I have recently been interviewing women entrepreneurs who have built successful companies. Some transformed start-ups into multi-million-dollar businesses, often selling them for huge returns. Others were Blue Ocean Strategists®, saw an unmet need and determined how to solve it, adding value in innovative ways. Many are taking old family firms and turning them around. Throughout our conversations, one theme that has emerged again and again is the importance of culture.

As Lisa Tomasi writes in PositivityDaily, these women seem to have a “secret sauce” for staying positive and spreading it around their organizations. In my opinion, that “secret sauce” is their ability to intentionally create a workplace culture that’s collaborative and empowering, yet still focused on results.

When women create companies, they don’t just mimic men. They have their own style of building better businesses, better teams and better results.

What I am finding throughout my interviews is that a combination of five principles where employees work well together and innovative ideas thrive is often their recipe for success:

1. Intentionally build a company and its culture with forethought. Each of the women I’ve interviewed knew exactly what type of company she wanted to create. They empowered their staff to be autonomous but at the same time, put in place processes and rules to manage their freedom.
2. Build it from the outside-in. A consistent theme has been the importance of staying laser-focused on the customer.
3. Understand that women need a balanced workplace. (Guess what? Men do too.) These women CEOs realized that women want to work hard and see results but also need independence to manage their homes, families and countless other commitments in order to have a meaningful life.
4. Training and development is a hallmark of successful companies. Each of these female entrepreneurs has been a big believer in lifelong learning – for themselves and their companies. From personal development coaching to ongoing professional training, they embraced change and made sure their people were equipped to adapt to what’s next.
5. Bottom line results are the product on an excellent business culture. Profitability flowed from a culture that balanced empowerment and innovation with processes and controls.

It’s time for companies to overhaul their cultures (get it, Uber?)

Successful women everywhere are showing us how to create highly profitable companies by first establishing highly collaborative cultures. Hopefully, more CEOs will pay attention.

By Andi Simon, Ph.D., Corporate Anthropologist, President Simon Associates Management Consultants
www.simonassociates.net

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success. Get it today and start building!

BUY NOW

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

THE LATEST

Three Common Mistakes Most Entrepreneurs Unknowingly Make in Sales Meetings.@Forbes.Even if the ‘art of sales’ comes naturally to you, you must have a process for success. Great tips.

What’s Your Problem? Why Entrepreneurs Always Need One.@Forbes.Solve a problem that affects enough people and you may just find yourself part of something bigger.

How Women Entrepreneurs and Their Employees Can Save for Retirement.@Forbes.Less than 30% of businesses with fewer than 100 employees offer a retirement plan. Become one of them. The benefits for your employees are exponential.

How Mogul Makes It Possible for HR Departments to End Sexual Harassment.@Forbes.Mogul is aiming to reform how workplace sexual harassment is reported and treated. Great article on forward progress in such an important area.

The Secret Sauce of Entrepreneurship.@HuffPost.What’s the secret sauce? Idea, talent, capital and bloody persistence.

10 Traits of Entrepreneurs Who Built Billion-Dollar Companies.@EntMagazineME.Successful entrepreneurs come from every imaginable upbringing and background, yet they all have inherent abilities that set them apart.

For Entrepreneurs, A Tough Moment: The Pivot.@NYTimes.It’s the moment many entrepreneurs hit eventually, and the moment many resist.

Three Ways to Advance Women Entrepreneurs.@Forbes.By focusing on funding, confidence and role models.

FROM MY LIBRARY

How to Create a Company of Owners and Why It Is Smart Business.12/7/2017 Steph’s Stories.Creating a company of passionate, driven people is strategic, requires long-term commitment, and must be woven into the way you work, but the return on investment is exponential.

Why Desire Matters at Work.Kristen Wheeler, 11/24/2017 Tips from the Community.Founder of Native Genius, Kristen Wheeler, shares valuable methods for finding innate talents and capitalizing on all they have to offer. It’s genius!

A LITTLE DEEPER DIVE

eGuides to Maximize the Success of All You Do.Stephanie Breedlove’s Free Tools. Committing to best practices is what enables the development of successful strategy and roadmaps. My eGuides will teach you how to build the best practices that maximize the success of all you do.

