Latest / Mama Making Podcast / Beth Mazza & Victoria Sivrais | Entrepreneur Like a Mother: Nine Kids, Two Exits, and the Roadmap They Wish They'd Had

Transcript

Beth Mazza & Victoria Sivrais | Entrepreneur Like a Mother: Nine Kids, Two Exits, and the Roadmap They Wish They'd Had · Mama Making Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Mama Making Podcast, where we share stories of moms making impact in their own lives and in the world around them.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jessica, and each week I sit down with women who are building businesses, leading communities, shaping culture, and redefining what success looks like inside of motherhood.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because motherhood does not have to stop your ambition, it can transform it.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get into it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Mama Making Podcast.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jessica.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new, welcome.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not new, then welcome back.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Today I am thrilled to have two incredible women on the podcast, Beth Mazza and Victoria Cybris, the co-founders of The Female Mavericks, a platform dedicated to changing what it looks like to be a mom and a business owner at the same time.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Together with nine children between them, eight born during their entrepreneurial years, they have built a 20,000 strong community of Montpreneurs.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Through their entrepreneur like a mother book, they are changing the story of moms handling business and what's possible for them while changing the culture that still frames motherhood and entrepreneurship as competing forces.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are building proof that entrepreneurship is something that you do despite being a mom.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're happy to be here.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So tell my listeners a little bit about yourselves, who you are, where you're from, whatever you're comfortable sharing.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And whoever wants to go first is welcome.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: We are we are three-time founders.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: We have, as you said, we have nine kids between us, but actually all nine while we were founders.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Not not one that wasn't.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: We had two services businesses, which we found and we scaled and we sold to large consulting firms.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at our height, we probably had 50, 55 employees.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we uh somehow managed to do it and still hit a lot of our times with our kids.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: We had we had a consulting business, which was our clients were large public company CEOs and CFOs.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: So they were super demanding of our time.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we were able to figure out a way probably by leaning on each other, but also being super creative in our business model and the way we executed, we were able to build and scale and not take a whole lot of outside money, mostly bootstrap it ourselves.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we made it to carpool a bunch of times.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And while we weren't room moms, we did show up on lots of field trips and um and we did make our kids in classroom birthday parties every once in a while, too.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I if I can, I'll just add like the way that Beth and I came together, I think is a pretty unique story too.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, all of those things are what we built together, but you know, Beth and I have known each other for almost 20 years now.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: I started, um, we first met when I started at her first farm first firm, which was Ashton Partners, and she was um about ready to give birth to two of her children about a month after I started.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: So like I initially came in not knowing the business, really, really believing that I was probably gonna be a stay-at-home mom one day.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I just thought this was a great kind of hold me over job to to until I got to that point.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: But that that leap into a new business, new services led me down a path that, you know, we I supported Beth that she built that first business.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: When she sold into it, we became she became my mentor, to be fair.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: I knew she was the smartest woman in the room, smartest person in the room.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was ambitious enough to know to stick with her.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: And once we decided after, you know, 10 years and had big jobs at that bigger consulting firm, we knew we wanted to, we wanted to own our own destiny again and start over again.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how we started the second services firm.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so through that time, we got to learn through a lot of mistakes how to be a mom and how to be an entrepreneur.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And as a result, we became, I went from employee to Beth became my business partner, my best friend, and my work wife as we kind of moved on.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: After we sold and went back into a big consulting firm again.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's not too shocking that we're not really great having bosses.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we left again and, you know, took a minute to think about it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: But then we realized we wanted to see it, actually just kind of made us very angry, it's probably not the right word, but frustrated to see all these women that were kind of sitting on the sidelines because they thought they had to choose between entrepreneurship and motherhood.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we're living proof, not having done it perfectly, but I think have done it well.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: She, Beth has her four kids are grown.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm still on the thick of it.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And all nine of them are pretty amazing.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I feel like I we started female mavericks with the idea that we wanted to impart any wisdom, choppy as it is, on those women who want to do both and actually really help women understand that they don't have to choose.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: So we have a long history and hopefully a uh a great future ahead to help those women.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's so incredible to go from one environment working together to the full gamut to entrepreneurship and starting something new for yourselves.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is something that was like a green flag to you that you're like, this is the right path?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or throughout it where you're like, I don't know, let me just take a shot in the dark and see what happens in terms of exiting, moving on to new things, starting your own business.