If you want to be successful in business, you need to take risks.
A few years ago, I took a life-changing risk.
And today is the first time I’m finally writing about it on the blog.
When I started Chocolate Covered Katie, I never expected this to become my full-time job. My high school friends were all making blogs or Myspace pages back then, and we were doing it just for fun.
When a company contacted me about putting ads on the site, I thought their email was spam and came very close to deleting it. My blog was getting around 700 visitors per day, which I thought was a ton.
Then suddenly, Pinterest took off and changed everything.
Readers began pinning my recipes like crazy—for example, this recipe has over 1 million repins!
I was in college and in way over my head.
Traffic surges kept crashing the website, and hundreds of new reader questions and emails poured in each day.
I spent nights and weekends reading up on CSS and PHP and devoted my days to mastering aperture, F stops, and shutter speed. I was suddenly interested in subjects I’d never even thought of exploring: photography, business, computer programming?!
Interest in my actual college classes took a back seat, and my college social life swiftly dropped to nonexistent.
At the time, blogging was not a “real” job.
No one was a full-time blogger—at least, not anyone I knew.
But I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that this could really turn into something fantastic. If I didn’t take the chance to explore the opportunity, I knew it wouldn’t exist forever.
While I did initially tell readers I’d made a decision to blog full-time, there was a part I left out:
I dropped out of college to write a blog.
It sounded like such a crazy idea at the time, and there were definitely people in my real life who didn’t support my decision and were vocal about letting me know it.
But when I decide to do something, there is no talking me out of it – I wrote about this once before.
Both of my parents were supportive when I told them about my decision, but they did worry about me not having a degree, especially with the future of blogging being such an unknown.
Out of respect for them (because they seriously are the best), I went back and finished a year later online. Although I started college at Bryn Mawr and transferred to SMU in Dallas, my degree says I graduated from Penn State.
Somehow, I never seem to do anything the traditional way.
So was the risk worth it?
I love my job and get to eat chocolate every day. Definitely worth it!
Side note: If you want to read more about my college journey, you can do so here:
Chocolate Covered Katie – College Story Part 1
*For all who’ve been asking, here’s my simple tutorial for How To Start A Blog.
You’re an inspiration – thank you for being so authentic. It inspires me!
Just checked out your site, and it is beautiful! Definitely think you will have a ton of success!
Wow that sounds terrifying! I’m a new follower of your blog but I would have loved to have seen it back in the day. I’m sure you have learned so much in these years and I am impressed you taught it all to yourself.
Such a cool story — thanks for sharing. I know you’ve said you eventually ended up in Washington, DC, and I always wondered what brought you here (I’m a DC resident myself) since you can blog from anywhere (and plenty of places in the world have better weather haha). Just curious.
Has to do with a boy. I am very happy with my decision to move here! 🙂
Hi Katie! I love reading your blog every night. You have such great recipes! I was wondering, how do you create such cool dishes? Do you throw together ingredients to try to make something new, or do you use a basic recipe and tweak it? Thanks!
When I started out, I would just adapt recipes. But after a few years of baking, I started to get a feel for proper ratios of flour, salt, baking powder, etc. So mostly now, just throwing things together from scratch. I like the creativity and freedom of not following any recipe.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how do you make a blog?
thank you Katie for sharing your story and your talents!
I was wondering though, how does one make money blogging? I can understand writing and selling a book, but blogging? I mean, you give away tons of recipes, for free… And I am sure it takes time and money to develop, besides writing about it and making it and photographing it…. So, is it just from paying advertisements?
Just curious….. I see lots of great food blogs and I wonder…
Yes, just from the ads mostly… There are many other ways, such as affiliate links or ebooks, but I haven’t done any of them. I know my blog could make a ton more money if I did start doing affiliate links, but I just honestly don’t care. I’m happy the blog makes enough money to support me, but my main goal in blogging is to have fun, not to make a ton of money 🙂
I sure am glad you took the risk Katie. I enjoy your blog very much and have made many of your recipes a part of a balanced, healthy, energizing diet for me and my husband. The treats and meals you make are so delicious he doesn’t even recognize they are “lite”, more nutritious options. Keep up the amazing work!!
I loved reading this! I remember somewhere that you said you live in DC, is this still true? I live right outside of there!
It is still true! At least for this month… 🙂
Wow I never knew this about you! Good to know 🙂
And may I say I think you are really very inspirational woman! 🙂