What if making your business more accessible also made it more successful? This week on Hello Chaos, Jennifer Sutton sits down with Angela Fowler, CEO of Real Life Access, to explore the intersection of accessibility, technology, and business growth. Angela shares her entrepreneurial journey as a blind founder, breaking down the misconceptions about accessibility, the benefits of inclusive design, and why businesses need to shift from compliance-based thinking to real-world solutions. From overcoming imposter syndrome to debunking the myths around website accessibility, Angela’s insights are invaluable for any entrepreneur looking to create a business that truly serves all customers.
Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ Accessibility is a Business Advantage
Making your website and business accessible isn’t just about compliance; it enhances SEO, improves user experience, and opens the door to a larger audience.
2️⃣ DEI Done Right
Angela shares how businesses can foster genuine inclusivity through merit-based hiring and cultural accessibility, rather than ticking diversity checkboxes.
3️⃣ The Power of Teaching
True change happens when businesses learn how to be accessible, not just why. Angela's mission is to educate and empower, ensuring accessibility becomes second nature.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Hello Chaos
01:29 Angela's Journey into Technology
04:10 The Importance of Accessibility
10:05 From Partnership to Independence
14:39 Diversity Done Right
17:39 Barriers to Accessibility Investment
19:37 Understanding Accessibility and Its Importance
22:21 The Journey of Entrepreneurship
25:19 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome
28:51 The Power of Patience in Business
30:02 Manifesting Future Success
34:49 Connecting with Angela Fowler
🔗 Learn more about Real Life Access:
Website: https://reallifeaccess.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/real-life-access/
Twitter: https://x.com/RealLifeAccess
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RealLifeAccess1982/videos
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:01.553)
Well, hello and welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic lives and minds of founders, entrepreneurs and innovators. Each week I have the great privilege to speak with founders across the spectrum, founders from different industries at different stages, company stages, from startups to mature businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our listeners get to hear the real, the raw, the unvarnished stories.
getting incredible insights on what it takes to start and scale a business or become a better founder, CEO and business leader. Today on our podcast, have Angela Fowler. She is the CEO of Real Life Access. Angela, welcome to the chaos. Welcome to Hello Chaos. How are you doing?
Angela Fowler (00:47.982)
I'm doing well. Thank you for having me
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:52.145)
Well, very good. so excited. I've been looking forward to this podcast. You're actually one of our first ones with the disability of sight. know, yeah, like we one of our missions is, you know, diversity and inclusivity of entrepreneurs from all, like I said, all spectrums. And I'm excited that you're on to to tell your story. So why don't you start us out?
Angela Fowler (01:01.241)
wow, pearl boys and all that,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:21.725)
Tell us what inspired you, how did you get into starting your own company and what you do.
Angela Fowler (01:29.289)
Well, so I mean if it if it isn't obvious I'm totally blind Which means that I can't see a darn thing never could So throughout it and I wasn't I'm not a digital native I'm dating myself here, but I got into technology in the internet when I was a teenager You know the late 90s So and back then things were
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:37.149)
You
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:50.833)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (01:59.136)
a lot simpler, but I sound like one of those people. Back in my day, things were so... my goodness, I did not want to start off this way. I can just feel the teenage eye rolls right now. You know, you don't even need to see to detect a teenage eye roll. It's all about context. But as I...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:00.241)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:05.137)
That's right. I date myself quite a lot on this podcast. that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:15.42)
You
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:21.543)
That's right, that's right.
Angela Fowler (02:28.384)
As the internet got more complicated and coding techniques became more advanced, I started to come across things that weren't accessible. So I try to do something online like pay a bill or whatever the thing is. And I couldn't do it because my screen reader wouldn't work with the website. Now, let me back up here because a lot of people don't know what a screen reader is. A screen reader is a software program that reads the screen to blind people.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:49.713)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (02:57.486)
And some sighted people, you know, I think if more people were aware of screen readers, more sighted people would use them because not everybody is 100 % visual.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:08.081)
Right, I think I'm one of those people I have to put on readers and feel like magnifiers to read my computer screen.
