William Schmarr.

Where it started

When Will was three, he was told his drawings meant he was going to be a genius. A few years later he was more interested in partying, chasing girls and playing World of Warcraft than anything at school. Sport was his release, and he was good at most of it, but he did not yet have the focus to take it further.

He says the most valuable lessons he learned did not come from textbooks. They came from his own mistakes. His first job was scooping ice cream. Then came a stint in sales, where he picked up skills he still uses every day, and labouring work from forklifting to pressure cleaning.

Fitness and a first business

Weightlifting became one of Will's loves, and he started helping other people reach their fitness goals as a personal trainer. When personal training started to feel stale, he started Evolve, a wellness brand built around self-development challenges covering exercise, nutrition and mindfulness.

Evolve was successful and gave Will his first taste of running a business. It also gave him his first look at what social media marketing could do, and at what it meant to earn an income online.

Starting again

He is open about how hard that period was. He leaned on meditation, reading, exercise, good people and his faith, and above all on his family. It is the reason family sits at the centre of everything he does.

How he got into ecommerce

With a clean slate, Will decided to travel on the little savings he had, even though people advised him against it. The money ran out quickly. To keep going, he had to find a way to earn online, and that is when he found ecommerce and customer-first brands.

Before long he was earning more than he had in Australia, with the freedom to keep travelling.

What he built

The one thing missing was giving back. Will started helping friends and family get into ecommerce so they could travel with him. As they started to see results, he met Austin and Josh in Dubai in February 2023, and the three of them decided to share what they knew more widely.

In March 2023 they started Freedom, which became Freedom Club. What began as a way to help friends join his travels became a mission to help people around the world reach financial freedom and independence.

What he does now

Will leads sales and marketing at Freedom Club: the team that helps every person who comes to us find the right program, and the marketing that brings them to us.

He is also the face of our Success Stories series, sitting down with clients to hear how they built their brands, and one third of our podcast, Freedom Fridays.

What he believes

For Will, success is not measured in money or in how well a business does. It is measured in the number of lives you can change for the better. Alongside his co-founders he has been involved in building schools in Nepal, which he says has given him a lot of fulfilment.

What he has learned

• Do not give up. Life is full of hurdles, and if you keep going, success follows.
• In ecommerce, challenges are opportunities in disguise.
• Your mistakes can teach you more than any textbook.
• Asking for help is a strength. Getting support when he needed it is what let him start again.
• A little grit and a lot of heart go a long way.