Stairway to CEO

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“When people have low expectations of you, when you just are able to take all that kind of energy of negativity and just really reposition it, it really humbles you and it gives you the kind of step up to be successful.”

“It's so important to reconfigure yourself, to look at things from a much bigger picture…”

“I don't think that you should only focus on the things that you're really good at. I think you should focus on the things that are going to grow the business.”

“I always say we got to at the right time. Right place. Right time.”

“I think a lot of times when someone is not successful at a job or career, it's not because they're not good or something, it's because they weren't put in the position to be successful.”

“We wanted to win, but we wanted to win with our team. And I think that camaraderie and that kind of like togetherness, really propelled the business to being something more than just the business.”

“We wanted to really empower entrepreneurs. We wanted to build an environment and get this collective talent together to really drive meaningful impact.”

“There are a lot of things I can do to be successful at making money. But the lasting imprint that you have in this world is the impact that you have in people's lives.”

“I think there's definitely a deep value of being all in on something because so many people or are not all in on anything. They're just half way into ten things where you could be all in on one thing and see success.”

“When I think about leadership, it’s less about what you say and more about what you do.”

“You don't need to find the ideal thing right away. I think that everyone puts pressure on themselves to figure everything out right now, but we all have time on our hands. And it takes time to figure out your path and your mission.”

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“I was seeing all of these really profound shifts occurring and realized that that was sort of where I wanted to be in terms of my career.”

“When I think about hard power, I think about clear authority. And when I think about soft power, I think about influence essentially.”

“I've had two key sort of overarching passions in things. How can I create a business that does something good for the environment? How can I create a business that does something good for the way people feel?”

“I love diving and I kind of thought about sexuality like diving, in the sense of there's this whole that exists under the surface, and it's always there. It's always under the surface and you can choose to consciously go and take a look at it. And so that's where the name came from.”

“For those raising money in a taboo subject, I would say even more, it's a numbers game because there's just going to be a huge percentage of investors who don't get it, or don't want to get it. So it's going to be inherently more difficult to raise money, but that's part of what our competitive edge is.”

“I think it's just like the maintenance of energy in the face of continual rejection can be really difficult.”

“We are really touching people in quite a deep level and providing space for them that feels good for them. And so that is hugely motivating.”

“Part of entrepreneurship is backing yourself.”

“The ability to sort of roll with the punches and not take that out on your team and be understanding of them and their lives is quite important.”

“Essentially an entrepreneur's ability to understand themselves and understand what they need to recharge and perform to the best of their ability is super important.”

“I didn't come into this knowing how to do anything really, and I'm having to learn every step of the way.”

“I can create my own version of what success looks like, and it doesn't have to fit into the sort of white Silicon Valley bro box.”

“I think the path of entrepreneurship is filled with a lot of fear and some of that fear is helpful. It's like self-preserving. And some of that fear is self-defeating. It actually prevents you from doing what you really want to do.”

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“I'm proud of the diversity of our 55 people. The fact that I think maybe 12 out of the 16 top people are all women.”

“So as a leader I'm still learning.”

“My strength is asking questions and being willing to admit there's a lot of stuff I don't know. Just the idea that you don't know what you don't know. And there's a ton of that I don't know.”

“I'm proud of what I've done and what we continue to do as a company, I'm also aware that it can be so much easier.”

“Be fearless. You're putting yourself out there. It takes a huge amount of courage.”

“Consume everything in that space. Listen to podcasts like yours. Read magazines.”

“There's so much content in the world right now that wasn't available like three, four or five years ago for people that want to start businesses.”

“Don't be afraid to reach out to people.”

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“Daring stands for a lot. We believe in challenging the status quo.”

“Our pillar, in the beginning, was looking at the health gap within plant-based meat that was missing and naturally keeping it as pure as possible made sense for us.”

“Hire for your values. There are a lot of really great, talented people out there, but are they great for your company?”

“When you go after money from people like Maveron or venture money, you have to be willing to go through it all because you are an early-stage company...there's a lot of due diligence that needs taking place. So if you ask for it, be willing to go that full way.”

“The fundraising was a great opportunity for us to really question our sales channels, our hiring process, our team, our org chart. It was just three months revising our business plan.”

“There was no plan B. It was never like, "Okay, well, if this doesn't work, we’ll do this." It was like, "This is going to work.’"

“I come up against these challenges every single day, and a year ago it might've broken me. Today it's just part and parcel of running a business.”

