Celebrating National Women's Entrepreneurship Day
A conversation with 4 local woman entrepreneurs
Founded in 2013 by Wendy Diamond through the United Nations, National Women’s Entrepreneurship Day is an annual event on November 19 celebrating women in business across the globe. When women excel in business, everyone benefits.
As a woman who has seen success in a career in sales, I certainly consider myself to be entrepreneurially minded. I gained such valuable insight from these conversations and am thankful for the opportunity to share these brave stories. My favorite takeaways are:
Trusting yourself is a muscle. Start small, and practice it often.
Everyone wrestles with the concept of self worth sometimes, no matter how "together" they appear to have it on the outside.
The journey of starting and running your own business can be lonely. Seek out community and ask for help.
This isn't a new concept, but these conversations shed further evidence on the truth that no one knows exactly what they are doing, ever. If you've got the itch to take the leap into entrepreneurship, just go for it. The plan will never be fully formed, and the timing will never be perfect. You've just got to muster all the courage you've got, believe in yourself, and take the leap. And you will most certainly surprise yourself.
In honor of this celebratory annual event, we interviewed 4 incredible local entrepreneurs about their experience launching their businesses and their journey along the way. Click below or scroll all the way through to read a summary of my conversations with these amazing women.
Angela Connor
Angela Connor
Founder & CEO - Change Agent Communications
www.changeagentcommunications.com
What they do: Award-winning boutique PR and strategic communications firm in Raleigh, North Carolina, founded by seasoned journalist, author and agency veteran, Angela Connor.
Check out the Now Look Inward Podcast and Angela’s weekly newsletter, Women Inspiring Women Weekly.
How was Change Agent Communications born?
I got to a point where I looked around and I paid attention to all the people in my career who bet on me and won so big. Whether this was someone who had given me a promotion, or put me in charge of a fledgling department, or several departments, or a committee. And I decided “You know what, I think I’m going to bet on myself.” I learned that the work that you do gives bonuses to others, so I learned that my work was putting money in other people’s pockets. I just thought, what if I did what they did, and what if I leverage all of my talents and skills and move them in the direction that I want them to go in? And not just a single piece, but all the pieces - the woman who was a journalist for 16 years, the woman who is a pioneer on social media, the woman who launched a social media team at an agency, then ran paid media, then ran digital, then ran teams in different geographies, then became a EVP of media and audience engagement and put it all together to serve clients my way. That could probably yield some awesome results! And then, to become the benefactor of all of that? What if I did all of that, did it on my terms, and wasn’t being navigated by anyone else pulling the strings?
That’s so powerful.
And it’s not that it isn’t scary!
Well, just because you have courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid.
We look to so many other people for validation, we value the opinions of other people so much. One of the reasons we do that along the way is because we stop listening to ourselves. We need to learn how to become our own consultant. That doesn’t mean that we don’t ever listen to other people, but it means that we value what we think.
If you haven’t talked to yourself, or listened to yourself, you don’t even know what you think. If you’ve not sat in your own vision to question, “How do I feel about this? Is this a good idea?” You have to give yourself time to think, to ask yourself deep questions, to process. Becoming an entrepreneur is learning to trust yourself and believing in yourself. There’s a whole idea of believing in yourself, there’s songs about it, but it’s really a muscle.
What has surprised you about this journey?
I wasn’t expecting to feel so alone. It can be a lonely, lonely place. I knew that being able to make my own decisions about who I work with was going to make me happy, but I also did not know the sheer joy I would feel being in charge of who I work with. The fact that there’s no one who can force me to work with jerk clients, brings me so much joy.
I like being able to let my clients benefit from all of my collective experience. Let’s say I’m at an agency and I’m in charge of social media and digital. But if someone hires me now, they get the benefit of me working in news for 16 years, they get the benefit of all the experience I have, I’m not stuck in a silo. Things don’t stop and start with me in one place because I’m only in charge of one thing.
And you have the perspective of a broad number of industries, what has and hasn’t worked, and why. You can bring that whole collective tapestry to the table.
I get to bring the whole me, all of my collective experience across industries and across the various fields in which I’ve worked to clients. And it makes me more valuable, I think.
Something else that’s shocked me is just how people will take advantage of you if you let them. Knowing your value can take you a long way. I knew that, but putting it into practice is a different story. And I’ve loved putting it into practice! I think that I’ve shocked some people. Small business does not equal desperation. There is nothing desperate about me.
