“Part of the reason why I chose BuildFire is because I didn’t have $25,000 to invest in someone building a custom app for me. I’m very much a do it on your own type of person. There’s so much room for growth within BuildFire that you actually don’t need to go custom anymore because BuildFire is such a strong platform.”

Lindsey Eryn Clark is a self-proclaimed “Jill of all trades.” She owns a branding studio called Third Story Apartment and hosts a podcast called “The Daring Romantics.”

The podcast is a unique spin on traditional entrepreneurship content. Rather than focusing on the “how to” aspects of being an entrepreneur, these weekly shows talk about the heart and soul of entrepreneurship. Lindsey teaches her audience how to keep their heads up when things aren’t going as planned while maintaining leadership, honor, and integrity. 

Faith and hope were a significant aspect of Lindsey’s upbringing in a religious household. Every day before school, Lindsey’s mother would have the family say daily affirmations, reminding themselves that they were smart, strong, courageous, and creative. “We would be late for school because affirmations held priority over everything else,” Lindsey explains. 

Graduating college in 2009—one year after the financial crisis—Lindsey struggled to find a job. After a few years of nannying and working for a nonprofit, she eventually got her real estate license, but quickly realized this wasn’t what she wanted to do with her life. 

Ultimately, Lindsey decided to start her own business. But like most entrepreneurs, she experienced her fair share of hurdles early on. 

“I remember calling my dad and bawling my eyes out because I didn’t know what to do,” Lindsey says. 

Her father gave the advice she needed, but his closing statement was a powerful message. “If you want to do great things, if you want to make money, if you want to make changes in the world, you’re going to have to pep talk yourself because Dad won’t always be able to take your call and pep talk you when you need it.”

The message from her father changed Lindsey’s outlook on self-motivation. She says, “People can encourage us all day long, but unless we’re encouraging ourselves, we won’t overcome our boundaries. We won’t overcome our limits. We won’t overcome the things that are holding us back.”

At this point, Lindsey began writing herself pep talks on a regular basis. Her words were so helpful that she began sending them to her friends, who were also going through tough times. 

Eventually, Lindsey found a platform to mass text people 140 characters of encouragement. The list started with just ten friends but organically grew into the thousands. 

Lindsey’s bill for the texting platform went from $25 to $700 per month as the list grew. She realized that there was a big opportunity here. However, there were several problems that needed to be addressed. 

People clearly wanted to receive words of encouragement, but she had no way to monetize her subscribers using the current platform. Lindsey also has a substantial international following on social media. This global audience was unable to receive the daily text. 

Furthermore, the daily texts were only going out once per day at a specific time. But what if people needed inspiration earlier in the day? Or multiple times per day? 

To resolve these problems, the idea for the PepTalks mobile app was born.

“At the end of the day, I chose to build an app because I felt like it was sustainable. Not just for me, but also for my audience,” Lindsey says.

The app was the only way to solve all of the problems associated with her current content distribution method. Not only would she be able to monetize her subscribers, but the app would also drastically improve the user experience. 

Lindsey explains, “People could have a pep talk whenever they need it. They could have something in their pocket, login, and read some encouraging words.”

The app would also give users the ability to control the frequency of those messages. “They could sign up for as many affirmations as they wanted to come to their phones. I just felt like having an app was going to be such a better route for me and my community.”

Before finding BuildFire, Lindsey attempted to create her app elsewhere with a cookie-cutter app builder—but it did not go as planned. “I realized that this was not a good platform. There were just so many limitations and things I couldn’t do.”

After doing some more research, she decided to give BuildFire a try.

“I signed up for the free trial, and within the first three hours I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is amazing!’ I felt so comfortable moving within the platform and just confident that I could do what I needed.”

Lindsey decided to stick with BuildFire because it was so user-friendly. 

Even on the DIY plan, Lindsey still had access to BuildFire’s customer support team. In addition to using the tutorials and knowledge base articles from BuildFire University, Lindsey leaned on Gabby (a BuildFire customer support agent) for assistance.

“Gabby has just been my biggest support system in building this. Every single time I came up against a question, she was there to answer it. Hopping on Zoom calls to help me. I owe her so much because this app would not exist without her help.” 

Lindsey has taken full advantage of the features available for the app. She explains that her favorite feature is push notifications. “I think that’s why people are attracted to the app,” she says.

The PepTalks app allows users to pick and choose what types of notifications they want to receive. There are five different categories of affirmations, and three notifications within each category, for a total of 15 notifications per day. Users can sign up for as many or as little as they want. 

Moving forward, the PepTalks mobile app is providing Lindsey with limitless aspirations. 

“Ultimately, I just want to see the app continuing to inspire people.” Lindsey says that the app reaches people from all walks of life. From battling cancer to infertility or having trouble finding a job, PepTalks has given people across the world the inspiration they need to believe in themselves.

In addition to helping others, the app has been highly beneficial to Lindsey and her future endeavors. “As an entrepreneur, it’s paving the way for more opportunities, paving the way for a wider reach and a wider audience,” she explains. 

Lindsey’s ultimate goal has always been to publish a book. She believes that by having such a wide audience and global reach with her app, publishers will be more likely to give her a book deal. 

A link to Lindsey’s podcast can be found within the app as well. Overall, she’s been leveraging the app as a tool to scale her reach on multiple channels. 

Lindsey is just barely scratching the surface with what she plans to do with her app. “There’s so much room for growth within it. I have so many ideas and notes written down to add this and add that,” she explains. 

“I would definitely recommend BuildFire to somebody who has an idea out there but doesn’t have the budget for it yet or doesn’t know how an audience or their community is going to react. It’s just an easy way to get your feet wet.”