“You can do a lot together. I really believe teams win. Teams win.”

“Fundamentally I love to take advice from people who have done it.”

“And I will say to anyone who is looking to raise capital, do your due diligence as well.”

“I think grit is super important. You're going to go through challenge, conflict, critique. You have to be willing to just go, go and go and then endure it. I think being able to adapt and be nimble.”

“I think entrepreneurs have to be willing to shift focus fast and understand that sometimes that product-market fit isn't right, and you have to adapt.”

“I think this is a great time to be launching your own company. It's a phenomenal thing to be running your own company and doing your own company and challenging norms.”

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YourSuper.com

Quotes:

“You have to actively listen to actually hear something.”

“Read the ingredients list versus the nutritional table. Be actually curious about what ingredients are in your foods and what you're putting into your body.”

“But like we always felt we had to say yes to everything. It's really funny. We couldn't... We didn't focus in the beginning at all. Huge lesson: focus.”

“But I think, in the beginning, it's also a beautiful process to be a little scattered, to like, kind of see what sticks and then start to focus in on that and do more. So I guess that was kind of what we had to learn.”

“And a lot of things you hear, you try to figure out by yourself, but like, just to just hear it comprehensively and going through the process, doing it and still having someone to ask questions was so helpful.”

“That's something we're very passionate about and just really also realize that with the way we source, and especially now since we have been scaling, you can have a massive positive impact in those communities by just having partners with actually real value.”

“The process though, was really long because even when we started scaling, what you will quickly realize when you start scaling is that you need more inventory.”

“Sometimes fundraising and finding the right partner...it's timing.”

“Morning routine is everything for me.”

“Honestly I think a really big one is just trusting yourself and just really trusting my gut instinct. I think that's probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned.”

“Even when we started the business, a lot of people were like, "Oh, how did you do that?" I'm like, "I just asked myself, what's the worst thing that can happen?’"

“You have to make so many decisions every single day. I think the more you build up that skill of just being able to just decide quickly, even when you don't have all the information, but trust your instinct or just look at the information you have and just being able to move forward. And maybe you make mistakes, but you iterate again.”

“I think that the biggest thing I've learned is work on yourself and then the business will grow.”

typeadeodorant.com

“I very much have approached my career as one foot in front of another.”

“I think the biggest takeaway is you have to go after what you want. It doesn't just fall into your lap. You have to make your own opportunities.”

“Be humble and open to constructive feedback.”

“The more I surround myself with the people who treat me the way I want to be treated and vice versa and are sort of positive influences, the negative falls away.”

“There's so much I know that I feel confident I can execute. And there's so much I don't know, but I know who to call that I trust will be a great advisor or can point me in the right direction or can get me the right resource.”

“You just got to keep talking and talking and talking and sharing your story and fine-tuning your pitch and really also figuring out what it is about your business that is worth investing in. And if it is, then investors can get behind it.”

“At the end of the day, it's all relationships.”

“It's so true when they say the investor needs to believe in the founder. It is about the business. It's about the potential, but it's also believing the founder can take the business there.”

“I learned over many conversations with investors that if an investor is sort of pushing in the line of questioning around you, your company, or your product, and it's not aligned with where your strategy is going, there may not be a fit there.”

“So really trust your gut in it's a two-way street and this person, even if they're not super active, is still going to be part of your company in a way.”

“Just kind of following the trail and just continuing to have conversations, the ones that aren't productive are productive in a different way that you're not expecting.”

“But this is something that I learned out of my experience in the beauty industry was ownership of your formula leads to more control and that can translate to more transparency. And that's what we're all about.”

“The biggest thing that I've learned, or I'd say the most impactful practice that I've been able to put in place is insane time management.”

“I think time, the value of my time, has been something I've never put as much emphasis and focus on until I became CEO.”

“Things that have served me really well are having confidence in myself and my abilities and being open with myself and just kind of very self-aware and constantly challenging myself to say, do you know this well enough? Is there somebody else that you can ask?”

“Believe that you know something really well. You have a great product. You have a great concept. Think it through. Stress test it, and be open to the tough feedback that will ultimately make it a better fit for the market, make it a better business, and give you a better platform to launch and grow.”

Babyquip.com

“And honestly, as a female entrepreneur, my number one thing is to be confident.”

“One time I was watching a television show with my then pre-teen son, and it was about how many relationships started online and he looks at me says, "Mom, you made that happen.’"