Angela Fowler (03:15.5)
Yeah, well, what some people do is that when they're reading long documents, they just turn on a screen reader. And if they have a good voice, it's actually better than reading it with their eyes. But the screen reader reads, and in order for a website to work with a screen reader, has to, quite frankly, it needs to be coded properly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:28.978)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:40.445)
Correct.
Angela Fowler (03:41.398)
And a lot of websites aren't people, people code for aesthetics alone and they take shortcuts when it comes to functionality. and that used to really frustrate me. I, and I, you know, I spent a lot of time in the blindness advocacy movement, right? This is the civil rights, civil rights group for blind people, basically. And, know, advocacy is important, but the problem with these groups is they, they, they often instill what I call a minority mindset.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:45.851)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:10.461)
Mm.
Angela Fowler (04:11.834)
which is really a victim mindset. People are discriminating against me. Society is discriminatory and this and that. But that's not helpful. It's not a helpful way to approach life. But I got caught into that, caught up in that, and I was an angry blind woman there for a while. But in 2021, I got what I call the job that changes everything.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:19.473)
Hehehe
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:32.21)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:37.981)
This was your ah-has. This was an aha.
Angela Fowler (04:39.502)
This is my aha. This is it. So I got a job working with sighted people that were, you know, web designers, developers. I was the only blind person in the thing that were working on the Department of Veterans Affairs website. And, you know, there's a VA and then there's, you know, about 20,000 contractors that work for the VA. Eventually you forget who's working for whom.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:02.845)
Right?
Angela Fowler (05:07.808)
But we're all trying to accomplish the same thing. And my job was to teach these designers and developers how to make things accessible, how to code things so that, not just so the screen readers work, but so that people with all disabilities can use it. Because accessibility isn't all about blindness. There's a lot of other concerns that you need to take into consideration.
And as I'm working with these folks, and they had varying degrees of knowledge of accessibility from clueless to knowing more than I do, I realized they all want to do the right thing. They all want to make the world more accessible for people with disabilities. Oftentimes they just don't know what the right thing is. In fact, I've had people who were initially resistant to accessibility once I showed them.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:41.789)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:54.503)
Right.
Angela Fowler (06:02.668)
what a screen reader is and what it does and explain to them why it's so important to be accessible, light bulb went on. And those folks ultimately became my strongest allies. So that really made an impression on me because these people aren't trying to discriminate against anybody. just, I just don't know what the, you know, if you're never exposed to something,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:18.055)
Very good, yeah.
Angela Fowler (06:32.674)
How are you supposed to know about it? The advocates will say, well, the ADA, this and this. OK, the ADA says you need to be accessible or you might get sued. But the ADA does absolutely nothing to tell you how to get accessible. The ADA doesn't tell you the real life benefits of accessibility. And most importantly, the ADA doesn't tell you that if your business is accessible,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:35.281)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:43.421)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:49.489)
Right.
Angela Fowler (07:02.348)
you will make more money. So the ADA basically just threatens you and really the way the ADA is.
It is. It is. And it's caused a lot of resentment between the disabled community and the business community.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:16.795)
It's like a fear. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:25.757)
Yeah, well yeah, because I mean we build website and a lot of times we have to, you know, we have to build it through the accessible, you know, the ADA framework. But you're right, it's like, you know, our web designers, our user, you know, the UI and the UX people, there is that battle of, this is gonna hurt our SEO or this is, and I think if,
Angela Fowler (07:36.91)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:54.299)
more people are exposed to the why and it's like there are benefits to it if you make a very accessible user experience for all humans.
Angela Fowler (08:04.714)
And did you know that coding accessibly, coding using semantic HTML, is basically the bedrock of accessible design, using alt text that describes images, all the things that I tell you to do to make your website accessible actually improves your SEO score. Because the search engine reads a website like a screen reader does. It's software.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:13.339)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:21.597)
you
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:30.363)
Yeah, that's a different perspective right there. mean, just saying that, like the search engine is not just, you we always hear spiders and bots, but it's like, they're reading it like a screen reader, no different of what you need to do for people with disabilities.
Angela Fowler (08:35.648)
and
Angela Fowler (08:47.372)
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, people don't know that because the advocates don't oftentimes, and I'm not saying all of them, but I'm gonna get in trouble eventually. But they de-emphasize that message in favor of, you know, ADA, discrimination, this and this. And, you know, what does that do except
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:54.32)
you that.
