Female Founders: Alexa Carlin of Women Empower X On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Adaptability — you must be able to adapt to the things you cannot control in order to continue pursuing your purpose. (the reason I wrote Adaptable, it’s imperative to success!)
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alexa Carlin.
Alexa Carlin is an in-demand public speaker, author of Adaptable, TV personality, and founder & CEO of Women Empower X (WEX), the premier community for women entrepreneurs. Alexa uses her infectious energy and courageous spirit to empower women to turn their obstacles into opportunities and pursue their dreams.
Genuine by nature, caring at heart, and always inspirational, Alexa’s vulnerability allows her to authentically connect with diverse women around the world, helping them understand the true potential they hold. Her company, Women Empower X, helps women entrepreneurs grow their businesses and brands through WEX’s cutting edge courses, events, and publishing division, WEX Press.
Alexa Carlin has worked with Fortune Global 500 brands to create captivating and relatable content and has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Cheddar TV, FOX, ABC, CBS, TEDx and in Entrepreneur, Glamour Magazine, and Forbes among others. From a one percent chance to live, to now on a mission to make a difference in one person’s life a day, Alexa is creating ripple effects of change for women everywhere. Alexa resides in Raleigh, NC.
For more information on Alexa Carlin, click here.
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?
Since I can remember it has been my mission to make a difference in at least one person’s life a day. I started my first business when I was just 17 years old, designing jewelry under my own label for an L.A. based fashion company backed by Jennifer Anniston and Courtney Cox. I worked with them to use fashion as a way to raise money to build schools in Africa, using education as a vehicle to make villages self-sustainable. From there, I started a blog in college called Hello Perfect focused on instilling confidence in girls and young women. Through this blog I started to learn more about social media and really using your authentic voice to grow your brand. I was able to get a number of successful celebrities to join in on our movement to instill confidence such as Mark Cuban, Shaq, Rebecca Minkoff, Steve Madden, and Marc Jacobs among others. I was growing this blog in college and excited to continue expanding after I graduated, yet a few months before college graduation, I contracted a deadly bacteria that got into my bloodstream and sent my body into septic shock. At 21 years old I was induced into a medical coma given a 1% chance to live. This changed my life forever as shortly after I survived sepsis, I was diagnosed with a debilitating autoimmune disease. It has been through these struggles that I found the opportunity through the obstacle to share my story as a public speaker, author and founded my current venture, Women Empower X. These experiences also led me to a publishing deal to share the hard lessons learned in my new book, Adaptable.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
It’s always been my dream to be a published author. Since I was 10 years old I’ve been writing in my journals about my experiences so after my near-death experience, I thought this would be the thing that led me to landing a publishing deal. I wrote 30,000 words in a google doc and it’s never been read by anyone. I pitched countless agents and publishers and no one gave me the time of day. I was spreading myself too thin between my different goals and ventures so I gave up on the book and shifted my focus solely to Women Empower X. I still had the belief that I would one day be an author, but I decided to stop putting so much pressure on the book and myself and trust the journey. February 29, 2020, we hosted our first conference in Los Angeles attracting 2,500+ women. This was also our last conference since the pandemic. Crazy enough, a publisher attended that event, saw me speak and witnessed the community I had built and a few months later while in quarantine during the pandemic, I got signed for an incredible publishing deal with them to write my book, Adaptable! It’s interesting how timely it was as I now had the time, due to COVID and not hosting events or traveling for speaking, to actually write my book and the stories are so needed right now with the challenges everyone is experiencing, learning to adapt to this new world. Definitely goes to show you to always believe in yourself but at some point, you have to stop resisting what is, and let what’s meant to flow in! Trust the journey, it always leads you to where you are meant to be.
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 was just starting Women Empower X, I got invited to attend industry events where they’d fly me out to a beautiful hotel or resort and I’d meet with 30–50 suppliers in the hospitality industry in order to lock in my next event destination, venue, and vendors. I’ll never forget my first event in Arizona where I didn’t know anything about the event industry or really what I was doing. I had just hosted our first conference in South Florida which attracted 1,500+ women but I was still so new and learning as I went. When I sat down to meet with each supplier, they all asked me for my RFP (request for proposal). I had no clue what an RFP stood for! It’s now funny looking back on this story and where I started, but it was definitely embarrassing at the moment. The lesson I learned from this… do more research! While you won’t know everything until you take action and learn through that action, it is important to understand the ins and outs of your industry or the people you are working to do business with. Due to the fact I didn’t have an RFP as I didn’t even know what it was, suppliers didn’t take me as seriously and I left that event without any deals made. I for sure learned from there and since then, you bet suppliers take me seriously now!
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 mom and dad. Hands down my biggest supporters, cheerleaders, and mentors. My mom was the one who saved my life when my body was going into septic shock. She happened to be visiting me in college that weekend and I can honestly say, if it wasn’t for her I would not be here today. She taught me to believe in myself and always instilled confidence in me saying, if she can give me anything it would be the gift of confidence. She knew early on that was imperative to my success. And my dad, he’s the entrepreneur of the family and taught me about perseverance and optimism. Early on in my entrepreneurial journey he took me on a business trip to China for me to see the behind the scenes of what he does in his sporting goods business. It was eye-opening to see all the work that goes into producing products and running his business. It really inspired me to dream big, know there’s so many opportunities out there, and work hard to make it happen!
