Startup coaching for when life changes the plan
Maybe a job ended. Maybe caregiving for aging parents or young kids rewrote your schedule. Maybe a second job just isn’t the answer. Whatever put you here, I help you start a side hustle that fits your real life — and I coach you through it, or we can build it for you, so you’re not building it alone.
The squeeze
A note from Mark
“I got thrown into it too — suddenly needing flexible income and a business that worked around my life. What I really needed was someone to call when it got overwhelming. That’s what I am for you: not agency polish, just someone a few steps up the same road, in your corner.”
— Mark Stiles
The cost-of-living squeeze
Rent, groceries, childcare, eldercare — the math gets brutal fast, and a second job costs you the time you don’t have. A side hustle can be the income stream that closes the gap, on your schedule.
The bridge
For this generation, starting a business often isn’t a dream — it’s the mechanism that makes a new income possible. It replaces the job you had to leave, or adds the income insurance never covers, and it can be built to flex around the people who need you.
That intersection is where I coach. Not “small business” in the abstract. A business shaped around your real life.
Start where you are
Wherever this caught you — the caregiving side, or needing a flexible side hustle, work-from-home income, or a small business that fits around caring for a parent — there’s a place to start. Both lead to the same conversation.
You’re overwhelmed by caring for your parents and the money side is starting to scare you. Start with the caregiving and money guidance, then we build the income plan together.
Maybe you were laid off, you’re home with young kids and daycare would cost more than you’d bring in, or you need work-from-home income that bends around appointments, school pickups, and emergencies. Start with the business path and the exact lean tool stack I coach you to use.
The coaching
No giant course to grind through. Just focused time with someone who has built businesses, navigated the messy middle, and can help you make the next right decision.
We talk through your situation — your goals, money, the business idea — and see if coaching is the right fit. No pressure.
A single strategy session, a multi-hour starter block, or an ongoing monthly block — sized to where you are.
Offer, website, tools, lead path, and a launch plan that fits around your life. You leave each block with a clear next move.
From problem to plan
Good, better, best
Start with one focused session, or have me build it with you. You choose how far we go.
Why Mark
This isn’t theory. It’s pattern recognition from decades of building businesses, websites, and audiences across very different industries.
Healthcare marketing leadership, IT business development, live performance and media, and hands-on website builds in WordPress, Elementor, and SEO. Plain-English guidance from someone who has built systems, fixed messy setups, and explained hard choices to non-technical owners — and who understands the caregiving side from real life, not a brochure.
Rather I just build it?
Coaching is the heart of what I do. But I’m also hands-on. If you’d rather I build the website, fix your local listings, or get you found in AI search, I’ll do it with you — one person who actually knows your story, not an agency you become a ticket number at. Works for any small business, in any niche.
Fast, clean, conversion-focused websites and one-page lead sites in WordPress.
Get found in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews & Perplexity with AI-ready, schema-rich pages.
Google Business Profile and local listings cleaned up so customers find and trust you.
Strategy and tool-stack sessions for owners who’d rather learn it and run it themselves.
Free guide
Get the free starter guide for building a caregiving-compatible business — the lean order of operations, the tools that matter, and what to do in your first 30 days.
No spam. Just genuinely useful help, and the occasional note when coaching openings come up.
Common questions
Caregivers who need income that fits their life. That’s the sandwich generation caring for aging parents — and stay-at-home parents who can’t afford daycare and need to earn while home with their kids. Same squeeze, same answer: a side hustle that funds and flexes around the people you care for.
Absolutely. If daycare would eat most of what you’d earn and you need flexible income from home, you face the same challenge my aging-parent clients do. The coaching, the lean tool stack, and the work-from-home business path are exactly the same.
Both — because for this audience they’re the same problem. The money pressure of caregiving is exactly what makes a flexible business necessary.
The most flexible path is usually a lean, work-from-home business or side hustle you control. Government programs (Medicaid, VA) can sometimes pay you to caregive, but they rarely replace a full income. Coaching helps you build flexible income on top of, or instead of, those programs.
Yes — and starting lean is the point. Coaching helps you turn your existing skills into a simple offer, a basic website, and a 30-day plan without overspending on tools you don’t need yet.
It starts with a free discovery call. From there you work in blocks of coaching hours — from a single session to an ongoing monthly block — to organize your offer, website, tools, and launch plan.
No. Coaching is educational and strategic. It does not replace legal, tax, financial, insurance, accounting, or licensed professional advice.
Let’s talk
Book a free call and let’s map a business that funds the care, fits your life, and gives you back a little control.
One coach for the sandwich generation — helping GenXers build a side hustle that funds and flexes around real life — caregiving, kids, a layoff, or just wanting more than one paycheck. Based in Lansing, MI.
Coaching is educational and strategic in nature. It does not replace legal, tax, financial, insurance, accounting, healthcare, or licensed professional advice. Some resources and tools mentioned may include affiliate links for products I personally recommend.