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success.  Get it today and start building!

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

Company culture has been an increasingly important focus of businesses over the last decade. In fact, a study led by Columbia Business School showed that more than 50% of survey respondents felt that corporate culture has an influence on productivity, creativity, profitability, firm value, and growth rates. Yet only 28% of U.S. workers are engaged, according to Gallup. The rest are killing time or disengaged at a level that is damaging your company.

A learning and growing environment where people can succeed often and want to succeed allows them to produce at higher levels, helping to maximize efficiency and profitability, and enhancing the ability to capitalize on new opportunities. When every member of your team takes ownership, produces superior results, and thrives, it’s a recipe for maximizing success.

The Call to Action

What are the ingredients? The key ingredient is to establish a corporate ideology that becomes the foundation for every business decision, and is the engine that keeps everything moving in the right direction. Your company goal should also be the mantra for your team’s efforts. It should provide a passionate call to action. When strategies and roadmaps are consciously aligned against this goal, everyone in the company has a clear understanding of where you are going and how their efforts matter. I have steered clear of layering on a mission statement, as it conjures up feelings of corporate prose that no one understands or bothers to remember. Keep it simple. Make it tangible. When you march in unison toward a common goal, you grow the power of company unity. Once you are all marching in the same direction, go to work on the methods that will grow and strengthen your company of owners. I have boiled our methods down to 10 that have been the core ingredients for building a culture that helps maximize impact and create sustained value.

1. Hire to Groom Yourself Out of a Job: Look beyond immediate needs and hire for future growth. When your team is growing, you are growing. As the weight of building a business puts weight on the foundation, the abilities of your people provide stability. Establish hiring criteria that is valuable and specific to your company, and not necessarily in line with the latest trends, and ensure everyone evaluates with these criteria.
2. Train at Every Level: How many companies provide valuable training? And HR onboarding doesn’t count. Many companies skip the investment and time required for training, but this short-term drain is long-term gain. Train thoroughly at initial hire, at promotion, and as a standard way of conducting business to cultivate skill growth. Training and knowledge sharing demonstrates that management is invested in growing individual talent, and this creates empowerment and passion. Not to mention efficiency, minimized mistakes, and bandwidth for new endeavors.
3. Create New Opportunities: Exposing employees to many roles allows them to grow skills, hone talents, and potentially find their true calling. The company benefits from a holistic understanding that is grown from fulfilling a variety of roles.
4. Make Communication Key: Business leaders concur that effective communication is critical for an organization to deliver successfully, but there is not a lot of walk of the talk. When woven into the company fabric, quality communication strengthens everything you do. How do you make communication a driver of success? At the simplest level, communicate its importance, establish expectations and standards, and hold the team accountable.
5. Make Decisions with a Top-Down Approach: Approach a new idea or problem from the top – starting with a high-level goal to align efforts against allows you to be open, avoiding decision-making in a silo that often results from starting at the lowest level and working your way up. Inclusion of all stakeholders occurs organically, allowing for collaboration and teamwork that produces the most successful solutions.
6. Set Expectations and Create Accountability: Setting formal expectations plus regular review and feedback for accountability are worth the hard work. When you set the bar and then work with your team to meet it, they strive twice as hard. Many leaders are uncomfortable in this space, but I have found that it creates buy-in, pride and unity.
7. Offer Partnership: Take the time to know your team. Give your team time to know each other. It promotes equality, inclusion and fairness. It keeps competition, jockeying for position, and politics at bay.
8. Deliver Quality not Quantity: When employees focus on being the first to arrive and the last to leave, productivity and efficiency decrease. We studied this and found that a staffing model that supported quality over quantity was key to maximizing progress.
9. Support the Healthy Whole: Your team must successfully integrate their lives to have successful careers. When your policies support this, retention increases, engagement increases, productivity increases, teamwork increases, and the best happens.
10. Make it Fun: This does not mean kegs in the breakroom and excess sugar and caffeine. These are far too easy. Create meaningful fun unique to your culture that is a win for everyone – employees, teams, culture, company – and it will flow out into the marketplace.

