest in what that really is, you can start to thrive. And I just wasn’t really interested in a lot of those other classes. So when choosing architecture, it really came down to I have bad ADD. And so in classes, I was always just drawing straight lines all day long to just focus on something while paying attention to something else. So listening to the teachers, but drawing, and I always joked, I was like, do they not understand? I know they’re gonna call on me. I’m fully aware that they think I’m not paying attention. However, doing this is getting me that distraction needed that I’m actually paying probably five times more attention so that when I get called on, I’m not gonna show up without the answer. And so as I started doing that more and more, and I really enjoyed like working with my hands and construction and whatnot, that’s when I was like, why don’t I do architecture? This could really be a good path for me. I already like drawing. I like the construction side of it all. So let’s try it. And it’s two years. If I don’t like it, we move on to something else. So that’s how I ended up there. And did you like it? I I did. I enjoyed it a lot. Um, I remember though, like the first week of class, they’re like, great, we’re pulling out CAD. And I was like, I thought we were hand drawing. And so I had to learn really quickly, this is no longer hand drawing architecture, this is computers. And thankfully, I’d already been on computers most of my life. It was really what my hobby was and where I spent a lot of my time growing up. And then I remember probably a year and a half into the program of a two-year program, they’re like, also, PS architects don’t make any money. Everyone in the class at that point was like, dude, like this has been how long? And you’re just now telling us this. And then I think the place for me though, where I started to kind of question a little bit of architecture, is I knew I never wanted to do the rinse and repeats. I didn’t want to build commercial spaces because it’s just, especially with a computer, you’re literally taking one file and just duplicating it up however many floors you want to go. Apartment complexes, same concept. And being here in Denver now and looking back at that, I’m like, that’s what I would have been doing. I would have been just designing so many apartment complexes that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. So while I enjoy everything about architecture, the design, the build, watching something you draw, put on a computer, come to life as a standing structure is a very, very amazing process. I’m really, really happy that the path led me someplace else.

Parul Saini 10:59

And so when did you join the workforce? When did you start working as an architect?

Paige Wiese 11:05

I started working probably 20, yeah, I think 20-ish. So that was also a little bit hard. I went to a two-year program that was year-round. So I didn’t have a summer break from college. I didn’t have a gap year coming from high school to college. Like I went straight in two years and then roughly 20, joining the workforce and all of my friends still in party mode in college town. Yeah. And in Iowa City, like I said, it’s a college town. So it was really interesting also navigating, like, I have this really strong work ethic and I need to show up at work. And yet everyone else my age is out partying and really doing it up. And so trying to navigate what does this look like as a lot of those my age are in a different spot in their life.

Parul Saini 11:50

Did you enjoy being part of the workforce?

Paige Wiese 11:53

I’ve always have. I mean, from when my first job working at Whitey’s Ice Cream in Iowa City, like I’ve always enjoyed working. There’s not a day that I’ve really felt like I’ve had a job in my life. So yeah, for me, it was let’s do this.

Parul Saini 12:07

That’s incredible. And 20 is so young. But you were working, you already had a very established work ethic because you were working always. So it would not have been that big of a transition. What were some of your initial projects like when you were um working as an architect?

Paige Wiese 12:24

So a lot of them were um single family homes. I always joke in Iowa, I was like, we’re designing half a million dollar homes straight out of college. Like this was crazy. And then I move out to Colorado and I’m like, never mind. It’s completely different. Like it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not a bragging rate or anything like that. But as a kid at that age, especially looking at money, it was like, this is crazy that I’m working on on homes that I was never going to be able to afford or live in. And it was just such a crazy experience. And at the same time, it comes back to the fitting in we talked about of I’m showing up on job sites, 20, 21 years old, 22, and I’ve got these construction workers that have been doing this for years. And I have to walk up to them and go, this doesn’t match the blueprint. Or this isn’t the right way that you’re supposed to be putting the sheathing on in between these things. Like that, you’re doing it wrong. And you could just tell they were like, Are we really, are we really believing you? And so, like, that was always a little bit hard as a woman walking onto a job site in a construction site. I remember early on I had one of my coworkers come to me and be like, You can’t wear work boots. You need to put on heels, you’re a woman. And I was like, I’m literally walking through dirt. Like, you’ve lost your mind. And especially like, I already know how these men are looking at a young woman coming onto this property. The last thing that I need to do is go put on heels and a much nicer outfit than what we’re all wearing. And so, like, it was just those pieces. It just, it never really felt to fit in as you’re going through this journey for a variety of reasons. If you put gender identity anything outside of this picture and not even part of it, it just even those days were still like, why is this a conversation? Why does it matter? I remember even going back to American Eagle. At the time, I couldn’t buy the clothes that I wanted to wear because it didn’t fit their protocol. And when I showed up to work, I had to wear a set, you know, certain type of clothes. And it was like, it’s so nice to see how far it’s come and how much it’s changed for this generation to be able to show up in these work environments and not have to fit into such a box that doesn’t make any sense. So I am happy to see a lot of that progression come along.

