What I learned from starting ‘too soon’
Lessons from building a soul-led business on the road - before I knew what I was doing.
I started coaching—or rather showing up as a coach on Instagram—almost exactly four years ago.
At the time, my life was in total upheaval...
I was a freelancing content creator (just started that business half a year earlier),
we were about to ship our van to the US to possibly settle there (which meant moving out of our flat and putting everything into storage),
we just adopted a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog puppy two months earlier (so stressful),
I was in the middle of my training in Neuro-Embodied Soul Centering (NESC) - a somatic approach to healing and soul connection that has deeply shaped my work -
and I just held my first paid astrology readings.
I think it's easy to recognize that, IT WAS A LOT.
Uranus was dancing on my North Node in Taurus for the past year—
the pull towards finally and fully breaking free and living the life I so deeply desired was HUGE.
And so I did.
The freelancing business did not really satisfy me—I knew that before I started it.
But it was where I was experienced and felt confident to sell my services.
I've been a Social Media Manager in the past.
the leap
One day, during a short time-out in the Swiss mountains—right in the middle of the storm of change—I sat outside, face turned to the sun, and meditated.
A lightning bolt hit me: I could combine my business expertise with astrology and call myself a Holistic Business Coach.
I had studied business in my twenties.
That certification and experience helped me to feel somewhat confident.
Back then, I didn’t yet trust my astrology skills on their own, so I wrapped it in what felt safer: business expertise and past credentials.
I’ve always had a deep, intuitive understanding of astrology—but for a long time, I felt like a fraud because I hadn’t learned it in the way our culture validates knowledge.
Real inner trust was still far from embodied.
Self-confidence has been one of the major soul lessons of this lifetime—and today, consciously tended to and shaped through experience, it’s the foundation I build from.
So I entered 'holistic business coach' in the Instagram search—and found my first coach: Melissa.
Melissa’s radiance and authenticity captured me instantly.
She spoke about her work and sold with so much ease—THIS WAS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR.
Only days later I transferred 3'333 to her account for a mini business mastermind of just 6 weeks.
We didn’t learn much about how to build an online business in that mastermind—but at the time, I didn’t mind. I was lit up.
It was my first big investment into coaching—a real rite of passage. I barely knew the industry, but Melissa embodied what I craved: ease, magnetism, and doing business on her own terms.
Her story sounded so easeful and aligned, I was sure—with my fire—I could do that too.
What I didn’t realize then was that she had built a warm audience over years of showing up online. I was just starting. That gap was obvious—but unspoken. And it made all the difference.
high expectations and disillusionment
My Sag rising was on fire, so I leapt in headfirst.
I publicly announced on Instagram that I was now offering Holistic Business Coaching.
People were watching. Some even reached out.
Looking back, I see how much I messed up—and also, how much I did right.
I had tools—but no idea how to guide people into working with me.
I believed I could hit six figures within a year—because that’s what everyone online was promising.
I wasn’t willing to trade or gently build trust. I had those business-coach mantras in my head: own your value, charge your worth.
So I aimed high from the start. And in doing that, I skipped the very experiences that would’ve helped me grow.
I was serious about making it work—and to double down, I invested in another coach. A sum I’d never spend again on someone I barely knew.
I had doubts, but the online coaching bubble was loud: This is just your edge. You’re expanding. Push through.
I did.
But after two months, it was clear—she wasn’t further along than I was. She’d simply sold me an overpriced package.
And to my disappointment, she didn’t offer anything real. No tools. No depth.
I was disillusioned—but not confident enough yet to ask for my money back.
In those early months, I kept launching offers into the void—group courses, circles, a Facebook group.
I was trying everything, changing direction weekly, hoping something would land.
But I had no idea how to warm up an audience, or build the kind of alignment that leads to yeses.
I didn’t ask the right questions. I didn’t know how. So I learned by doing—and by hearing crickets.
