Downtime and an escape from work. We have often found that we focus so much on the business that we don’t get enough time to focus on ourselves and each other so we have to make conscious efforts to work on ourselves both as individuals and as spouses. It is very easy to get caught up in work because it’s such a huge part of our daily lives, but you cannot pour from an empty cup and our marriage and family comes first.
As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan and Kelly Unger.
Kelly and Ryan Unger are certified personal trainers and Co-founders of the franchise, Epic Health and Fitness. Epic Fitness Health and is a new (and improved) breed in the Gym, Health and Fitness Clubs industry. Their goal is to change people’s view on fitness, so that it becomes part of who they are and their lifestyle. Kelly and Ryan have worked as trainers for years and turned their passion into a business.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?
We both have athletic backgrounds and played various sports growing up and into college. Ryan quickly moved up the ladder in the gym industry, starting out as a personal trainer and becoming district manager for another company. Kelly has a master’s degree in mental health and an interest in helping people feel their best overall. Kelly was always a Zumba instructor and into group fitness classes until Ryan educated her on the importance of weight training and how it can truly change the body. Ryan felt he lost his connection to helping people when working in a big box gym, so he decided to create his own gym business. We moved from Tampa to Spring Hill, FL and worked on opening our first location.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you two got married?
The most interesting thing that has happened to us since we got married is building our businesses. We were dating when we started the process, soon after engaged and about six months after opening our first location, we got married. The businesses have given us many common goals and has as allowed us to spend more time together than if we had separate full-time jobs. This was helpful for us during quarantine when most people were getting sick of each other because they were stuck in the house together and not used to it. We found ways to stay busy like continuing to work on our business plan, working out in our gyms, and preparing to get right back to work upon reopening.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The best thing about being a husband-and-wife team working together is the checks and balances that we have in place to prevent mistakes. We aren’t perfect by any means, but we have been fortunate enough to avoid any serious mistakes so far. One slightly entertaining mistake that we did run into was an order of shirts we made for our bodybuilding team. The company that puts our logos on our apparel ordered children’s sizes rather than adult sizes. Needless to say, the huge bodybuilders trying to make sense of their tiny shirts once we handed them out was quite laughable. The shirt company fixed their error in time for the show, and no one had to wear the tiny kids’ shirts to their show!
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
I think our company stands out because of our small business/family-oriented feel, the positive and encouraging environment in our gyms, extremely unique equipment, and the fact that we cater to a wide variety of people and goals. We don’t push high numbers of memberships because we prefer quality over quantity, and we attract dedicated and loyal customers by being dedicated and loyal business owners. We are highly involved in our members’ goals and invested in their success. We provide the right equipment, staff, and environment to really help people get results they want.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We are franchising our gyms! I think if we keep the same mindset of wanting to help people, it will continue to have a great impact in every community that Epic is lucky enough to be a part of. We are also incorporating the InBody570 medical grade body composition analyzing scans at each location, which really helps members track their progress and results!
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
Be humble and kind to everyone.
Work hard.
Don’t expect handouts.
There WILL be obstacles, but stay calm and try to find another way.
Don’t focus on just the money, but have another motivating factor for your success and the money will come.
How do you define “Leadership”?
Being a leader involves doing what needs to be done, being right in the trenches with your employees and being an example in all situations. Leading by example encourages and inspires your employees to be there best for your customers/clients.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Kelly’s grandfather, Jack MacAllister, US West CEO, was a businessman and taught her valuable lessons about finances, business, and most importantly, being a kind and caring person no matter what your position is.
Ryan’s grandmother, Nancy Apter, an elementary school teacher instilled a value in continuing education and hard work in Ryan throughout his life and supported him throughout his business ventures and life changes, while encouraging him to follow his dreams.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
Yes, we hope so! That was always something very important to us — to have a positive impact in our community. We set up boxes for donations three different times per year, including Toys for Tots, donations to local humane society and animal shelters, and donations to a local women’s shelter. We also work with the local Special Olympics Powerlifting team to help train the athletes and we sponsor and host events throughout the year for their competitions. Additionally, we just focus our business plan and our efforts on genuinely helping people! We truly want each member to actually reach their goals in our gyms — no matter what that goal may be!
What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple”? Please share a story or example for each.
1 — Communication is most important for any marriage, but even more so when you’re also business partners together too.
2 — Be on the same page about your expectations and define your roles to function effectively, both at home and at work. This clears up any confusion or miscommunications and makes things run smoothly in all areas of your lives.
3 — Don’t forget to continue to appreciate each other — you’re each other’s favorite people- at work and at home. Continue to be kind to each other and express gratitude for the little things you do for each other that often get overlooked. Over time, the initial spark can weaken, or you get used to each other, but put in the work to ensure that spark stays lit.
4 — Downtime and an escape from work. We have often found that we focus so much on the business that we don’t get enough time to focus on ourselves and each other so we have to make conscious efforts to work on ourselves both as individuals and as spouses. It is very easy to get caught up in work because it’s such a huge part of our daily lives, but you cannot pour from an empty cup and our marriage and family comes first.
5 — Enjoy yourself! Running a business that you have a passion for is crucial and learning to have fun throughout the process helps you to give your best effort daily. When you truly love what you do, it shows in your work and your clients can see and feel it in the atmosphere of your business.
You are people of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
We opened our gym to do exactly that! We wanted to be a way for our communities to live happier and healthier lives. We decided by offering a higher quality, hands on, progress-oriented approach, we could inspire and help the greatest number of people to reach their health and fitness goals. Once we neared the limit of our abilities at our first location, we opened a second. Once we maxed that out, we decided to start a franchising business so that we can help others like us open thriving gyms in their communities.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” This quote stands out to entrepreneurs specifically because most people are so afraid to take a leap of faith and start their own business or follow their dreams. The truth is that if you never try you can never truly know the success you may achieve, and we have been fortunate enough to take well calculated shots and the risks we’ve taken have paid off. Taking the shot doesn’t mean doing it all just to win but with patience, practice, and the right intention you can make more shots than you miss and really make a huge impact.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Jim Carrey because he emphasizes having a positive mindset, doing good in the world, and success is not just found in money, but in genuinely being a good person. He also reminds us that even when times are tough or stressful, laughter can be the best medicine.
How can our readers follow your work online?
We have a website for our gym that shows our different locations, which will hopefully be growing soon! We also have social media (Instagram and Facebook), as well as LinkedIn. Ryan has also done a Podcast recently and we hope to be on more soon. www.epichealthandfitness.com,
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Female Founders: Dianne Sykes and Sara Oblak Speicher of Elite Mystique Agency On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
I know a lot of women hold themselves back in fear and they never take the chance. But if they have this vision, and are willing to take the leap, then it’s also important to clearly define success. Like, what does success mean to you, not to anybody else around you? And then you use this to measure your progress with it. And then, just like in sports, there’s going to be grit. There’s going to be a hustle. You will have to show up, learn new skills. It will require agility, stamina, perseverance, and determination. And just a little bit crazy, haha.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dianne Sykes, MS NSCA and Sara Oblak Speicher, MBA.
Dianne Sykes, MS NSCA and Sara Oblak Speicher, MBA founded Elite Mystique Agency Inc. to help executive women simplify and actually enjoy the complexities of life. Dianne is a physiologist and Sara is a strategist, and they offer operational solutions for executives in their homes and organizations. Collectively, these former elite athletes draw on 45+ years of coaching experience, and have served over 2500 clients to reallocate their resources and establish more energy in their bodies and more time in life. www.elitemystiqueagency.com
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Sara: Thank you for having us! Well, as an elite athlete, I’ve always been supported by coaches, but it wasn’t until much later in life that I became one. After the end of my international basketball career, which has brought me from Slovenia to New York City, I had set my sights on climbing a corporate ladder although I always loved this sense of freedom, flexibility, and limitlessness that comes with owning your own business… But when I lost my job the same time my husband and I found out we were expecting our first baby, I started my own business. Serving female founders, business owners as a virtual assistant at first, I soon realized these women require and deserve greater support. So I tapped into my knowledge and experience of being a formally-trained consultant, and grew that business into a premier agency.
After the birth of my second baby, I craved an even deeper work, I wanted to help make an even greater difference in my client’s lives. Coaching has always come natural to me so I decided to invest my time, money, and energy in developing and mastering coaching skills. Plus, it was personal — I really got to experience the value and depth of quality coaching as it helped me heal from postpartum depression, immense homesickness, disconnect, and severe burnout that nearly killed me. I’ve been doing this for 10 years now, and it feels like a perfect time for what’s coming next.
Dianne: I think that for me, entrepreneurship found me. I didn’t, I didn’t find this path; it opened itself up because it, you know, it was always a part of who I was. Even as a kid, I just wanted to be either the president of the United States or the big gymnast. Then realizing that I never really wanted to follow a structured path, but certainly most of my formative years, I subscribed to following that path of structure wound up in medical school. And, I love human potential. I love studying human potential. And so I also love helping people with their performance and help them overcome any physical conditions that would stand in the way of them experiencing their full potential.
And so I knew that I had a passion for medicine, but not really knowing any other alternatives, I went into pre-med thinking I was going to be a heart surgeon and had a kind of that big aha moment… Recognizing that there’s gotta be another way for me to help somebody heal their heart other than cracking their chest open and spending 10 hours over there putting their heartbeats together.
And that led me into physiology and then into the wellness sector. And of course, growing up as an elite athlete, understanding the importance of always having a coach, helped me be the very best version of me as an athlete, as the scholar, as whatever I was doing.
So taking that and saying, well, how can I. Support and guide people to live out their full potential, physically, mentally, spiritually. And that’s what led me to do what I do today, which I’ve been doing for 25 years.
Sara: And that’s when we met — Dianne and I were both a part of the same mastermind. Athlete and Mom Codes brought us together, we developed a deep friendship and that ultimately evolved into this business partnership. We founded Elite Mystique Agency to support executive women. To help them simplify complexities of fitness, nutrition, lifestyle, time mastery, and mental brilliance. Best part is that everything we teach, we have done for ourselves.
Dianne: Yup, basically learning how to live again. I think it’s even beyond trying to redefine health, happiness, and fun. I think for many women, it’s what is their actual definition of enjoying their life? What is success? How to actually just live it in a moment?
I think that a lot of executive women live in this theoretical land of “Well, what would that be like? Let me intellectualize and let me define that cerebrally…” But we’re more interested in their experience of life, what it means to actually experience success.
Deep meaningful relationship. That’s the difference between it and the spectator and an athlete both know how to play basketball, but the athlete is actually the one experiencing it. We’re very interested in women having an actual experience of success and the actual experience of fulfillment in their lives.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Dianne: It’s all been interesting! Even how we came together and established an agency has been outstanding, interesting. I think even when we’re in the weeds and then minutiae of running our business on a daily basis, it’s super interesting. It’s interesting to be an entrepreneur in the Aquarian age, running a female founded business, supporting other female leaders. There’s just nothing uninteresting. It’s an interesting question to ask because we wouldn’t be doing it if the work wasn’t interesting! Even in the monotony of opening off our business bank accounts, spending two hours on the phone with the bank — that’s interesting. Going back and forth with a marketing person, how to position a Facebook ad, that’s interesting. Having a woman on the phone bitching about her endless task list, that’s interesting…
Sara: Your answer actually inspired me. You know, as somebody who has been trained in this Piscean approach to leadership and to business operations, which is very hierarchical, very linear, I think what you and I are experiencing and redefining is a much more harmonious and flow.