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:08.133)
Right, we're gonna find you if you don't do this. Yeah.
Angela Fowler (09:15.628)
just make businesses not want to deal with disabled people. You know, what does that accomplish? What the heck are we doing here? So I want to be a productive part of the solution. I want to teach businesses.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:19.057)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:24.891)
Right, right.
Angela Fowler (09:33.926)
A, the real life benefits to real life people. Do know 25 % of people have some disability? You don't know that because most disabilities are invisible and everybody tries to be normal. Nobody wants to be different. Well, except me. I am not normal in any way, shape, matter or form. I am a woman who likes to drink beer and watch football. There's nothing normal about me.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:48.423)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:56.285)
I'm done.
there he-
So did you start then real life access coming from that experience on that team?
Angela Fowler (10:14.392)
I did, but first I launched a business in 2022 called Pure Access and it was a partnership. We overcomplicated things. Folks, no ship sinks faster than a partnership.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:27.495)
Yeah.
We've heard that before on the show.
Angela Fowler (10:33.138)
You can have joint ventures until the cows come home. You can collaborate and this and this. But when you get into a legal, when you actually share ownership of your company and the partners are pulling in different directions, it is a rough, hard break.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:48.861)
Not everybody's on the same page, yeah. So that's what happened. Was it just like you and a, was it a friend? Was it somebody, we've even had founders that have been like done a matchmaking with to find their partner. And it's just, it's interesting to watch that journey of, you know.
Angela Fowler (10:54.258)
Yeah, yeah.
Angela Fowler (11:11.766)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:11.771)
trying to get that mate and then we've had others that are like, this person was my, like we were, we thought we were on the same page until we got into business and that became, we had very different viewpoints of how to run a business.
Angela Fowler (11:19.874)
you
Angela Fowler (11:26.606)
And I think I can, I can tell you what happened without, you know, making it sound like, you know, the blind and the foolish or, you know, days of our blind people. as I and my other co-founder were moving away from the traditional advocacy methods.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:40.871)
Yeah
Angela Fowler (11:55.734)
our other partner was moving deeper into them. And, you know, so one thing led to another and the business broke up in December of 2022. I spent a couple months licking my wounds and, you know, and that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:59.61)
Okay.
Angela Fowler (12:18.454)
And then I started to build the foundation for real life access because I realized, you I don't want partners, I want advisors. You need to surround yourself with advisors who will make up for your shortcomings, tell you when you're full of it. You need people that'll tell you the honest truth about things, right? Even if the truth is annoying, you need to, you know, people don't...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:27.003)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:39.655)
That's right. That's right.
Angela Fowler (12:45.954)
People tend to go easy on blind people when it comes to things like visual presentation. But that doesn't help either because we need to...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:52.188)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (12:58.102)
We need to make sure that we have that covered one way or the other. You know, oftentimes it involves outsourcing it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:08.689)
Right.
Angela Fowler (13:12.268)
You know, if you're not good at something, outsource it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:14.961)
That's right, absolutely. So, the partnership of the disillusion of the partner, was that like your biggest shit moment or have you now that you've been running your own company and working that, have you hit any barriers or challenges that you weren't expecting that you've overcome or was the removal of partners, was that the biggest one?
Angela Fowler (13:42.222)
You know, it's the only thing, and I think this is normal. It's taking a while for the business to really gain traction. You know, we need that initial point of entry into the market. I don't know from where it's going to come. I feel like once it does, it will be sort of like opening the floodgates. But we've got a number of initiatives. I've got a coaching program for accessibility professionals.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:01.125)
Yes, yeah.
Angela Fowler (14:10.67)
I've got a coaching program for small businesses. We're coming out with a course called Hiring for Champions. It's gonna come out in a couple months and it's basically diversity done the right way.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:23.697)
Nice. What is that perspective when you say diversity done the right way? And especially with our environment, business environment is moving away from DEI type of initiative and diversity initiatives. How are you entering into this space?
Angela Fowler (14:36.248)
Mm-hmm.
Angela Fowler (14:39.818)
If you combine an accessible company
you know, top to tail accessible with a merit based hiring system, then you've got a place where people with disabilities can compete on an equal playing field. And then you recruit where people with disabilities hang out, right? I mean, there's the, you know, career fairs that attract people with disabilities, there's job boards, there's, you know,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:49.277)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:05.234)
Right.
