Female Founders: Megan DeCrosta of Cut the Fiscal On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
If you can afford to outsource, do it — I built our website from the ground up, filmed the online course, and edited and produced it myself. While it saved us a ton of money, it was time-consuming, and as a mother of two, it took its toll on my marriage and the amount of time I could spend with our children.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Megan DeCrosta.
Megan DeCrosta is the CEO and founder of Cut the Fiscal which provides financial education to kids, teens, and women in an effort to help end poverty and economic disparity. One of the company’s goals is to raise enough money to educate one million children by the end of 2022 through its GoFundMe platform. Cut the Fiscal Fat’s financial literacy curriculum, titled “Need To Know Life Guide (Level 1),” equips participants with information on how to make the most of the money they have and how to use it to achieve maximum success in life.
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 grew up in upstate New York in a lower-middle-class family of six. While my parents worked hard to provide us with a good life, they had poor financial behaviors and habits. Habits my parents didn’t particularly try to discourage in me. Then when I was 15 years old my father was killed, leaving mom a single mother of four kids, with me as the oldest. We had to sell our family home and scramble to try to cover the expenses of his sudden death.
Towards the final years of my father’s life, he very much lived with the mentality that “You can’t take it with you,” and I in turn repeated that same behavior. Maybe it was because I idolized my father after his death. Or, perhaps it was because my mother never knew or tried to correct my poor financial practices.
It wasn’t until I met my husband, Eric, and became familiar with his exceptional credit and money habits, that I realized how much I didn’t know when it came to money, finances, and credit. I always found myself saying, “I wish I knew this sooner,” and “Why didn’t anyone ever teach me this?” I became upset with my parents for not teaching me better until I realized they couldn’t teach me what they didn’t know themselves.
Then the ultimate question came, “Why didn’t I learn this in school?” Which led me to create the website and our online course to teach financial literacy. We designed the “Need To Know Life Guide (Level 1)” to be a fun, engaging, and easy to absorb introductory course to personal finance. Intentionally created to inspire further self-education in all aspects of money management, especially finance.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
We recently were endorsed by a retired NFL player who is a two-time Super Bowl champion; Jeremy Shockey! Financial education is something everybody can get behind and it is always welcoming and heartwarming to see the support.
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?
We first started out as a YouTube channel until we discovered that not many people cared to watch videos about financial literacy! So we switched gears to really target a specific subset of people: teens and young adults. However, teens do not actively go looking for this information and education until it is too late! That knowledge led us to call on the adults in their lives to help get this information into their hands.
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?
Before my husband, it was my mom. She has always been a source of profound support and unconditional love, especially after my father’s death when I was 15.
When I was 18, I competed in the Miss New York U.S.A. beauty pageant. The final round was held in Albany, NY, a 10-minute walk from where I grew up, and where most of my family members lived. I had 10 aunts and uncles and one grandmother (plus scores of extended family members) and only my mother and younger brothers showed up to support me. There have been many moments prior to that event, and many after, where my mom was the only source of support. No matter the endeavor, no matter the path I choose, she will always be there.
Now I also have the unconditional love and support of my husband, who shares both my dreams and my passion.
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?
In my opinion, for many women, it is the lack of education they receive regarding business and finances. Compounded with the fact that women, especially women of color, suffer from the gender wage gap, entrepreneurship seems unattainable at worst, and at best, a long and uphill battle. And if you’re a woman with kids, it is exceptionally difficult to run a successful business and raise a household.
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?
We as a society have to recognize and acknowledge that fundamental change has to happen, and it starts with education. Giving students and young women a fair education from the start will increase the knowledge and confidence they need.
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?
To me it’s simple: Be the change you wish to see. We cannot fall victim to the “bystander effect” where we wait for someone else to make the change for us.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
One myth is that being a founder is easy. The truth is that it’s hard, constant work! Social media can be very deceiving in making us believe that one can go from a “nobody” to an overnight success with relative ease.
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?
It all comes down to your personality and your passion! While you might not have the skills and knowledge to complete certain tasks, you can absolutely bring people to the table who can. But no matter how much money you have and/or can make, that cannot and will not make up for personality traits or passion. A brand above all else is genuine and authentic.
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.)
If you can afford to outsource, do it — I built our website from the ground up, filmed the online course, and edited and produced it myself. While it saved us a ton of money, it was time-consuming, and as a mother of two, it took its toll on my marriage and the amount of time I could spend with our children.
Be prepared for the hustle — When you are first starting out, you are building your brand’s authenticity and trustworthiness. And this does not come overnight, so be prepared to put in the necessary time to build your brand.
Success takes time — When I say this I mean it! For many entrepreneurs, “success” didn’t come until after two years of the grind. Prepare yourself to work with what feels like no progress! But if you are taking steps to move forward, and are really dedicated to building your brand, you’ll get there!
Prepare yourself to hear “no” — Working my entire adult life in sales, a male-dominated industry, I’ve learned you have to always be ready to hear the word “no.” So when I started my own business, I was not afraid of that word, knowing I can always overcome and readjust my approach! What I was not prepared for was the number of times I have heard “Yes! I love it,’ with no follow-through. Be ready to outmaneuver this!
If it were easy everyone would be doing it — This is really self-explanatory! Even if you see an “overnight success” know that there are MANY years of hard work and dedication put in that you cannot see.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
We are here to disrupt the way that teens and young adults approach money and credit! Financial illiteracy is one of the largest contributing factors to income inequality and I want to inspire young adults and teens to further self-educate in areas of personal finance. The “Need To Know Life Guide (Level 1)” is an introductory, 48-minute, online course covering the five keys to financial literacy: Earn, Save and Invest, Spend, Borrow, and Protect. The 5-hour course is a more in-depth look at each key.
We created a crowdfunding campaign, #12to1million, to get our intro course into the hands of one million teens by the end of 2022.
We started it in our own community with the Boys & Girls Club, and hope to spread across the state and then the country. Our end goal is to make financial literacy education a main part of the high school curriculum, which would have a direct and significant impact on the wealth gap as more teens equip themselves with the knowledge and protection of their financial futures.
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.
The earlier we start to teach our kids about money, the better off they will be in their adult lives. Money and credit have been taboo subjects for far too long.
We are hoping to be THE MOVEMENT to demand more for ourselves, our younger generations, and for the generations to come!
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.
Eli Manning. He’s a two-time Super Bowl winner and MVP, and I am a huge Giants fan. Eli is amazing off the field too. He is a businessman, he is a husband and father, a philanthropist, a comedian, and a total class act. For a man who was born into a famous family and blessed with talent and success, he seems just as genuine and relatable as the next guy.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Founders: Megan DeCrosta of Cut the Fiscal 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.