Parul Saini 14:33

That’s incredible. How did you have the confidence to go up to these construction workers when you were in your early 20s and ask them to fix something? How did you even how did you even start?

Paige Wiese 14:45

For me, my name’s on it. And I’m right out of school. So everything’s so fresh. They’ve been doing this for years. So they’re just they know all the shortcuts, they know what they can and can’t get away with. So for me, it’s like I knew I was right. This is wrong. And they’re like, we know, but we also know this is just how we’ve done it for the last 10 years. That’s how we’re doing it. So I think I just didn’t know any different. And this is what the textbook said. So it’s a lot easier to go up and have those conversations, but I also knew that they weren’t fond of the conversations.

Parul Saini 15:13

True. That’s amazing. That’s a lot of confidence right after that. I would always second guess myself when I was in my early twenties. I’m like, should I say something? Should I not? Do I know it? But like, kudos to you. And the courage. Right. So then what happened? You were you were working as an architect for a while, and then the 2008 recession hit. Is that is that what happened? Is that what impacted your job?

Paige Wiese 15:37

It was around there. So I started architecture 2006, and that’s when I got out of school. 2007 is when I lost my job. That was devastating. As I said, I I’m a worker. I I feel like I thrive at it. I feel like I’m really good at work. I I enjoy it. So when they told me they had to let me go, I I didn’t realize this happened. I didn’t realize while it wouldn’t be a formal layoff, that was probably the better word to describe it. I didn’t realize what was going on with the economy around. And so, and especially at that age, you’re not paying attention to any of that, right? And so I to I was devastated. I remember I just went over to my home to my mom and was just like, what do I do? What’s wrong with me? Like, I don’t, I don’t understand what just happened. And it took me like a year or two to really start to see everything come together and realize they said that, you know, they let me go. I thought it was performance, it was work, right? It workload. And so that was a huge shift as well, but also just like a lesson of what do we do? How do we pick ourselves up? Where do we go from here? So that was the first time I was laid off. But yeah, that was 2007. And then um, that’s about the time that I moved out to Colorado. And that was for I one wanted to shift to um land surveying. I just thought I’d like it better. I don’t, I don’t know. So I switched to land survey and moved out to Colorado and started doing that same thing at a just a local company, but a a good size, about a hundred-some people working there. And uh, I think about 2009 got laid off from there for the same thing, just downsized from a hundred some people down to about 10. And I was a little bit more like, got it, this isn’t me. This is a bad time to be entering this market. But at the same time, I also knew I didn’t have the experience that a lot of these other ones had that were senior land surveyors that obviously you’re gonna keep them over a junior person who doesn’t have all of that experience. So trying to put some realistic and optimistic angles on it.

Parul Saini 17:35

So then after the second time, you also had a significant health challenge. So, how did you find out about that?

