Podcast Summary: The Business Blueprint Every Creative Needs w/ Anna Nassery

The Futur with Chris Do | Episode 401 | November 29, 2025
Guest: Anna Nassery, CEO & Founder of Lumina Creative

Episode Overview

This candid and high-energy conversation between Chris Do and Anna Nassery dives deep into the business blueprint creative entrepreneurs need to thrive. Anna shares her personal journey—from an immigrant fleeing war in Afghanistan, to Silicon Valley CMO, to building and exiting startups, then founding Lumina Creative. The discussion focuses on designing businesses around the founder’s true identity, building scalable systems, resisting toxic hustle culture, and developing awareness of personal patterns and nervous system regulation. Anna offers tangible advice, strategies, stories, numbers, and the unconventional mindset shifts required for creatives to build fulfilling, successful enterprises on their own terms.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Anna’s Backstory: From PR Grad to Creative Agency Founder

• Anna’s academic background is Public Relations, not design, contradicting assumptions about creative leaders (00:20).
• Early career: Corporate marketing and PR roles at Interscope Records and a medical device company (06:30).
• Key leap: Quick pivots into startups, learning by doing, and leveraging her network to land meaningful roles (“I got through different people...Realized my gift was through connection and my network” — Anna, 04:38).
• Became CMO and cofounder of Tethered, gained invaluable business experience, and achieved a successful exit, giving her a two-year financial runway (12:23).

2. Strategic Networking & Seizing Opportunity

• Anna’s proactive strategy: Reaching out to C-level execs after funding announcements, offering honest, value-driven feedback (“Hey, I also noticed your website sucks and it is not reflective of the $60 million you just got.” — Anna, 06:01).
• Mentorship and learning from top-tier teams (“I was the only non-engineer...Our brand lead was former head of brand at Snapchat, our marketing lead was the former CMO of LinkedIn” — Anna, 07:17).

3. Building a Sellable Business—Not Just a Personal Brand

• After selling Tethered, Anna intentionally structured Lumina Creative with processes, IP, and clear systems (“A lot of that is removing the personal brand...and creating clear, replicable systems and processes” — Anna, 10:35).
• Importance of systems for eventual saleability and sustainability.

4. Early Hustle, Niche-Finding & Building Clientele

• Moved from Silicon Valley to LA; initial clients came from teaching a “mastermind” class and personal referrals (“…in one class I taught, I had like 10 clients. They’re all like, 'can you build me a website?'” — Anna, 15:14).
• Developed the first custom-coded Kajabi sites by leveraging her network of developers and designers (16:32).
• Found her ideal niche with health, wellness, and entrepreneurial clients—people who move quickly and know themselves (17:34).
• Used low-priced, high-value work for influencers to build a lead-generation machine (18:12).

5. Savvy Pricing & Referral System

• Deep discounts (75% off; early builds for $2–3k) in exchange for “website by Lumina” backlinks on influencer sites, generating referral traffic (20:41).
• Early profit margins reached 90% by keeping operations lean (20:00).
• Evolved to offering productized services with add-ons such as copywriting (21:22).

6. From Chaos to Clarity: Nervous System Regulation and Business Design

• Anna outgrew the hustle model, citing burnout from scaling too fast and emulating “masculine” business culture (“I evolved under the masculine paradigm of success and almost like Hormozi culture...That was the trap I fell in” — Anna, 24:05).
• Key shift: Deep inner work and somatic practices (Hoffman Process, plant medicine, therapy, breathwork) helped her see how early life chaos influenced her business approach (22:48; 24:44).
  • Notable quote: “Business is a microcosm...Your same patterns—avoidance, anxiety—show up in business.” (25:01)
• Rebuilt her agency focusing on lean teams, high-profit productized offerings, clarity, and more aligned work (38:20).

7. Energetic Blueprint & CEO Identity

• Developed a holistic approach using tools like Culture Index, Kolbe, Human Design, Enneagram, and Myers-Briggs—assessed via custom GPT—to help founders discover their unique operating style (34:53).
• Stresses the importance of building a business around who you truly are, not what you “should” do.
• Quote: “Something I’ve realized with myself is I hate a Zoom call…If I have one thing scheduled, that completely stunts my creativity.” (35:09)

8. Key Lessons for Creative Entrepreneurs

• Wear all the hats at the start; invest profits back into the business instead of taking a salary (48:00).
• Figure out what really lights you up, then build systems to delegate the rest as soon as possible (“…eventually, you get to this place where you can really help [clients] figure out the parts they love doing the most that’s aligned to their energetic blueprint.” — Chris, 51:00).
• Avoid being a Jack of all trades—niche down, specialize, and build referral partnerships for everything else (47:31).

