Female Founders: Shaina Kerrigan of Molly J On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I started Molly J. in 2019 by simply hosting parties at my house to share what I was learning about cannabis. I had no idea that 3 years later we’d have a full operation of chefs and thousands of customers. Every day includes its own element of heavy lifting or meaningful decisions, and our revenue helps pay the bills for everyone on our team. In those early days, if I had realized what this business could become, I may have conserved energy, realizing that some of those early decisions I fretted over wouldn’t matter in the long run.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shaina Kerrigan.
Shaina Kerrigan is a mother of two and the founder of Molly J., a CBD-infused, small batch confection company based in Marin, California. Ensuring quality and authenticity by creating small-batch, handcrafted CBD gumdrops, Molly J. offers a cutting-edge wellness experience that is equally delicious as it is beautifully packaged. With Molly J., Shaina hopes to “spread the chill” while educating the public about the benefits of CBD edibles.
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 worked in the tech industry at Yelp for about 9 years, and climbed the ladder to eventually run my own global organization within the company. It was thrilling, exciting, and engaging…until it wasn’t. In my last few years there, I got married and started a family — two very big competing priorities that slowly chiseled away at the energy I had for my career in a large-scale company. Suddenly, I was finding myself stressed out and overwhelmed with no end in sight. I burned out spectacularly, calling my boss at 2am to quit the day I was supposed to come back from maternity leave. However, I then spent the next few months building myself back up, laser focused on all things health and wellness. I realized the main culprit for my imbalance was the fact that I wasn’t sleeping well, which led me on a mission to find help; including visiting my local dispensary. There, I found an industry that mostly spoke to men or folks who were already very familiar with the cannabis plant, and yet, I found the cannabis plant to be such a huge help for so many of the ailments that affect women and moms. After this experience, I could see a gap in the market and set out to spread the news by organizing secret Tupperware-style parties with fellow moms to give them the lowdown on what, when, and how to use cannabis in their lives. It was from these parties that I learned what moms, and women in general, were looking for — high quality, effective CBD gumdrops that felt just as luxurious as opening a bottle of wine at the end of a long day.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
In those early days, cannabis was still stigmatized (some argue it still is!) so women, especially moms, kept their curiosity close to the vest. I hosted the first party at my house with 10 of my closest mom friends, and four of them reached out the next day asking if I’d come to their house to do the same for their friends. This kept happening after each party and I quickly built up a wait list of 40+ moms anxious to get into our next event. Soon, moms started affectionately calling it a “Book Club,” and one morning while getting coffee at the local coffee shop, a woman slowed down next to me to whisper in my ear “Are you Shaina from the Book Club?” That was the moment I knew we were onto something.
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?
Way back in the beginning, when I didn’t know if I had a sustainable business yet, but needed a space to fulfill orders and store packing materials, I found a surprisingly inexpensive office space on the Sausalito waterfront that would allow me to rent month to month; while I kept my options open in case the business didn’t thrive how I wanted it to. There were a few red flags — the landlord wanted to “stay off the record” and be paid in all cash, the space was freezing cold because it sat right over the water, the wifi was spotty, and the walls were paper thin so we could hear our neighbor welding jewelry all day long. The funniest part of that space was that the bathroom facilities and dock were shared with the folks that lived on the houseboats right in front of us. They were a cast of characters that we got to know — the guy who’d sit in front of our office to smoke a joint everyday at 12pm on the dot, the woman who’d get off her boat with 3 large huskies in tow, and even the older gentleman who’d pass in the afternoon in full pirate gear. We lasted in the freezing cold for about 3 months before we found our new, beautiful Molly J. branded cottage in the industrial, warmer part of Sausalito. I look back at those three months and smile — you do what you have to do to save a buck for your business in those early days!
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’d never started a business before Molly J., so to say I went in blindly is an understatement. I doubted myself every step of the way and have a very distinct memory of setting up plans to throw in the towel early on, planning instead to go work for another small business I admired. I happened to have a happy hour set up that day with my friend (and hair stylist) Brooke and vented my plans to her, saying I was sad to let it all go but excited for my next chapter ahead. She politely interrupted and dug in further, ultimately reminding me that I have what it takes, I’m onto something worthwhile, and I can succeed. Turns out that was just what I needed — it inspired enough curiosity within me to come back to my work at Molly J. the very next day, and I haven’t missed a day ever since.
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?
A key factor that holds women back from founding companies is the limited access to resources — specifically, time, connections, and money. More often than not, women (especially moms) take on more of the household duties, and when they struggle to balance that with founding a business, the latter takes a back seat. Already struggling for time, female founders often don’t have the capacity or foundation to seek out and cultivate a strong network of connections — advisors, fellow entrepreneurs, investors — which is paramount to a business’ success, especially in the early days. All this feeds into the final resource: money. It takes money to start a business, and the combination of competing time plus a smaller network of connections makes it very difficult for female founders to get off the ground. This crisis ballooned over the COVID-19 pandemic, and Bloomberg recently reported female founders secured only 2% of venture capital in the US in 2021.
