How to Protect Your Privacy While Growing an Online Business

A few years ago, I posted a sunset photo from my backyard on Instagram. Nothing dramatic, just a pretty sky and a caption about how lucky I felt to live near the water.

Within an hour, a stranger messaged me my exact street name. And my house number. She’d figured it out from a single photo and the fact that my house had recently sold.

She wasn’t trying to scare me. But it did. Because if she could piece that together from one post, so could someone with worse intentions.

That was my first real lesson in a truth every online business owner eventually runs into: the more visible you are, the more exposed you become, whether you meant to be or not.

It Got Worse Before It Got Better

Since that first DM, I’ve been recognized in public by strangers. I’ve gotten more “I know where you live” messages. I’ve received messages so invasive and hostile that I won’t repeat them here.

The moment that changed everything for me was an email from a man that crossed a line completely. It was disgusting, it was threatening, and it was illegal.

That’s when any lingering sense that “this probably won’t happen to me” disappeared for good.

Why “I Don’t Have a Big Enough Audience” Doesn’t Protect You

I hear this a lot from people just starting to build online: I’m too small for anyone to care.

Here’s the truth. Audience size has very little to do with who targets you. What matters more is how much identifying information is out there, waiting to be pieced together. A location tag here, a recognizable landmark there, a recently sold house. It adds up faster than most people realize.

The habits you build now, while your audience is small, are so much easier than trying to undo years of oversharing later.

You Don’t Have to Choose Between Visibility and Safety

Here’s what I want every online business owner to know: you do not have to disappear from the internet to protect yourself. Growing a visible, connected business and protecting your privacy are not mutually exclusive.

It just takes intention. A few boundaries around what you share, when you share it, and how much identifying detail comes along with it, go a long way.

I put together a full breakdown of the specific ways I protect my privacy while still showing up online every day, available as a video or a podcast episode, if you want the complete list.