Melissa Lanz walked into her owner's office, told him she was done, and gave herself $2,500 and six months to figure out what came next. No business plan. No safety net. Just a commitment to her husband that if she was leaving, she wasn't going back.

That decision came after three moments hit in quick succession — a boss who didn't know she had kids after two years of working together, a husband who looked her in the eye and said "I don't like you anymore," and a final trip where she called the owner from the road and said she was done. He offered her a $75,000 raise to stay. She took it. Two weeks later, she walked back in and told him it wasn't enough.

What she built with that $2,500 was The Fresh 20 — a meal planning subscription that started at $5 a month, grew to 120,000 active subscribers, landed a HarperCollins cookbook deal, and became an eight-figure business. Her only goal at the start was to keep paying her nanny.

In this episode, Melissa takes Sarah through all of it: the three wake-up calls that forced her hand, the early years where she had no bookkeeping and no P&L but was making seven figures anyway, the hack that wiped out half a million dollars and 75% of her subscribers overnight, and why she never once considered going back to corporate — not even then.

Connect with Melissa Lanz

Website: https://www.melissalanz.com

Instagram: @MelissaBakerLanz.