“It usually has to go back to who's running the joint and whether or not they want these team dynamics to work out or not. And whether or not they set up a culture that rewards teamwork or rewards the bigger voice of the room.”

“So it was tough to turn things around, but when you're down, and much like we are now, you take risks, you make moves because what do you really have to lose?”

“What it comes down to honestly, many times is you need a support network because those things do happen.”

“There needs to be more money for women. Honestly, more women need to get very rich because that's the only way the money will really flow down to younger entrepreneurs.”

“I think brand values made a big difference here, and we're very focused on who we're helping, which is not just the families, but the moms who are delivering and cleaning the gear.”

“Look, if it's in your blood, you're going to do it and you're gonna find a way. So we can't be afraid to sort of pivot and test.”

“The challenges are a feature, not a bug.”

“Team and team dynamics are really critical. It's easy to get those wrong and it's hard to fix it.”

“I think for women in particular, if you're going after the female market, embrace it. Don't apologize for it.”

“One of the things I always like is when you build a company, you're providing jobs for people. And that's a pretty awesome responsibility.”

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“When you're working in the advertising industry, you know, there's always an answer.”

“You have that mentality that you have to solve the problem. You're a problem solver.”

“It was a really lovely lifestyle business, but I don't do things by halves.”

“I came across jackfruit at a music festival, and I saw that the fleshiness of it, the versatility of it, and its flavor hugging qualities could lend itself to plant-based meats. And I knew then that I really wanted to go into something food and plant-based and use jackfruit as my core ingredient.”

“You have to tie everything together. It's about just that at the end of the day, delivering big results.”

“When you bring on a team, and now we've got nine, I was doing everything that they were doing and more. And now they're doing every single job far better than I could ever have ever done, but I had to let go. I had to let them take control of that.”

“And just growing confidence that I can do this. I had the belief in the business at the start. And as you know, we all know, it's just growing in that, in a confidence that we can do it.”

“I know that when you have a vision for something and a passion to make it happen, that really helps drive you to stop at nothing until it happens.”

“You might not have every answer, but there's always a way to learn, whether it's online, or podcasts like this one, or reading a book, or finding a mentor.”

“Do your research, find gaps, get an amazing team, someone with experience to support you and have faith in you and your business. And just think big.”

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“What does it mean to live a life of meaning and how do you make sure that you're integrating that into what you go and do, cause you don't want to live with regret and look back and say, what was this all for?”

“You learn what it's like to fail, to fall on your face, to not get it all done, feel unprepared and completely sleep-deprived.”

“There is no A+ in business. You just have to figure stuff out.”

“You should wait and make sure that you found the idea that is worth 5 to 10 years of your life. There should be a checklist, and it should clear that bar before you jump ship.”

“This is not really a diamond company that we're building. This is just as much about the grief changing journey that somebody is going on by having something positive to look forward to at a time they had nothing to look forward to. It's creating a conversation with their community in a way that nobody was engaging with them previously.”

“It's just kind of that constant balance of making sure that everything you're saying is really intentional and just erring towards building morale, building the team up and making sure that the levers behind the scenes are working.”

“You just have to constantly be humbly failing and learning and trying to be better.”

“We're really creating an entire category and our biggest opportunity is awareness building.”

“Advisors are wonderful, but I think what has been really great is having a CEO coach.”

“Really what we are is a grief wellness brand. And our vision is to be leading a cultural movement that de-stigmatizes loss and opens this conversation up…”

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“I think there's something about having a task in front of you that's difficult and daunting, achieving it or failing at it, and then seeing why you failed. But when you achieve it, you can push through it, and you look back and think like, wow, that changed me as a person. That is incredibly rewarding. Let's go do it again.”

“This was literally like, if I keep this small for now, I can grow organically. I didn't know anything about venture capital.”

“I don't want to take the credit for things for being in the right place at the right time. I think that has a lot to do with it... I think timing is luck.”

“We've always made sure that every dollar we're spending has a return on it. And we can clearly track those dollars.”

“I think this year has been the perfect storm of confluence of really negative forces and things happening in the world and the marketplace.”

“It's important to listen to your customer. It's also important to lead them towards what you feel like the brand represents.”

“I think of myself more as a servant leader.”

“I take a lot of pride in the development and the growth of the staff that's here.”

“I'm pretty much an open book when it comes to being honest around what's happening in the business and maybe to a fault.”

“I think business leaders and owners and those that there are growing businesses, have a responsibility to give back to the community.”

“Nothing happens overnight. So let's build something meaningful and lasting.”