What I Built in 2025: Lessons in Building a Service-Based Business From the Ground Up
Every year around this time, the internet fills up with tidy lists of wins.
Heavy on the revenue numbers. Launches. Growth screenshots. You know the drill.
This year, I wanted to do something slightly different.
Because while 2025 did come with accomplishments I’m proud of, what matters more to me is how those things came to life — and what building them revealed about my capacity as a leader, strategist, and business owner.
So yes, this is a reflection. It’’s also a record of what happens when you trust yourself enough to create from scratch.
Warning: this is going to read very Snoop Dogg “I wanna thank me” - you know the video I’m talking about. I’m okay with that because I think we should all celebrate our accomplishments, but it isn’t really the goal. The goal is reflection & proof that I am a unicorn, a ninja in the night with tons of experience & the instincts to figure out how to do something I want done.
A Snapshot of What I Built in 2025
For context, here’s what the year held on paper:
22 clients served
A new brand I didn’t plan to create — but couldn’t ignore
Created & launched the Rooted & Relentless podcast
Created & sold-out The Rooted & Relentless Mastermind with 10 founding members
My first virtual summit talk
My first live, on-stage speaking engagement
Guest appearances on three podcasts
And a growing Instagram community of over 1,200 people
These are meaningful milestones. I actually feel a little emotional when I read them. But, they’re not the whole point.
From Personal Brand to Accidental Brand
I made a commitment at The Power Table LIVE in April to finally take the podcast I’d been talking about for years and the mastermind idea from 2024 off of the back burner and within 6 months, both were live. That’s where this story begins. That’s where all of my momentum from 2025 really began – in April.
Rooted & Relentless wasn’t a strategic rebrand. It wasn’t even part of the plan! It was a moment of honesty.
As I got closer to launching my podcast, the name I’d been holding onto for over a year stopped feeling right. Nothing was “wrong” with it — it just didn’t land in my body anymore. And I’ve learned to pay attention when that happens. I was actually very firm that sticking with my personal brand, Steph Rubio, was my plan. So the logo I had created last year? It was my name. The original podcast name? It was going to be “Grow with Steph”.
Back at the drawing board, the phrase Rooted & Relentless kept surfacing.
Rooted in where we are. Relentless about where we’re going.
It felt grounded. Earned. Lived-in. Though I still had reservations, because I’m Steph Rubio.
Rooted felt stuck, I am much more free spirited and my logo is quite literally an open box because I hate feeling boxed in. But when I kept coming back to it, I realized we can dig up roots and replant them so it doesn’t box me in at all. We just need to be rooted in our reality.
Relentless felt too harsh. Like dang, we want to rest sometimes, right? But I have always been relentless in the pursuit of whatever I set my mind to. And I surround myself with other high-achieving entrepreneurs who also are not afraid of the hustle, but we balance it by being relentless about rest and self-care.
Suddenly, I had my new podcast name. And I want to be very clear, this started as a podcast name only. I still didn’t have this big picture plan that I was developing a brand.
Where the new brand actually came to life
What surprised me most was how much evidence showed up after I named it. Things like:
I’ve been signing emails with “rooting for you” since 2024
“Relentless” is a word people have used to describe me — in business and in life — long before it became a brand. In fact, on a totally personal level, we recently hit a HUGE milestone in obtaining care and benefits we need for my disabled brother who we took over primary care of earlier this year. When I shared on Instagram, my business friend sent me a DM saying “Omg babe this is because you PUSHED this into reality!! So freaking happy to hear this.” And my reply? “Yeah, relentless is very on brand”
In hindsight, it feels obvious. At the time, it just felt true.
Once the name existed, everything else organized itself around it — the podcast, the mastermind, the messaging, the way I talk about leadership and growth.
That’s when I knew this wasn’t a campaign. It was the foundation of a movement. Whew, I have chills typing that.
Launching a Podcast With Intention
Launching a podcast is often treated like a checkbox. Creating one from the ground up is something else entirely.
I built the Rooted & Relentless podcast from the inside out — the concept, the positioning, the themes, the voice. I learned the technical side too: recording platforms, editing workflows, hosting tools, distribution. I mean I quite literally did all of the research, created the project plans, created the artwork, learned how to record an intro & outro, record & edit the episodes, load to the hosting software and push out to all of the platforms where you can actually listen.