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?
There’s so many factors that go into why this statistic is still so low, but I think it’s two different problems we are looking at. The statistics on funded companies by women founders being so low comes from the big issue we are still seeing where the majority of venture capital funds are going to men. There’s a number of reasons for this but in my opinion I believe the two biggest factors are unconscious bias and the confidence gap. I believe confidence is one of the biggest factors to success and I see lack of confidence stop women from pursuing a business and limit the amount of money asked for in a venture capital meeting. Men are notorious for asking for more money than women because they believe they only need to check off 60% of the requirements versus women feeling they need to check off 100% in order to be deemed worthy.
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?
Unconscious bias is tricky, because people don’t realize they are necessarily favoring someone else over another person due to past preconceived notions. But I do think what can help this, as well as help raise the statistics of the number of female-founded companies, is elevating more women’s voices. That’s what we are working to change at Women Empower X, elevating successful women’s stories and voices so other women (and men) can see what’s possible for them as well. As a society, we also need to work on instilling confidence in young girls and women. We need to teach women how to effectively communicate their needs and see their full value.
One other point I want to mention that I believe can be done to help lower this statistic, is ensuring the same questions are asked to both men and women when they are pitching their company for funding. A study was done by the Harvard Business Review that shows how men are asked about the potential for gains and women are asked about the potential for losses. This bias questioning can have substantial funding consequences for startups.
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?
If you have a dream to start a business, that dream is there for a reason. And I believe you should not ignore it. The main reason I think women should become founders, if they feel called to it, is the freedom and ownership it provides you. Being able to own your potential for wealth creation and own your time, being able to do what you want, with who you want, wherever you want, is an incredible and empowering thing. It gives you the confidence to be yourself in front of others and inspire other women and young girls to chase after their dreams.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
You have to start young to be a successful founder is the biggest lie ever told. I’ve seen it firsthand, how age does not have to be a factor when it comes to entrepreneurship. Inside our WEX Nation Membership we have members who are in their upper 60’s and 70’s who have reinvented themselves and started their business way later in life. We also have members who are in their early twenties. This myth of age correlated to success is only a real thing if the individual makes it so.
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 don’t think everyone is cut out to be a founder and if you asked me that a few years ago my answer probably would be different. The reason I’ve changed my thoughts on this is from learning a different perspective from my fiance. He has a great corporate job at a tech company and an MBA. Anytime early on in our relationship where I mentioned him starting his own thing in the tech world, he’d share why he isn’t cut out for it. It’s not that he can’t do it, but some people have a different personality. For example, he has to know when his next paycheck is coming and likes to have everything planned out. When you’re starting a company you may go months even years not knowing when you can pay yourself. You also need to be able to make quick decisions and be confident in them even when you haven’t had too much time to research every aspect around that decision. Some personalities aren’t made out to do this and need to research everything before moving forward on something but in the startup world, you have to be able to pivot, adapt and make decisions quickly in order to stay ahead. That’s not a bad thing though because founders need people that can be more analytical and slower, that’s why it’s so important as a founder to find people who are strong in areas you aren’t. So whether you are cut out to be a ‘founder’ or not, the title is less important than your ability to be part of a startup team to help it scale and grow.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
1. Confidence — this is a skill I had to learn in order to get to where I am today.
2. Decisiveness — you must be able to make a decision and be confident in that decision in order to achieve anything as a founder.
3. Empathy — I believe it is the empathetic leaders who will be the ones who change the world.
4. Belief — No matter how many people tell you no or that it won’t work, you must have unwavering belief in yourself and your ideas.
5. Adaptability — you must be able to adapt to the things you cannot control in order to continue pursuing your purpose. (the reason I wrote Adaptable, it’s imperative to success!)
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
We connect diverse women from all walks of life, different ages, backgrounds and industries, to empower them to connect and collaborate. This alone has helped thousands of women find the confidence in themselves to pursue their dreams, register their business, start their podcast, etc. Through empowering one woman at a time, we have created a ripple effect of change because when you see one woman finding success pursuing their dreams, they inspire another woman to do the same. The success stories we continue to hear and the transformation our members have from being part of WEX is the reason I continue doing this work.
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’d start a movement called “It Only Takes One”. That’s been my motto for years because I believe that you are just one step, one person, one decision away from changing your entire life for the better. This movement would instill insatiable curiosity in individuals around the world through storytelling sharing how when they were just about to give up, they were curious to try one more thing, and that one thing led them to achieving something far greater than they could ever imagine, I was on the brink of giving up while struggling with my autoimmune disease but it was curiosity that led me to keep waking up day after day, keep showing up on social media, and continue on for one more day because I was curious to what may happen if I just try one more time. That helped me not give up on myself nor my dreams and still today this “it only takes one” movement has changed my 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.
Oprah Winfrey so I can share my book Adaptable with her as I truly believe it is one she would find of value and it would be amazing to hear her thoughts and wisdom on the topics shared within the book.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Founders: Alexa Carlin of Women Empower X On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.