Angela Fowler (15:13.004)
Of everybody's on Lincoln, disabled or not. you know, it's, yeah, DEI didn't help. In fact, DEI just made things worse. I'll explain.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:31.121)
Yeah, like I'd love to hear that perspective, yeah.
Angela Fowler (15:34.568)
If you hire somebody because they're blind Or if you if you lower the standards Then you're hiring somebody for a job that they they may not be qualified You can set them up for failure, right? Right, and there is nothing more soul-crushing than being a dei hire and and
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:48.327)
They're going to fail. Absolutely. Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:56.603)
Yeah, or order even if you weren't if you had the feeling that other people are viewing you as one. Yeah.
Angela Fowler (16:01.026)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (16:05.3)
Exactly Exactly the What it does to you psychologically You know you you get to a point where you're you lose your drive you lose your motivation Yeah, DEI is
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:20.145)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (16:27.104)
is going away and thank God it is because it's just, it's... A lot of the DEI people have good intentions, but they're misguided.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:37.307)
Yeah, or we just need to reframe it to go, the idea of it wasn't bad, it was just how it was, like I said, the quotas, to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive and welcoming and accessible environment is not a bad thing. It's a good thing.
Angela Fowler (16:47.824)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (16:58.546)
No, it's a good thing. I think, you know, everybody agrees, whether you're the, whether you're way over there on the left or you're, you know, you've been MAGA for, you know, you were MAGA when MAGA wasn't cool. Everybody agrees that having people from different backgrounds is a good thing. everybody agrees that accessibility is a good thing. Nobody's going to say accessibility is a bad thing.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:12.475)
Right here.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:26.139)
Right. Let's hope. Yeah.
Angela Fowler (17:28.362)
There's so many misunderstandings that get between us and the actual implementation of accessibility.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:35.345)
Yeah, like what do you feel is the biggest barrier to that?
Angela Fowler (17:39.66)
I'm going quote my son, my 18 year old son, he's fully sighted, and if there's one person on the planet that'll tell me the stone cold truth whether I want to hear it not, it's him. So I asked him, absolutely, absolutely, I tell people he's my harshest critic because he's my biggest fan. So I asked him, why do you think people don't invest in accessibility? And he goes, because they don't have the time and they don't have the money.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:41.361)
Okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:50.395)
Of course, that's the beauty of children.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:58.621)
That's right.
Angela Fowler (18:10.174)
What I like to do is I like to say, okay, if you're on a budget, then let's go with a harm reduction approach. Let's fix the most egregious things first. And let's start with something concrete, like your website. You know, I always start interviews talking about people's website because that's where I came from. I came from the digital space.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:35.815)
Right, but also it's a company's, it's their storefront, it's their digital resume.
Angela Fowler (18:43.118)
Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's their culture.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:48.124)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (18:49.26)
How do you respond when a blind person walks into your store?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:55.249)
Right. And how do you want the search engines to acknowledge that?
Angela Fowler (18:56.572)
And.
Angela Fowler (19:03.054)
So, you know, I call it cultural accessibility. Basically, how does your company handle difference? Is difference ordinary? That's where you want to be. You want to be somewhere where difference is ordinary. So verbalizing content on your slides and meetings becomes second nature.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:29.143)
is yeah how are people reacting when you do that when you say those things
Angela Fowler (19:37.25)
You know, it's really thought provoking for people because they never were exposed to it. They never heard it phrased this way before. People know the ADA exists, but people don't know A, what people with disabilities are truly capable of. And they don't know B, the actual steps that they can take to make their business accessible. They just don't know. It's a knowledge problem. is not, it is not, I'm gonna,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:39.578)
It is.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:46.887)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:58.855)
Right.
Angela Fowler (20:05.72)
Shout it from the rooftops. It is not a discrimination problem in the great majority of kids. And you know, every once in a you're going to run into a jerk. I'm not, yeah, yeah, the majority of people just don't know or they've got other priorities and they don't realize how beneficial accessibility is.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:13.681)
Right, but that's not the majority. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:25.371)
Right, they gotta know the benefits, but I think you're right, it's just the lack of exposure.