Guaranteed ROI

When you build a company of owners, you bring out the best in people, and their best brings out the best in your company. It’s simply smart business. Yet it is some of the most difficult work you will do. It requires long-term commitment and hard work that most companies just don’t want to muster. In my experience, it is the right way to build a business, as the ROI is worth the effort many times over. By creating a company of owners your business will:

• Grow comfortably and swiftly, maximizing pace while delivering excellence
• Have ease in capitalizing on new opportunity
• Maximize efficiency, quality and profitability
• Grow in value throughout its lifetime

Always All In,

Stephanie

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success. Get it today and start building!

BUY NOW

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

THE LATEST

Why Entrepreneurship is Better Together.@Forbes.Entrepreneurs learn from each other, so find a co-founder that sees the world through the same lens and don’t go it alone.

Entrepreneurs, Don’t Discount the Small Wins.@Influencive.If you are doubting yourself as an entrepreneur, these words of wisdom may help explain why.

The Productivity Tricks of 7 Successful Entrepreneurs.@Forbes.Working hard to create success isn’t enough. You must also work smart.

Year-End Habits Entrepreneurs Should Adopt.@INC.As we close in on the end of 2017, here are some tasks every entrepreneur should plan for.

Entrepreneurs: Grab These Last-Minute Tax Breaks While You Still Can.@CNBC.Get ahead by doing some planning in December, and small businesses should be preparing to pay taxes on January 15.

7 Ways Blockchain Will Enable Entrepreneurs in 2018.@INC.Blockchain is so much more than technology used for cryptocurrencies. Here are 7 ways blockchain is enabling an entirely new generation of entrepreneurs.

6 Ways Successful Entrepreneurs Avoid Doing It Alone.@Forbes.From partnership at home, to partnership in the office, to mentors and accelerators – teamwork is where good ideas become great.

Role Models: 4 Women Entrepreneurs Dead-Set on Lasting Success.@Influencive.The following 4 women are leading their industries and have something to teach us about entrepreneurship.

8 Podcasts Every Entrepreneur Should Follow in 2018.@INC.From building a better personal brand to finding success in the face of adversity, these 8 podcasts will prepare you to reach new heights in 2018.

FROM MY LIBRARY

Game Changers: Difference-Making.11/7/2017 Steph’s Stories.Everyone one of us desires to make a difference. How do you define making a difference?

Why Desire Matters at Work.Kristen Wheeler, 11/24/2017 Tips from the Community.Founder of Native Genius, Kristen Wheeler, shares valuable methods for finding innate talents and capitalizing on all they have to offer. It’s genius!

A LITTLE DEEPER DIVE

eGuides to Maximize the Success of All You Do.Stephanie Breedlove’s Free Tools. Committing to best practices is what enables the development of successful strategy and roadmaps. My eGuides will teach you how to build the best practices that maximize the success of all you do.

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success.  Get it today and start building!

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

When people hear about my work, Native Genius, some smile knowingly—they “get it” without explanation. Others ask, “What is that?” I tell them, “It’s what it sounds like. It’s what comes naturally that has exponential potential. It’s kernels of intelligence and desire that insistently come out—like acorns growing into oak trees. We all have Native Genius—and it isn’t one thing, it’s many things.”

The two key elements of Native Genius are desire and ability. The Native part is desire and the Genius part is ability. If you think of one as the cake and the other as the frosting, you’d probably say that ability is the cake and desire is the frosting. Desire is the part we do, when there’s time, when the bills are paid. The frosting isn’t really necessary to a good cake anyway. I think it’s the other way around. Desire is the cake and ability is the frosting.

Graph it Out

Let’s get a little more technical than cake and frosting. Let’s use a graph, with ability on the horizontal axis with desire on the vertical axis.

