Northbound Labs

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Most creators wait until they have it all figured out before they start posting.The perfect brand. The polished offer. T...
05/28/2026

Most creators wait until they have it all figured out before they start posting.

The perfect brand. The polished offer. The wins worth showing off.

But the creators building real connection and momentum right now? They’re not waiting.

They’re building in public.

Sharing the messy middle. The lessons they’re learning in real time. The pursuit, not just the results. And through this, they’re attracting people who resonate with the journey, not just the destination.

This has been a core part of what we do here. We started this account 6 months ago with nothing but a layoff and a decision to bet on ourselves. No product. No audience. No clue if it would work.

We just started documenting - the vulnerable, honest, uncertain parts of the rebuild - and thousands of you came along for the ride.

That’s the thing about building in public: you don’t need to have anything figured out. You just need to be willing to share the process, and the right people will find you.

So if you’re early in your journey or actively building something, don’t wait until you’re “ready”. Start documenting now.

I put together a free mini-guide with 8 ways to build in public (with real examples of each).

Comment “BUILD” and I’ll send it your way. 👇

(make sure you’re following so you can receive it)

05/26/2026

Anyone else see these kind of posts or is it just my algo?

I keep seeing the “passive income” narrative - hit 5-figure months after spending 2 hours with Canva + ChatGPT to create a digital product…

And I feel the constant need to speak out against this because there are SO many accounts selling that fantasy. And honestly? It’s ruining it for people who could genuinely change their lives by giving digital products a real shot.

As someone who’s been building and selling digital products for 6 months, here’s my take:

Digital products are one of the best business models out there. They let you take your knowledge, skills, and lived experience, and scale your impact on others. That’s real talk.

But the “passive” part? That’s a lie - especially if you’re just starting out, and it probably won’t be your reality for many months if you actually care about your products and customers.

You don’t spend a weekend building something and unlock 5-figure months. You create something rooted in what you know, validate real demand, and keep bringing in the people you can actually help. You iterate, improve, and show up.

And THEN, after the upfront work, you have something that keeps compounding.

It’s not passive, but it IS leverage. And that’s still a pretty good deal to me. (There’s just a massive difference in expectation-setting between the two.)

If building that leverage and scaling your impact is your jam… I’d be happy to show you how. 🙂

OK, did I get anything wrong here? 👇

05/25/2026

Is there no "easy mode" to this game? Asking for a friend. 🫠

After doing both - climbing the corporate ladder and now building something of my own - I can confirm: both are hard, so pick your poison.

Corporate hard was a slow burn for me… the path that once promised certain payoffs in return for being a cog in the machine… became 10X harder once those payoffs weren’t even guaranteed anymore. And once you realize that, it becomes truly soul sucking and demoralizing.

Entrepreneur hard hits you in the face right away: the uncertainty and the weight of it all being on you, with no feedback loops on whether you’re even on the right track. And sometimes not knowing if you're doing it right for months on end. Uhhh also super hard, and honestly, not everyone is ready to face that.

But for me? I’d rather face the version of hard that’s actually of my own choosing, that actually builds something that’s mine, instead of pouring myself into a system I’ll never control.

How about you - which version of hard do you choose and why? 👀

05/22/2026

Yeah, totally over the “lean in” era. 🙃

We did everything right. We raised our hands. We proved ourselves ten times over. We planned our maternity leaves down to the week so we wouldn’t “fall behind.”

And still, we couldn’t “have it all” because the system wasn’t built to let us win.

Just a few data points from the article above:

- In 2025, men joined the workforce at 3X the rate of women
- From Jan-Aug of last year, over 455,000 women left the workforce (almost half cite caregiving as the reason)
- 60% of senior women reported burning out
- Caregiving strain is the largest predictor of burnout and leaving a job (especially among women who are 10 to 15 years into their careers)

I’m not bitter (even though I'm aware I completely sound that way LOL), I’m just done participating.

These days I’m building something where the rules actually make sense. Where being present for my kids isn’t a “performance issue.” Where ambition doesn’t require sacrificing my family and mental health.