And one of the most amazing experiences in that regard is just our relationship to time and productivity. How we just honor the fact that we can sit down and we can waste the whole day staring at a computer and nothing’s going to happen. Are we going to beat ourselves over? No, we’re going to close the computer. We’re going to do our own thing.
And then the next time we sit down and we do more in an hour than most people would in a week. When we get into the flow, that has been very interesting to observe and to experience from my perspective. Especially during our Camp Elite Mystique when we got together with the sole purpose of doing things in person, sitting side by side, which creates a very different energy than zooming from five states away.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Sara: I pretty much made every single mistake in the books and I’m not talking just about starting the Elite Mystique Agency, but also my own company 10 years ago. There’s this beginner’s naivete when you just pick up the phone and do the guerrilla approach to marketing, to sales, and you say yes, and then you figure it out.
But the lessons that I have learned have not necessarily been from making those mistakes, but from what transpired as the years went by. Being a part of this industry that has so many unwritten rules of what you’re not supposed to be doing, and how you’re not supposed to be presenting yourself, and how you’re not supposed to make yourself available, and how you’re not supposed to say certain things or offer certain things or price certain things… It really jaded me. I looked back and realized I no longer did the most basic business stuff, the ABCs of business!
So that was going on the lessons that got applied to launching our agency, going back to the basics and going back to this beginner’s naivete. Releasing a lot of those limitations — and I’m still working through many, to be honest. Because there have been a lot of things I was shying away from in fear of being judged or in the fear of failure or rejection.
Dianne: I think Sara just hit it right on the head in terms of how I actually now, as a recovering perfectionist, am seeing mistakes as the greatest blessing from the higher power. The greatest blessing that could come through from my soul to carry out my destiny. Because what is that mistake? It’s a miss-take. Take two. Take three. Take four. Take however many takes you need in order to get it to be in alignment with what your heart is really leading you to do. And so it’s all about what can I take from that? What lesson is there for me that is such a treasure because if it weren’t for that lesson, I would have the wisdom that I have now to move forward in a way that is in alignment with what the heart is leading toward.
When I look back to when I first started my career as an official brick and mortar business owner and trusting investor, that investor turned out to have been part of a Ponzi scheme and laundered our money. And not just it wasn’t just the money that we put into this, but it was the money that we made from the business.
So basically, in the first year of opening, my very first business, I lost a hundred thousand dollars of my and my husband at the time who was my business partner. Our hard earned money. And was this a mistake? Should I trust the wrong person? But recognizing that, that actually wasn’t my mistake.
My mistake was that I wore that in shame for years. The mistake in essence was that I didn’t take the lesson because I was so ashamed. That I trusted somebody that I shouldn’t have, and that I beat myself up every day in hiding and then shame, cover up and then not wanting to admit that out loud to anyone that I trusted. Because I hid in shame, I didn’t take the lesson.
The lesson was not “don’t trust anybody” because that’s exhausting and that’s not who I am. The lesson was, “don’t be ashamed of the decisions you make, because you’re doing the best you can with what you got good morning.”
And it took a lot more mistakes of me feeling ashamed of my decisions as an entrepreneur and a leader rather than just owning me, executing a decision based on what I knew at that time.
So looking back, I could have just said, I trusted her. We made a move. We were able to open our doors. We need a lot of money. We should, we helped a lot of people and she stole from us. Cool. Instead of wearing that in my adrenal glands and letting it blow me out.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Dianne: I’m just going to say that’s this is such a cliche question, it’s the truth. Because there’s no one woman. I mean every, day in every way, there are about 50 people that I see as being incredibly supportive. So to highlight one person is not fair. What I will say is I enjoy seeing the support, especially more recently, the support of people. Because a big turning point for me over the past six months or so I was seeing that not everybody is going to support me in the way that I define and require being supported. And first of all it took a very long time to even finally being okay asking for help.
The next step was, “Can I actually then receive that help?” It’s one thing to get right with asking for it, which is super hard for a lot of us women in the first place. Once we reconcile with being able to ask for help, can you actually receive it because help isn’t going to come in just the flavor you want, especially if you’re still clunky around communicating what it is that you want help with.
So was it really helpful to me to have people close to me, criticize me for my choice. Yeah, that was really, really fucking supportive. I could have chosen to see it as totally toxic, which I did for so long. But I was like, well, wait a minute. It’s just that this person cares about my wellbeing enough to have an opinion, which means that’s a lot of energy heading in my direction for my greatest good. So that I can carry out the service I was here for.
Thank you. Thank you for saying that feedback because it just puts me more on my path of knowing what I’m here to do. It didn’t come in the package, tied up in a bow of “Hey, you’re awesome, Diane, do a great jobs that you’re doing such a good job. I totally get it. I totally understand you.”
You know, maybe that wouldn’t have been the support I needed. Maybe that wouldn’t have motivated me to make some changes in my life that allowed me to open up my creativity and expand even more, even more alive. Yeah. So I would say now I see support in everybody, everybody, and going back to even the woman who pongy schemed our money away, the one for her, I wouldn’t be here now.
So is that supportive? I had to lose a hundred grand before I made my next movie and I could not have made a million dollars in my brick and mortar businesses. If I didn’t lose a hundred friends.
Sara: Indeed! You mentioned asking for help, and I think that is the sticky point for so many. Especially when we are conditioned to glorify this idea of “self-made” and “pulling up by the bootstraps.” We tend to not only forget that, like you said, there are 50 people supporting us every day — but even ask for help in the first place!
I was raised to be super independent, fierce, and then created these blinders and filtered vision that turned very toxic when I indeed required and received support. Weather from my husband, from our families, from friends. Instead of receiving it, it felt like a knife twisting in this core wound. So I offer to the reader that she re-evaluates her filters, ther perceptions, and conditioning around asking for and receiving support — in whatever shape and form that might be — without this feeling of guilt, shame, or incompetence.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
Dianne: Ourselves. We’ve got to take full responsibility for ourselves. There’s no one else or no other structure that we can continue to blame and think that that’s somehow going to move the ball forward for us. We gotta to take responsibility. How do we do that? My opinion and my personal experience starts with us first supporting ourselves.
We talk about other people supporting us. Well, are you your own cheerleader? Are you all inside your head, telling yourself you’re beautiful? Telling yourself you’ve got this? Telling yourself you’re intelligent? Telling yourself you’re sophisticated? Telling yourself you can?
Or are you inside your own head, all day long, shitting on yourself? Because that is so inverted. How is that going to get people to pay us? How is that going to get us in the doors? If we can’t even support our own talent, if we are not hedging bets on ourselves, then who else will?
And then the second piece is that if we first clean that up, then it puts us in a position to actually provide that for each other. Instead of, “I feel so shitty about myself and I see another woman who is making some strides. I am now going to take her out. I am going to first compare myself to her, and then compete and complain.”
The three deadly Cs that I believe have every woman not leading a company are too much complaining, too much comparing and too much competing. And that’s why only 20% of us are running companies because we’re so freaking busy just in the land of complaining, comparing, and competing. How about “Wow, I’m so inspired by what she’s doing, how can I support her and how can I create a similar experience for myself knowing that it’s possible?”
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
Sara: I love this question. As Dianne says, the first step is in taking full responsibility for ourselves — while also seeing a greater picture.
Let me preface what I am about to say with the fact that personally, I am as progressive as we get. I believe that capitalism has outlived itself, and that indeed, a complete systemic reset is necessary.
That said, I also think that complaining about the system… that’s easy. And unproductive. Yes, we all know it’s broken. Rigid. Not working for everyone. But what I would offer is that we also do something about it.
I am seeing it time and time again — and have in sports, in academia, in the corporate, even in entrepreneurship — that just things just are because they always have been. Or that because I had to face challenges, well then so should you.
What if instead we consciously focus on bettering ourselves, and doing anything we can to better others? Legwork required to do so will differ, too. Some of us will march the streets. Some of us will educate. Some of us legislate. Some raise funds, and some hold space and raise the vibration. We all have a part to play. Yes, we are tired. We are scared. And yes, things might get worse before they get better. But we gotta keep pushing. Persisting. And be audacious to utilize resources that already are available. Literally at our fingertips.
Dianne: Yeah. Something easy to start with is noticing what are you being vocal about? Because the moment you start changing your thoughts about yourself you will vibrate at an entirely different, higher, frequency that has a tremendous impact on the planet. Your good thoughts about yourself impact humanity in a multitude of ways.
That’s more powerful and more quantum than any of us can understand. But I would challenge any woman to just start right there with what you got right in front of you. You think bad thoughts, how does that affect your health? Your family? How does that affect your community? How does that affect your health?
Sara: I would expand on that a little bit though because it is a bit more nuanced. For example, simply thinking good thought still won’t fix the broken and rigid system that discriminates against certain communities. Plus, there is this thing called Toxic Positivity. To think good thoughts does not equate suppressing and dismissing complex emotions like anger, fear, resentment, sadness. It requires you to properly acknowledge and process and alchemize them.
Dianne: Yeah, that’s what we do and it’s just far more intertwined and complex than what this interview is providing. So what I can offer right here, right now, is a simple solution.
Just stop, just breathe in and go. I don’t need to think this through anymore. It’s done. And it can be that powerful.
See, women are powerful. Biologically we are quick, and the most coveted life force because we give life. We are the most powerful life force. And what does that mean?
That if we’re inverted, it’s powerful in the negative, it’s multitude times more power than the negative. Then our male counterparts. So I’m just simply saying, start with yourself. You can convert that into positive energy — not overlooking that of course there is fine tuning. But really at the end of the day, speaking as an athlete, it just comes down to diligence and discipline.
Can you be devoted to changing those thoughts or is that too much hard work? And you’d rather be busy doing other things and then running that negative tape in your head all day long and being addicted to it?
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Dianne: Um, we are biologically wired for it. We are! We have the physiological structure and resources to operate at a very, very, very high level of performance. The complexity of a woman’s endocrine system is what allows us to hold another life for nine months and give birth to it. So running a company as fucking easy as hell. That’s a piece of what we have done in memoria, which is run a household, raise a family. And that comes so naturally to so many of us. It’s just simple, I guess, without the comparison and the complaining and the competing to knock out our energy before we even get out of bed. Then we soon start to see that our cup runneth over with energy, we get energy for days.
We got energy for eons pouring out of us when that oxytocin and serotonin are making a nice little blend because we are creating enough of it as we are tending and befriending each other, supporting each other. Then oxytocin and serotonin are absolutely just bathing ourselves in nutrient dense juiciness, vitality, timelessness. And the dopamine hits that we get when combined with the proper dose of adrenaline and cortisol, is like a shock to the brain.
To just execute decisions, delegate, be super clear, be absolutely decisive on a whim. About 50 different things at once we run. That capacity, you are supercomputing with our brains all day long. Again, this is what we are biologically designed for. That’s why we are still not extinct because of our ability to do these things with our ice flows.
And so running a company is in comparison to running a house. Pretty similar, pretty simple. And then furthermore, you take into consideration that if a woman starts to understand the richness of her lunar cycles, which could sound as esoteric, but it’s not, it’s just pure understanding of energy. Then we can use that energy to optimize our performance.
And we use that energy to our benefit every day and say “OK I can absolutely make quick decisions, but now I can also switch into having a vision for the future and seeing it crystal clear in my mind’s eye and actually.”
The secretions from the pituitary gland and the pineal gland to we have much more colorful and creative and imaginative visions of the future that our male counterparts again, because we are biologically wired for that. So for us to close our eyes and visualize something in the future and pull that into reality.