When people see my graph, I often hear little gasps of air and a subtle surprised look because right there laid out in four squares is why they sometimes feel so tangled up inside. I hear things like this, “Oh right, there are things I’m good at that I don’t like doing.” And then comes the “no wonder” nod—the “no wonder this feels like crap even though I’m good at it.” And then the cascade of “shoulds,” “I should be happy enough with this. The rest of my life is great. We have enough to pay for….” It’s as if people feel handcuffed to the lower right quadrant—or worse, the lower left. And finally there it is—laid bare in a graph—why their work just doesn’t feel right.

How to Spot Native Genius

You know you’re in the upper right quadrant when your eyes are lighting up. I call this MELU—My Eyes Light Up. It’s a universal human feeling we’re supposed to have while we’re working. “Yea work is over MELU” and “Yeah I got the raise MELU” and “Drink on the beach MELU” are different from “Native Genius MELU.” Native Genius MELU is when we feel focused without making ourselves be focused, curious, smart, insightful, creative and challenged in a good way. If someone took away that challenge, we’d be disappointed because we want to do it. Research* shows when people are in the Native Genius zone a lot, they’re far more productive, deliver better results and are twice as likely to be thriving in their lives.

Don’t think Weakness, think Non-Native

When you’re in the non-native zone you feel MEGO—My Eyes Glaze Over. Rather than thinking of this as a weakness or that something is wrong with you, think of it as non-native. MEGO is when you have to make yourself focus. You’re bored, annoyed frustrated, and it feels like your brain cells are dying. Research* shows that when you’re in this zone a lot at work, you’re twice as likely to be stressed depressed and have heart disease. When you’re in that zone, no matter how much you try to make yourself like it, you just don’t.

The Fear

The fear is that if we let ourselves do our MELU, we won’t be able to put a roof over our heads or pay for the things in life that deeply matter to us. As soon as we let ourselves think, “Hey yeah, that’s right, my MELU matters,” a closet full of “Yeah-But’s” dumps out on our heads. “Yeah but, your MELU isn’t valued by the market place….Yeah but you can’t make money doing that” and the torrent goes on and on. Here’s what to remember: the research is on your side. And every great inventor or leader or hero you admire—when you read about their lives, their greatness was fueled by their MELU: Jane Goodall (Primatologist) John Lasseter (Pixar Founder and creator of Toy Story), Travis Kalanick (Founder of Uber). The list goes on and on. The question is will you say yes to your MELU like they did?

The Journey

Native Genius is about honoring our own true nature. The journey of being human is coming into accord with our own true nature. No one gets a free pass on that and we all grapple with it in some way or another.

Despite our best efforts to follow our MELU, none of us will ever be in our Native Genius 100% of the time, and none of us gets there in a flash—like winning the lottery. We take Tiny Leaps of Faith to get a tiny bit more MELU and a tiny bit less MEGO. Practice that everyday with the people you work with and you’ll all get there faster together. Together you’ll morph to the upper right quadrant.

Being in accord with nature means that most of the time, we get to feel like we’re doing work that we’re meant to be doing. Nature has a lot to teach us about Native Genius. When we see a plant or animal thriving we know it’s doing what it’s meant to be doing. It’s healthy and well supported by its environment. It looks like the best version of itself and nothing else. Your MELU is telling you about your thriving place—it’s pointing to your Native Genius. Follow it.

Take-Home Value: A Simple Exercise to Get More Native Genius at Work

Regardless whether you love or hate your work, here’s something you can do to nudge yourself to the upper right quadrant more. Make a list of the 10 tasks that take up most time at work. Write MELU or MEGO next to each one. Sometimes it’s both MELU and MEGO. If that’s the case, break the task down into smaller parts and identify each one with MELU or MEGO. Ask yourself, how can you do less of the MEGO and more of the MELU? Often you’ll have faulty “shoulds” or be blind to options, so ask a friend or colleague to help you. Better yet, do this in a group and help each other maximize your MELU’s and minimize your MEGO’s by redesigning or swapping tasks together.

By Kristen Wheeler, Founder & Creator, Native Genius®

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success. Get it today and start building!

BUY NOW

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

Why Desire Matters at Work

When people hear about my work, Native Genius, some smile knowingly—they “get it” without explanation. Others ask, “What is that?” I tell them, “It’s what it sounds like. It’s what comes naturally that has exponential potential. It’s kernels of intelligence and desire that insistently come out—like acorns growing into oak trees. We all have Native Genius—and it isn’t one thing, it’s many things.”