And I know I’m not the only one - women are driving the rise in entrepreneurship and opting for flexibility and building on their own terms. And hell yeah, that’s what it’s all about! 💪

If you’ve ever felt like you were failing at a game that was rigged from the start, you weren’t,vand you’re not alone. Holler if any of this resonates! 🫶

05/21/2026

Anyone else feel like they aged out of their high-achiever era? 🙋

For a long time, I thought that not wanting to overachieve at work anymore meant I had lost my drive, but it wasn’t that the drive disappeared. It was that I finally realized I had been hustling and grinding toward something that I didn’t even want anymore.

And so I finally stopped chasing misaligned things, and took steps toward betting on myself instead.

And here’s what I know now: that feeling of burnout wasn’t from my ambition disappearing, it was from outgrowing a version of success that no longer felt like mine.

We didn’t stop being ambitious. We just stopped pointing our ambition toward the wrong things.

More rants incoming, got a lot to get off my chest 🙃 thanks for listening.

corporatedropout

05/20/2026

Say what you will about Gen Z, but I think they figured out something we didn’t.

They watched us grind ourselves into the ground for companies that replaced us without a second thought, and instead of following our playbook, they opted out.

I used to roll my eyes at “quiet quitting” and “setting boundaries” because I was raised on a completely different script: work harder than everyone else, be available 24/7, tie your identity to your job title.

But… where did that get us? Burnout by our 30s. Layoffs after years of loyalty. Waking up one day realizing we’d given everything to a system that was rigged from the start.

I really think every generation learns from the ones before, and Gen Z is just refusing to repeat our mistakes.

And honestly? Good for them, and it’s not too late for us to learn the same lesson.

If you’re done playing by the old rules, you’re in the right place. 🤍

6 months ago, we made one of the scariest decision of our lives.After back-to-back layoffs, we decided not to go back to...
05/19/2026

6 months ago, we made one of the scariest decision of our lives.

After back-to-back layoffs, we decided not to go back to corporate, even though we had two kids and a mortgage to support. Instead, we bet on ourselves, with no roadmap, no safety net, and honestly, no idea if it would work.

There were days we questioned everything: when we wondered if it was too big of a risk with BOTH of us zero income, if our corporate skills would even translate into this world, if “content creation money” was built on a house of cards.

But despite those fears, the journey has been unexpectedly transformative and unbelievably worthwhile.

We found you guys - a community of people rebuilding just like us. People who had been laid off, burned out, or simply realized the corporate path wasn’t for them anymore. Your messages reminded us we weren’t alone and that there are also others out there brave enough to start over. And that helped us turn doubt turned into momentum.

6 months later: 130+ posts in, ~30K of you here, 2200+ students in our courses, and $180K in digital products teaching what we know… we’ve been able to rebuild our lives on our own terms.

With immense gratitude, we wanted to say: thank you for being here. 🙏

And if there’s anything to take away from our journey, it’s this:

Keep going. If you’re betting on yourself, if you have the courage to start over, if you’re willing to put yourself out there and be vulnerable and learn new things, if you’re feeling lost or behind or unsure if it’s going to work… keep going. 💪

The messy middle is part of the journey, a rite of passage. We’ll see you on the other side, when all that hard work will have been worth it. :)

05/14/2026

Move over, influencers. There’s a new kind of creator in town: The Creator CEO.

For years, “being a creator” meant one thing - build a following, land brand deals, sell other people’s products.

But Creator CEOs are doing it differently. They use content as a way to build a real business, with products they own, equity they build, and real leverage.

For those of us who never wanted to be influencers or brand ambassadors, this is a massive opportunity to build something that’s actually ours.

That’s the path I’ve been on since leaving corporate, and if you’re on it too, follow along. I share all the ups and downs here. 🤍

05/13/2026

I still remember the exact moment I realized I didn’t want to climb the corporate ladder anymore. 😮‍💨

For most of my career, I was an ambitious over-achiever, and I thought success meant forever climbing... always reaching for more money and a bigger title. That was the script and I followed it without really questioning it, because that’s just what I had been taught.

But somewhere in my mid-30s I started noticing that the people above me weren’t happier or healthier. They were just more tired, more stretched, and more unavailable to the people in their lives that actually mattered.

And I realized I didn’t want what I’d been working toward.

At the time, it felt like a crisis, but looking back, it was the first honest question I’d asked myself in years: what does a good life actually look like for *me*?

The answer had nothing to do with a title, and everything to do with freedom and flexibility.

If you’ve ever had that thought too... that the ladder you’re climbing might be leaning against the wrong wall, you’re not alone.

You’re just finally asking the right question. 🤍

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