And I can go on and on, because this really is about human performance. And there are so many things! We have masculine and feminine energy and there were so many things that we can do. The masculine and that there are so many things that men can do that we are so grateful for is women. But it’s high time that we understand how running a company is easier than changing.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Sara: Perhaps this old pattern that we have to, as founders, behave and run our companies in a specific way that has been modeled by men. But when we tap into our own strengths, into our own gifts, into the laws of energy and the universe, we can create our own way that is way more powerful than what we allowed ourselves to experience before.
Dianne: Yeah, I think the myth is that it’s super complicated. Busting that myth is understanding that if we just simply use our intuition, then there is no complicated thing. It’s all just there as a puzzle and the puzzle wouldn’t present itself if there wasn’t a solution to it. And it’s just us getting into that intuitive space of “Hey, I trust my gut and I’m going to make this decision. It’s going to take me down this road.”
It’s what I said before about making a mistake. I trusted someone and she gave us some opportunities and it didn’t work. But I could have just taken the lesson and said, “I’m so glad I trusted my gut and did that anyway, because I took a risk. I had to bet I had to bet on myself and I, and it all worked out.”
But perhaps it would have worked out a lot quicker had I not carried that guilt and shame around for so long, and questioned my own intuition, questioned my own ability to make executive decisions quickly.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Sara: This question in ite essence evokes comparison that Dianne mentioned earlier, trying to compartmentalize individuals. I think anybody who wants to be a founder could be a founder, but only the person themselves knows if that is for them.
I know a lot of women hold themselves back in fear and they never take the chance. But if they have this vision, and are willing to take the leap, then it’s also important to clearly define success. Like, what does success mean to you, not to anybody else around you? And then you use this to measure your progress with it. And then, just like in sports, there’s going to be grit. There’s going to be a hustle. You will have to show up, learn new skills. It will require agility, stamina, perseverance, and determination. And just a little bit crazy, haha.
Chances are, you will be called delusional. Hold onto this vision, into this knowing that you’re creating something that hasn’t been done before and no one else, but you can bring it to life.
But again, it’s on any one person to decide for themselves whether or not not this is something they want.
Dianne: I mean, again, it’s an interesting question because it comes back to what gives you energy? Does it give you energy to found a company? We just spoke about how every woman is completely capable of founding and running a company with her eyes closed. The question is, do you want it?
Because some women just don’t want it. It’s like just because you can have kids doesn’t mean you want to, and that’s every woman’s prerogative to make herself. But it’s really a bigger question of can you get right with deciding for yourself what you just said? What does success look like to you?
And then owning that without shame, without guilt, without comparison. You know, complaining without you should be. Like, “I should be doing this over here, but I’m not.”
It’s like, well, if your destiny is calling you forth to sweep the floors in Costco, then you get to do that to your heart’s content and be the best that anybody ever could possibly be on this planet. And you’re bringing beauty to this earth for the time that you’re here and it’s going to make your heart sing doing that then fucking awesome.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Dianne: I feel like we answered it — nobody could tell me what I was ready to hear. Period.
Here’s the answer. I don’t wish that anybody would’ve told me anything. Because I don’t wish for it to have been any different than what it is. And what I am grateful for now is being more receptive and more responsive.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Sara: This is exactly why we created our Elite Mystique Agency. For many years, Dianne and I have supported our respective clients in different ways. In the end of the day, our clients pretty much wanted the same things: to have more time. To have more energy. To be able to do more. To be able to live better. We just used different knowledge, specialized skillset, and practical experience to help them achieve that.
By the time the world pressed pause in 2020, Dianne and I also started talking on the phone daily. It was through those conversations that we realized just how compatible our services and modalities were; how passionate we are about the same issues, and how we strive to create similar experiences.
As we watched so many women around us struggle, we decided to pool our resources to help empower, inspire them, to really help them simplify complexities of their lives, businesses. They already carried so much on their shoulders… Some of them succumbed to the pressures of expectations. Others found themselves trapped in toxic environments when they needed nurturing the most. When time and energy is the one thing that they don’t have in excess, how can we help them feel better, navigate more with greater ease, do more to help make the change in their lives and in the world?
Dianne: I’ll just add that perhaps, keeping it on a pragmatic level, there is so much that we can talk about with regards to this, but it’s really how I see defining success. How we’re living successfully every day is because Sara and I have become masterful at energy and time conservation. It is what we do. It’s how we live and we know how to maximize time and circulate energy.
Every morning, it’s kicking the sheets off the bed knowing that there are thousands and millions of women out there who say the same thing over and over. “I wish I had more time and I wish I had more energy.”
And so we impact the planet by saying, “Hey there, we can support you in this.”
And it’s not about fixing you because some part of you is broken and it’s not about giving you one formula that we think is going to work for everybody. It’s not. It’s actually listening to why it is that women believe they don’t have time or energy and giving them the opportunity to feel supportive and then taking those reasons that she believes she doesn’t have time and energy and offering an array of different solutions and possibilities. And then she decides for herself what she feels is going to work.
And then our other gift and what we have been so successful at, is being accountable. Being devoted, diligent. What made us great athletes is that we were disciplined and we can offer that accountability to the people that we serve every day. We’re going to make that midnight call and say, what are you doing? You blow it out in the mirror, what’s going on? get right with your thoughts. What are you doing? Are you wasting time? Why?
You know, it’s that which has made us successful at what we do and allowed us to move mountains through the midst of COVID and raising children and marriage and divorce and, parenthood and single motherhood, all of it.
Well, because we know how to circulate energy in not just some nice times. How do we know? Maybe it’s just our gifts. Maybe it’s just the practice we’ve put into it. Or a mix of both, but that’s what we do. And we’ve become it too. If anybody knows us, they know we are two women who live life. They know we are not two women who are like, “I’m perfect and happy, and everything’s great…” but we are certainly two women who are like “Okay. Things are shitty and I’m okay with it, it’s all awesome because I’m so grateful to be alive.”
And that’s contagious. And it takes a lot of courage to stand up and say that and to offer that to other women. And that’s what we do.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Dianne: I think you just answered it right there.
You are not broken, but let’s figure out your own way and enjoy every step of the way, even when life gets shitty. Every single human being has a cocktail of strengths, a smorgasbord, if you will. And it’s just understanding what those strengths are and how to align your priorities and preferences of those strengths.
Are you actually doing the activities every day that are aligned? What are you doing that’s going to make you feel really energized and really good as a human? And I think that alone has the biggest impact on the most people, in the quickest amount of time.
And it’s really sobering , especially for sometimes when you’re like, “Holy shit, I’m really good at these things, but yet I spend my entire day doing activities and nothing to do with what I’m actually good at.” And it makes you feel bad about yourself.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Dianne: Well, I am very much looking forward to having breakfast with Megan Rapinoe because she’s just at the precipice of great change. She’s certainly been somebody who, just in the past few days of us providing these interview answers, was really pushing the needle forward to have that settlement for US Women’s soccer. And speaking as a mother of an 11 year old who aspires to be just like her, I do need to sit down with Megan, and have a chat about how she’s going to hold that responsibility and be the leader that my daughter’s generation needs. And I really know that she’s going to require our guidance and our support.
She has a lot of responsibility on the plate and she still wants to be able to. And she deserves what she desires. She deserves to enjoy all of it. And I’m concerned that perhaps she might not be, and that is not okay with me.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this!
Pay discrimination. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirm that men make more than equally qualified and educated women for the same work in nearly every industry. Men are hired at higher salaries upon entry in jobs and the gap grows as they advance in the company. Companies that don’t publish their salary ranges, guide salary decisions with objective criteria, conduct regular pay audits, and evaluate their managers on pay equity practices are making a choice to devalue women’s work.
As part of my series about “the five things we need to do to close the gender wage gap” I had the pleasure of interviewing Noreen Farrel.
Noreen Farrell is the Executive Director of Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), a national non-profit advancing the rights of women and girls through policy reform, litigation, community education, and movement building. Noreen is a nationally recognized leader and innovator on a variety of gender justice issues. She co-founded and chairs the national Equal Pay Today Campaign, working with 30+ organizations in dozens of states and at the federal level to close the gender wage gap for women of color and low-paid workers. She has represented thousands of women and girls in groundbreaking impact litigation to end sex discrimination in school and the workplace, including before the U.S. Supreme Court. Noreen also leads ERA’s various Women’s Agenda Initiatives, including state and national policy reform campaigns to improve the lives of women and girls and their families. She is a graduate of Yale University and University of California Hastings College of the Law, where she was Editor-In-Chief of the Women’s Law Journal.
Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us the “backstory” that brought you to this career path?
Those who know me would say that I was destined to become a gender justice lawyer. You don’t survive a family of seven without the ability to debate and a strong desire to win! Both coupled with an acute awareness at an early age that my parents struggled more than they should. When my mother was widowed at a young age, she cleaned houses, cared for people in their homes, and worked in a nursing home for very little pay as she carried the weight of her entire family. My career has been inspired by her and working women like her across the country who deserve workplace dignity, equal pay, and a fair chance to succeed. Whether before a jury or Congress, I am humbled to be able to fight for them as part of the Equal Rights Advocates team.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this career?
Oscar’s Night, 2015. I could not believe my eyes when Patricia Arquette accepted her Academy Award for her role in Boyhood and said,” “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all.” From my living room, I stood up and cheered with the rest of America not knowing that she would call me a few days later to partner on her call to action. When you see “Patricia Arquette” on your phone screen, you pick up. She told me that others had told her that Equal Rights Advocates was the place to call if she wanted to put her words to action. Later that month, Patricia joined ERA and Senator Hannah Beth Jackson to introduce what was then the strongest state equal pay law in the country. Since passage of the California Fair Pay Act of 2015, 42 states have introduced similar or stronger legislation. 55 million people follow our Equal Pay Day campaigns on social media. Tech industry leaders like Salesforce have joined us. From our living rooms to Congress to workplaces across the country, we are building a movement to be excited about. Thanks, Oscars 2015!
Can you share a story about the funniest or most interesting mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
There are more than I can count, but one of the most embarrassing ones was the court brief I filed that inadvertently included “pubic” instead of public. 16 times. Imagine reading pubic 16 times. Lessons learned? First, don’t trust spell check. Second, our work quality says something about ourselves to the world. Put the time in, own mistakes, ask for feedback, strive for excellence. The people we work on behalf of deserve our best efforts.
Ok let’s jump to the main focus of our interview. Even in 2020, women still earn about 81 cents for every dollar a man makes. Can you explain three of the main factors that are causing the wage gap?
An important point about average “pay gap” numbers is that they don’t tell the story of women workers of color averaging far less (like Black women at 63 cents and Latinas at just 57 cents). I also love to challenge the overuse of the term wage “gap” because it implies some inexplicable occurrence — like a gap in the sidewalk that just happens over time. But let’s be clear: the wage gap exists because of deliberate choices to devalue women’s work.
Three choices to devalue women’s work stand out:
First, pay discrimination. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirm that men make more than equally qualified and educated women for the same work in nearly every industry. Men are hired at higher salaries upon entry in jobs and the gap grows as they advance in the company. Companies that don’t publish their salary ranges, guide salary decisions with objective criteria, conduct regular pay audits, and evaluate their managers on pay equity practices are making a choice to devalue women’s work.