Paige Wiese 17:42

When I was 19, I had my first grandma’s seizure. So I was still in Iowa at the time. Um, and at the time, they really didn’t have any answers. They just you had a seizure. And so I obviously went on seizure medication, ended up moving to Colorado, which is now me finally moving away from like family. I didn’t know anybody in Colorado. I like maybe one or two friends, right? But really nobody. And so started, yeah, like making friends, doing work, all of that. And then I had roughly about three to four other grandma seizures every six months to the day. Once I was about 22 years old, I think. So pretty fresh out of getting out here. And that’s where it was like starting to realize, well, this is a thing. This wasn’t a one-time you had a seizure, you’ll be fine the rest of your life, or you’ll be fine, take some medication and it’ll move on. This is now impacting my life. And that’s also, we can go back actually to that, because the the first one I was still in college, it was right at the tail end of college. And I remember I failed drawing class. Mind you, the first class that wasn’t architecture related, I pretty much failed it. But the reason was because it was on the main campus, not the architectural campus. And they never shoveled the sidewalks and I couldn’t drive to school. I couldn’t drive from my dorm to the main campus. So I was just like, I can’t do this. I don’t know how I’m gonna get to school. I can’t walk to school, or they’re not shoveling anything and that winter’s in Iowa, not ideal. And so that was like once where it started to show me the impact. I remember my aunt having to take me to go get groceries and get me back to my place. And really, that was one of the hardest pieces around that age range was like, you’re 18, 19, getting this independence finally, starting to live on your own. And immediately, for no reason of your own, it’s just ripped out from under you. You have to go back to relying on everybody for everything, to go out with friends, to do this, to do that, to get to school, to get groceries. I think even my mom knew someone at the school and so helped me figure out how to get a job, you know, on campus somehow, so that I could even have a job because I could no longer drive to where I was going. So that kind of picked back up then when I moved, when I was in Colorado, that was part of where I probably was one of them on the chopping block because I couldn’t drive the job sites anymore. I couldn’t drive to go pick up files. I couldn’t go do certain things that other people could. And so that was another place that, yeah, as I got laid off that time, I really had to start having self-reflection of I already know I’m not gonna drive to a school because I can’t do that. I already know I can’t drive to work because we’ve tried that before too. I don’t have a license and now I’m in an even bigger city. What do I do? And so that’s really where it came to is architecture the right direction? What do I do now with this health issue? How long are these seizures gonna last? How frequently are they gonna happen? All of these are unknowns and still lacking that independence, if you will.

Parul Saini 20:36

How does this seizure manifest? How did it manifest the first time and what was happening every six months when you were getting it? And then what is the correlation to driving?

Paige Wiese 20:46

They really don’t specifically know. I mean, the general medical is gonna say stress, but I going through the rest of my journey and everything else that I’ve done to date, I’m also like, I’ve probably had some more stressful times than this than that. So they don’t really have an exact, exact reason for it, which is always makes any diagnosis harder, is because you can’t do anything to really stop or prevent it or to to change it. And then as far as the driving, when you have a seizure, at least the grand mall, they revoke your driver’s license for six months. And so that’s where every six months, as I’m like getting ready to get it back and start driving again, I’d have another seizure. And I mean, it was so crazy how almost like calculated it was. So every time that I’d get my hopes up, I’d lose it again. And then I’d get my hopes up and lose it again. And so that’s the correlation. At the end of the day, it’s basically if you’re not safe to drive, you shouldn’t be driving.

Parul Saini 21:39

And how did the seizure physically manifest it in your body when it when you were having it? Like what did that feel like?

Paige Wiese 21:46

I don’t know. I black out and I’m out for the better part of like four hours. And then usually at that point, someone’s called an ambulance. I’m in the hospital, and then I just come to and just realize, like, yeah, something happened. One of them I had pulled. Over on the side of the road because I started to feel it come on. And then all I remember is waking up to the cops knocking on my window and asking me, like, what’s going on? I was like, Oh, I’m just driving. I’m just heading to a friend’s, like, I’m on my way. And they’re like, no, no, no. And my story wasn’t making sense. And that’s where they were like, and I was I was arguing it hard. And then it was like, okay, like, all right, like you’re gonna do whatever you’re gonna do. I’ll listen to you. And then another one, unfortunately, I was driving, turned a corner in one of another couple blocks and hit multiple cars and again woke up to ambulances in front of me, everyone around trying to figure out what’s going on. I tried to put the car and drive and drive off. Thankfully, they took the keys, but I was I didn’t know what happened. And this time they were like, What’s your birthday? And I was like, you can you just put me in the back of the ambulance. I’m not even gonna argue this. Like, I don’t know. I have no idea what that is. And that’s what the worst part of the seizures are is what it does for your memory. For me at least, is I don’t know anything until people start filling in those gaps and until people start putting the pieces back together for me. I don’t have any recollection coming out of those seizures.

Parul Saini 23:03

That’s really hard. Especially at that younger age when you’re barely starting your life and being able to drive.