What advice would you give to young women who are considering starting a business?
Stop waiting for the perfect time, because it’s not going to come along and punch you in the nose. There’s not going to be a sign that falls from the sky and tells you “Today is the day”. There’s no magical moment, there’s a decision that you make. You make some plans, and you propel yourself forward. There’s no perfect time. Stop waiting for the perfect time, and stop waiting for approval from other people.
This really goes back to what you said earlier about trusting yourself.
Start building that muscle. If you’ve never lifted weights in your life, you can’t pick up a 50 lb weight and do 15 reps. You’ve got to start doing small things to build that muscle of trusting yourself.
Jessica Mitsch
Jessica Mitsch
Founder & CEO, Momentum Learning
What they do: Durham-based coding school offering curriculum to support anyone looking to build new skills in tech, no matter where they are in their career.
How was Momentum Learning born?
I’m a big believer in the power of intention, so I’m going to go back to when the intention for Momentum was born. I am dyslexic and my K-12 experience of having a learning disability was incredibly challenging. I came out of high school and then college knowing that I wanted to do something in education. I had an adviser who asked me “What do you want to do with your life? What’s the legacy you want to leave?”. I thought I would like to start a school that’s going to help change the face of education. I had just graduated college and needed to get a job and thought that I’d be in my 60s when I would set out to do this, with resources and time.
After college I started working at Red Hat and fell in love with technology. Three years after being there and loving that experience, I met Peter Barth, the founder of Iron Yard, one of the first national code programs in the country. I left Red Hat to run Iron Yard’s program. It was an awesome wild ride. We were the only people in the Triangle delivering education this way. We were working with adults in a multi-generational classroom. We helped people change their career trajectory in a very short time and filled a need in technology to supply talented people. It was amazing.
Iron Yard grew really quickly and became the largest code school in the country at the time. I joined the executive team managing the operational structure. Unfortunately, after a few years Iron Yard closed down. As things were shutting down Clinton, my Co-Founder, and I decided to keep this idea going. We also had the community behind us. So we launched Momentum Learning in 2017 and we are three years in!
Your parents were both entrepreneurs. Did you think it was sort of a destiny to be in this seat?
No, not really. I didn’t necessarily see myself taking a CEO position, it was more of what just needed to be done at the time and realizing someone needs to play this role, so, I thought to myself, “I’ll figure it out”.
There’s a sort of magic that happens when you’re clear on your intentions, you’re open to new experiences and you release your expectations about what the outcome looks like, don’t you think.
Yes, exactly. I gave a talk last year and one of the things I said was - “Be clear on a broad intention, then let go of all of the specifics and let life take you where it wants you to go.”
What would you say has been something on the entrepreneurial journey that has totally surprised you?
Nobody knows what they are doing. Like, nobody knows. Going through the process of raising a seed round for example - I had never done that before. I talked to everyone. I talked to my current boss at the time who had been through that process. I talked to start up leaders in this community, I spoke to people across the country, mentors and friends of my parents, VCs, everyone. Everyone had very definitive, surefire advice, and it was all different! Realizing, Oh! No one knows, you’ve got to figure it out on your own. That’s what makes this fun. There’s no “should”.
So, I listened to everyone’s advice, but then it became about leaning into what I felt most confident with. This journey can be tricky because sometimes I want to lean into making people happy or what someone thinks I “should” do, but there’s no actual answer to anything.
No one knows what they’re doing, there’s not “one way”, so therefore as an entrepreneur it’s so important to cultivate trust in yourself. What’s your perspective on self trust?
That’s such an important question. I usually wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is spend time doing whatever I need to get done for the day, usually it’s a work out. Taking care of the things in my house I want to take care of, taking care of my body first thing, that’s been important because I know that once I start the work day, the things I need to be successful have been done. I prioritize my health, mostly.
Trusting yourself is a constant battle. This year we made several staffing decisions that were really tough. They get easier the more you have to do them, but it’s still hard. Experience has come along with learning, the time it takes me to make the hard decisions has shortened as I’ve gained experience.
What advice would you give someone on this journey?
The question I get the most frequently is “How do you know how to do your job everyday?”. The truth is that you don’t, and no one else does either. The only way you’re going to learn is just by doing it. At Momentum, that’s how we teach - you need just do it. You need to write some code, you need to run a test. If you’re not trying it, you’re not learning. So, if you want to do it, just do it!