The two key elements of Native Genius are desire and ability. The Native part is desire and the Genius part is ability. If you think of one as the cake and the other as the frosting, you’d probably say that ability is the cake and desire is the frosting. Desire is the part we do, when there’s time, when the bills are paid. The frosting isn’t really necessary to a good cake anyway. I think it’s the other way around. Desire is the cake and ability is the frosting.

Graph it Out

Let’s get a little more technical than cake and frosting. Let’s use a graph, with ability on the horizontal axis with desire on the vertical axis.

When people see my graph, I often hear little gasps of air and a subtle surprised look because right there laid out in four squares is why they sometimes feel so tangled up inside. I hear things like this, “Oh right, there are things I’m good at that I don’t like doing.” And then comes the “no wonder” nod—the “no wonder this feels like crap even though I’m good at it.” And then the cascade of “shoulds,” “I should be happy enough with this. The rest of my life is great. We have enough to pay for….” It’s as if people feel handcuffed to the lower right quadrant—or worse, the lower left. And finally there it is—laid bare in a graph—why their work just doesn’t feel right.

How to Spot Native Genius

You know you’re in the upper right quadrant when your eyes are lighting up. I call this MELU—My Eyes Light Up. It’s a universal human feeling we’re supposed to have while we’re working. “Yea work is over MELU” and “Yeah I got the raise MELU” and “Drink on the beach MELU” are different from “Native Genius MELU.” Native Genius MELU is when we feel focused without making ourselves be focused, curious, smart, insightful, creative and challenged in a good way. If someone took away that challenge, we’d be disappointed because we want to do it. Research* shows when people are in the Native Genius zone a lot, they’re far more productive, deliver better results and are twice as likely to be thriving in their lives.

Don’t think Weakness, think Non-Native

When you’re in the non-native zone you feel MEGO—My Eyes Glaze Over. Rather than thinking of this as a weakness or that something is wrong with you, think of it as non-native. MEGO is when you have to make yourself focus. You’re bored, annoyed frustrated, and it feels like your brain cells are dying. Research* shows that when you’re in this zone a lot at work, you’re twice as likely to be stressed depressed and have heart disease.  When you’re in that zone, no matter how much you try to make yourself like it, you just don’t.

The Fear

The fear is that if we let ourselves do our MELU, we won’t be able to put a roof over our heads or pay for the things in life that deeply matter to us. As soon as we let ourselves think, “Hey yeah, that’s right, my MELU matters,” a closet full of “Yeah-But’s” dumps out on our heads. “Yeah but, your MELU isn’t valued by the market place….Yeah but you can’t make money doing that” and the torrent goes on and on. Here’s what to remember: the research is on your side. And every great inventor or leader or hero you admire—when you read about their lives, their greatness was fueled by their MELU: Jane Goodall (Primatologist) John Lasseter (Pixar Founder and creator of Toy Story), Travis Kalanick (Founder of Uber). The list goes on and on. The question is will you say yes to your MELU like they did?

The Journey

Native Genius is about honoring our own true nature. The journey of being human is coming into accord with our own true nature. No one gets a free pass on that and we all grapple with it in some way or another.

Despite our best efforts to follow our MELU, none of us will ever be in our Native Genius 100% of the time, and none of us gets there in a flash—like winning the lottery. We take Tiny Leaps of Faith to get a tiny bit more MELU and a tiny bit less MEGO. Practice that everyday with the people you work with and you’ll all get there faster together. Together you’ll morph to the upper right quadrant.

Being in accord with nature means that most of the time, we get to feel like we’re doing work that we’re meant to be doing. Nature has a lot to teach us about Native Genius. When we see a plant or animal thriving we know it’s doing what it’s meant to be doing. It’s healthy and well supported by its environment. It looks like the best version of itself and nothing else. Your MELU is telling you about your thriving place—it’s pointing to your Native Genius. Follow it.