By the time we reached the California coast, I was burnt out from trying. And that’s when the bigger lesson finally landed.
The Jupiter x Saturn Day
On a sunny day north of San Francisco in our van, parked at the side of a hill road with ocean view, my partner and I awakened to an universal truth.
It was an average day on our journey through America, where we struggled on the daily with the very practical realities of vanlife—no reliable internet, constant moving, where do we sleep next, what to do with the dogs—while dreaming of and working towardas building an empire.
It suddenly hit us: we failed on Saturn and over-relied on Jupiter.
We are both Jupiter ruled beings - Sag and Pisces rising.
So when Saturn and Jupiter met in Aquarius in late 2020—we both got a fresh wave of Jupiterian inspiration. We had big visions. But we had no idea what it really meant to bring them into reality.
Jupiter expands—but Saturn asks us to do the hard work to hold that expansion.
This is what my coaches didn’t mention—or maybe didn’t even know: that real success rarely comes from vision and luck alone.
And while we were working hard—and struggling hard—we secretly hoped it would all fall into place with ease.
It didn’t.
We were Saturn-ed.
Overextended in investments, goals and a leap over the Atlantic—we found ourselves surviving, not thriving.
A couple of months later we picked together all money we had left, lent some extra cash and shipped the van, us and the dogs back to Switzerland.
The US was an initiation.
We were challenged on all levels.
We expanded, grew, celebrated and suffered.
But in the end we returned home exhausted and financially depleted.
now seriously
In that first year of my business I had learnt so much.
I had worked with my first couple of clients.
I had 'launched' countless offers—I still put ‘launch’ in quotes because I wouldn’t call it that today
I had found at least some clarity in my work through experimenting and burning away what didn't work or feel aligned.
So when we landed in Switzerland again, I didn't give myself a day of integration.
I was so financially under water that I launched my next offer right after leaving the plane.
This time, I did it differently, with all the experience I had.
When it didn't land, I was not only exhausted, but disappointed.
Still, despite having no money left, I chose to invest again. This time in a serious business coach whose podcast I’d been binging for months: Elise.
It was an all-or-nothing decision—from the basement of my in-laws, where I was temporarily living.
I didn’t know how I’d pay her. I had a list in my iPhone Notes of people I could ask to lend me money—just in case.
And I went all in—again.
Before the Mastermind even began, I signed a client who more or less covered the investment.
Elise, I chose carefully—and she really taught me the basics of building an online coaching business. She’s got a Capricorn Moon.
I had finally learned my lesson on investing—and on what it really means to grow a business from the ground up.
the cut
Approximately a year later—still not able to live from my business income, and burdened by all that had happened—I felt more and more burnt out.
My dreams told a story of being stuck.
So one day, I listened—and made the cut.
I didn't have another plan.
But I was pregnant—and I knew I didn’t want to carry all that stress into my baby’s world.
You can read more about that time-off in my article: Why I chose to step away from the online space—and what I'm returning to now.
returning with integrated lessons
Now that I return to the online space, you might see it as a comeback.
But it isn't.
In the pause, I had returned to myself like never before.
I've been walking through the fire of initiation and I took the time to digest it. To tend the burn left by the fire.
I have integrated the lessons—and now I build on them.
I build on lived experience. I return with the confidence and clarity that was missing four years ago.
I'm not starting from zero—but from experience.
AND, I did not start too early—it was exactly the rite of passage I needed to become the coach I am today.
I needed to meet my insecurities, work through the mental barriers, find my own way of business, fine-tune my coaching and writing skills and find clarity through exploration.
It was hard.
And it was incredible.
It was the Fool in action.
I fell—and I rose from the ashes.
I haven’t expanded in audience or money. But in depth and wisdom.
And that’s a foundation I trust.
If you’ve walked through your own version of starting too soon—what did it teach you?
📸 behind the journey
A few snapshots from the season I was launching dreams from the back of a van.