I follow Scott Galloway, a professor at NYU Stern School of Business, and he says “The best thing you can do for yourself is try and fail fast if it’s going to fail. If you start a company and it fails, it’s still a success because you gave it a shot, and because of what you’ve learned from it.
And because of who you’ve become along the journey. There’s no real failure.
Yes exactly. The things that you don’t do in life are usually your biggest regrets over the things you do decide to do.
What exciting thing can we promote and amplify?
Three things!
1) Hiring in tech? Consider hiring their graduates! Please reach out to info@momentumlearn.com.
2) We are building a Custom Training Division so employers can help build and scale their own talent. If interested, contact jessica@momentumlearn.com.
3) We’re raising a Pay it Forward Fund, to continually address the huge need for people across the country looking to advance their careers who do not have access to traditional lending.
Alisa Herr
Alisa Herr
Founder & CEO, Unity Digital Agency
What they do: B-Corp Certified web agency creating sustainable & accessible websites that capture and amplify client missions.
Check out their Essential Guide to Web Accessibility for Writers, Marketers, and Content Managers.
How was Unity Digital born? Did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
I didn’t. Where I have to start is grad school. I've always had a very literal plan forward, but my actual path has been all over the place. Looking back on it, it’s a pretty clear path and I see exactly what happened, but in the moment I thought I was going to be a total failure.
My dad taught me how to code in middle school. He showed me HTML, and I took it from there and loved it. I basically taught myself how to code from books, and eventually did some websites. But back in the 90s, there weren’t many women in the industry, and “Web Developer” wasn’t a job opportunity that existed yet.
Early on I wanted to be a librarian, that was my dream, but I graduated in 2009 during a state hiring freeze, so I had no job prospects. I wanted to get a job in an undergraduate library, but when I couldn’t, I ended up falling back on the web development skills that I had. I ended up getting a junior web development job part time at a small, relatively new, design firm in Durham. Six months in, the Senior Developer left, so I had that sink or swim moment of “Ok, I’m going to figure out how to do this, or they’re going to hire someone over me”. So I did it! I figured out how to do that job, and how to do it better. Four and a half years later, I was the lead developer and had a team under me.
I was then recruited to be a founding CTO of a nonprofit. I went from the agency world to the client world really fast, and in that time, I met some amazing people. I loved the people in the nonprofit world and loved how everyone had a personal mission. But in the end, I ended up being a reporter and I didn’t want to write for a living, I wanted to get back into the technology. I tried to make it a slow transition out of that role, but the best thing that ever happened to me was my previous boss let me go. So the reason I started Unity, and the reason I started it as fast as I did, was that I got a kick in the butt to go do it. But the funny thing is that I also felt like it was going to be easier for me to start my own company than to find a new job.
In the early days, what was that like? There’s the external checklist you go through for starting a business, but what no one really tells you about is the internal journey happening at the same time.
Totally! I came from the nonprofit world and loved the mission driven aspect and I had such a good network of people, other women. I also used the B Impact Assessment to help me make decisions about policies and build the team. I was a member of NIDO, a co-working space in Durham, which was founded by two amazing women. I knew at least three other amazing women through that group that had their own businesses, and that gave me the courage to feel like I could do it too.
One of the things that’s come up as an ongoing theme in these conversations is how lonely it can be. What are some ways that you have found community in your entrepreneurial journey?
When I started my company I had a 4 year old and a 1 year old. So I was still very much in that early parent haze, just trying to get through the first year of a baby. My mindset was very much on community already, I lived in Durham, I was part of SODU Parent’s Posse and this whole idea of “Parents, we need each other.”
I came to entrepreneurship with the same idea as parenthood, like, “I’m not going to be able to do this on my own.” I went to the Frontier right away because of their work in STEM, and I had done STEM reporting at my previous role and knew about them. From there, it was meeting more people, staying in touch with the people I had met through NIDO. And getting to know other moms who had started businesses was helpful.
What advice do you have for other women who may be considering starting their own business?
You have to be willing to reach out. There are so many resources available, and it’s hard to find those resources all by yourself, so it’s helpful to find people who have been there and can help point you toward the right things. I’m still learning about things that are out there for people starting a business that I wish I had known about 4 years ago.