Second, gender bias fuels occupational segregation — trapping women in the lowest paid work and excluding them from the highest paid jobs. Women occupy two-thirds of the nation’s minimum wage jobs; they are also overrepresented in tipped industries paying a subminimum wage. Gender bias is the driver. No matter the industry, wages fall when the number of women rise; wages rise as male representation increases. If we are serious about closing the wage gap, we have to create pathways for women into higher wage jobs and shield them from sexual harassment once they get there. We also have to insist on one fair wage for women workers, by raising the minimum wage and abolishing the subminimum wage for tipped workers.
Third, the wage gap grows when women are forced from the workplace once they become pregnant or caregivers. As COVID-19 made clear, women are bearing the brunt of family care. Women leaving the workforce because of pregnancy/caregiver discrimination, lack of childcare or work flexibility, and/or because they are denied job protected and paid family leave or sick leave are taking a huge hit to their career earnings. Even if they return to the same job, they suffer a 7% reduction in pay for the same work. If we are to close the pay gap, we must provide all workers — men and women and people across genders — access to the support and policies they need to stay employed while caring for families.
Can you share with our readers what your work is doing to help close the gender wage gap?
Equal Rights Advocates co-created the Equal Pay Today campaign to ensure that women and men have the same opportunities and are paid fairly for their work. With our dedicated and diverse partners nationwide, we support working families by prioritizing the needs of Black, Latina, and Native women who have the most to gain from strong fair pay policies. We’ve been able to raise public awareness with our series of Equal Pay Days for Black, Latina, AANHPI, and Native women. With our media and events, we want to start a conversation in every workplace about equal pay. (Sorry, HR.)
Mark your calendars for March 15 for Women’s Equal Pay Day. We’re planning a March Madness-themed week of action to share information about pay gap myths. We’re thrilled to be featured on TBS during the entire month of March for their International Women’s Day campaign to talk about the pay gap.
We’ve also collaborated with organizations across the country to help pass strong equal pay laws like the laws we helped create in California. We’re supporting efforts in Mississippi right now to make sure the equal pay proposal in that state is a good one. We’re making sure the Biden Administration and Congress don’t forget about their promises to working women by fighting to close policy gaps in existing federal laws on equal pay and gender equality. Closer to home, we’re also pushing hard for wage transparency in California with a new bill we introduced last week. The Pay Transparency for Pay Equity Act will require employers to post salary ranges and promotional opportunities, and also publicly report pay data by sex, race, and ethnicy. We can’t fix what we can’t see, so greater transparency in pay data will make it easier for workers to see who has strong equal pay practices and who doesn’t. With this bill, we have a chance to address the fact that California women lost $46 billion in 2020 to this pay gap and people of color lost even more — a whopping $61 billion.
Equal pay makes good business sense by building a strong, stable and diverse workforce. It also makes good corporate responsibility sense. Consumers want their brands to do the right thing. Paying women, especially women of color, what they’ve earned is the right thing.
Can you recommend 5 things that need to be done on a broader societal level to close the gender wage gap. Please share a story or example for each.
On an individual level, the best thing to do is rip off the secrecy. Talk about pay. We worked with an amazing woman, Aileen Rizo, a math education professional, who discovered over lunch that her male colleague with less time on the job was being paid more than her. Because of her case, the Ninth Circuit has held that prior salary cannot be a justification for unequal pay.
As an employer, sunshine is the best policy when it comes to wage equality. Publicize your salary ranges, launch a pay audit so you can see if there are gaps and where they exist, don’t retaliate against workers who want to talk about their salaries. (They’re going to talk about it anyway and you really don’t want them to talk about it in an open letter on Medium.) And please get rid of the Mommy penalty. Working moms have it really tough right now because of the pandemic — don’t make it so hard for a working mom or any working parent to have a flexible schedule so they can respond to their family’s needs. It’s the 21st century — moms and dads need to work. Let’s have workplaces that work *with* them, not against.
On the policy front, let’s raise the minimum wage, abolish the subminimum wage for tipped workers, ensure paid leave and access to childcare for all, and fill gaps in existing fair pay laws. Let’s do it in the states and at the federal level, because our rights should not depend on our zip code!
Is that five things? I lost count.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Let’s join together to end pay disparities faced by women and others — and end poverty. Closing the gender wage gap would lower working women’s poverty rates, especially for single mothers, in every state and help women and families achieve greater economic security. Indeed, if working women received equal pay with comparable men — men who are of the same age, have the same level of education, work the same number of hours, and have the same urban/rural status — poverty for working women would be reduced by more than 40 percent! Equal pay for working women would increase our annual average earnings from $41,402 to $48,326, adding $541 billion in wage and salary income to the U.S. economy. To go further, we eliminate the subminimum wage (as low as $2.13 per hour) paid to tipped workers in many states. States that have eliminated the tipped minimum wage have less poverty among workers in key tipped industries.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have two quotes by inspiring women of color that I live by: “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free” by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” by poet activist June Jordan. We have to defy the myth of scarcity, that someone must lose in order for someone else to win. It is, in fact, the opposite. There is no gender justice without racial, LGBTQ+, immigrant justice. As much as forces try to pit communities against each other, we are not free until every person in this country has what they need to thrive and find joy. We need to embrace a sense of abundance, knowing that everyone wins when everyone wins. I love pairing it with June Jordan’s quote because reaching solutions to our country’s problems can feel daunting. But we make the most progress when we stop waiting for others and remember our own power — as workers, consumers, family breadwinners, and voters. Nothing can stop us if we own that.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
When I think about women who have owned their power, I am inspired by Melinda Gates and McKenzie Scott. Over some chocolate croissants, I would love to sit down with these visionary philanthropists and strategists for gender justice. Collectively, they have given billions of dollars to great causes. In so doing, they have fostered an abundance mindset allowing activists to think big to drive change. I always say, we have to lead with the vision of what we need and want and deserve, not what we “think we can get.” I would love to thank them for validating that with their investment in the movement.
This was really meaningful! Thank you so much for your time.
Female Founders: Saskia Ketz of Mojomox on the Five Things You Need to Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
You have to let go of perfectionism. As a designer, I love tinkering until something is exactly right, but that’s the wrong way to go about building a business. You want to launch quickly so you can learn from what you put out in the world rather than letting perfectionism hold you back from ever getting started. This ties back to the product I’m creating, too: I think it’s better for startups to create “good enough” brands on their own rather than wait until they can pay for an expensive designer before launching.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Saskia Ketz, the founder of Mojomox, an online logo builder that allows startups and creators on tight budgets to create dynamic, professional looking brand identities. No stranger to starting companies, Saskia also runs MMarch NY, a branding agency that’s worked with world-class brands like Netflix, Ikea, and Timberland. She’s also the founder and editor-in-chief of A Women’s Thing, a publication reshaping what society’s views of “women’s things” are, and is passionate about helping women see new possibilities for themselves.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I’ve always been passionate about design — it taps into my love for strategy and creativity. After getting my MA in design and visual communications, I took a traditional job at an agency and quickly found that wasn’t the path for me. I wanted to work on my own things and control my own schedule. That’s what led me to become a founder.
At first, that meant starting my own agency. I loved choosing my clients and have worked on some amazing projects over the past eight years for everyone from big brands like Netflix to startups with really interesting missions. The work was inspiring, but I felt like something was missing.
For one, I felt drawn to the idea of building a product. I’ve always been analytical, and the thought of creating something technical from the ground up was appealing. I was also tiring of the high-touch nature of agency work and hoping to create something that would provide passive income in the long run.
At the same time, I started offering free “office hours” calls, and a lot of startups would use this opportunity to pick my brain. The work these founders were doing was inspiring, and I always felt pulled to help them, but I didn’t want to cut my agency prices to meet their startup budgets. Moreover, I didn’t think they should be spending a lot on design work. Good branding design is rooted in strategy, and early-stage companies still have a lot of experimenting and pivoting to do before they understand their strategy.
That’s when I saw the opportunity: to build a product that solved this problem for early-stage founders. I wanted to equip them with my design knowledge in an empowering way and give them tools to easily create design assets to get them off the ground until they have the strategy (and budgets) to hire someone.
And Mojomox was born. We currently offer DIY tools for creating logos, color palettes, font systems, and basic marketing assets — with more on the way!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
I’ve been so pleasantly surprised with how generous early users are with feedback. Founders have tight budgets and even tighter schedules, and I always assumed if they didn’t like something about my product, they would simply find an alternative.
But I’ve experienced the opposite: Early users see the potential in my product and want to help me better help them. The first time this happened, I opened my inbox to an entire essay from one of my users sharing their story, their needs, and what I could improve about the product. I was so shocked and grateful, and even more so when this continued happening with other users.
It’s helped me feel more open to asking users for feedback, which has become the most interesting part of the founder journey. When you step out of the room where you’re building something by yourself and see how other people react to the work, you learn about their actual problems — and when you solve their actual problems, they’re more likely to pay for your product and recommend it to others.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I started building Mojomox, I wanted to create something different than existing DIY logo apps, which often integrate icons for a brand’s industry that a professional designer would never use. Instead, I focused our tool on creating wordmarks: a simple logo made with a brand name in a clean typeface without any imagery.
Quickly, the feedback started rolling in: My users liked the wordmarks, but they also wanted some kind of logo to go alongside it. After fighting it and fighting it, I finally caved and decided to add a logo feature (though one that focuses on simple, graphic shapes rather than illustrative icons).
I had to laugh at how quickly I built what I said I wouldn’t, but I’m starting to understand that’s such a big part of the founder journey. You like to think you’re the expert and that you always have the right ideas, but really your users are the experts in what they need and want. It goes back to receiving that feedback openly and making real business decisions from it.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I would not be here without the support of my husband, Darshan Somashekar (and not for the reasons you might expect). He’s founded two companies — EasyBib, which he sold to Chegg, and now gaming company Solitaired — in addition to advising many more, so he’s very familiar with this world and has become a de facto business partner.
We have a daily routine where we sit outside with coffee and talk for an hour. While we’re chatting about personal stuff, too, he almost always gives me a new perspective on a challenge I’m facing in my business. All in all, he probably spends a few hours of his spare time every week helping me build my company, and I’m so grateful for it.
Whether it’s a formal business partner, a mentor, or just someone you’re close to who’s gone down this path before, I hope every founder can find someone this supportive to help on their journey.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience, what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
This is such a big question with a lot of complex answers, but two things really stand out to me. One, on an individual level, is just that women generally still struggle with confidence compared to men. So many women I talk to feel like they need more expertise and experience to start a company than men do. I’ve had to work on showing confidence in my ideas and decisions. A few things that have helped are finding other female founders to share experiences with and getting good people in my corner to support me.
On a societal level, the lack of equity in childcare and other caregiving is still a huge barrier. I see so many female founders who either have to step back from their company once they have kids or aren’t able to grow at the rate they’d like because of the time and energy spent tending to their families. Worse are the women who never even try starting companies because they can’t imagine having children without paid maternity leave, healthcare, and other benefits employers offer. This isn’t a new conversation, but there’s still a lot of work to be done in solving it.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
It would be great if the government would step in with things like universal parental leave, healthcare, and affordable childcare to help women feel like they don’t have to choose between building a family and building a company.
Until then, it comes down to having tough conversations on an individual level, particularly if you’re having a child with a male partner. Before you have kids, sit down, address the amount of work it’s going to add and get tactical about how you’ll divvy that up: The baby wakes up X times a night — who’s going to get up? Each feeding takes an hour — who’s going to do that?