Take-Home Value: A Simple Exercise to Get More Native Genius at Work

Regardless whether you love or hate your work, here’s something you can do to nudge yourself to the upper right quadrant more. Make a list of the 10 tasks that take up most time at work. Write MELU or MEGO next to each one. Sometimes it’s both MELU and MEGO. If that’s the case, break the task down into smaller parts and identify each one with MELU or MEGO. Ask yourself, how can you do less of the MEGO and more of the MELU? Often you’ll have faulty “shoulds” or be blind to options, so ask a friend or colleague to help you. Better yet, do this in a group and help each other maximize your MELU’s and minimize your MEGO’s by redesigning or swapping tasks together.

By Kristen Wheeler, Founder & Creator, Native Genius^®

© 2017 Kristen Wheeler

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success.  Get it today and start building!

Depth describes the entrepreneurial articles over the past 2 weeks. No, they aren’t as deep as a research study, but many resonated deeply enough to consider printing them and pinning them up the wall for reference and reminder. Knowledge is power. Enjoy!

THE LATEST

The 5 Biggest Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Launching Something New. @Forbes. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of mistakes you will make in launching a new endeavor. Here a few at the top to prevent to increase your level of success.

7 Reasons You’d Make a Successful Entrepreneur. @TheStreet. Entrepreneurs are innovative people often willing to take risks and tackle problems, but always strive to remain at the forefront of innovation to be one step ahead of their competitors.

My Best Advice for Entrepreneurs – Find a Mentor. @Forbes. Any entrepreneur that tells you that having a mentor is not helpful has simply not found the right mentor. Here’s how to go about it so you can experience the valuable benefits.

Why I’m Not Impressed with Serial Entrepreneurs. @EntMagazineME. Some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs are not serial entrepreneurs. Investors are looking for perseverance and commitment, and participation in 5-10 startups doesn’t always demonstrate a willingness to push through hard times.

How to Avoid Making the Same Mistake – 10 Tips for Entrepreneurs. @Forbes. Take note of your mistakes, try to understand them, and see the opportunity in them (glass half full). Here’s how. Note: This one is worth pinning up on the wall.

Why the End of the Startup Era Could Be Great for Entrepreneurs. @TechCrunch. Consolidation is occurring; however, this could actually be very good for new startups.

Small Business on Track to Beat Revenues as Confidence in Economy Surges. @BusinessWire. The positive outlook on the economy bodes well for growth, as 92% of small business owners indicate that a positive economic environment is a critical factor in their ability to grow. (Valuable broad knowledge of the landscape we work in.)

5 Tips for Women Entrepreneurs to Close the Savings Gap. @EntMagazineME. Male peers have more in savings to buffer the unexpected. Tips for saving to mitigate risk.

FROM MY LIBRARY

Game Changers: Difference-Making. 11/7/2017 Steph’s Stories. Everyone one of us desires to make a difference. How do you define making a difference?

The Mother-Founder Paradox and It’s Meaning to Entrepreneurship. 10/26/2017 Tips from the Community. By Jen Mellon, Co-Founder @Trustify. Jen transparently shares on the paradigm shift needed around women who are also parents, and their ability to be good entrepreneurs. Thank you for stepping out Jen!

A LITTLE DEEPER DIVE

eGuides to Maximize the Success of All You Do. Stephanie Breedlove’s Free Tools. Committing to best practices is what enables the development of successful strategy and roadmaps. My eGuides will teach you how to build the best practices that maximize the success of all you do.

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success.  Get it today and start building!

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

All In to Make a Difference

Answer the call and bravely make tough choices where there are no easy answers. I am incredibly passionate about the power of being all in, because I’ve seen too many unfavorable outcomes when this element was missing. It is your secret ingredient. It is what creates the 1% mindset shift that makes the difference between success and failure. It is the personal difference maker for me. Maybe it’s being all in that makes the difference. Maybe it’s that simple.
The commitment to being all in sometimes takes all you can give and then asks for more, but in return, it will develop your unique talents to the fullest, create who you were meant to be, and your world will benefit exponentially from receiving your best. You will make the difference you are capable of making and that you dream of making.