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?
To give women (especially moms) more time to devote to their businesses, I’d encourage our government to make childcare more accessible, safe, and reliable. As a society, we can normalize men taking over more of the household duties and sharing the load (if not more!). When it comes to building out a network, I’d love to see successful businesses, especially those run by men, offer mentorship connections to female-founded companies in their respective fields. Ideally the teams would advise and strategize, sharing lessons learned and pitfalls to steer clear of. They’d also make connections to build out their network of potential investors for capital down the road. Finally, pushing venture capitalists and investors to prioritize funding in female-founded businesses would be a huge and impactful step in the right direction.
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?
Research has shown that women tend to make better investors, CEOs, and founders because they make calm, level decisions and are less likely to take riskier bets. I’d go even further to say women tend to have higher EQs (Emotional Intelligence), which allows them to read people better (great for negotiations), connect with consumers, and lead enthusiastic, engaged teams.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Starting your own business isn’t glamorous, it’s gritty. In the beginning, you don’t make much money (if at all) and you’re carrying the whole business on your shoulders — if you’re not working on it, no one else is. Forward momentum solely depends on you, and the stress of revenue, logistics, customer service, etc., can be heavy. You become invested mentally and financially, and yet, for most businesses, you won’t know if you have a viable, scalable company until you have enough time under your belt. More often than not, the success of a company takes a long, grueling period of years, as opposed to the myth that you can hit it big quick.
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?
Obviously, a founder must have a dedicated, motivated work ethic but the key differentiator is that they need to be able to apply that work ethic every single day, enduring extreme stress (with only occasional wins), for years without any guarantee of true success. They’re intrinsically and authentically bought into their mission and blindly optimistic (bordering on too hopeful!) that they will succeed.
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.)
- It’s a marathon, not a sprint. I started Molly J. in 2019 by simply hosting parties at my house to share what I was learning about cannabis. I had no idea that 3 years later we’d have a full operation of chefs and thousands of customers. Every day includes its own element of heavy lifting or meaningful decisions, and our revenue helps pay the bills for everyone on our team. In those early days, if I had realized what this business could become, I may have conserved energy, realizing that some of those early decisions I fretted over wouldn’t matter in the long run.
- Ask for help. Early on, I met with a fellow female founder to pick her brain, and ended up asking for connections and opportunities to get Molly J. off the ground. I hate asking for help so it was an uncomfortable place to be, and I was so surprised when she readily agreed. Fast forward 3 years, and we’re still close female founder friends, helping each other wherever we can to see each other succeed.
- Raise capital. I built Molly J. with a little bit of my own money and a whole lot of my own blood, sweat, and tears. I did it the hard, time-consuming way, but now I realize that I could have covered more ground faster if I had the courage to find investors at start.
- Start with logistics that aren’t scalable. Molly J. makes high-end, handcrafted CBD confections for common ailments like stress and sleep, and we knew from the start that building a loyal community of supporters was integral to our success. Without recognizing it, we started out doing things that weren’t scalable but would help build that community, like including a handwritten note in every order and slipping extra gifts into the shipments of our club members. Some of those extra touches have been retired for the sake of efficiency, but that loyal community remains (and continues to grow) because we keep what really matters: quality, customer service, and authenticity.
- Hire the right people. Recruiting feels like its own job, and often founders simply don’t have the time. So we’ll resort to the easy option — using a freelancer from the internet, hiring the first person who comes along, or offering up a temporary job that should actually be a long term role. It’s a quick win, but a long term headache because when that temporary situation falls through, you’re left with another round of hiring and training, losing everything you invested in the first person. Put the effort in on the front end by hiring the best person for the job who can stick with you for the long haul.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
That’s what we aim to do everyday! The regular and consistent feedback we hear from consumers about how our gumdrops finally helped them get a good night of sleep or tamed their stress, is what keeps us going. Also, we see an opportunity to help right the wrongs of how the War on Drugs disproportionately affects people of color, and dedicate a portion of proceeds to two organizations that help legalize the cannabis plant (NORML) and free those previously incarcerated because of it (Last Prisoner Project).
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 try to spread the benefits of Intuitive Sleeping (i.e. the ability to wake up when your body decides, not the alarm clock). I’m a big believer in letting your body and mind recharge, and if our businesses, schools, and general public sentiment allowed us to get our day started when our bodies decided (as opposed to arbitrarily set timeframes), I believe we’d be more effective, present, and even creative, in every facet of our lives.
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.
As a founder trying to grow and scale an authentic, meaningful business that genuinely helps the world, there’s no one better to get one-on-one time with than the queen of entrepreneurship, Oprah. She’s innovative, curious, and isn’t afraid to go against the grain to do it her way; which is what I believe we need more of from founders of all genders.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this!
Female Founders: Shaina Kerrigan of Molly J On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.