Most men don’t realize how much work raising a child takes because they don’t talk about it. It’s important to have this conversation from a place of valuing both of your time and work equally so that you don’t end up with the bulk of the responsibility. I could have done without having kids, but my husband wanted them, meaning we had to negotiate what that would look like so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice my career.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
People who start companies do it to solve the problems they see in the world, to make a dent in the universe. There are so many issues that will just never get tackled by men because they don’t have these same problems: women’s health, childcare, and other duties women bear the brunt of, like education and senior care. Even for problems that male founders are tackling, women will undoubtedly bring creative solutions to the table since they see the issues from a different perspective.
This doesn’t just relate to needing more female founders, but to needing more BIPOC founders, more LGBTQIA+ founders, and so on. If we want a diversity of solutions to the diversity of challenges in the world, we need a diversity of founders to do it.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
It’s not glamorous! So many female founders share their highlight reels online: going to snazzy events, speaking at major conferences, getting featured in big publications. What they don’t often show is working all hours of the day, muddling through dull operational things, and all the other really tough things about being a founder.
You do have more control over your time than when you’re working for a traditional employer, but you’re giving so much of your time to your business that it doesn’t always feel that way. Still, it’s worth it if you have a passion for your mission and are excited to build something from the ground up.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
The short answer to this is that anyone can be a founder if you really want to do it and are ready for the work it will entail.
The longer answer is that it depends on your work preferences. If you want to get really good at doing just one thing — for example, if I wanted to spend all my time creating brand identities — I think it’s better to work a traditional job. Obviously, your responsibilities will shift throughout your career, but generally you’ll be highly focused on one area of expertise.
As a founder, though, you have to do all the things, even if you don’t know how to do them or don’t like doing them. For instance, I’m more excited about the product side of things, but building a successful business is 80% marketing. While I’d rather be working on the product roadmap, I often have to spend a full day doing media outreach or SEO content creation. If you don’t think you can push through tasks you don’t want to do in order to achieve your vision, being a founder probably isn’t the path for you.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
You have to let go of perfectionism. As a designer, I love tinkering until something is exactly right, but that’s the wrong way to go about building a business. You want to launch quickly so you can learn from what you put out in the world rather than letting perfectionism hold you back from ever getting started. This ties back to the product I’m creating, too: I think it’s better for startups to create “good enough” brands on their own rather than wait until they can pay for an expensive designer before launching.
Everything will be different than what you think. You can never truly prepare to be a founder because everything will play out differently than you anticipated, from what your users actually want to how long it takes you to complete tasks (hint: always longer than you think). Don’t waste your time planning too much — instead, as we Germans like to say, you just have to jump into cold water and figure it out as you go.
You really can’t do it all. I hate to say it, but it’s true. This relates both to how you balance your business with your personal life, but also to how you balance other projects and ideas you have while growing your business. I love having my hand in multiple projects at once, but I’ve had to step back from my work at A Women’s Thing and start saying no to agency clients so I can put as much energy as possible into my business.
You have to be the face of your company. You don’t just get to build your vision — you have to share it with the world, too. Depending on your personality, you may love this, but it’s not my favorite thing and I have to push through it regularly to write about my work or do interviews like this. There’s no getting around having to put yourself out there to put your company out there.
There are so many business basics to learn. I wish someone could have just dumped the knowledge about accounting, financing, organizational strategy, and the like into my brain. There’s so much to learn, and it’s not the most fun part of building a business (at least for me), but until you can hire someone to help you with it, you will have to spend time figuring it out.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Design and branding may seem frivolous to some, but it’s critical for business success — especially in today’s online world. Hiring a professional designer can be cost-prohibitive for early-stage companies, so Mojomox is all about making good branding more accessible. I hope the work I’m doing will help remove this as a barrier for other founders — particularly women. I love getting to use my design knowledge to help others succeed.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I would love for there to be more support for alternative ways of working and living. Wouldn’t it be cool if our education systems made it easy to travel at a young age so that we all could learn more about other people in the world? Wouldn’t it be great if our healthcare wasn’t tied to our employers, so people could choose to work how they like? Wouldn’t it be inspiring if societal norms didn’t push one way of starting a family, but modeled all kinds of ways to build community and live a fulfilling home life?
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Honestly, nobody comes to mind because I’ve always been very bold about just reaching out to people I want to meet. Even your heroes are more normal than you think — if you want to meet someone, just ask, and don’t be afraid to be a little persistent. It all goes back to having confidence.
A while ago, I really wanted to chat with Seth Godin, so I reached out to him a few times and even went so far as sending him a handwritten letter. He ended up inviting me to a private event he was hosting on the future of publishing, which was really cool.
At this point, the people who inspire me most are historical women who lived impactful lives despite the societal oppression they faced. For instance, it would be amazing to go back to Medieval times and talk to Hildegard of Bingen, who was a philosopher, writer, composer, and visionary of her time. I would love to find out what inspired her to do so many great things in one lifespan.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Women In Wellness: Michelle Davis On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Surround yourself with people who bring joy to your life, people who treat you with kindness and respect, and those who support you. Try connecting with people every day, even if it’s just a text message with a family member or a quick coffee with a friend.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michelle Davis.
Michelle is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist living and working in Canmore Alberta. She specializes in helping adults and children manage and overcome stress, anxiety and depression, as well as other common problems such as smoking cessation, addiction, PTSD, sports anxiety and exam stress. Michelle is originally from the UK and moved to Canada in 2015 after training at the Regents University in London (UK) in 2014.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
I’m originally from Birmingham in the UK. My father was English, and my mother was Canadian, so my accent was quite confusing for my peers growing up. My childhood was turbulent, so as an adult I often felt anxious, depressed, and I had very low self-esteem. However, when a Cognitive Hypnotherapist came into my life, I was able to turn things around. As I worked through past trauma and learned valuable tools, my self-esteem and confidence grew, and I was able to manage my anxiety and I felt happier. My company name, The First Step to Freedom, echoes this journey where it all started with one step. A phone call that led me to find freedom from the things that were weighing me down.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
The most interesting story I have since starting my career, would be overcoming public speaking. Before I started my career I would have extreme anxiety, and sometimes panic attacks, when I had to stand up in front of people and speak. Since then, I worked extensively on this fear, which has meant that now I can present workshops, deliver presentations, and even participate in interviews! None of this would have been possible before overcoming my fears, so this shift in confidence and self-esteem has not only helped expand my career but has also improved my own mental health and wellbeing. My biggest takeaway from this experience, therefore, would be to try to overcome your fears, you may be surprised where it leads you.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I deliver hypnotherapy to clients, I often cover people in a blanket. Well, one day a pair of very well used panties were stuck to the blanket!!! My client noticed and politely informed me of my blunder. Needless to say, I check the blankets thoroughly now when I take them out of the drier!
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
As a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, I specialize in helping adults and children manage and overcome stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as other common problems such as smoking cessation, addiction, PTSD, sports anxiety, and exam stress. As a woman in wellness, I am an advocate for mental health. I support individuals in their journey to happiness and mental wellbeing, so people can live the life they want to live.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
1) Self-care is something I believe is essential to people’s mental health and well-being. Even 10 minutes each day can help us to manage stress, build resilience and be more focused and motivated. Self-care can also give us more capacity in our day-to-day lives, helping us to be the best versions of ourselves.
2) Meditating every day can help us to gain new perspectives, as well as build skills to help us manage stress. Meditation can come in different shapes and sizes, such as sitting quietly, going for a mindful walk, and listening to a guided meditation. Whatever way works for you, try starting with 5-minutes a day and increase from there until it becomes effortless.
3) Surround yourself with people who bring joy to your life, people who treat you with kindness and respect, and those who support you. Try connecting with people every day, even if it’s just a text message with a family member or a quick coffee with a friend.
4) Practice positive self-talk. Our words influence our thoughts so when we speak negatively to ourselves, we impact the way we feel about ourselves. Try to notice when you are not treating yourself kindly and change the dialogue to be something more encouraging. Perhaps something you would say to a friend when they are in need of kindness.
5) Allow yourself to rest. Being active and exercising regularly is important, but so is rest and relaxation. It regenerates the mind and rejuvenates the body, so enjoy your down time. It’s just as important.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would irradicate the stigma associated with mental health and inspire people to seek out a therapy that is right for them. Having an impartial therapist to talk to can help people let go of the things weighing them down, so they can live their best life.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started”?
1) Trust and believe in yourself
2) There is no such thing as failure
3) Be at peace with what is within your control and what is not.
4) Prioritize self-care everyday
5) You are good enough
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
All these topics are important to me, but if I had to pick, the cause closest to my heart is mental health. Perhaps if we had more mental capacity, there would be more time and energy to implement positive changes in the world?
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
Female Founders: Janey Reilly of WeeSleep On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Have an open mind and always be willing to learn from those you surround yourself with; your team, competitors, community and beyond. Successful people share information, continuously educated themselves, and want to learn from others. A good leader is able to take in other people’s personalities and appreciate everyone for who they are and what they can bring to the table. When we surround ourselves with good energy and people, only good things can come of it. I have learned to LEARN from others and not shut down ideas right away. I have also learned to not take things personally — it has taught me to be more resilient. I am a very sensitive person so I now have to let things roll off and be thankful for the lesson, tip or nasty comment…whatever it may be, I learn from it.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Janey Reilly.
Janey Reilly is the founder of WeeSleep®, a Dream Team of certified infant and toddler sleep consultants that serve clients as far across the globe as New Zealand. Janey believes that teaching positive sleep skills will create healthier infants and toddlers and in turn, happier, healthier parents who enjoy a more balanced home life. Since 2011, WeeSleep® has grown to over 40 consultants and that number is expected to more than double by the end of 2022.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I need to preface my career backstory by saying that I always tend to fly by the seat of my pants! My personal experiences and relationships brought me to where I am today. I worked a corporate career for many years — somewhere I never thought I would be. I was a wine account director for many years so that meant traveling the world and getting to work with high-end hotels, spas and restaurants. Then, I got the opportunity to work for a company called Sparkling Hill, which is a stunning Swarovski hotel, where I was the sales and marketing director. After leaving that gig, I ended up a marketing director for an online kids game. Marketing was where I really shined; I developed marketing campaigns for major brands such as Disney, Aveda, Trialto Wine Group and Sparkling Hill Resort. I didn’t anticipate leaving the corporate world until I had my son.
At that time, I was working a stable, corporate job at Disney in Kelowna, B.C., but I knew something was missing. On top of it all, I had very severe postpartum depression and lost sense of who I was. I thought I was prepared for motherhood, and I was very excited, but then I had him and he didn’t do anything that he was supposed to do according to my books.
After many sleepless nights that affected my mental health, I hired a sleep consultant. Within two days, my son was sleeping through the night! That’s when I decided to launch my own sleep consulting company, WeeSleep, in 2011. I knew there was something here I could learn from, and I knew I had the passion to make it even better for other moms out there like me who were struggling.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
The most interesting thing that has happened to me, overall, is how much I learned about myself when I began leading a team. The self-growth shift over the years has taught me how to better understand others, to be more patient and open, and to always work as a team, even though I’m the leader. My team continues to teach me lessons daily.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Oh gosh… this is embarrassing but still makes me laugh so hard when I think about it! Several years ago, I was at an overnight consult and pulled out my laptop while sitting across from fabulous (yet, very tired) parents to go over their child’s sleep plan with them. The whole time my laptop was open, the back of the computer was facing them.