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any green flags that came up for you that were like this was the right choice?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or was it like, hey, let's see what happens?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think the first move to entrepreneurship is it feels like a shot in the dark, but it wasn't.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: We identified a market, we saw a big space where there were competitors that had scaled too quickly, weren't too good at services.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: We found a niche that we could go at it from a very research base.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, we had thought through that, particularly with Claremont.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: We knew our green space and we had an execution plan and we we had money, we were ready.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: But at that very moment you're doing it, it's a shot in the dark.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like you kind of, you know, you shut your eyes, you plug your nose, and you you plunge, and that's just how it is.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say after that, you know, pretty quickly we started to feel green flags, particularly with Claremont for a few reasons.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: One, clients followed.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then, and so you got to, you know, you immediately had this feeling that okay, what we're offering is, you know, someone would buy it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's great.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we also then started a new segment, which got a lot of traction early.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we felt those were great business green flags.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I think, and Victoria will have her own, but like my personal green flags were I immediately felt like whatever I was doing on that Tuesday was my choice.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: We had really big jobs at the previous firm, and we were basically had to be in cities that we didn't live in.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: There were so many meetings, there were so many things we had to do where we had no control over our weeks.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like the immediate green flag with Claremont was it's Tuesday, Sam's sick, I'm gonna work from home and be with him, and I'll see you tomorrow.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, those kinds of moments you suddenly feel like, what a green flag.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've got subcontrol over my day.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, I think my thought is is pretty similar.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it but it came in a way that I wasn't actually expecting it to be, you know, I started to have my, I had my first two when we were at the big consulting firm.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it felt like, and I kind of still think about work today in the same way.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm gonna be a hundred percent busy and taken away from my kids, I felt like it needed to be something that was meaningful to do that.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so in that big corporate bureaucratic world where, you know, it was still pretty much a bro culture, despite everyone saying it wasn't, you kind of got sidelined because you wanted to put your time with your kids first when you had the ability to.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's not forsaking the opportunities with your clients and the work that you're doing, but you know you you and remember this is pre-COVID.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: So like to work from home was a really big deal.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and they just didn't want to give that flexibility.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm sorry, you can be just as productive at home, especially back then.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, that was probably a huge component of me of it to me, but also like I was working my ass off, and I was working it to line someone else's pockets, and like that's not a return I want.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean, I think that happened to be it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, all of the things that Beth said plus that.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think a lot of women feel I, you know, I can't take the plunge because of the flexibility that I have in my corporate job is just something I'm not willing to give up.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the reality is, especially further that you go up on that ladder, the less flexibility you actually have.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you would be surprised that some of the things that you give up and the return that you get over time is far outweighs any flexibility you perceive to have today.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, I think true flexibility is what I was looking for.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And like we saw the market, we saw the opportunity, and we said, okay, we're gonna do it.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's not to say that we didn't work really hard in that business, we probably worked three times as hard, but like it there was a different focus and a different objective that like it was okay to be away from the kids, and you knew that they were gonna be fine.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I didn't done.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: I learned it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Turns out they uh all of ours were so I had all of my kids in the first business, and I met Victoria when I was pregnant in the first business with twins.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: Her number three and four.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: My number three and four, I gave birth right actually as we were beginning to sell the business.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had I had my two when I was in the big corporate job that we ended up selling that first firm to.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then I left in January 20.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I'll never forget January 2015.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: I left we left the big corporate, started the business like, you know, two days later, or actually that afternoon.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm sorry, I drove across town to go start the business.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I found out I was pregnant with my next two in February, and I found out that they were twins in March.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so by the end of that year, they were born in October.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: That big consulting firm that we left that was, you know, then threatening to sue us and actually suing one of us, I gave my deposition to that consulting firm the Friday before I gave birth to three and four uh on Monday.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then my fifth came when we really had just hit our growth stride, to be honest.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like we were just on the upswing to double-digit growth, and I had to walk into best office scared shitless.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because I knew where we were in the business.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't because I knew she wasn't gonna support every bit of it, but like it was not a great time to get pregnant.