NASA Writer to $1M Founder

Brandi Bernoskie didn’t set out to build a million-dollar business. In 2011, she was writing content for NASA and running a small blog on the side, mostly for herself.

As she taught herself to code websites and friends started asking for help, a small side project grew into something more.

A couple of key mindset shifts turned that side hustle into what is now a $1M website agency, Alchemy & Aim.

In this deep dive, we’ll explore the mindset shifts Brandi made to go from side hustler to $1 million business owner, how her focus on service helped her stand out, and why her approach directly challenges one of the other founders I’ve featured here on The Quarter.

And after studying dozens of bootstrapped businesses in the Bootstrapped Report, Brandi’s story stands out as one of the clearest examples of how to grow a healthy, sustainable company.

Let’s dive in.

Download the free Bootstrapped Report here. The data behind 64 founders who built their businesses to $250k+ in annual revenue without venture capital.

The Story of Alchemy & Aim

The Start of Alchemy & Aim

Brandi started her career working with NASA, writing articles for NASA’s website and creating content for their social media channels.

On the side of her full-time job working with NASA, Brandi ran a blog called Not Your Average Ordinary, which, as she put it, was “focused on design, style, and the inspiration surrounding us and within us.”

The blog never made much money, but it introduced Brandi to a lot of blogging friends who would later become crucial.

As Brandi got to know other bloggers, they started asking her for help, especially as she taught herself how to code her own website.

For context, this was back in 2011, when WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix were the main players in website building. Webflow was just getting started.

Brandi was getting asked to help create websites and build themes for others. She would spend hours on these projects and, as she put it, barely charged anything, sometimes only $200 for a theme.

After getting enough of these requests, Brandi decided to treat it as a real side gig. She started coding websites as a freelancer outside of her full-time work creating content with NASA.

By April of 2013, Brandi realized she could replace her full-time income with her freelance income as a website developer and made the jump.

Going from Side Gig to Full-Time Work

Brandi’s shift from treating her work as a side hustle to replacing her full-time income wasn’t perfectly smooth, but it wasn’t bad either. She had a month or two when she couldn’t pay rent, but she mentioned it was okay because she had savings and expected there might be a rocky transition.

In her first year, Brandi made about $60k in revenue. In her second year, she made about $150k.

Not a bad start.

By year three, Brandi had to make another shift, a mental one.

She was working all the time and burning herself out. She even thought about quitting freelance work altogether.

That’s when Brandi hired a business coach who helped her make a crucial mindset change. She needed to stop thinking of herself as a freelancer and start thinking like a business owner.

Brandi realized she didn’t have to do all of the work herself. She had the ability and the revenue to start hiring help.

She brought on a business assistant and two other developers to help with website projects.

That mental shift from freelancer to business owner was crucial. It is one of the biggest reasons Alchemy & Aim now generates over $1 million in annual revenue.

You Can Sell or You Can Serve

Brandi made the mental shift from freelancer to business owner, but there was still one more shift that was key to Alchemy & Aim’s growth to $1 million in annual revenue.

Brandi mentioned to me, “you can sell or you can serve” when it comes to people.

When Brandi gets on a sales call, her mindset isn’t about making a sale. It’s about how she can help.

If someone is too early for a website or doesn’t need one right now, Brandi will tell them that and help them craft a business strategy to get their first clients or grow to the point where a website makes sense.

It really helps create strong relationships, and by being in this serve mindset, she’s almost always guaranteeing a strong ROI for the customer.

As Brandi put it, she positions herself as an expert and guides people to what they actually need. A paid client might not come out of every sales call, but a lot of the time, it will naturally.

Personally, I’ve known Brandi for the last several years working with entrepreneurs (including myself!) and she’s always incredibly generous with her time, knowledge, and resources. Brandi is incredible.

The Growth Strategies of Alchemy & Aim

Relationships - Referrals

As Brandi put it, “word of mouth and referrals have always been the cornerstone of this business, and they will continue to be the cornerstone.”

If you’ve read or watched the deep dive with Kendall Cherry of the Candid Collective, you know this is the complete opposite to Kendall’s approach.

When I talked with Kendall, she mentioned she was “anti-referral” because it set bad expectations with potential clients. She also didn’t like that she couldn’t control her business growth since she couldn’t guarantee she would be top of mind for someone else.

Whether you focus on referrals or not really depends on your personal approach.

If you are upfront with potential clients and set clear expectations, referrals can work really well as Brandi has proven. It’s not to say Kendall can’t do this (she definitely can), but it can be a trickier spot as Kendall points out.

Brandi mentioned that whoever makes the referral is “conferring their trust in you to the person that they’re passing along,” which sets “a good foundation for really building a fantastic relationship and a great project together.”

When you don’t have to spend as much time building trust upfront, it makes bringing on a client a lot easier. Someone else has already done the vetting for you.

On the control side, I do see Kendall’s point that you cannot control if you are top of mind for someone else.

However, I think Brandi’s referral system is pretty systematic.

Brandi mentioned she’s an introvert (like Kendall) but she’s part of numerous mastermind and networking groups. That way, she can build referral partnerships with complementary businesses.

One example of this is the deep dive with Erin Rollenhagen, the founder of People Friendly Tech.

I actually met Erin through an intro from Brandi.

Those two referring clients to each other makes perfect sense. Erin’s team builds software and apps. Brandi’s team focuses on websites and marketing.

If you have enough of these types of partnerships in place, you can grow pretty systematically. It just takes time (years!) to build the right relationships and connections.

When it’s set up right, it really does feel like you’re growing businesses alongside your friends. As Brandi put it, “it’s a lot of fun to grow all of our businesses together.”