Paige Wiese 23:12

Not being able to drive, and then and then yeah, what’s wrong with me? Like I I can’t remember these things, or I know that this happened, but I don’t, I don’t have any recollection of it. And like sometimes it’s a blessing. Sometimes it’s like, I don’t forget, we can move on. What’s happening? And at other times it’s I tell friends, like, I’m not here to play a trivia because this brain isn’t gonna remember anything. There’s there’s no recall that I can get. And so even then as I’m like going through architecture and different things and I start losing this, it’s like, I know I know. I just don’t know how to pull it back out to remember it.

Parul Saini 23:44

And so did you finally get diagnosed?

Paige Wiese 23:46

Yeah, so I finally got diagnosed. I think we went on about three different medications with three or four different doctors until we finally found one that worked. For the most part, my last seizure was 2022, I think. And then um, I had just a small breakthrough recently, but I I think that’s just because we finally switched off of the brand to the generic. And I argued with my doctors for years to not do that until it just got so expensive that I was like, I have no option. I I’m paying so much money for this medication. Maybe we got to try the generic, and we did it, and I had a breakthrough. So we went, nope, we’re going back to.

Parul Saini 24:23

So then going back to your second job when they laid you off, and at the time you got the diagnosis as well, and you got medication, so that was positive. And then you were evaluating your life. How did you decide to then start a business? That’s so much harder than going back to a job.

Paige Wiese 24:41

I had no option. I I really had no choice, right? I I was kind of forced into it, if you will. I what do you do working from home? And this is well before Zoom. This is 2009, 2010. This is before working remote was a thing. And so I really had to just go like, what job can I do? And I had some interest in designing websites or code I had for when I it actually was a small intro when I was at the first arc uh architecture job. And they had come to me and I probably could have taken the clue they were a little on work at that moment, but they said, Hey, we need a little bit of help. Will you work on the website? And I was like, never done it before, but I’ll try to do something. And so, like, that was a small little tease of it. But then yeah, I was like, Well, I’ve always been on computers, I’ve always been playing around on print shop and playing with fonts and all these things. So why don’t I take a stab at some design work and just see what I can do and teach myself how to code? And yeah, that’s really where everything kind of started. Starting a business was not the goal. The goal was to put food on a table. The food was to keep a shelter over my head, right? Was really all I was trying to do at the time.

Parul Saini 25:49

So, how did you get your name out there? How did you get your first few clients? What were the first few months like?

Paige Wiese 25:56

Yeah, so keep in mind, I know nobody. Um especially my age, there’s none of my friends are starting a business or anything related. They don’t really have those conversations with their bosses of like, hey, do you by chance? I don’t know what networking is. I I don’t have this network around me whatsoever. So I just was like, well, I guess where I would go is Craigslist. Like that was a thing at the time. And that’s where it was like, all right, let’s just put our name out there and see what happens and see if we can get any calls. And I did I just started working the system. I, you know, I said that early on, right? Like, I just learned how the systems work. And I realized with that that if I can put my listing in as many places as possible, my name’s always showing up. So if they’re doing two different searches, my name’s there, they’re gonna start being more prone to hire the person whose name is consistent than the person who only shows up once and they never think of again, right? Then it turns into I can actually design a graphic and use code to put this graphic in the posting. Okay, let’s make it more memorable than just showing up. Let’s get our logo out there and let’s do something to do that. We can actually change the color of the font for all the keywords so that they don’t realize all of these keywords are in here because it’s a graphic. Craigslist isn’t picking up any of content on the graphic. So started stuffing all the keywords in there, but hiding it so it didn’t look spammy and no one could catch on to what I’m doing. Then I started creating a bunch of email accounts and keeping timers going because you can only list, I don’t know, like three posts at a time for a job or for a thing. And then at the same time, it expires after 24 or 48 hours. I don’t know. Like I had this whole thing down that I knew every day at what time I had to log back into which account, refresh the ads, log out, go to the next one, log in, refresh the ads, and go to the point that you couldn’t really go anywhere on Craigslist without seeing my name. And I realized time or money. I didn’t have money. Craigslist was free. So let me go work this system as well as I can to the point that I no longer could. I couldn’t keep up with the time schedule. I couldn’t keep up with refreshing the ads. And I just went, I think we did it. This served our purpose. We have enough calls, we’ve got enough clients, we got enough repeat business going on. Let’s let’s slow them down. Let’s drop them and see what happens. And past there, like, yeah, never touched Craigslist again.

Parul Saini 28:08

What was your first client and first project?