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and it just, I mean, she's a wonderful surprise, but she was a surprise.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to remember at that moment, our kids ranged from zero to twelve.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like suddenly in this business, we knew we were on to something and it was starting to take off, and we didn't need to raise money.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: We were generating enough cash flow, but we were still behind everything that happened in the business, which we had to change.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she was pregnant and we had all those kids.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I the stories in the book are really funny because all of it happened during that period.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it, you know, I think a lot of times people talk about like female founders that are that are mothers.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like it's it does start to focus a bit on the younger kids that you're when you're trying to do both of those.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: During Claremont, Doc was raising middle schoolers and high schoolers.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even have a realm of understanding what she was dealing with.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: My oldest is now in high school.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm now starting to get a glimpse of what it is.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like to have be building a business when your kids are in that tween teen years.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I for sure think it's harder because the the things that you deal with at home are harder.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like most of my kids don't even really remember how much I was traveling and how much I wasn't around or how much I was with they were with the nanny because they were so young.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like her kids, like they were in the thick of it.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like they remember vividly.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, you know, being able to understand that no matter where you are in the motherhood journey or in the founder journey, like it can be done, but there's gonna be, you know, awesomeness and there's gonna be not so awesomeness.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because I think some of the women who we mentor that are in corporate that are thinking of making the jump, it actually becomes a lot sharper for them when their kids are tweens or teens that they need something more flexible because there isn't a rigid schedule they set anymore.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: There is a whole bunch of inconsistencies in any given week.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a week where a high schooler really needs you, they're going through it.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And there's three weeks where they don't even remember your name.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like those women go through a little bit what I was had the benefit of, which is, I mean, Victoria was an amazing partner.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: I would just say, I'm out.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Sam's got a hockey tournament and I'm gonna drive them.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, this Friday's on you.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then she would always take up the mantle.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we had that in a way that I think corporate women climbing the ladder, you know, they may not have the ability to just, you know, step out for four hours because that's what they have to do.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we were blessed in that way.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I think there's two things.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: One, and we we devote part of a chapter to this in the book, which is corporations in general lay off, fire, go broke, 10% of their employees every year.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So entering the corporate equation thinking that gives you safety, especially right now, particularly with AI and you know, and and uh and companies really being forced because of PE firms and and investments to grow a lot faster.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So to make sometimes tougher decisions, we're gonna get laid off more.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think we start with the premise that it's probably not as safe as you as you think it is.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the benefit of starting when my kids were younger is that by the time they were teens and tweens, the business was doing pretty well.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I did have the flexibility that I needed around the really important moments.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure that you could have been as successful with the business if your startup was when you had like I had three kids in high school at the same time.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I would have that was a really like tumultuous time for all mothers of high schoolers.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: We all know this.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know that I could have started and scaled with the with the especially like the emotional needs that the kids had in high school, or I I'm not sure I would have been there as much for them.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I do have the this really wonderful woman that I that I work with who had this brilliant formula for this.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: She said, I and she's doing it.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an entrepreneur and I'm starting a services business and I'm not scaling it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have young kids and I can make enough to replace my corporate salary, but I'm not going to scale.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I am going to build my business and build my brand.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when my kids go to high school, I'm going to build off that brand and I'm really going to scale.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was talking to her, like, you have a great business, and here's all the 50 ways that I would scale it, and you should do all these things.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's so sweet.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And she was just like, Yep, I'm not going to do that.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to wait till my kids go to high school.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: That was her version of when she thought her kids would need her less, and that's when she was going to scale.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of like our formula was different.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: We scaled like hell as quickly as we possibly could.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we are in a little bit better financial place when our kids were growing up.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: She she's choosing a different option, and honestly, she makes that look good too.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I think it kind of depends on like you as a person.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, I very fairly, when I had Allie, I was still in corporate America, but I remember I was traveling quite a bit because of those jobs that we had.