Better Than the Right Place, The Place

When you are not just in the right place but the place, amazing things happen. The obstacles become welcome challenges, the work becomes energizing, the passion you inspire creates great ideas, the quality you deliver creates value, your good deeds are copied, and the change you create is emulated. You will bring real difference to all in your life, including family, business, industry, community, economy, and society as a whole. Your difference will be infectious and compounding. It is empowering, confidence-building, and simply joyful. Now that’s difference-making.

Always All In,

Stephanie

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success. Get it today and start building!

BUY NOW

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

THE LATEST

Abandoning Great Expectations: How Entrepreneurs Can Avoid Disappointment.@EntMagazineME.In entrepreneurship, as in the rest of life, there is usually a gap between what we want and what we have. Dealing with it is another leadership skill. Valuable calls to action.

The Power of Master Classes for Entrepreneurs.@Forbes.For entrepreneurs, isolation as company leaders can make a master class a powerful learning environment.

Getting Women Off the Sidelines and Into the Investment Game.@Forbes.This is smart business. In my efforts to move this needle, it is apparent that we need to first teach women how to be investors before we can get them comfortably into the game.

These Are the 5 Questions Entrepreneurs Should Ask Themselves if They Want to Create Real Change.@EntMagazineME.MIT’s Solve aims to assist innovators who are tackling the world’s biggest problems.

20 Quotes on Coping with Change from Successful Entrepreneurs and Leaders.@EntMagazineME.Business is change, and everyone loves a useful quote. Here are some of the best quotes about change.

Forget the Apprentice, Where Are All of the Young Entrepreneurs?@ConversationUK.Enhance your knowledge of the landscape you work in: Easy to digest research and stats on millennial entrepreneurs.

How Entrepreneurs Can Build a Business and Live a Sustainable Life.@Forbes.Balance is not the answer, indeed, it is a fool’s errand. Be real, be whole, be innovative.

Human Intuition Is the Future of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.@EntMagazineME.Great opportunity awaits those who can ‘teach’ computers to process information more like a brain and less like a circuit board.

How Successful Entrepreneurs Maximize Wealth Selling Their Companies.@Forbes.Planning is never over-rated: Ongoing business planning, good negotiations, wealth management.

Innovating While Female: Women Entrepreneurs Face Long Odds.@CBSNews.A new study by CrunchBase brings forth more knowledge for smart progress.

FROM MY LIBRARY

Have You Found Your Secret Sauce.?10/12/2017 Steph’s Stories.In a world of tough competition, how do you distinguish your brand from the rest?

The Mother-Founder Paradox and It’s Meaning to Entrepreneurship.10/26/2017 Tips from the Community.By Jen Mellon, Co-Founder @Trustify. Jen transparently shares on the paradigm shift needed around women who are also parents, and their ability to be good entrepreneurs. Thank you for stepping out Jen!

A LITTLE DEEPER DIVE

eGuides to Maximize the Success of All You Do.Stephanie Breedlove’s Free Tools. Committing to best practices is what enables the development of successful strategy and roadmaps. My eGuides will teach you how to build the best practices that maximize the success of all you do.

ALL IN offers a blueprint for building the roadmap that will maximize your success.  Get it today and start building!

www.stephaniebreedlove.com

Hello All In community! Today’s wisdom comes to you from Jen Mellon, Co-Founder of Trustify. Jen gracefully and effectively tackles a topic that is often discussed with too much emotion to be of value. I’m talking about the paradigm shift of the perception of women, who are also parents, to be good entrepreneurs. It’s a slow shift, but advice like Jen’s helps to speed up progress. I’ve traveled this journey and know that Jen’s wisdom is spot on!

After spending much of our engagement diving into data and testing many new business ideas, my husband and co-founder, Danny Boice, and I finally decided to pull the trigger on an on-demand private investigator startup during our honeymoon. That same year, we had a baby.

I spent the first months of the company’s founding nursing a newborn and advising from behind the scenes. We had exponential growth from day one, and that immediate traction meant that Danny and I were working around the clock. All the while, we were caring for a baby, being the best parents we could to our four other children, and building our company into everything we knew it could be from our data and research.