Paige Wiese 28:11

Oh my gosh, I’m not even gonna have any idea. One, the memory, but two, like we were, I worked on so many random things. Like it was basically, hey, can you do this? Yeah. And then I go and research it. Also, mind you, long before YouTube videos telling you how to do things, you’re like long before a Google search really even had a lot of SEO going. So I just had to like go scour the internet to teach myself. I think that’s something that I sometimes lose track of as far as self-taught. I think today it’s it’s really easy to. I encourage a lot of people to. Back then, same thing. It wasn’t a known way to really learn how to go start a whole new career.

Parul Saini 28:48

What were some of the things that you said yes to? Whatever you can remember. Did people actually ask you to build a website or were they asking you to do some other random things that you said yes to?

Paige Wiese 28:57

I mean, I’ve had to clean like hacked websites before where it’s like that’s not my background, but I’ll sure. I created a system then and I was like, all right, if someone else calls, now we know, like just run through this process. And then, same thing though, that changed so quickly that it’s like, all right, I can’t keep up with that process because the hacks are always changing, um, or the malware and stuff. And then um others was here’s a full-blown e-commerce website. Can you figure out? But no, they were selling hookah products. The merchant processors did not want to work with that. The hosting companies did not want to work with that. And I’m sitting here going, there’s nothing wrong with it. Like, why are we not allowed to sell this online? So that was a piece of it as we started, as I started growing off the agency. We I brought on my own servers so that we didn’t have to turn clients away. We could say, yes, absolutely, let’s go ahead and host this website and do what we can to support you. Um, or when authorized.net cut off their payment processors, we’ll go make the phone call. We’ll go figure out what we need to do to get around this compliance issue. Right. So it was just like, I’ll go take care of it instead of telling the client, like, we’ll go call them and hopefully it comes back. I wanted to retain. So for us, or for me, I was like, I’ll go do anything I can to really just kind of go above and beyond to make sure. But that taught me so much more about how merchant processing worked. That taught me so much more about how like when do we call support compared to trying to handle this or learn this on our own? And so it really helped me navigate other parts of growing an agency than just, hey, I have this issue on my website. But we’ve done book cover designs, we’ve done all sorts of book formatting and layout that’s not website design. You name it. I’ve I’ve probably touched it when it comes to some sort of design or website piece.

Parul Saini 30:39

That’s incredible. And how big is your business now?

Paige Wiese 30:42

So it’s today we are a team of 16 and like, yeah, been in business about 17 years. So definitely have grown, thrived, strived through all of that, gone through ups and downs. We boomed in COVID, and then the last few years have been a lot of rebuilding. But unfortunately, a lot of small businesses have also struggled, and that was a lot of our clientele. So we had been repositioning ourselves, finding ourselves in the market, understanding AI. But that’s the other piece that I think has really helped me with the growing this company is technology has changed a lot in 17 years. WordPress was barely a thing. You could create a blog. That was it. Everything else had to be custom coded. And I think sometimes people forget that that was what my background was as I learned how to build on WordPress when you had to custom code everything. And so that’s what yielded such a strong design and development background, where I feel like a lot of people are strong in development or a lot of them are strong in design. But it’s it’s rare you find them, but it’s rare when you find someone who really does have that understanding and skill set to see how do we put this whole piece together, not just build the pretty site and not just make something that functions. So that was another part that really helped throughout that process is okay, this is changing. And like, should we jump over to Squarespace or not? Should we jump from Facebook to Blue Sky? Should we jump from Google Ads to something entirely different? And as you’re going through, you got to keep a pulse on what’s noise and what’s right here in front of us. And that’s what we need to stay focused on and not get too distracted and pulled in that direction, especially as a leader and a boss, because if you do, the team does. And so, or if you do, the clients do. And so you really have to get grounded in, hey, this is the decision we’re making and there’s a reason we’re sticking to this. That’s why we’re gonna keep going in this path. Or, huh, there’s starting to be a lot more signals. Maybe it is time we start paying a little more attention and start understanding what that looks like, or reels. I don’t want to touch them. It’s just we decided long ago that I’m not getting into video production, I’m not getting into photography, that is where we draw the line as an agency. And for the most part, I’ve held it of I get that’s where social media is going, but that’s not our wheelhouse. We can still do a lot in social, but if you want me to go create your reels, you there’s there’s better companies that are doing that day in and day out compared to what we do as a full service agency. And so really being able to stick to those boundaries too and know that a company is still gonna survive without making that that decision.