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And like every time I left, I was like, I was certain she wasn't gonna remember me when I got home.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: And like, to be perfectly honest, like she was pissed every time I you could see it.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like she would like go to the nanny, I swear to God, even at two years old, to like spite me, like just to show me that there was someone else there.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, fast forward to today, I think, you know, we just went to Megan Moroni last night, like, and we had the best time ever.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we have this great relationship.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, I think a lot, you know, outside of like I can't do it is what a lot of moms think.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: They think, oh my gosh, am I gonna miss the things that matter when they're young?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I I will say I already said it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'll say it again.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: My when we started Claremont, my entire goal was to create a nut for my family so I could be around when they were older.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: That was that was the goal.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I loved what I did and all of the things that come with it, but like that was the ultimate goal I was going to.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew after having Allie, because by that point she was already five, like, and all those irrational fears had kind of dissipated a bit.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: I just I I knew that they were gonna be well taken care of.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: I I put a set of non-negotiables around how I was gonna work.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like I always made the 445 train so I was home for dinner, unless I was traveling or something like that.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: But like I put boundaries around it as best I could in a fast growing services business.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I also just realized like they're not gonna remember.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just knew they weren't.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: And like they don't, honestly, because in the height of our growth was just after COVID.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we stopped traveling as much as we had used to for the first four years of the business.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And like none of them really remember me ever traveling.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I mean, we were gone four days every week for months, like because it was just how the business was scaling.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, to those women who are on the sidelines saying, I can't do it yet, I need to be home for my kids, especially when they're so young and developing.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, this is a personal choice, but if you have if you are in the position to have support a support system for them, it's the perfect time to do it.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because like I I'm super happy I'm around now as the kids are getting older and hitting high school and middle school.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Again, because I didn't know what Beth was going through.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm learning it now, like real time.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, like it is a lot.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and I and I'm I'm very happy to have the flexibility now to be home for them as they're older.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think we are both lucky that we are so delusionary.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we never I mean, still we are, still we are.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think we were so lucky.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: We were not rewriting a narrative.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: We were just like, we can do it all.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Our kids will be perfect, our business will scale, we'll sell brazilians.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: We I don't know how we both like I think it's because we both came from entrepreneurial families.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly I really don't know why, but that is the one we we have that so much in common.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think the strength of that, because I I am working with someone who is way smarter than either of us ever were at her age, and and she will defeat herself with her overthinking, is that we somehow just got out of the overthinking mode when it came to building a business.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: We just sort of we we always thought if not us, then who competitors would come up and she would like do some research and we would be like, they look really smart.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd be like, nope, we're smarter, you know.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, for no reason.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: We had no reason to have that belief set.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't, but we both did, and honestly, that whatever that delusion is, I think it helped get us forward in those really dark days.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think we had each other.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if I went down a hole, she would pick me up, and vice versa.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that really is the power of either partnership or a really strong kitchen cabinet.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: We just wouldn't let each other go down into that deep hole of, oh God, maybe we can't do this, or maybe Sam's gonna be in jail.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, we just we were able to help each other so strongly with that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sam was not in jail, he's like a super successful night, my oldest.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: But sorry, Sam, there were moments, but I I think we had the benefit of that.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have a full chapter and like really specifics on building a kitchen cabinet.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there is we have three types of people that need to be in your kitchen cabinet.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: One of them is a cheerleader, and so we happen to use each other and we're each other's biggest cheerleaders, but we also had a built out cabinet of where.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Women who just would not let us doubt ourselves.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's some real power in there because I am prone to imposter syndrome.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: My lovely partner Victoria never is.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we did have smatterings where we felt it, and then we just deleted ourselves and moved on.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we would recommend that strategy.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_02: It is really hard too.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I, you know, again, all the things that Bess said, but it is really hard.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_02: I never, I just went blindly.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly what Beth said.