Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lucia Desperati. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lucia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.

Yes, I do believe my business supports an underserved community.

I work with micro-business owners who are often building their companies out of personal necessity.
For many of them, running a business isn’t just a choice, it’s a way to create flexibility, stability, or freedom in their lives.

But what’s often missing is the structure, support, and guidance to help them actually make it work long term.

These are businesses that make up a huge part of the business landscape. They are everywhere, and yet they’re often left out of the conversation because their revenue isn’t high enough to be seen as important. But they’re trying to make it work, sometimes they have ti make it work. Some could have a couple of freelancers working with them, some have teams of up to ten, and many are doing it alone.

What they all share is the same challenge. They’re searching for ways to generate steady, sustainable and diversifies revenue without burning out in the process.

That’s where Revenue Avenues comes in: it’s not about chasing big, shiny strategies but it’s about helping them build real revenue streams that work for them and their life.

We focus on testing ideas quickly, keeping the systems lightweight, and aligning the business with their personal capacity. It’s not just about making a lot of money. It’s about making enough money based on their lifestyle needs, in the right way for their wants and needs.

The name Revenue Avenues comes from exactly this idea: the search for the right avenues to generate revenue that aligns with someone’s life. As I’m a big believer that the business should support your life, not the other way around.

I know what it’s like to burn out chasing revenue. That’s why I created this business, to help others avoid that same mistake.

Micro-business owners deserve to feel supported, resourced, and not alone in this journey. The ups, the downs, and everything in between.

I hope my legacy will be to help as many micro-business owners as I can. I’ve set myself the goal of supporting 500 in the next five years. It’s ambitious, but I’m hopeful that the partnerships, the tools and programmes I’m building, will make it possible.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Lucia Desperati. I’m a business strategist, business mentor, and investor. Not in the usual sense, though. I invest time and support in micro-businesses I believe in, I literally become their partner. I do this through revenue share partnerships where the upfront cost are low to make it possible for these micro-businesses to gain a trusted partner, mentor and advisor. I’m here to help build revenue streams that actually fit their life.

The way I got into this work wasn’t through a shiny career plan. It was through building, trying, hitting walls, and starting again. I ran a six-figure agency with just me at the core of it, it was an accomplishment but to get there was an insane amount of working hours, blood, sweat and tears that led me to burnout.

That experience taught me that success isn’t just about the numbers. It should be about how sustainable that success is and whether it fits the kind of life you want to live.

Now I help other micro-business owners avoid that same cycle. I start by understanding what they actually want from their business, and I make sure the revenue streams we explore are aligned with that. We test ideas, validate offers, and then decide what’s worth building in the long run. It’s not a quick fix. This is a long game, no secrets or magic involved.

Apart from partnerships, I work one-to-one through mentoring and consulting. I also share free resources on Revenue Avenues website like the free Business Mentor GPT , the Clarity Doc, and a training on how Unlock Hidden Revenue.
More tools and programs are coming soon since I have the goal to support 500 micro-business owners in the next five years.

We’re also working on a new space called the Micro Business Club. It’s for people who want connection, accountability, and support from others on the same path, a place for shared wisdom and real company along the way.

I hope the work I’m doing will be part of a bigger shift in how micro businesses get more economic power back, generating so much revenue to become undeniable.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I didn’t plan to pivot, but life had definitely other ideas. Apart from the burnout that came from working long hours, my health also took a back seat. At 33 years old, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, something that was absolutely preventable if I had taken better care of myself and lived a more active lifestyle.

Instead, I had spent years sitting at a desk, working 14 to 15 hours a day to make sure my agency was bringing in constant revenue.

That diagnosis was a wake-up call. I decided my health had to come first.

At the same time, things were shifting in other areas of my life too. I had ups and downs with my co-founder, who was also about to become my husband. And then after the wedding came the amazing news that I was going to become a mom. It was a high-risk pregnancy, and again I knew something had to give.

In all those moments in the back of my mind I knew the agency model wasn’t going to be the right way forward for me.
I finally decided to pause and rethink what I really wanted, and how I wanted to build it.

The pivot wasn’t a dramatic 180. It was more like a slow, steady turn. I started seeing that while I loved setting up revenue streams, I didn’t want to manage a big team. I preferred lean systems, async communication, and remote work. I started paying attention to my non-negotiables, and they led me somewhere new, toward a way of working that still felt aligned with what I love: helping founders grow.

Over the years I’ve helped so many people in their careers, in their businesses, turning ideas into real opportunities. That’s always been at the heart of what I do. So now, instead of building a team-heavy agency, I’m building partnerships. I invest my time and skills into other people’s companies and support them as they grow. And through that, I’ve created a business that’s finally right for me.

That’s the result of many small pivots. Not one big moment, but a series of decisions that brought me here.

And that’s what I want people to understand. You don’t always need to throw everything out the window. Sometimes the shift is slower. Sometimes it’s about being honest with yourself, noticing what’s no longer working, and being willing to move in a new direction. If you sit still, nothing changes.

But if you’re not happy with where you’re at, you owe it to yourself to start the turn, even if it takes time.

Play the long-game and you’ll see big results.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One big lesson I had to unlearn is that working hard is the most important thing. I used to believe that if you just kept your head down and gave everything you had, the results would follow. That mindset came from how I was raised, in the north of Italy, where the culture is very factory-driven. You grow up with this belief that your value comes from effort, that if you work hard enough, things will work out.

But over time, I’ve seen that’s not always true. Especially in business.

If you really look around, the people making money, the people with traction, are not always the ones with the best quality of work or those that work the hardest. They’re often the ones who understand how to read the room, how to move strategically, how to build the right network and create the right visibility. They’re not just producing work, they’re positioning themselves. And that makes all the difference.

This doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. It means you need to be smart about where and how you do it. Nothing is going to fall from the sky, but no amount of effort will matter if it’s not placed in the right direction. You can be the best at what you do, but if you’re invisible, if no one knows, if you’re not building momentum around your ideas or offers, you’ll stay stuck.

And I say this as someone who used to believe that quality alone would bring clients. That if you just kept giving your best, people would come. But the truth is, people don’t buy just because something is good.

Quality and effort matter, but only once you’ve made sure you’re in the right rooms, with the right message, at the right time. Especially if you’re a micro-business owner, you can’t afford to keep working harder without stopping to ask if your work is being seen, understood, and valued.

This is a lesson I’m still unlearning, day by day. It’s not easy to let go of a belief you were raised with, sometimes I still have to ask yourself if I’m putting that effort in the right place, not just for the sake of working hard.

That shift in thinking is changing everything for me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://revenueavenues.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/revenueavenues
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/luciadesperati
• Other: Email: [email protected]