I Broke the Servers in 24 Hours Because of Web Traffic, and YOU Can, Too!

Katie is crazy excited to share a crazy personal story with you today on the What’s Working Now Podcast! She explains a time where there was so much traffic to her website that it broke the servers four times in 24 hours. How? She got on the Ellen DeGeneres show…TWICE! But the second time was a near-disaster, with a week-and-a-half of elusive supplies, a lack of laborers, and even a stomach-plagued little kid. 

But Katie’s key lesson today is that she didn’t give up; she just made it work. Tune in to the conversation about delivering what you promised people and learn how this story can foster crazy inspiration and creativity in you, prompting you to find your own way to get out of your head and start saying yes where you need to say yes!

3 Key Takeaways

• How Katie got an influx of traffic that broke her web servers four times in 24 hours.
• Why you need to get out of your head when mistakes are made and instead offer others additional opportunities.
• Two important questions Katie presents to you in order to foster greater creativity.

Show Notes

[2:45] Katie describes the second product she made

• Baby shoes that fit on either foot
• “Look: I’m not willing to make a product that is not top quality.” -Katie Richardson
• Being approached by the Ellen DeGeneres show a second time for their shoe product
  • Scrambling to make a vegan option pair of shoes on one day
  • “Anywhere you can make a personal connection with people, you have moved yourself closer to the goal line.” -Katie Richardson
  • Can you make 400 pairs if you are approved for this show?

[8:30] Letting the producer know that they don’t yet, but will 

• Plan A: a factory in Asia
• Plan B: a factory in the US
• Plan C: reaching out to a group of people who sew
• Making phone connections with people and thinking they’re moving along with these options
• All options fall out! With 7 days left
• Looking around at fabric stores with a stomach-sick kid
  • Convincing him to come with her

[14:00] Looking for bolts of multicolored vegan leather

• Not finding them!
• You have to share your vision and your story
  • Making a connection with the fabric store lady
  • Getting three names of people who can sew
    • Do you know somebody who does know how to do this?

[18:00] Meeting Florencio 

• Mill End: the last pieces of random things 
  • Bolts and bolts of this vegan fabric
• Truman has had it!
• Finding someone that has a metal material press

[23:32] Down to the wire with HALF as many shoes

• Asking if they want some more work instead of framing their need like a mistake
• Coloring her hair, picking out her outfit, making a pair for Ellen herself
• Walking around the back of the show as she gave 400 shoes to these women
• The servers crashing because of the upsurge of web publicity

[29:39] What does this experience have to do with you?

• Do you need to start getting creative and saying yes? 
  • “How can you grow your goals in a way that’s stretching you?” -Katie Richardson
  • Where can you get creative and find that solution that seems impossible right now?