After we were done with the consult, I closed the laptop to put it away, and low and behold, a pantyliner was stuck to the back of my laptop! The WHOLE time! I was mortified, and needless to say I never threw feminine products in my work bag EVER again!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My dad, 100%! When I was growing up, he was always a very hard worker. He taught me a strong work ethic, integrity, grit, and to work for what I want. My dad often said, “money doesn’t grow on trees,” which motivates me, to this day, to work hard and to save and invest my earnings. Thanks to him, I don’t take my company’s success for granted and am beyond grateful for how much we’ve grown, and continue to grow. My dad has always been my biggest supporter and cheerleader, even through all of my wild decisions!
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
I believe FEAR is still holding women back. Fear of the unknown; from financials, to what-ifs, to how-tos, and beyond. Women have shared with me that often it’s a lack of support and confidence too. I encourage women to take the leap, although it may be scary, it could be the greatest thing you have ever done. You will never know unless you try!
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
A lot of obstacles can surprisingly come back to sleep. Sleep impacts mental health and our general well-being. These things can contribute to mental health. Sleep is the BEST thing you can do to START forming habits to be a stronger, smarter, more focused business person. When I go through stages where I burn the candle at both ends (which happens often!), I am irritable, impatient, choose the wrong foods and my workouts are “meh.” To ensure I remain focused on my business and to be the best leader I can be, it’s vital I get proper sleep. After all, I started WeeSleep because of my lack of sleep and how, without it, my world was turned upside down!
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
A huge reason I became a founder was so I can be there for my son and have the ability to create a balanced schedule that works for us. As a single mom, it is important for me to work from home so I can be with my son and get to watch him grow each day. Additionally, women love to collaborate with each other which is a valuable trait in building a successful business. FACT: Women-run businesses generate more revenue than those run by men — sorry guys! Building a business is NOT easy, but if you have a solid WHY and are ready to dig in and create a career you love and are passionate about, then why wouldn’t you? We as women bring a unique perspective to business problems, and we approach launching and building a company in different ways than men. Lastly, I have found that there are SO many amazing and incredible resources and support groups for female founders.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
People tend to think, “When your business has a team in-place, or when you have grown a lot, you are SO successful.” However, most entrepreneurs don’t feel their “success” until they are REALLY where they want to be.
Another myth: “Entrepreneurs aren’t afraid.” We sure are! I was afraid to start my company 11 years ago, and I am still sometimes afraid every day, especially when it comes to hiring a new person, changing a price, rebranding, and more. But I also know that it’s important to trust the process and to understand that you have to give into fear to get a great return! You have to change to grow. You have to pivot to excel. You have to get back up after you get knocked down. Over and over and over.
“Entrepreneurs don’t work 9–5 so you are free of a regular schedule.” Some days I work 2 hours; some days it’s 10, but most days I work 6. As an entrepreneur, we are always working around the clock! For many, our businesses are constantly top of mind and we are always “on.” There are social media reminders in our faces, emails coming in at all hours, ideas coming to us in our sleep, business books on the bedside table…. the list goes on. Thankfully, I have learned to master the on/off switch and know when my most effective hours are for me to work. When my son is home, I often have to work, but I make sure it’s not until I have had time with him to have fun and really connect. Afterall, he is who I have to thank for my business coming to be!
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
I think anyone can dream up an idea or own a business, but I do not believe all people are prepared for the ups and downs. There can be many wins, and often, there are just as many, if not more, losses! That’s the nature of the game, and you must understand and know that that is what you signed up for. I am not sure I know of any successful entrepreneur who has had straight wins! Also, it can be lonely being a Founder and CEO. There is nobody to guide us, hold us accountable or motivate us. You have to do this on your own, and that comes from really believing in something, seeing the end game and trusting the process. It’s also very important to WANT to learn from others and to be able to embrace change, share info and admit mistakes, but to also celebrate even the smallest victories!
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Create a support network.
It can be lonely being a CEO and working from home. A support network will hold you accountable, provide great ideas and inspire creativity. Good energy is contagious and when you have a network of incredible business women, it can be GOLD to move forward and also feel energized!
GOOD freelance and team members are HARD to find!
There are many “professionals” whom will tell you they can do everything, but sadly, it’s usually an empty promise. I have encountered many “experts” in so many areas; social media, SEO, Google, Digital Ads, and beyond, but when they are actually hired, they lack results, and performance. There are a lot of inexperienced people out there that will happily take your money and not perform.
Make time to build a growth mindset.
It wasn’t until 2 years ago that I blocked 2 hours off every Friday to journal, listen to podcasts, take an online course, or read a business book. It’s important to make time for growth. When I am in a growth mindset, I am clearer and more confident and ignited with ideas!
Do your research thoroughly before hiring someone.
Before hiring, I always interview at least six people, and check out each of their client bases, their work and their testimonials. It’s also important to not get sucked into ads about what they did for other clients, or if they worked with someone well-known. I have invested in businesses after seeing their ad and getting sucked in to their image and promises. Some have been HUGELY costly, and did not live up to what they promised. Get to know your stats and reports. Dig in and be a part of it, and do not let people intimidate you. At the end of the day, it’s your business, and your money so you should know everything about it and anyone you work with should be transparent and get you what you need.
Have an open mind and always be willing to learn from those you surround yourself with; your team, competitors, community and beyond.
Successful people share information, continuously educated themselves, and want to learn from others. A good leader is able to take in other people’s personalities and appreciate everyone for who they are and what they can bring to the table. When we surround ourselves with good energy and people, only good things can come of it. I have learned to LEARN from others and not shut down ideas right away. I have also learned to not take things personally — it has taught me to be more resilient. I am a very sensitive person so I now have to let things roll off and be thankful for the lesson, tip or nasty comment…whatever it may be, I learn from it.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Creating WeeSleep has allowed me to help over 13,000 families be more rested, which means they are healthier and have more joy in their lives!
Through WeeSleep’s career opportunities, I have also helped over 45 amazing women create careers they love while they work from home and are with their families, all while earning a stellar income.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I would create a movement about teaching families and schools the importance of educating kids about healthy sleep habits. Getting kids interested in healthy sleep habits at an early age will increase the likelihood they continue to build those sleep skills which will help so much more in their lives too.
Secondly, to go hand-in hand with sleep, I would inspire a movement for loving nutrition starting at a young age. Helping kids be more physically active and understanding the importance of healthy food choices will set them up with a lifelong foundation healthy living. There is so much more that schools can do to teach kids about building healthy habits. The key focus should be on having fun with healthy habits. Just like adults, kids are less likely to get excited about something they don’t enjoy. If kids are inspired in a way that brings them joy and fun, they will want more. This means more time to practice skills surrounding movement and nutrition which will only improve their abilities to keep creating strong, positive habits.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Arianna Huffington. She is powerhouse and still remains real, kind, classy, smart, and together. She is a business icon I adore! I even loved her before her book, “The Sleep Revolution.” After her book launched and I saw her speak, I knew we were destined to be BFF’s (well, okay, in my head I felt it was very possible). I also admire how she is always polished and put together….never over the top, no drama. Just all class!
I have not landed a spot in the Huffington Post — yet. It’s on my wish list!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this!
Female Founders: Bonnie Comley of BroadwayHD On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
I think that becoming a founder is more related to personality than gender, founders are usually self-driven individuals with a great desire to succeed. Women can make a big impact in industries by providing greater diversity and new ideas, while also connecting with the vast number of female customers. There are businesses, such as Broadway, in which statistics show that female customers, in this case, ticket buyers, outnumber males by some 20 percent. Such businesses with similar demographics should be particularly intriguing to women entrepreneurs who have a keen and intuitive understanding of their market.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bonnie Comley.
Bonnie Comley, Board President of the Drama League, is a three-time Tony Award-winning producer and founder & CEO of BroadwayHD, the world’s premier online streaming platform delivering over 300 premium live productions to theatre fans globally. Comley has also won an Olivier Award and two Drama Desk Awards for her stage productions and has produced over 40 films, winning five Telly Awards and one W3 Award.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I am a Broadway producer turned entrepreneur from Massachusetts. I graduated from UMass as a business major and went on to earn my master’s degree in TV production from Emerson College. Later, I added Columbia Business School to my academic achievements.
I managed to combine my business knowledge with my interest in entertainment. Serving as an on-air television reporter for Travel Channel’s NightLife TV, I covered theater, and along the way, met an agent who saw more potential for me as a performer. This led to voice-over work, television commercials, soap operas, and nine off-Broadway theatrical roles. My appetite for theater also kept me reporting on the topic for a performing arts publication where I would meet a host of Broadway notables.
Fast forward a few decades, and I have amassed a Broadway career which includes producing significant shows from dramas such as War Horse to the lighthearted hit musical comedy Legally Blonde. And along with the Broadway productions came the thrill of being honored with prestigious awards from the Broadway community and by academic institutions. My educational honors include The Distinguished Alumni Award from Emerson College, The Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Massachusetts, and the business honor society Beta Gamma Sigma. In fact, the Music Theatre Program at Boston University is named in my honor, the Musical Theatre Society Room at Emerson College bears my name, and the 500-seat theater at the University of Massachusetts is named the Comley-Lane Theatre.
In 2015 I became founder and CEO of BroadwayHD, the world’s first and foremost online streaming platform delivering over 300 premium filmed live productions to theater fans globally. BroadwayHD has borrowed from the Netflix streaming model and applied it to theater, featuring Broadway and off-Broadway productions in their entirety, as well as productions from London’s famed West End. Offering unlimited, on-demand access to premium full-length stage productions, BroadwayHD invites viewers to enjoy filmed live theater from the comfort of their own homes and at a time suited to their convenience. BroadwayHD is using streaming technology to eliminate the geographic and economic barriers along with the physical limitations of a theater — bringing Broadway to viewers’ homes.
BroadwayHD also ensures ease of access for its customer base and is available to anyone via tablet, laptop, desktop, or mobile phone as well as on TV, accessible through Apple TV and Google Chromecast, Roku, Amazon Prime, Firestick, or dedicated apps for iOS and Android or via the BroadwayHD website.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
In a ground-breaking first for the Broadway industry, on June 30, 2016, the BroadwayHD team and I, in partnership with the Roundabout Theater Company, made history becoming the first Broadway show to be live-streamed. The historic performance of She Loves Me was viewed in real-time by audiences in over 84 nations around the world. On that day, BroadwayHD and She Loves Me were trending on both Facebook and Twitter. Media and customer testimonials praised and lauded the live-streamed production, validating the theory that filmed Broadway shows have a worldwide audience.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Being a founder means taking a passion for a business and making it a reality, as I did with my love of theater. I believe that being a founder is within everyone’s grasp, as long as they are dedicated to working hard and spending many hours on the details it takes to launch a successful business. I also believe that along with having passion, founders need to have a long-range vision of what they are trying to achieve and be open to new ideas since it’s very likely that there will be some detours or roadblocks to overcome along the way. It’s also important to be budget-conscious, and always looking for the resources you will need to achieve your goals, which typically includes utilizing the right technology and having the best human resources you can find. It also helps to be amiable and optimistic!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There are a lot of people who helped and inspired me along the way, from marvelous instructors at UMass, Emerson, and Columbia Business School to my husband and family to the many remarkable women I’ve met in the theater community as such Charlotte St. Martin who, since 2006, has been the head of the Broadway League, the trade association for Broadway talent, theater owners, producers, presenters, and general managers. Anyone who can remain at the top of a multi-billion-dollar industry for 15 years has leadership skills worth emulating.
But when it comes to stamina and discipline as an entrepreneur, I point to my parents as shining examples. My dad was an elevator mechanic and my mom quit her job at the New England Telephone Company to start their own business on our kitchen table, long before home-based businesses were a thing. They were two young parents of four children but they were also hard workers and risk-takers. My mother always told me that the only people who never fail are the ones that aren’t doing anything.
Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to an EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience, what is currently holding women back from founding companies?
My deep knowledge of the technology, expertise in marketing, and producing this specialized content have put me at the intersection of art and commerce. I also enjoy spending time mentoring and inspiring the next generation of female tech entrepreneurs. My personal motto is “find a mentor, then be a mentor.” I feel that the ideal mentor is a mirror reflection of yourself but with more experience. Of course, in the real world, this mirror reflection is hard to find in workplaces without much diversity, so, allies can be the answer. Find a workplace ally who is willing to support you with advice and guidance, in your career path you can have multiple mentors and allies as you immerse yourself in the industry of your choice and learn as much as possible about how it works.
At BroadwayHD, I have also ensured that the company has a 50:50 gender split. Safeguarding the gender-diverse workforce at BroadwayHD allows the company to serve an increasingly diverse customer base. I also wanted more flexibility in managing a work-life balance for myself and my employees, so in 2019 BroadwayHD transformed into a remote and cloud-based organization. While it was still expected that employees would travel into the New York City offices on a regular schedule, the aim was to encourage employees to develop the infrastructure and home office environments to allow them to work flexibly if necessary. This perceptive modification of working practice and evolution of company culture allowed a smooth transition to the fully remote working environment adopted following pandemic-related lockdown restrictions, without facing any decrease in productivity or any negative impact on its subscriber base.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
I think that becoming a founder is more related to personality than gender, founders are usually self-driven individuals with a great desire to succeed. Women can make a big impact in industries by providing greater diversity and new ideas, while also connecting with the vast number of female customers. There are businesses, such as Broadway, in which statistics show that female customers, in this case, ticket buyers, outnumber males by some 20 percent. Such businesses with similar demographics should be particularly intriguing to women entrepreneurs who have a keen and intuitive understanding of their market.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
One of the myths I’ve heard often is that founders are their own bosses, which on the surface sounds marvelous. However, what those perpetuating the idea of this fantasy business life don’t recognize is that there are many responsibilities, some of which are not positive, such as letting people go, having to cut back to stay within a budget, making a host of tough decisions that may affect numerous people, and steering the ship through calamities from economic downturns, to natural disasters to pandemics. Being a founder has its perks, but the position also comes with a lot of headaches and many hours of lost sleep.
Another common myth I dispel is the one that says entrepreneurs are born, not made. The perfect example of someone whose early career path was focused on reporting on theater and honing her acting skills, I became an entrepreneur after being part of an industry that she loved for many years. I was not the young entrepreneur ready to take on the business world by storm. In fact, I wasn’t thinking that way, nor were the majority of entrepreneurs I’ve met along the way. Most founders have gained career experience before taking the plunge into starting a business, they weren’t simply born to be entrepreneurs.
There’s also the myth that says founder(s) know exactly what their audience wants. The vast majority of founders are doing a ton of demographic and consumer research, often learning through trial and error and opting for smaller risks over large ones until they hone in on their target audience. BroadwayHD has grown steadily, but cautiously, as we learned what our audiences want and how we could provide them with the best possible streaming service, it’s always best not to presume you know what people want.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
For a while now I have been working on a “Listen Up” initiative, it is designed to bridge the widening gap between the beliefs and opinions of so many people. We believe it begins with the most basic tool we have, communication. Once a month everyone has to listen to someone with a conflicting opinion. This means listening without judgment, without debate, without prejudice. The goal is to understand why this person with a very different point of view has come to this conclusion and maintains this belief. You don’t have to change their minds and they don’t have to change yours. But we believe if you “listen up” very closely, you might be able tocomprehend an issue from a different perspective, and that can make a huge difference.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I have long been an advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and am pleased to see that after lockdowns and isolation, more people are willing to listen. In 2021, 1 received the WP Theater’s Women of Achievement Award for my work in gender equality.
My parents taught me to challenge gender norms at an early age and dared me to enter into all-boy arenas. I was handed power tools as a young girl and told, “some people will tell you that you can’t but you can do anything that the boys can do.” I was also warned that I would face resistance, but I was always able to push forward with encouragement from my family.
In my overalls and work boots with sawdust in my hair, I built treehouses and I made furniture. I could change the tires, the oil, and the muffler on the family car. I could drive a snowmobile, dirt bike, and a manual transmission pickup truck at 55 mph in reverse. I could also cook, sew, clean a fish, and milk a cow — I mastered all these things before I graduated from high school. Having such a diverse background, and challenging “gender norms” it was no surprise that I ended up working in the theater!
The theater has always been a space for people to break “gender norms”, the place to witness people doing what they were told they could not do, or dare not, do. It’s been a battleground for social justice which is what drew so many of us into the industry, even those of us who have spent years in this industry and become part of the privileged category, clearly recognize the imbalance and want to be part of the solution.
I want to reach a time of gender parity in the theater, while continuing to strive for diversity, equity, and inclusion. With statistics in hand, we continue moving in the right direction. When we talk about gender equality, for example, we find that women leaders are more likely to mentor and hire other women, and are more likely to create an inclusive environment, which results in more women entering that workplace. In recent years, there has been a tremendous advancement of women in the top levels of theater. These women, running regional theaters will hire more women executives, who will hire female designers, who will look for scripts by, and about, women. The same can be the result across minorities who bring in the talent that so greatly deserves to be given such opportunities.
So, what am I doing as a founder to support gender equality and DEI? One of the greatest aspects of BroadwayHD is that we offer audiences in 120 countries the opportunity to watch full-length stage plays and musicals that depict a wealth of stories about the struggles, the turmoil, the failures, and the successes of fascinating individuals, who were told they couldn’t do something because of their gender, race, religion, culture or sexual orientation. Therefore, BroadwayHD is not just about bringing people quality entertainment, it is also very much about amplifying stories and voices from a single theatrical production and making them heard around the world. For example, we can extend the life of shows by women playwrights, like Paula Vogel and Dominique Morriseau, composers like Shauna Taub, and Val Vigoda, and directors like Rebecca Taichman, Sally Cookson, and Lisa Petersen and share them with a global audience long after the curtain has come down on the final performance. These beautiful shows at the height of their production values will be seen around the world and will inspire others to step up and use their voices. Authentic theater can only happen when we let people tell their own stories and present those stories to as many people as possible.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
1. I wish someone had told us that we didn’t need four offices, in New York City, Portland Maine, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C.. Today, we have people working remotely in four locations, but only one office remains in Manhattan. Like so many businesses, we’ve become remote, and it’s working out extremely well.
2. The learning never stops and the business is never static. There will always be challenges and roadblocks. BroadwayHD is a perfect example of this. Many companies tried to digitize theater but the union agreements weren’t negotiated in advance, streaming technology had buffering issues, etc. It was a long list of challenges. But we tried to methodically address each roadblock and find a solution. BroadwayHD is heading into its seventh year of business and we are constantly integrating new technology and adjusting to the market.
3. Key employees will come and go. Sometimes the best people to launch a business are not the best people to run the business. BroadwayHD started as a concept, a startup, and has become a successful streaming platform. Several high-level BroadwayHD executives have moved on to launch other tech businesses. Even I have to admit that as the company grows, I rely more on teams of experts, as I am confident I have chosen the best fit teams for BroadwayHD.
4. The online theater audience is not the same as the Broadway ticket buyer. While there is certainly overlap, and the Broadway ticket buyers were early adapters, there is a huge global underserved audience with an appetite for live theater. When BroadwayHD launched in 2015, the marketing dollars were spent to advertise in English to US consumers. Within days of launch, there were so many requests for the service from foreign countries, that BroadwayHD had to adjust to collect international currencies.
5. Being agile in business is not failure, it’s recognizing that there is a better path to success. BroadwayHD started off with a theory that everything needed to be live-streamed but soon discovered that it was more important to the BroadwayHD audience that the shows were available to them on-demand and at their convenience than they were watching while the show was taking place. In other words, the “live event” aspect was less important than having access to the shows. BroadwayHD’s library of 300 plus full-length musicals and stage plays is available on-demand which is a different business model than the original live streaming from theaters at 8pm business model. The best understanding of the market comes from being in the marketplace.
I have one story: “Dream big.” It may sound cliché, but if you do not dare to dream, you are NGMI (short for the Web3 term “never gonna make it”). Two years ago, we were struggling financially after moving to Singapore without a stable income. One thing my husband and I did was spend a day writing down our life goals on a vision board. We were joking that anyone who saw it would think we were crazy. But after one year, we made a major financial breakthrough.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Cindy Jin.
Cindy Jin, Co-Founder of Metapoly, is a female entrepreneur who is passionate about NFTs and the Metaverse. Before co-founding Metapoly, she launched Mintology Studio, her own startup in the NFT space. Prior to that, Cindy worked as a commercial lead in e-commerce and digital marketing corporations, including IPG and the Lane Crawford Joyce Group. She has been involved in crypto investment personally since 2017.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Before starting my adventures in cryptocurrency, I was a corporate professional working in fashion, e-commerce, and digital marketing for over a decade.
In my journey, I had two major shifts in career focus. The first one happened after I worked in fashion procurement and supply chain management for about 10 years. I worked for brands like Forever21 and was in charge of their supply chain in China. While I am still very passionate about the fashion industry, I started to realize that the industry is downsizing in China, and the majority of production is moving to the SEA region, where manpower is generally cheaper. I found myself at a crossroads, considering a change in careers at the cost of sacrificing 10 years of work experience. I struggled for some time, but was lucky enough to secure a role as business development manager in a startup e-commerce company.
The e-commerce industry at that point was booming in China, so I was happy that it put me in a good position. Unfortunately, the startup company did not survive after three years, so I was let go. By then, I was 35 years old, and I still remember when I got a chance to be interviewed by one of the giant e-commerce companies, only to find out that there is an unspoken rule about age and gender bias in those companies. Once again, I was at a crossroads.
I’m very grateful to have my inspiration and motivation by my side throughout all this, which is my crazy entrepreneur husband and life partner. He is the reason I was introduced to the cryptocurrency space. After living in Shanghai for over a decade, we decided to move to Singapore to pursue his cryptocurrency startup.
I never really pursued my own career in cryptocurrency until late-2021, when NFTs started to gain a lot of traction in the mainstream. I quit my job as a commercial lead in a leading e-commerce enabler company in Singapore, and created my own startup, called Mintology Studio, which is an NFT agency and studio that helps to advise and launch NFT projects. When the Metaverse became a lucrative topic because of Facebook’s name change to Meta in November 2021, that’s when my partner and I came across the idea of Metapoly, with the goal of democratizing Metaverse land ownership for ordinary people.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Our work at Metapoly is disruptive as well as experiential, as people are only starting to get a grip on what the Metaverse means now, even though they have seen it played out to some degree in fiction. I do believe that if we are able to achieve our vision successfully — which is to democratize Metaverse land ownership and unify different Metaverses through an asset-backed stable coin (imagine USD in the real world, but for the Metaverse) — that would be disruptive!
