Yes. There I said it! “Being a Solopreneur Trying to Run a 2025 Digital World Is EXHAUSTING!”
Get This.
One day recently… poof.
ALL my audio disappeared from my website.
Which, for a professional talk radio host, is like a pilot walking onto the runway and discovering the plane is missing.
For the most part, I’ve pretty much had a handle on most of the digital tools myself:
• Web hosting
• Audio hosting
• Newsletter hosting
• Plug-ins
• Social media basics
• Cockatoo for transcriptions that save me a boatload of hours
• ChatGPT to summarize my long-winded… Debservations
• Gamma to build decks
• Pixabay for photos
• And yes, I am even building a web store to try and sell some products—maybe someday—God willing.
It’s a lot. But I’m hanging in there.
However, the missing audio from my website put me over the edge.
This humongous problem set off what I now call …
My Great American Customer Service Tour of 2025.
Side note: In most cases, you can never speak to a customer service human. All customer service communication takes place virtually via email, no matter how hard you beg. And I begged.
Here’s how the tour went over the course of THREE WEEKS to try and solve my disastrous missing-audio problem.
Stop #1: My talented part-time web gal who will happily ‘talk’
She tried EVERYTHING. Truly. Meaningful effort.
But she couldn’t possibly have known the silent assassin lurking inside my hosting account.
Stop #2: GoDaddy
Lovely. Sweet. Helpful.
Except — “Sorry, Debbie, we’ve checked and updated everything but can’t actually go inside and try and FIX your problem.”
Great. Wonderful. (Bring me wine.)
Stop #3: Libsyn (my 10-year audio hosting platform)
Also lovely. Insightful. Supportive. Terrific suggestions as to what might be wrong, but also unable to go inside my site and fix what had to be fixed.
(Maybe I should start smoking weed?)
Stop #4: WP RSS Aggregator
Equally lovely.
But accidentally part of the problem because my web gal installed it when she tried to solve the original audio problem—but since I didn’t actually need it, it was confusing the issue and causing a bigger problem.
(I moved on to inhaling carbs.)
Stop #5: Fiverr and Farooq — a five-star legend
At this point, I was weak. Vulnerable.
(Buttering Italian bread and ripping through bags of rippled potato chips.)
The kind of frustration where you Google, “Can stress cause eyelids to twitch for 17 days?”
So I turned to Fiverr — a glorious global bazaar of digital geniuses — and hired a guy with five-star reviews located in…Pakistan.
I had to trust him with ALL my passwords.
ALL my access.
ALL my online dignity.
I had to risk it.
Fiverr — for the blessed handful who haven’t needed it yet — is basically the global answer to “HELP!” But digital. And fast. And from people in 700 different categories who can magically fix, create, repair, design, build, rescue, translate, transcribe, animate, edit, or otherwise perform the miracles your morning coffee can’t.
The Diagnosis
Within minutes, Farooq — bless this man — found:
1) My hosting platform, when I switched recently, was not the correct “c-something” version I needed to be on.
Apparently, this version was the command center that controlled whether my plug-ins would even SPEAK to my audio hosting platform.
No one in the U.S. noticed this.
Not one person.
I, of course, didn’t even know this version existed.
2) My website storage was FULL.
Like a digital garage packed with old bicycles and mystery boxes.
Nothing was going to work until that was fixed. Nobody else picked that up
3) Finally there was ONE WRONG LINK blocking my audio from my site.
Single.
Rogue.
Link.
Fixing this final link got me back in business.
The Emotional Breakdown Portion of the Story
Weeks.
WEEKS of stress.
Imagine trying to run a professional talk radio show…
without the talk.
Try making deals, promoting content, creating features, growing sponsors, or sounding like a real media human when… all your audio has evaporated like a Snapchat.
It was torture.
But Farooq?
He fixed the whole thing.
Calmly.
Quickly
With ZERO language barrier. When I asked him how he got so good at communicating in English, he said, “People like you taught me.” Wow.
So, Here’s My Solopreneur Wisdom Suggestion of the Week:
When seriously in need… maybe bow to the global talent pool.
Your hero might be 10 hours ahead of you in a foreign country and named Farooq.
We solopreneurs are scrappy, resourceful, creative, determined, caffeinated creatures — but sometimes the smartest thing we can do is hire a genius at what they do – who might be right next door or could be be halfway across the world. Someone who understands our panic and fixes what nobody else can see.
Thus today…
I’m sending a HIGH FIVVER to Farooq in Pakistan!
And a virtual tray of Italian meatballs.
Honestly, I would’ve mailed him an actual tray of Italian meatballs as a thank you if I could figure out how to get customs clearance.
Farooq, if you’re reading this — thank you for resurrecting my digital life and for being so lovely to work with. And for being so trustworthy with my most private problems. LOL
And to every entrepreneur out there drowning in plug-ins, subscriptions, hosting platforms, and mystery error codes?
You’re not alone.
And somewhere out there… your Farooq is waiting.
Best!
Debbie
