Bucketlist Bombshells Review: What it’s Like on the Inside
You know those days where you’re sitting in your cubicle staring blankly at your screen, wondering when on earth 6 pm is going to roll around? Yep… I’ve been there too. Luckily for me, I stumbled across a CNBC feature of Cassie and Shay working online whilst living in Bali and my whole life changed from there. If you’re reading my Bucketlist Bombshells review, the chances are you’re in the same boat too! 😉
At the time I had never heard of an online business, digital nomads or that you could legit be hangin’ out in Bali, sipping on a coconut whilst working online. To tell you the truth, I thought it was kinda insane! The Bucketlist Bombshells Courses helped me to see the potential I had to learn just about anything and empower me to be my own boss running my online website design business.
The complete Bucketlist Bombshells review
I’m really excited to be sharing my experience of Bucketlist Bombshells courses right now. There are a few things I did that I would wholeheartedly recommend for anyone taking the courses.
I’ve been lucky enough to meet Cassie and Shay in person in Bali and if there’s anything I gathered about them, it’s:
They’re genuinely fun, down to earth women and they want you to succeed
They’ve been working online for 6/7+ years now and really know their stuff
They have incredibly generous hearts and give back to their online community
I very often get messages sliding into my DMs, asking about how I started an online business. I hope this post helps you to make a better decision on investing in the courses. It’s a pretty big investment (trust me, I know how nerve-wracking it feels handing over the credit card deets😬!) so I want you to feel sure you’re doing the right thing!
You may have gathered, there are three courses to choose from:
The Design Skills course
The Tech Skills Course
The Work Online and Travel course
The BB courses answered all the questions I had related to running an online business. For example:
“What skills can I market online?”
“What kind of online business should I start?”
“What should I charge for a client project?”
“How do I set up contracts and payments with clients?”
“How do I find my first client?”
“What do I do after I find my first client?”
It’s all answered for you!
As I’ve done all three, here is my honest review of all the Bucketlist Bombshells online courses.
What’s inside the Design Skills course
The Design Skills course takes you from ground zero to creating a full branding suite for your clients. If you’re new to this, that’s everything including:
Choosing color palettes
Creating and refining mood boards
Getting started with Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign)
Designing custom logos
Producing brand boards and style guides
Creating marketing materials and social media graphics
That’s a pretty hefty course right?!
The Design Skills course has been absolutely fundamental for me in creating a cohesive design process for my clients. What I love most are the mini-projects to practice your skills all the way through the course and share with the course community for feedback (seriously...make the most of those projects!).
When I hopped inside Cassie’s course, I was genuinely excited to get home from work in the evening and dive into a new module. The modules have been so well organized that you never have to think about the next steps as it’s all laid out in a simple, fun, and easy-to-follow path. It’s given me all the tools to work strategically and creatively with clients.
Between the Design Skills Course and Fiona Humberstone’s How to Style your Brand book, I realized how important a strong cohesive brand is to your business.
I would personally recommend this course for anyone wanting to be a graphic designer, website designer, or work in a design-related field. If you have zero experience in design and you’re looking to start an online business whether as a social media manager or virtual assistant, knowing the fundamentals can also give you a huge boost in marketable skills.
What’s inside the Tech Skills course
Shay totally knocked it out of the park with this course. Just sayin’ .💁🏽
Inside the Tech Skills course, you’re taught how to get started and kill it in the behind-the-scenes of business operations. The techie part of running an online business is often the part that freaks people out, especially when they go to build a website.
Granted I see this often now and I’m normally the one to hold my client’s hand every step of the way. Back then, Shay simplified the website building process to a tee with design best practices.
The Tech Skills course covers everything from:
Starting out as a social media manager
WordPress website design with Weeknight Website (no coding)
How to manage a blog
The basics of setting up email marketing campaigns
Design sales pages that convert
The setup and scheduling of online webinars
… And sooo much more!
Everything about this course is practical and packed out with valuable resources that you can implement from day one. By that I mean day one of working with a client!
Becoming a Virtual Assistant or Operations Business Manager wasn’t for me. But the course nevertheless helped me to nail down the skills I needed to manage email marketing systems and business processes.
At the time of doing the course, the module on WordPress website design taught the Divi theme. There are a lot of free resources on Divi as it’s widely used amongst WordPress designers and it’s a theme that can grow with you as you start to use become more comfortable designing.
I haven’t fully dived into Weeknight Website (currently taught in the course replacing the tutorials on Divi) so I’m unable to comment on whether the experience is similar or how easy it is to market to clients.