I designed it to reflect how I actually think and work:
Strategic, but human
Grounded, but honest
Insightful without being performative
It wasn’t about chasing trends or pumping out content. It was about creating a long-form space where nuance could exist, where leadership, business growth, and real life could coexist without being oversimplified.
And I own the work of bringing this to life so proudly because it’s proof of my operational tenacity. I can solve the problem, develop a workflow, and bring an idea into reality.
And the Strategy Queen? Let me give you one tiny little example of what I mean and how that showed up into creating & launching a podcast…
When it comes time to share the podcast, you know when you see the Instagram stories “listen now”, I had to consider which link exactly I would share. People listen from all different places like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and I cannot link them all.
Hosting platforms will typically let you stand up a landing page for your podcast as a webpage you can share from. The podcast will play directly on that page and usually has links to all of the major platforms I just registered.
But whyyyyy would I link to this random page when I have my own webpage? And people landing on that website gives me love from the Google gods.
So, I built a page on my website, imbedded the RSS from the podcast onto it and linked buttons for all the major platforms people might listen. Now, every time I share one link to “listen to my podcast”, I am sharing a direct link to my website making those clicks go up, up, & up.
That is strategy. That is how I move. No one taught me this or gave me this tip. That is me proving I help clients do the same because you know I do not gatekeep this stuff. My community gets my mind.
And no, I had no idea how to grab the RSS feed. But I’m gritty and I figure sh*t out. That’s the operations background.
Building and Selling a Mastermind From Scratch
The Rooted & Relentless Mastermind was an idea I had for a community or membership since the end of 2024. As you can imagine from what I’ve already shared here, it didn’t start as The Rooted & Relentless Mastermind. It just started as an idea because a 1:1 coaching client asked me directly if it was on my goals list for 2026 because she and a few others needed a new community home.
This mastermind came from years of pattern recognition — watching where capable, service-based business owners get stuck, burned out, or boxed in by techniques that doesn't actually fit their lives.
The proud moment – I created the entire container:
The transformation and outcomes
The structure and cadence
What we’d focus on — and what we’d leave out
The client experience from first touchpoint to onboarding
I wrote the sales page. Built the messaging. Mapped the backend systems. Set up payments, onboarding, and workflows that made people feel supported.
The founding members, known as the Clarity Coven, aren’t just participants. They’re part of the DNA of this work. A reminder that when something is built with intention, the right people feel it.
Selling it out was a full body feel good accomplishment. But creating something that could hold people well mattered more.
Leadership, Visibility, and Business Growth in Real Life
This was also the year I said yes to being seen differently.
I spoke at my first virtual summit - Stand Out & Sell Out by Taylor Smith of The Power Table.
Then I led from the stage at my very first live conference, Build Your Own Brand in Mobile, AL.
I appeared on the Social Media Decoded Podcast with Michelle Thames who I also had the pleasure of meeting in person this year, and now consider a friend.
Taylor invited me back to The Power Table Podcast for a second time, making me the first ever repeat guest she had. If you missed those episodes, I got you:
Staying Resilient as an Entrepreneur When Things Don’t Always Go According to Plan w/ Steph Rubio
How to Sell Out Your Mastermind or Group Coaching Program with Steph Rubio
I made a conscious effort to meet other business owners in real rooms, not just online ones. To build relationships instead of just reach.
The 1200 Instagram followers isn’t about numbers to me. It is proof that connection compounds when you show up consistently — and honestly. When you get out of your home office and start showing up in rooms where others are also leading, morphing, and growing everything really does shift. People start taking you seriously. You become memorable. Then you become referred.
What Building This Taught Me About Leadership
This year wasn’t about doing everything alone. I have mentors and business friends I ping questions off of. I ran the podcast name by others to nail it. Taylor Smith is the reason I stuck with Rooted & Relentless as the Mastermind name reminding me that brand awareness would help avoid confusion. So when I say “alone” I don’t mean entirely alone on a remote island.
I am my own case study, not because I have all the answers, but because I’m willing to do the work — strategically and thoughtfully — before I teach it.
If there’s a theme to 2025, it’s this:
Trust compounds when creation is rooted in self-leadership and followed with relentless execution.
And I’m just getting started.
Always rooting for you,
Steph 🌱