Angela Fowler (20:31.459)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:33.373)
What is something as you have kind of gone through this journey of of Foundership and entrepreneurship? What's been the most rewarding aspect of it?
Angela Fowler (20:48.44)
teaching people.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:50.727)
seeing the light bulbs go off.
Angela Fowler (20:52.298)
Yeah, yeah, I believe I believe I'm a born teacher I can audit your website I can fix it But if I if I teach you How to make your own website accessible then it'll be accessible forever Because once people see that truth, they don't unsee it. I Had a co-worker when I worked with the VA
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:16.922)
century yeah.
Angela Fowler (21:20.13)
She came to my office hours. We had an accessibility office hours every week. And she goes, man, I was looking at this Disney app on my husband's phone. And I'm like, there's no way that's accessible. And she's like, see what you did? Now I can now I think about accessibility every time I do something.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:37.735)
That's right. Isn't that crazy?
Now, now come on Disney, step up the game. Is there...
Angela Fowler (21:45.644)
Yeah. It's supposed to be the happiest place on earth, but if you can't access that happiness, you're going to be sad. You know, come on, Disney. You don't want to make disabled people sad, do you? You're supposed to make everybody happy.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:54.373)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:58.589)
That's right.
Because if you go, but you're right, you go on their site, it's a very accessible park. It's one of the most, you know, well, except for maybe some of the rides, I guess. Safety negative one. What do you think is...
Angela Fowler (22:13.385)
Yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:21.777)
The biggest myth of running a business, starting a business, that you either thought going into it that you were like, that's a bunch of bullshit. You wanna debunk it. Have you run into any of that? Did you have any of that going in?
Angela Fowler (22:39.552)
that business is gonna just start coming. You have to get out in front of people. And you have to, even now, even now, I was showing my website to a friend who has some, you know, some, business experience. You know, he does business to business stuff as well. And so, you know, take a look at my website and tell you what, tell me what you think. And this is another brutally honest person in my life.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:42.705)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:09.521)
Gotta have them. You got-
Angela Fowler (23:09.934)
You know, yeah, you need to surround yourself. Do not, do not exist in an echo chamber. It might feel good in the moment, but it will bite you in the buttuski.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:16.882)
No.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:22.439)
That's right. I always tell people too, it's like, you know, I can help others really, really well and see all the gaps and the friction and somebody else. But it's really hard to do it sometimes for yourself, especially when it's like telling your story with clarity, you know, whether it's on your website or in your materials. We are too close to it. We're too close to it.
Angela Fowler (23:45.774)
Yeah So this guy looks at my website. He calls me back and he goes Angela I looked at your website. I looked at everything on your website, and I still don't know what you do
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:58.269)
Yeah, and he's, we're too close to it, Angela. We have to, that's right. And you're like, wait a minute, but I do these things.
Angela Fowler (24:01.166)
That's a problem. Honestly, if you don't know, if he doesn't know what I do, how the heck do I expect anybody else to know what I do? Because this guy should know what I do.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:13.51)
Right.
So what did you do with that? you challenge like how do I tell my story with a little bit more clarity? Did you have somebody else do that for you? How did you handle that?
Angela Fowler (24:25.55)
Well, a combination of both. So I changed a lot of the text on the website to highlight exactly what I do and to highlight the service offerings. And I'm also working with somebody to enhance the visual design of the website so that when a sighted person looks at it, that information is more, well, I'm going to say it, more accessible.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:54.417)
Yeah, yeah. Do you have to have like your, the frame, the frame set?
Angela Fowler (24:59.694)
Mm-hmm.
So it's a problem that is getting fixed. you know, it's just, you know, no wonder I don't have any, you know, no wonder I'm struggling to get clients. Nobody knows what I do. You know, it's obvious to me.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:16.594)
Right.
What keeps you up at night?
Angela Fowler (25:23.544)
Hmm.
Angela Fowler (25:27.554)
Feeling like I'm not good enough. Feeling like I, you know, I'm not...
You know, I think we all have little bit of imposter syndrome.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:38.351)
Yeah, it happens, all of us. It is a common theme.
How do you get over that? Like what are you doing to, I've had to go through like a, you know, self-reflection, just like build my own confidence. Have you gone through any of that? you know, self-discovery, confidence building, any kind of disciplines or routines that you've had to put in place to kind of overcome that?
