Esther M. is building toward $1 million.
She’s not quitting her job to do it.
She’s not quitting her life to do it.
She has kids, a full-time role in financial services technology, 18 years of tech consulting behind her, and a family she wants to stay present for.
And she’s building a portfolio of digital and physical products on Substack that she’s taking all the way to seven figures.
Oh, we have so much in common…
Who Esther is
Esther is a mom. She lives in Canada. She grew up in Kenya. She works in financial services technology, and she’s spent 18 years in consulting, project delivery and sales engineering. Four years ago she started building her own business on the side, and she’s been on Substack for two to three years.
Her publication is called Building in the Margins and it’s about building a business and a life at the same time.
Her target is $1 million from a portfolio of digital and physical products.
That’s the big goal. But the way she’s getting there is the interesting part.
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The BIG lie
When Esther started, the dominant online message was the same one you still hear everywhere. Go all in. Max out your capacity. Burn the bridges. Build the empire.
But Esther had kids. She had a demanding job. She had a family that needed her. If she followed that advice, she’d have to neglect everything that actually mattered to her.
So she decided to explore a different question. What does it look like to build a business and keep your life?
Basically the same thing I did.
That’s the question her entire Substack is built on.
She writes about simple systems, AI, productivity, 80/20 execution. But she also writes about wellbeing, family, ambition, relationships. The intersection of those two is what actually makes her unique.
The second income stream nobody talks about
Every finance book preaches multiple streams of income.
Society agrees in theory. Then you get to the corporate world and the companies you work for are literally writing policies that forbid it. Conflict of interest. Your time belongs to them. They OWN you.
Total BS.
But the reality is that in some countries (like mine) you can even get fired if they find out you’re building something on the side. I have a community member this happened to.
So when Esther and I talk about building a business without burning your life down, we’re not just talking about work-life balance. We’re talking about something bigger. The right to build something of your own without destroying the thing that pays your bills.
This is possible. I’m doing it. Esther is doing it. Thousands of people in my community are doing it. The all-or-nothing message is just not real.
Pinterest is quietly working for her
This part surprised me.
Esther is bringing in traffic through Pinterest. She’s part of a community of creators who support each other there, and her system is quite simple.
She writes a post, then she turns it into three pins. She picks a few lines or messages from the post, drafts graphics with AI, and publishes them on Pinterest with keyword research behind them.
That’s the whole thing. And I could literally automate it in Claude code (on it now).
Pinterest is a search engine dressed up as a social platform. It’s visual, which plays to AI-generated graphics, and it’s evergreen, which means pins keep bringing traffic months after you publish them.
I’ve had Pinterest on my list for a long time. After this conversation with Esther, I’m moving it up. If you also want external growth beyond Substack, Pinterest is probably one of the lowest-effort, highest-return channels right now.
The productivity secret
I always ask about productivity, and Esther’s answer was clean.
Big blocks of time, not small ones. Two hours minimum. She said the task-switching cost of 30-minute windows is just too high. So she combines small tasks across the day and week, delegates what she can, and protects larger blocks for focused work.
Everything on her calendar. Time blocking is non-negotiable.
And she has one specific thingy I’d never heard of - she plays Work With Me Pomodoro videos on YouTube while she works.
Two-hour sessions with someone else, usually silent, both working together. 25-minute work blocks, short breaks. She said it’s one of the things that lets her focus even on tasks she doesn’t enjoy.
I’m definitely trying this next week.
If you want to go deeper, Esther shared her full system in a post she wrote about her ABCDE framework for managing time between life and business building. And her two go-to Work With Me videos are this one and this one.
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You will kiss many frogs
At the end of our call I asked Esther what she wanted readers to leave with.
She said this.
Don’t give up too soon. Keep at it. And know that you’ll probably kiss many frogs before you find your thing. Different strategies. Different business models. Different versions of yourself.
That’s not failure. That’s the process.
She said there’s wisdom in knowing when to pivot, but there’s also wisdom in not giving up too soon.
I think that’s exactly the right balance, and almost nobody says it this clearly. Most creator advice tells you either to pivot faster or to stay the course longer.
But the truth is you need both.
You need to be humble enough to pivot when something isn’t working, and stubborn enough to keep going when it’s just slow.
Esther is doing both. That’s how she’s going to hit her million.
Watch on YouTube:
So that’s Esther
If you’re building something on the side of a full life, this is exactly the publication you should be reading.
A few books Esther recommended that have shaped how she works (my affiliate links):
Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson, a great introduction to messaging, funnels, and turning your knowledge and expertise into an online business
Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey, a practical guide to managing attention, becoming more productive, and focusing on what matters most
The 12-Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington, a practical approach to execution using focused 12-week cycles
Now go subscribe to Esther! It’s totally worth it.
Yana
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