Career Memos withSarina

Annie Evans is an early stage investor, advisor, and mother who launched Dream Ventures as a way to connect founders to capital and create game changing partnerships.

Hustling her way into an experiential marketing role at Esquire and then to Oprah Magazine, Annie later poured her energy into entrepreneurial ventures The Society and Beautified before launching Dream Ventures. There, she furiously built her network from the ground up, connecting with incredible founders and investors. So much transparency is shared in this conversation, to what an advisor relationship looks like, to the three qualities investors like Annie consider when evaluating opportunities.

If you're building something exciting and looking to accelerate your growth and secure capital, you'll learn so much from this conversation.

Cameron Hardesty is the CEO and Founder of Poppy, a vibrant marketplace unlike anything out there, connecting floral designers and flower growers with customers seeking wedding flowers.

You'd never imagine Cameron would land where she is today after you hear her fascinating journey working for Customs and Border Protection, and later, the White House, supporting communication efforts to combat the opioid crisis. Setting herself up with an apprenticeship at the White House flower shop sparked a passion for surrounding herself everyday with beauty and flowers.

You're going to love every bit of this conversation with Cameron, and I have no doubt it'll inspire you to follow your passion, take risks, and open up the world's possibilities to yourself.

Poppy

Techstars

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Christine Yi's career journey is fascinating and full of twists and turns. Currently, she holds down three unique positions, as Senior Venture Architect at BCG Digital Ventures in New York City, Scout for Vice Ventures, and Co-Founder/Advisor to premium cannabis-infused ingredients company Potli.

Tune in to hear how Christine ventured into a completely new-to-her industry, landed features in New York Magazine and The Cut, and raised capital for the first time. She also shares with honesty what it was like to hit burnout and make the difficult decision to step down from the day to day operations of Potli.

If you're navigating the early stages of a startup, you'll appreciate all the wisdom that Christine shares today.

BCG Digital Ventures

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Vice Ventures

Potli

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Amanda Raines is the Senior Director of Growth Marketing at Maven, the largest virtual clinic for fertility, pregnancy, and parenting. A mission-driven organization, Maven is changing the world of women's health, offering on-demand telehealth appointments, clinical content, and community forums, powered by employer-provided benefits.

Amanda is a passionate B2B marketer who held prominent roles at Shutterstock and later ClassPass, before unexpectedly losing her Head of B2B Marketing role there at the beginning of the pandemic.

This conversation is filled with gems on the importance of networking, advice for succeeding in a growth marketing role, and how to navigate the transition from a fitness startup to a healthcare company.

Maven Clinic

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The Sill is the first "digitally native" houseplant brand and they're on a mission to connect people with beautiful plants. Eliza Blank was, in her words, a typical young professional living in a small New York apartment, desperate to make it feel like home.

Going from a communications degree and working in brand strategy on both the agency and client side for Living Proof, to choosing a path in plants was certainly unconventional!

Eliza reveals the importance of resilience on her entrepreneurial journey in a niche she didn't know a lot about at first, how she navigated early challenges without any funding, and the benefits and downsides to working with a co-founder. You'll love the raw honesty shared in this conversation!

The Sill

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Azora Zoe Paknad's goal is to get millions of people around the world excited about sustainability. Goldune is an ecommerce retailer offering sustainable products for home, life, and your medicine cabinet, with an emphasis on supporting women and BIPOC-owned brands.

It wasn't until Azora quit her full-time job at Food52 and moved across the country where the open space and quiet proved inspirational and pivotal in ultimately launching Goldune.

In this conversation you'll hear it all from a new founder's perspective: what it's been like running a growing business as a solo founder, the importance of finding a "business therapist", and avoiding the pitfalls of the comparison trap.

Goldune

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Chao Wang has scaled teams and companies for over ten years, leading operations, customer experience, business development and strategy at venture-backed companies. She's now the Co-Founder and CEO of Dopple, a next generation e-commerce platform and subscription service for brands to reach modern parents.

After taking a style quiz on their website, parents receive a curated selection of clothing every month for their kids. Dopple also has a B2B arm for brands which includes a fulfillment data marketing platform.

In this episode of Career Memos, Chao shares her untraditional career journey and so many gems of advice for new founders that are carving out their entrepreneurial path.

Dopple

Dopple Style Quiz

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Y Combinator

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Emily Merrell built her business on the value of networking. Six Degrees Society is a membership, mastermind, and coaching community for strong, independent, and fierce women that has grown into more than 10 cities and 300 digital events worldwide.

In this conversation, you'll hear how Emily launched Six Degrees Society as a side hustle (and what it took for her to take the leap to full-time). She explains the pivots she had to make when the pandemic hit and the new revenue streams that came out of it. We also talk about fundraising and how the traditional ways of raising money aren't the only ways to go about it.

This is an enlightening conversation and I know you'll love how vulnerable and open Emily is about her entrepreneurial journey. Enjoy!

Six Degrees Society

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, by Michael E. Gerber

Alt Summit

THEPRBAR

Episode 30: Closing the Fundraising Gap with Sarah Sommers, Co-Founder & VP of Brand Strategy and Partnerships at IFundWomen

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Meha Agrawal is the Founder & CEO at SILK + SONDER, a self-care membership experience for modern women that makes the art of daily and proactive mental wellness easy and fun, from the comfort of your own home.

In this episode, you'll hear the inspiration behind the company and how Meha was actually a software engineer for many years before developing her unique journaling framework.

SILK + SONDER has since raised over $4 million dollars, grown to a full-time team of 8, and seen double digit growth for the past couple of years.

SILK + SONDER

Redpoint

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Sarah Sommers is the Co-Founder & VP of Brand Strategy & Partnerships at an incredible company, IFundWomen, that helps women kickstart and grow their businesses. They close the funding gap for women-owned businesses, by providing them access to debt-free capital. It's crazy to believe that less than 3% of all venture capital raised last year went to female-founded companies.

Sarah and I unpack the unexpected challenges she faced when growing IFundWomen, the importance of the customer discovery process, one of the greatest gifts you can have as a founder, and how profound networking can be to your overall success.

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Learn more about Sarina here: https://withsarina.com/about

IFundWomen

IFundWomen's Free Crowdfunding Course

IFundWomen's Free Community, The Network

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