Parul Saini 33:14

That’s incredible. You’re learning on the fly. What would you say was your hardest challenge for your business?

Paige Wiese 33:20

Hardest challenge. I think having faith in different times that were like very, very stressful. Or I know I remember we raised our rates. I think this is gonna really date where we started. I think from like $35 or $55 an hour to 85, lost every client. Just terrified me to raise my rates again. Right. I do we but we changed our clientele. We got better clients because they were more willing to pay for me to have a team. But that’s really scary when you’re going from freelance trying to make a jump into a team. You raise your rates to support it, and you lose every client you’ve ever built. So it puts you right back at the drawing board to do it again. And then, same thing, like I said, post-COVID, we started experiencing it again. And it was like we’re used to higher numbers, we’re used to better numbers, what’s going on? And I had to take a step back and go, it’s because the small clients aren’t making it anymore. And so, like, we have to go after a different market if we’re going to survive. Otherwise, we also are gonna have to shut the doors. And so, how do we make those pivots and understand that sometimes you got to take risks in yourself? Sometimes you have to get back into, hey, I started this for a reason. Let me have faith in that and let me go do what needs to happen and make, you know, the hustle, the sacrifice, whatever you want to call it, so make it still work and go. Because I think those are the challenging times. If it’s like, should I just go get a corporate job? I’ve never had one, but we could. And and why am I in this though? And then it’s it’s other times where you’re like, I know why I’m in it, and I’m really, really excited to be in it. And so you have to let those positive times carry you through the downs and just know it’ll pass, it’ll turn around, but it’s not just gonna turn around on its own. You gotta go do something.

Parul Saini 35:01

And how do you, as a CEO, learn it so quickly? Because there’s that’s a lot. Managing a business, managing a team, and then learning enough or getting enough signal to be able to make the right calls. So, how do you keep yourself up to date in a manner that and and granted, it takes a lot to make a call. Not every call may be right, but then it just there is so much pivoting that you have done in the last 16 years. How are you keeping yourself up to date in a manner that you can make an informed decision?

Paige Wiese 35:30

That’s a really good question. One, I’ve surrounded myself with a lot of mentors over the years. So, like having a business coach, having mentors, one thing I do try really hard to do is just keep surrounding myself with people that are doing better than me, that are higher than me, that I can learn from and grow from and kind of learn through some of their pitfalls. Others are falling flat on your face and realizing that wasn’t the right option. And then I think as far as pivoting, where’s the demand? What’s what are the clients saying? If we get too many of one phone call, we’re either putting in a system to make this easier or we’re pivoting something. We went from, hey, the page speed sucks. The page speed is so slow, what can we do? And we’re like, well, it’s it’s the servers we’re reselling. So let’s go evaluate server options. And that’s where we decided to bring on our own AWS containers. But that also meant our own in-house tech’s doing that all the time. And it also means when we have franchise sites with 300 some locations, I can’t afford that bill if the site goes down. I can’t afford that lawsuit. And so it just also keeps us on our toes of like, then we need to be doing the absolute best that we possibly can. And how do I surround myself with a team that’s going to be able to deliver that? And how do I make sure that we’ve got those right people in place so that they’re keeping a pulse on it and then reporting back to me and saying, hey, Paige, this is outdated. We need to change something. Or I’ve got a handful of clients all asking the same thing. We should probably get to the bottom of it. What do we do now? So that’s where we start to kind of trust the signals more is what’s noise than what are things of, hey, no, we we need to make a change.

Parul Saini 37:03

That’s incredible. If you look back to the time where you were going down the path of your architect journey and looking for jobs, staying in job, and potentially, I I I believe that if you uh were not beset with the health challenge, you probably would have tried to go go back to a job. You had to reinvent your life because you were trying to create this balance between health and having a life and not be dependent on others so much. If you go back to the time, could you have imagined your life being this at that moment?