Angela Fowler (26:04.878)
Thank
Angela Fowler (26:10.208)
A lot of it, and there's a couple things, a lot of it is you gotta reflect on past successes. You gotta reflect on past wins. But a critical part of doing this is figuring out what you're good at, figuring out what you're just okay at, and figuring out what you stink at. Because you wanna spend most of your time doing the things you're good at.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:15.581)
Mm-hmm.
Angela Fowler (26:36.718)
And you want to spend some of the time doing the things you're okay at and then you we all got to do things we're not good at but Where possible you want to outsource that stuff? I mean I source visuals every chance I get I I had I Thought I was so clever a few weeks ago. I had chat GPT draw me an image and What I wanted her to dread to draw was
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:46.589)
That's right.
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:57.501)
you
Angela Fowler (27:04.756)
a blind woman sitting at a computer looking frustrated because she couldn't access the website and there was like thought bubbles like man this would be so easy if it was accessible. I don't know what delusions chat GPT is operating under but I got this blind lady that looked like Gollum.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:15.581)
All
Angela Fowler (27:28.238)
And what a night.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:29.991)
Did you send that was it? Did you give it to your son to go, this is what I asked. Here's what came out.
Angela Fowler (27:32.909)
Well, no, not him I had somebody else look at it and she's like no no Angela you you are scaring away your customers with this image It's really catchy I wanted you know
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:49.159)
You're like...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:53.351)
Yeah, Acheche has not advanced itself where it needs some human oversight. You've gotta have the editor. It needs an editor.
Angela Fowler (28:00.246)
Yeah, it needs it needs sight. Yeah, so, you know, that little that little hack won't work for now. But yeah, I have I have somebody that, you know, if I need an image and, you know, this person intuitively gets me she knows, you know, she knows what I, you know, my personality and what I'm about. So.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:25.169)
gotta have that.
Angela Fowler (28:25.932)
You know have to surround yourself with a good team of people who a know you? B see your vision that was the problem in two thousand and twenty two one of the partners do did not truly see our vision and see Aren't afraid to tell you the unvarnished truth whether you want to hear it or not
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:42.737)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:51.261)
That's right. And that needs to be, especially if you're in a partnership, that needs to be across the board, like on all sides. They should be able to be just as coachable and approachable to all feedback. Can't just be one person. So if you had to sum up your entrepreneurial journey in one word, what would that word be?
Angela Fowler (28:53.998)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (29:06.807)
Absolutely.
Angela Fowler (29:17.077)
Come back.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:18.631)
Come back. All right, why? Why that word? Yeah.
Angela Fowler (29:20.204)
heard the Zac Brown song, The Comeback. The only thing good about getting knocked down is the comeback when it comes back around. That was my theme song in 2003.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:28.647)
Nice. That's your theme song. I love it. You know, we ask hundreds of founders, if not like almost a thousand, we've never gotten a repeat word, even though we have the same themes of our challenges and stuff, but we all have a different word for our journey. I love it. That's right. That's right. Okay, now next chapter.
Angela Fowler (29:50.286)
for you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:56.445)
Moving forward, your future chapter, what is that word? What defines?
Angela Fowler (30:02.03)
Ooh, that's harder.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:04.271)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (30:10.422)
expansion.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:11.943)
There we go. Time to grow.
Angela Fowler (30:14.53)
Yep, I wanna get in front of more people.
Let people know about my offerings and really, gosh, start teaching accessibility.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:27.933)
Yeah, the benefits of accessibility. All right, so if we met a year from now, Angela, and I took you out for beers over football, what would we be celebrating?
Angela Fowler (30:39.022)
The fact that I will have quit my day job I have a six-figure coaching business that supports not only itself, but me and That if I need to if I want to go up to Lake Tahoe for a weekend I can do that and if I have a Session or a meeting that's fine. I can just conduct it from there
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:03.933)
There you go. Freedom and money. Success, expansion. All right, we're manifesting it. We're putting it out in the universe. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. Is there a piece of advice? I know you've given some really good insights and advice. Is there another piece of advice that you were given by another founder, an entrepreneur that you were like, ooh, I took that to heart?