Fast forward to today, and we closed our second round of funding. Many in the startup community have asked how I am able to raise a baby, mother of four young children and raise funding. I understand the questions. Founding a startup is hard. It takes 100 percent of your focus; you have to be all in with your time, your talent and your treasure.

The raised eyebrows, perplexed looks and voiced disbelief as to how I can juggle it all as a female entrepreneur and mother of five originally left me feeling like I needed to defend my life and my ability to manage it well. After a few months of these constant questions, I stepped back and thought, “Danny is never asked these questions. No one ever asks how he does it all as an incredibly engaged father of five, a coach, a room parent and a school auction chair.” There is the misconception that motherhood, or at least young motherhood, is mutually exclusive from founding a startup. But as a mother, I couldn’t disagree more.

Women in Tech by the Numbers

According to the 2016 CrunchBase Women in Venture report, only 7 percent of partners at the top 100 venture firms are women. Twelve percent of the partner roles at accelerators and corporate venture firms combined are held by women. Between 2010 to 2015, only 10 percent of the world’s venture dollars, which totaled $31.5 billion, funded startups with at least one female founder. Seed and angel rounds were a little higher, with 17 percent of the money funding startups with a female founder.

However, there is progress. Many venture firms buck these trends by surpassing the global averages. Between 2010 and 2015, 54 venture firms surpassed the aforementioned average of 10 percent, 51 firms surpassed the seed/angel average of 17 percent. Furthermore, in 2009, 9 percent of funded startups had at least one female founder. In 2014, that percentage doubled to 18 percent.

The Mom-Founder Paradox
According to the CrunchBase report, successful startup founders are between the ages of 24 and 31, but recent data shows that the average age women first give birth is 26.4 years old. This adds another layer of complexity for women.

Motherhood is a well-known obstacle for women in tech, as recent press surrounding egg-freezing as an employee benefit indicates. Recent articles highlight the struggle female startup founders face while believing they can build their company while building a family. Michelle Budig, author of “The Fatherhood Bonus and the Motherhood Penalty,” found that working mothers are perceived to be “more distracted and less productive” since they have children for whom they need to provide, while working fathers are believed to be more stable.

These antiquated notions of male and female roles at home and in business must be overcome. Tech startups should be just as forward-thinking and disruptive in breaking outdated cultural norms as they are in creating the next big technology.

The Advantages of Motherhood

While the numbers may not be in my favor, I believe working mothers have much to bring to the table. Many mothers (and parents in general) rely on the unique skill sets that come with having a baby; the ability to multitask, to work all hours of the day without needing a break, to focus on numerous tasks simultaneously, and to have no option but to do them all with excellence.

Before I had kids, I was working for me. I had a love for the game and wanted to advance in my career. Now, I recognize there is no room for failure. I have fine mouths to feed and five little humans looking up to me for all I do. I have to succeed. That drive only came to me by being a mother.

Plus, young women make for ambitious entrepreneurs, even if there are fewer of them. According to the 2016 BNP Paribas Global Entrepreneur report, which surveyed 2,600 high net-worth entrepreneurs from 28 countries, female founders of child-bearing age are outperforming their make counterparts. Nearly 90 percent of female entrepreneurs expect their company’s gross profits to rise or remain stable in the next 12 months. Seventy-five percent of millennial female founders also expect their profits to rise. Furthermore, female entrepreneurs between the ages of 22-34 reported higher revenues – 22 percent above the overall male/female average.

Just Do It

Founding a venture-funded startup is a daunting task, even for a male serial entrepreneur with no children. Taking the first step is the only way to start. It won’t be an easy road, but there is plenty of support from fellow female founders out there.

More than ever, female founders need to showcase that it can be done, as it’s our responsibility to mentor fellow mom entrepreneurs and ensure our ranks keep growing. The landscape is changing, and we need more women among our #FemTech ranks! Sixty-four percent of female entrepreneurs have a history of entrepreneurship in their family. You are leaving a legacy for your children that is far greater than your startup.

By Jen Mellon, Co-Founder Trustify
www.trustify.info

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