Paige Wiese 37:36

No. I think even the first handful of years, I would say, I know when I told my friends I was doing freelance work, they were all just like, okay, good luck. It was a joke. And that’s a little defeating. And at the same time, like I just always I saw, I just knew, like, I gotta follow this. There’s something here, or just, you know, watching numbers, watching things change, watching me go from like, I can’t keep up. We have to hire an assistant just to stay on top of this all and get back to clients in a timely manner. I would have never thought that. What my plan was was back to system. I knew that I was a hard worker. I knew that I could succeed if I was in the job. And so my plan was to do the two-year, get an entry-level job, and work my way to the top and one day own the company. That was what I was gonna do. And so I think I kind of knew I’d own a business, but I had to know what that meant at the time either. I had no idea. I just knew I know I can work my way to the top of this ladder. And so I think that was also a bit defeating when, yeah, you’ve got two unemployments on your belt right before you can even get into that either. You’re like, what ladder am I gonna climb up? There’s nothing here in front of me to climb. So it definitely makes a change, but no, I would have had no idea that I would be where we’re where I’m at today.

Parul Saini 38:50

What has that this journey of entrepreneurship taught you about yourself?

Paige Wiese 38:55

That I am capable of so much and that if I put my mind to it and if I’m interested in it, I can do whatever I want. That’s what I usually try to carry through with other people, especially if they’re starting their entrepreneurship jury. I’m like, if you have enough passion in it and you genuinely believe in what you are doing, you will find a way. You will be successful. I think so many are scared or they’re grasping at something or they just think it’s the appropriate, natural next move, but it’s not really what they want to do. It’s not really what excites them. And so I’m more about like, do what you like want to do every single day. You can build the job around any of it. You just have to have that passion and then the dedication to like hustle. I’ll talk to clients that are just starting and I’ll say, time or money, which one do you have? If it’s time, then let’s have a conversation about what you can be doing now and how I can help you get those things in place. And if it’s money, here’s what it’s gonna cost for us to make that happen. I don’t care the answer, but you have options. And like that’s what it came down to with networking and building referral sources is great. I have time right now. I’ve really like up until the last handful of years, I never had ad money. And so for me, it was, but I have plenty of time. So I’m gonna go show up in all these rooms and I’m gonna go make relationships, and those relationships have carried me so, so, so far and just being open to every opportunity in front of you.

Parul Saini 40:14

We’ve talked a lot about your professional life, which is incredibly successful. I want to talk about your personal life as well, because your health challenge is a very significant challenge. So much so that you would depend on other people to drive you to places. Here you are doing rock climbing, and I guess when you told me that. So, like, paint a picture of the way your life is right now, because none of these challenges have kept you down. You’ve blossomed. So, yes, tell us about all of your rock climbing adventures and what do you do? Like, how do you live your life now?

Paige Wiese 40:49

Dangerously, unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at it. No, I I talked briefly about the like the seizure I had where I had hit a few cars, and I that was early 20s. I don’t remember the exact age, 21, 22, probably. And I’ll still sit here and say, I probably should have died. I’m really, really fortunate that I walked away without a scratch, and that everyone did, that there wasn’t anyone injured, and that I was able to walk away and continue living life. But I remember them saying to me, do not go riding bikes, don’t get in a pool, don’t do these different things. And I was just like, Tomorrow’s not guaranteed. It can also be done. It it could have or should have been that day. And so it really made me just go enjoy what we have and we’ll figure it out when we get there. So I don’t know what the next five years, I know where I’d like the next five years to take me, but I don’t know what the next five years, 10 years have in plan. I remember that when I started the company, people would be like, okay, cool, you’re two years in. What’s your five, you know, five-year goal? And I was like, I didn’t know I’d make it to two. And then they’d be like, okay, what’s your tenure? I didn’t know I’d make it to five. I’m not planning. I didn’t have like the roadmap that most business owners have. I’m just very fortunate to be where I’m at. And so I don’t take that lightly. And I think that seizure really showed me too like, pick your battles. What are the things that are worth getting worked up over? What are the things that aren’t? And what are the things that are worth doing? I I love rock climbing. I love trail running. The sketchier it is, the better. Um, I just got back from Moab doing the rope swing off the cliff. Like, that’s the only way though, that my mind knows how to stop working. That’s the only way that my mind knows how to shut the computer and walk away in a healthy manner. Other options? Let’s go have a drink. It’ll be fun. But like, that’s not the route I want to go all the time. So for me, it’s like, hey, I can go clear my mind, go enjoy this beautiful scenery, and it stops. Let’s go do that instead.

Parul Saini 42:43

So you’re living dangerously.

Paige Wiese 42:45

Yes.