Angela Fowler (31:07.309)
Yep.
Angela Fowler (31:13.635)
There you go.
Angela Fowler (31:32.898)
Well, actually it was the last thing I wanted to hear at the time, he said be patient.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:38.621)
Yeah. I think that's good advice for all of us, because we all are like, why? We have such good offerings. We're solving the world's problems. Why aren't people just flooding my inbox?
Angela Fowler (31:41.792)
It's not.
you
We're solving the... yeah.
You know, come on, what's the matter with these people? How come they're not lining up to buy my coating session? You know, well, website sucks. But you know, if anybody that knows me will tell you that patience is not my strong suit.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:00.807)
Great.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:10.013)
Yeah, it's not a lot of us, no, it is hard.
Angela Fowler (32:13.07)
And it's gotten worse because, you know, now I have delivery, you know, I order something and it gets delivered to my door and it's like, I want this five minutes ago. It's like, okay. Yeah, come on Amazon. Why can't you read my mind and just give me what I want? know, we are so spoiled in the
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:25.233)
Like, come on, Amazon.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:29.309)
Hey, it's gonna come. We're almost there. We had that with, I'm laughing. I get hit all the time with, I know my phone and my devices are listening to me, because then they serve me up content and ads and all, where it got to the point where an entire business and its website was designed and then,
I was getting ads to it and it was a completely AI designed. The company doesn't exist.
Angela Fowler (33:04.376)
no.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:06.496)
I was like, oh my God, I found this like operation solution that is like, it eliminates all of these eight tools that we use and it's gonna, cause it listened to me complaining. And we started looking, like I'm looking at my producer Chandler, but we were like, we went and invested, I'm like, I can't find, this company doesn't exist. The website was built two days prior of like me bitching about like,
Angela Fowler (33:32.302)
Mm-mm. That's something I need to know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:35.313)
This is what I want. Why can't this company exist? And I'm going, my God, this is so scary. Can't find any employees on LinkedIn. They don't exist in corporate Wiki.
Angela Fowler (33:37.71)
you
Angela Fowler (33:43.98)
Well, remember, yeah.
Angela Fowler (33:51.054)
Yeah, watch out for AI. It makes stuff up.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:55.397)
Yes, clearly. And it was like, sign on today, put your credit card in. And it was like, all right, let's go. If this can do it. And then I started like, let me look. Surely, like why haven't anybody else talking about this? Because I hear too many agencies and content creator companies, know, we all have this issue. Why is nobody talking about this like revolutionary new tool? Well, it's because it's fake. It doesn't exist.
Angela Fowler (34:02.453)
is
Angela Fowler (34:19.244)
Yeah.
Angela Fowler (34:23.234)
Yep. Yep.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:27.217)
Scary, very scary. right, Angela, we're out of time. I cannot believe how fast these things go. I've enjoyed the conversation, but before we go, tell us how do you want people to connect with you, learn more about what you do, or hire you for helping them develop a more accessible user experience?
Angela Fowler (34:49.99)
Absolutely and for all the things Go to my much improved and continuing to improve website by the time this comes out. It'll be Www dot real life access calm And it's got all my socials. It's got a contact form. It's got You know, you can sign up for my newsletter and if you do that
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:59.847)
It'll be iteration 3.0.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:11.121)
Simple as that.
Angela Fowler (35:20.47)
You get the top 10 things you can do, start or start doing right now to make your business more accessible. And they run the gamut. Some of them aren't going to, you know, if you're just an online business, some of them might not apply to you. They run the gamut. Some of them are physical, some of them are digital, some of are cultural.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:28.188)
Nice.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:40.039)
But you need it, need that info. It'll help your business.
Angela Fowler (35:40.993)
But yep.
It will, it will. And hopefully it'll make people want more.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:49.137)
That's right. Absolutely.
Angela Fowler (35:50.836)
main magnet.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:53.383)
That's right. Well, thank you, Angela. This was a fantastic conversation. I enjoyed hanging out with you today. And for everyone listening or watching, thank you for joining us. Again, our podcast is available on all podcast platforms. So subscribe to Hello Chaos. Give us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify, or share this great content and help us build a more connected entrepreneurial community.
Angela Fowler (36:01.932)
It's been
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:20.487)
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