9. Authenticity & Attracting Ideal Clients

• Anna embraces her “ratchet,” irreverent, type B personality, cursing and all, to attract like-minded clients and repel the wrong fits (53:17).
• Quote: “If you don’t like that, I’m not your girl, you can leave!” (53:27)
• Being a “chameleon” can help in some settings, but authenticity brings more fulfillment and better client relationships (54:01).

10. Recap of Anna’s Business Model Today

• Mastermind for established entrepreneurs ($18k/year, capped at 25, includes plant medicine retreats and deep business/operations work) (62:49).
• “Creative Collective” Slack community for early-stage creatives ($60/month or $600/year) offering resources, templates, live audits, and a referral hub (63:56).
• Agency’s productized web design service ($3k for a bespoke website, delivered in a week) built by a flexible team of contractors (65:05).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I realized my gift was through connection and my network and the people that I knew and the rooms that I put myself in.” — Anna (04:38)
• “I just scrapped everything…went from 20-something people to only one full-time team member, and all the creatives we work with are per project. Profitability shot up.” — Anna (38:20)
• “I had to undo all that to kind of get acclimated with like how can I create something easy? How can I change my belief system to know that I can be successful without working 40 hours a week?” — Anna (39:23)
• “Business is a microcosm. Your same patterns—avoidance, anxiety—show up in business.” — Anna (25:01)
• “If you don’t like that, I’m not your girl, you can leave. That’s the exit over there.” — Anna (53:27)
• “Shoot your shot to get opportunity, to get what you want out of life.” — Anna (56:43)
• “I didn’t pay myself a penny the first year or two I had my agency. I was just reinvesting and paying other people and making sure our services are better.” — Anna (48:00)
• “I want to attract ratchet clients.” — Anna (53:17)
• “My face is not on my agency’s website or social platforms. However, I link out to my agency from my personal social accounts so people would like resonate with me and then hire our agency.” — Anna (50:57)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:20 – Anna’s intro, education and career trajectory
• 06:01 – Proactive networking and landing her CMO/executive roles
• 12:23 – Selling her first startup and using that runway to launch her agency
• 15:14 – Starting Lumina: getting first clients through networking
• 16:32 – Developing first custom-coded Kajabi websites
• 18:12 – Using influencer work and backlinks to grow the agency
• 20:00 – Profit margins, lean operations, early pricing strategies
• 22:48 – Somatic work, nervous system regulation, and business transformation
• 24:05 – Burnout and rejecting hustle culture
• 34:53 – CEO energetic blueprint, custom GPT assessments
• 35:09 – Design business around personal working style
• 38:20 – Scrapping traditional agency model for a lean, high-profit approach
• 47:31 – Importance of niching down and building referral networks
• 48:00 – Hard lessons starting out as a solopreneur; reinvesting profits
• 53:17 – Attracting ideal clients through authenticity and irreverence
• 62:49 – Mastermind and Creative Collective: Anna’s two offerings today
• 65:05 – Agency’s current web template service model

Overall Takeaways

• Build your creative business to suit your true self, not your industry’s hustle-driven mold.
• Embrace authenticity—your quirks repel the wrong clients and attract your tribe.
• Systemize, specialize, and productize so you can scale profitably and avoid burnout.
• Take the time to understand your patterns, nervous system, and energetics; your life outside business is reflected inside it.
• Relationships and referral networks are exponentially valuable—don’t underestimate the power of your connections.

Resources & Where to Find More

• Connect with Anna:
  • Instagram: @annadoingthings_ (note the underscore)
• Mastermind (advanced, $18k/year): Capped at 25, includes retreats, systems, and operational coaching
• Creative Collective ($60/mo or $600/year): Resource & referral hub for early-stage creatives
• Lumina Creative: Productized web design for $3k (delivered in one week)

This episode is a must-listen for any creative entrepreneur who wants to break free of burnout, design a business that fits their life, and actually enjoy the ride.