Parul Saini 42:47

What an incredible power to have, which is uh your life was creating this very tight box around you, and you said, uh no, I’m going to create my own boundaries if that and there is no boundaries right now in the way you’re living because you’ve created a successful business, you’re living life and a healthy life on your own terms, and you’re managing your health condition, and it has not become a blocker for you in any way, but it has fueled all of your sort of passion and ambition in living life at the largest scale possible. What an amazing sort of path that you’ve carved for yourself. You just had to choose a path and walk.

Paige Wiese 43:25

Yeah, choose your own adventure, if you will, right? And because the other plan was go back to school, get my architectural degree, and just bust through it all. And then I could at least compete with other licensed architects for a job. I knew with my two-year degree that I couldn’t compete with licensed architects that were out. So that was one of the plans. Is do I go back to architecture school and follow that path? I think that was another eight years though, because I wasn’t gonna stop at cool, I have my bachelor’s. I was gonna go for the full license. That’s eight more years of this journey of what’s the economy gonna be like, eight more. Years from now, is it really worth that kind of investment? And so, yeah, you could say there was a bigger risk by doing freelance work and trying to start a business that way compared to an eight-year college degree. But no, I it was the right path for me. Absolutely. It showed me I had no idea what business was and I had no idea what opportunities were in front of me. I didn’t know. I just feel like every couple of years, more doors open that I didn’t know were opportunities or directions you could go in something.

Parul Saini 44:26

You have to be open to saying yes to these things and then figuring a path forward or figuring out a path forward. What advice would you give somebody that might be looking for some hope right now?

Paige Wiese 44:36

You can do it. I say just really take the time to understand what you’re willing to commit and what is it that’s really gonna make the change. You can have health issues, but if you’re not going to make the changes that’ll create the long-term, like like healthiness of it all or the long-term path is not gonna be the right fit, right? So, like looking for that quick fix, that quick fix on a health issue is not the route to go. I have poured so much time into my health, listening to my body, advocating for myself. Like I said, I I pay a lot of money in medication, and thankfully I can. Not everybody can, but it’s like I still advocate for myself, though, even if I couldn’t afford it, I say I don’t, that plan doesn’t resonate with me. We need to do something different. I need a different option. And so I think that’s a piece that when it comes to health, we get really, really lost in is we take everybody at their word. If the doctor says that’s what it is. And as I’ve gotten older and gone through so many different types of naturopath or eastern western medicine, eastern medicine, whatever that looks like, there’s so many ways. You have to find the one that fits best for you, but still advocate because the doctors aren’t. It doesn’t matter who. Like I don’t care what section you’re falling into for it. And then, second of all, if it comes down to like the tech side, don’t chase the shiny object. It it kills me all the time when I see employees leave to go for this crazy tech startup job that’s gonna pay them a ridiculous amount of money, only to find out a year or two later they’re not in work anymore. And I’m like, but I can guarantee you stability. I know that we can keep you moving along if you believe in this vision. If you contribute, we will do great things. My track record has shown that. And it just, I think that especially like the younger generation, like including me, like my generation, like we are chasing that shiny object. We’re chasing that quick fix of, well, let me go get this really high-paying job so that I can be successful. And then they’re frustrated years later when they’re like, I’m on my fifth one. I’m like, look at the pattern with what’s going on in this tech space right now. And now look at the pattern with AI. And so you have to position yourself in a way of how are you going to be able to stand out? I knew I wasn’t gonna do that as an architect with a two-year degree. I knew that if that was the case, I was gonna have to go do more to stand out.

Parul Saini 46:50

And especially small businesses are the backbone of any economy. And the more I’m learning this space, the more I realize that owners or CEOs such as yourself are so human forward in these businesses. Because at the end of the day, if you know everyone that works for you, you know uh all of their lives and you care about their lives. And in the way you’re running your business, uh you’re trying to create a win-win for everyone involved, yourself, your team, your clients. And uh it has been such an amazing thing for me to learn about this community. And I’m and I feel fortunate to have the time to be able to do this and get to know more about incredible people like you. So thank you. Thank you for spending this time with me, and thank you for sharing your story.

Paige Wiese 47:40

Absolutely, thank you so much for having me.

Parul Saini 47:43

Thank you for listening to the courage curve. I hope this conversation offered you perspective, comfort, and a sense of companionship as you move through your own moment of change, especially if you’re choosing courage before clarity. And remember, women rise best when we rise together. Follow the show and share it with someone who may need it.