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I’m very lucky in this sense, because my family and friends are open-minded and supportive of my startup mission. Especially my husband, who I consider to be my mentor. In a way, we were both failed by the overarching economic system, which pushed us to relook at our lives and career choices, and we were lucky enough to break away from it. I still remember when we had just moved to Singapore in our late 30s: we barely had any savings, but my husband was crazy enough to pursue his startup even after a few failures. His determination and persistence influences me a lot, and I finally decided to step out, although in my heart, I knew for a long time that this was the right step to make. Sometimes you just need someone to push you at the right moment.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
My view on disruption is that it is good, because that’s how mankind has been evolving and moving forward. Although people may be scared about what moving everything online to a virtual space can mean, younger generations are embracing this, and we should be open-minded to the concept of the Metaverse. While many people view Metaverses and NFTs in a negative light, it may be the ideal space for people who are disenfranchised in the real world to empower themselves.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
I have one story: “Dream big.” It may sound cliché, but if you do not dare to dream, you are NGMI (short for the Web3 term “never gonna make it”). Two years ago, we were struggling financially after moving to Singapore without a stable income. One thing my husband and I did was spend a day writing down our life goals on a vision board. We were joking that anyone who saw it would think we were crazy. But after one year, we made a major financial breakthrough.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Aside from our startup project, making a positive impact socially and being able to encourage and inspire more people would be a great personal achievement.
For example, we are planning to work on a move-to-earn platform, where we are encouraging energy saving by rewarding the users with usable tokens. By doing so, we are hoping to accelerate the mass adoption of whole cryptocurrency and blockchain industries by the general public.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
In the traditional world, women are usually more conservative, and any female disruptors will be typically more challenged on their authority and capability. But Web3 is changing these aspects, which is also why the Web3 and Metaverse spaces really fascinate me. You can be anyone in the Metaverse, and the boundaries between genders are becoming blurry and irrelevant. We are already seeing more women step up to pursue their career in these spaces.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
People now are too busy or too numbed by their general circumstances to really put a pause on whatever they are doing in order to take the time to reflect and make proactive changes. I would encourage everyone to spend some time with yourself or your loved ones, and make little changes to address the things you are unhappy about. This is the advice I give to myself, too!
Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Life is about change. Sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s beautiful. But most of the time, it’s both.”
Change can be uncomfortable and make you feel insecure. That’s why stepping out of your comfort zone is always tough. But I’m so thankful that I made those tough choices in my career that put me in my current position.
I was reading some media reports regarding the employment situation in China, and maybe this will resonate with people worldwide. In general, it’s very tough for people above 35 to find a job due to the lack of new skills for thrilling new industries. It’s a tough lesson, but an invaluable one: If we are not ready to embrace the rapid changes that are happening to the world around us, we will be left behind.
Women In Wellness: Stacey Shabtai of Botanika Life On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
More water — Most of Americans are walking around dehydrated all day. Drinking water is a job we need to train our bodies to do. I always start the day with a full glass of water to flush out the toxins.
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stacey Shabtai, Co-Founder of Botanika Life.
Benny and Stacey Shabtai created Botanika Life with one goal in mind: to make the life changing benefits of full spectrum CBD and plant-based formulas available to all.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
My husband Benny Shabtai is an Israeli-born, American businessman. I introduced Benny to CBD with full spectrum CBD oil drops to enhance his health regime previously treated with traditional pharmaceuticals. After using CBD for a few weeks, his blood pressure regulated, and his sugar levels were significantly lowered.
After experiencing the life changing benefits of CBD, we both knew we wanted to be a part of the holistic health movement and set out to create the cleanest performing lifestyle + wellness products on the market to empower others to live their best lives. Botanika Life is a mission of love.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
The gratitude that comes from helping others and hearing feedback from helping others heal. This has been so fulfilling.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Thankfully, with Benny’s successful history in business, there haven’t been any mistakes. But there has been a learning curve and we needed to educate ourselves. I’m currently working towards another degree in Hormone Health.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
We have made our products good enough to eat! From Farm to Face. All Botanika Life products are vegan, cruelty-free, and packaged to be eco-friendly, helping to reduce environmental impact and support their commitment to sustainability.
Botanika Life was founded on the principles of unparalleled standards of quality, efficacy and potency. Not only are our products clean but they actually work! Our line exemplifies our socially conscious commitment to create products that exceed the “clean criteria’’. Our products are vegan and never tested on animals. Our packaging is designed to be eco-friendly, helping to reduce environmental impact and support our commitment to sustainability.
Our Full Spectrum CBD is sourced from 100% U.S.A. Organically Grown Hemp in the state of Oregon. It is pesticide-free, grown using sustainable farming techniques and extracted using the finest CO2 extraction process.
I love to educate others on how to be healthier using nature’s ingredients, and how to get back to a life without additives. To me, sustainability isn’t just the longevity of the Earth, Sustainability is the Earth.
With clean, natural ingredients and sustainable packaging, you can enjoy taking care of your body while also taking care of the earth.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
I’m so grateful that I was born into a family with an established wellness routine, and my passion is to educate others on how to course-correct if this is new to them, it’s never too late.
Sleep — The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that, in America, 70% of adults report that they obtain insufficient sleep at least one night a month, and 11% report insufficient sleep every night. It is estimated that sleep-related problems affect 50 to 70 million Americans of all ages and socioeconomic classes. America is sleep deprived! Your body heals when you sleep. We need to all be selfish when it comes to making sleep a priority. Good sleep makes everything better.
More water — Most of Americans are walking around dehydrated all day. Drinking water is a job we need to train our bodies to do. I always start the day with a full glass of water to flush out the toxins.
Wear Sunscreen — We are working on formulations, stay tuned!
Clean diet — Eliminate processed foods. Avoid the center aisles of the grocery store and stick to the perimeter of fresh produce and nature’s ingredients.
Exercise — For at least 30 minutes a day, get your heart rate up.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Educating children on the importance of wellness and sustainability. Just like the national campaigns to prevent littering and to say no to drugs. Our future relies on early childhood education in schools, teaching children how to respect their bodies and refrain from toxins.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
Sustainability, veganism, mental health and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
These are all incredibly important topics, but I choose sustainability. Sustainability isn’t just the longevity of the Earth; Sustainability is the Earth. Everyone is trying to be eco-friendly and we are so proud to say that we are 100% sustainable. It is a difficult and long process, but we believe the sustainability of the Earth is everyone’s responsibility.
It’s been a joy to present Botanika Life to the world.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
I’d say the most interesting part of my career is this unexpected exposure to fields I never imagined would be part of my day-to-day work. I see this as a real privilege to be working with so many technology companies and witnessing firsthand the most creative ideas turn into reality. It is never boring for us to meet with entrepreneurs and promising startups.
As part of my series about “How Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand” I had the pleasure of interviewing Regev Gur.
Regev Gur is the Founder and CEO of Narrative Group, a leading influencer marketing company based in New York, New York. At Narrative, Gur oversees and manages millions of dollars in advertising and marketing campaigns focused on strategic influencer programs for leading global brands.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. What is your “backstory”? What brought you to this point in your career?
I am a people person. I enjoy meeting new people, learning new ideas, and connecting people with others. I constantly look for ways to make an impact in my personal and professional life. Through my business, Narrative Group, I’ve found a way to help businesses use the personal and professional network that I’ve created over the years.
Founding Narrative Group has been like seeing an old dream come to life. We are fortunate to work with leading global technology companies, connecting them with content creators and managing influencer marketing campaigns to drive brand awareness and customer engagement. Our growing agency helps companies spread the word by working with content creatives to reach millions of like-minded people every day.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you in the course of your career?
In my first year launching Narrative Group, I was working with one of the most popular and sought-after influencers in the business. I was very eager to bring them in one new project that involved one of the largest companies in the technology sector. It was a little intimidating at first and a challenge to get their attention. Little did I realize this mega star was also involved in a similar charitable effort and cared deeply about the same cause. I was able to leverage that connection to set a course of our collaboration. I learned that you can always find a way to connect with another person and that looking below the surface is one of the best ways to build a relationship.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I attribute my success to having a purpose. I believe in the cause and the impact of our work. Our clients are aligned in our vision that impact matters. We are constantly looking for ways we can help society and use the power of our connections to consider the bigger picture and think of the incredible platform they have to spread their message. Working with mostly tech companies, we’ve been helping our clients to promote important issues such as data privacy, financial inclusion, and transparency.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?
Failure is how you grow. Facing challenges along the way are part of the journey. Failing played a much bigger role in leading me to where I am today than success. Fails and disappointments are inevitable, and it is all a matter of how you react and learn when they occur.
The same can be said for the amazing creators and social media influencers we work with. These talented individuals did not start off famous or successful and their career is a product of sheer determination, adjusting their focus, and finding their right position in the market. That is why we find that influencers are such effective marketing tools. Their audience can relate to their authenticity and accessibility.
Despite my setbacks, I kept going and never doubted my vision. I think that if you truly believe in the impact of your work and the cause you are fighting for, you have more chances to succeed.
So what are the most exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
One of the most intriguing campaigns I have had the chance to work on is a new NFT project. This, to me, is an example of how our work as marketing professionals has evolved and overlaps with many areas of the business. NFTs and similar trends add sophisticated layers to our work and integrate marketing efforts into gaming, design, and finance.
Following the great success of fashion and cosmetics influencers, we are also seeing an increasing presence of B2B technology firms exploring the influencer marketing space. The potential of this market is limitless, especially as companies look to influencer marketing in the metaverse. It is exciting for us as industry pioneers to be exploring more creative ways to ‘tell the company story’. We are working with some of the biggest names in the b2b influencer markets, including ‘Who’s the Boss’, Nas Daily, and Linus tech tips
What are your “Top Five Ways That Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand” . (Please share a story or example for each.)
The influencers we work with have worked hard on building their audience. It takes a lot of sacrifices to be willing to share your day-to-day life with millions of people in a credible, authentic way. At the same time, it’s a crowded field and very competitive to make a living. We are strong advocates for the creators we work with and encourage them to think about new ways to generate income, including:
1. Sponsored Posts
This is the most common way influencers monetize their brand. They can film themselves testing a product or explaining its benefits to their followers. These posts have the potential to be way more effective than other channels in terms of marketing, especially high-quality content.
2. How to & Live Q&A
Successful influencers are popular professionals within their niche. They build their reputation after years of hard work positioning themselves as experts within their industry. They are able to leverage their prestige to host live events and forums. They take questions, give advice, or post explanatory videos. Companies and followers are willing to pay these expert influencers for serving as a moderator and hosts of these online gatherings.
3. Sales
We are seeing more influencers asking for commissions on sales. This approach gives them a greater incentive to make an impact on the bottom line. By measured sales associated with those influencers, they can directly measure their outcomes. Influencers can share coupon codes or links that help track their sales and calculate their ‘share based on bonafide metrics.
4. Creating Product Lines
Influencers have built their credibility in front of their audience and followers to the point where they can actually cobrand products with a larger brand. They can choose to create and market their own products in partnership with leading brands or as a standalone product.
5. Guest Appearances
Some influencers might be willing to share their stage and help their clients gain exposure by featuring them on their platforms. A blog, video, or a simple shoutout can make a great impact when positioning clients directly in front of their target audience. While influencers are very selective when it comes to bringing a client onto their platforms, it is one of the most effective ways for a brand to stand out.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can inspire.
Being more inclusive. The high-tech sector is still dominated by certain types of individuals. For example, the LGBTQ and special needs communities are still very much left on the outside. The world of remote work and the rise of the metaverse can create countless opportunities for employees with disabilities. What I would like to see more is companies targeting these groups that have been excluded for years and creating equitable work environments that welcome more parts of society.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. 🙂
I am always a big fan of people who use their power to spread good and give back. One in particular that I adore is Eynat Guez — Co-Founder and CEO of Papaya Global. She is one of the most inspiring tech leaders out there. What I admire about her work is that it seems like her main focus is always on the impact of her company’s work and her added value to society, rather than on revenue.
What is the best way our readers can follow your work online?