I would recommend this course for anyone who’s a tech junkie and is looking to find remote work in social media management, WordPress website design, project management, virtual assistance, and blog management.
What’s inside the Work and Travel course
The Work Online and Travel course lays out a clear roadmap and provides a high-level strategy on how to run your online business going from clueless to rockin’ it on automation.
I didn’t even know it was possible to run a business on your laptop from anywhere in the world.
And if you’re like me and you really want the freedom to design your own lifestyle, Cassie and Shay have made this possible for you in the most easy-to-understand way possible.
The course will teach you:
How to choose your online business
Market your skills
Create a website that converts clients
Streamline your processes and client workflows
Managing your finances
Basic, starter marketing strategies to help you land your first few clients
And of course, work online while traveling the globe
The best part of the Work and Travel Course is the private Facebook group where Cassie and Shay pop in monthly to provide mentoring and answer everyone’s questions. I encourage you to make the most of this! They’re always happy to answer any q’s you have.
How to make the most of the Bucketlist Bombshells Courses
If you’re thinking about enrolling, there are three things that helped me make the most out of the courses and will help you to make your business a success.
Set up and allocate time each week for when you’ll be going through each module. It’s so easy to put it to one side. Your business success depends on you being disciplined and doing the work. I found it helps to complete a module every week and some days I was sooo into it, I ended up doing two-three modules a week!
Practice. Practice. Practice. The courses are full of student projects. Make the most of them and share them with the community for feedback.
Join a mini mastermind group. I find it super helpful to bounce ideas and strategize with fellow business owners who are going in the same direction as I am.
What else do I need to invest in my business?
I’ve been receiving a few DMs and I thought it would be useful to add this section about extra costs to think about when starting your online business. I’ll take you through what I invested in and what will also be useful for you to consider.
Laptop: You’re going to need one of these. If you’re running a business online, I recommend investing in one that’s reliable if you don’t have one already. My main consideration when buying my laptop was being able to run Adobe Suite. I tested a Macbook Pro with 8GB of memory which slowed down a lot. In the end, I chose to go with a Macbook Pro 13" upgrading the memory and processor.
This isn’t necessary for everyone, depending on the type of online business, a laptop with a lower spec might be perfect for you. But it’s helpful to consider as it’s a chunky added expense.
Approx: $1500+
Adobe Suite: If you’re doing the design skills course, you’ll need to pay for a membership after the trial ends.
Approx: $50/month
Business website: Yep you’ll need one of these too 🙂The business plan of Squarespace is $18/month when you pay annually.
If you choose to set up a WordPress website, hosting can vary in cost starting anywhere from $3/month. Be mindful that with WordPress you’ll need to invest in a theme and potentially some plugins which can add up.
Domain: This is around $10 a year unless you get a domain with a fancy ending. There are many domain providers, I use Google Domains because they didn’t have all the confusing add-ons and provided domain privacy.
CRM: To send contracts and invoices, I use Hello Bonsai paying $19/month. The course recommends Proposify to send proposals.
Stock photos: This can be free or paid, it’s up to you. Here’s a helpful blog post about some of my favorite stock photography sites.
Extra courses: Depending on the type of online business you niche down into, I found it useful to take extra courses in Squarespace and copywriting amongst others to increase my skill set. If you’re on a budget, Skillshare has some amazing resources. It’s not necessary to start but it’s something to keep in mind as you grow in your business.
Life after leaving MY 9-5
After the courses I chose to travel for a year, heading to Asia and South America, meeting the gals in Bali along the way.
One of the major hurdles I encountered was choosing the right kind of online business for me. I had originally decided to start a travel blog and become a content writer. For a while, I did WordPress website design. The beauty of being able to work online is to be able to experiment and change paths.
“Nowadays, I adore Squarespace website design where I can gracefully infuse my nerdy techie side and my inner creative serving incredible entrepreneurial women.”
I’m fully immersed in my baby-booming service-based business and the fulfilment and joy I get from serving kick-ass women running their own online businesses is something I never would have achieved in my regular 9-5.
I wake up excited to dive into client work and start my day with a short meditation. I love the friendships I’m building along the way with fellow website designers, entrepreneurs, and of course my clients.
Hopefully, my Bucketlist Bombshells review has helped you clear up some irking questions. If you’re on the fence and wondering if it’s worth it, just take a look at their success stories.
The list of people who are killing it online after taking these courses is insane.
Whether I’m in a cute cafe in Buenos Aires or in my yoga pants on my couch, the Bucketlist Bombshells have truly made a difference in my life for the better and I can’t thank Cassie and Shay enough.