What exciting thing can we celebrate?
We’re up for our B Corp Re-Certification next year, and we’re about to post another position for a Developer! I’m excited for that.
Kelly Pfrommer
Kelly Pfrommer
Founder & CEO - Cloud Giants
What they do: Helping organizations own their own destiny by solving their most complex Salesforce challenges.
How was Cloud Giants born?
Cloud Giants was born the same way I became a Salesforce Administrator, all by accident. I went from Accidental Admin to Accidental Business Owner. When I became a mom I started to evaluate what I wanted in life. I was feeling this sense of unhappiness because I felt like I was missing out on some of my babies important moments. I was seeking more flexibility in my schedule but also wanted to keep working. I wasn’t satisfied with what my employer had to offer me with respect to flexibility. So, I started doing some Salesforce contracting on the side and really loved that work. Over time, and with the buy-in of my husband, I quit my full time job to focus on freelancing.
As soon as I let my network know that I was freelancing, I started getting leads. I didn’t plan to have my own direct customers because I didn’t think I could be a good sales person and I wasn’t sure I’d even enjoy that aspect of being my own boss. One of the leads a friend sent to me was Circle K, who became my first customer, the first person to say yes to me. That was really exhilarating and that was the moment I decided to go for it and build a business of my own.
All this would not have been possible without my role model and cheerleader, my Mom. November 19 is, not only, Women’s Entrepreneurship Day but it’s also my mom’s birthday. That these two events coincide this year has been a wonderful opportunity to reflect and feel appreciation for her belief in me and pushing me (even though as a teen it was not appreciated, ha).
What was the internal journey like for you during those first years?
A rollercoaster filled with a lot of highs and a lot of lows. The early years were spent living on the edges of exhilaration and despair. It was scary with a lot of setbacks. There were feelings of inadequacy, thinking “am I really cut out for this?”. When I started adding on people, the difficult feelings were compounded because I felt this immense responsibility for others. They were putting their careers and livelihood in my hands and that was an incredible responsibility that didn’t weigh lightly, and still doesn’t. And of course, I’ve made mistakes. The learning has been incredible, I’ve learned so much about myself, life, business, relationships. It’s been endless learning and I’ve loved it.
Would you say there are parallels between being a business owner and being a mom? No one can prepare you for what that’s like.
Absolutely, yes! Cloud Giants is definitely my third child, it’s my baby. I feel very maternal for it, for the people who choose to spend their time and invest in their careers with our team.
In the early years of the business, what was most important to you?
In the first 2 years, the business really served me as a mom. When Cloud Giants started, I had a 10 month old and a 3 year old. At that time, I needed the business to allow me the space to do the things that I would never get the chance to do again. To be able to go on every field trip, to have lunches with the kids at school, to have the kids home a couple of days a week. I never could have found that flexibility as a regular employee because that just didn’t exist.
The other aspect that was important to me (and still is) was “owning my own destiny” and being able to flex my creativity muscles. The ability to design the business my way and apply all my previous experiences was a lot of fun. I brought the spirit of “I don’t have to do it the way everyone else has done it” with respect to consulting. The ability to define the way in which we offer services was exciting to be able to start. That alone was not enough to have success. I feel very lucky to have met Joe Bennett early on. He became one of our early team members, and he introduced me to the book Traction which outlines the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS). Implementing this system was a pivotal moment for Cloud Giants. At first, when we were so small, it didn’t really seem like we needed an operating system, but I’m so glad we put one in place early. I think this system is the secret to our success.
What has surprised you about being an entrepreneur?
I never envisioned myself as a business owner. The biggest surprise is all the riches that have come my way that have nothing to do with money. I feel like I’m living, whereas before I felt like I was existing. I didn’t know that I was going to develop such meaningful relationships, some of my early customers are now some of my best friends.
A common theme in these conversations has been about getting out of your own way. Can you talk more about your experience with that?
For me, getting out of my own way has been about developing humility. I used to think alot about winning and being competitive with my peers. Now, I’m in a place where I think about good for all, do my efforts serve a greater good, my family, the earth. I still like to hear from time to time that I’m doing a good job, but I don’t need my idea to be the best idea in the room.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of starting a business?
Do it! Go for it, ask for advice and feedback, but if you don’t like it, do it yourway. And read a whole lot. Don’t be afraid to ask people for help, and believe you can do it.