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: I don't have imposter syndrome.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: I just always think it's gonna work, and I'm always gonna do it.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: And to the point where, like, I think lately that has been like, okay, Victoria is not necessarily gonna work.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, yeah, it is.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be fine.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Don't you worry.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like it is gonna be fun.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: But like there, you know, I actually always found the hardest thing about rewriting the narrative if when I look back on it hindsight, was the people around me who was t who told me I couldn't.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I they actually were like people that were really meaningful in my life.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: But like they just weren't wired that way.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: So like I I remember sitting in a car with some of my close friends within my neighborhood, and I told them I was gonna go start this business.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna leave my leave the big consulting firm and I was gonna go start it.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: And like for literally 45, I don't even know if I've ever told you the story, but you know the people too, which is funny.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, that is super risky.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, how are you gonna, how can you guarantee that you're gonna replace that salary?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, they're probably gonna sue you.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: All of these things.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, and I was like, yeah, okay, well, great, fun night, gotta go.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_02: And like I got out, and like, you know, a couple weeks later I started the business.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and you know, these are still my friends.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, wow, if like you would have listened to us, things would have been very different.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, yeah, because it's just like you kind of have to find this strength of self to overcome the those outside voices.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I think those outvoiced voices, while I don't have imposter syndrome, those outside voices are really problematic to me sometimes.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: To be able to take what they're saying, know that I don't disagree with it, but not internalize it is really hard.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so that again, now you go full circle back to what Beth said, that kitchen cabinet.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like my the core of my kitchen cabinet was Beth.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, she was my everything throughout my career.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: And like, even how that evolved.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: But then at building out from Beth and like the close friends of me that like just pick me up when I'm down, the ones that could help supplement the strengths that I didn't have or the weaknesses that I had, all of those pieces is what kind of allowed me to slowly over time, you know, rewrite the narrative, which we didn't call it back then.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're just so smart with that 2020 hindsight.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have to remember too that randomly we had parents that were really, really supportive of us and thought we could do it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is kind of unique for women that are because we were born from entrepreneurs, etc., like our parents were not the obstacles.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: We were close to them.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: We still are.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And no, they didn't tell us we couldn't do it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that might have had a big impact if they did.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Mom told me I couldn't do it.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry about that.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: She told you you could do it.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: She totally believes I can now.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: She just told me.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: She's like, You are amazing.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: I literally just got off the phone when they were telling me I was amazing after I had to get the contractor there.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I'll I was gonna say that's probably because you fixed her cable, not because you built the company.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I always say I'm fact-based, so like I actually like to do the work.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm I I I always say this to Beth.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: I Beth is more visionary, I'm more of an executor.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: And like, yes, we do both, but like that yin and yang was really good.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: So like when I needed to grind ground myself and understand where I was gonna go, I just, you know, I always went to the financials.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, we talk about in the book one of those power moves is like understand what your freedom number is before you go.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: So you have this great idea, you think you could do it, but you're just not sure how it's gonna look financially for your family or for yourself.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: So really understanding, okay, if I was to leave tomorrow, what is my income stream, if any, if I give up my corporate salary?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: So is it a partner salary and is it savings, or is it other side gigs that you can do while you're, you know, you're building up your business?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: Where what are gonna be the costs to l keep your life running in the way that you want it to be in those first year or two?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then what are the costs to start the business?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: And like if you put all of those together, you get to the number that you need to be able to do to make it happen or not.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you don't have that number, if you can't cover that number, can you scale back what your thoughts are?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: Can you start it on the side before you leave?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like, can you, you know, can you go look for outside funding?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Can you look for grants?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: All of these things, but it gives you a grounding of like what are the facts?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like, can I make the move or can I not make the move?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: And then it allows you to kind of get to the decision tree, okay, I can make the move, I so I need to do this, this, this.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: I can't make the move, so I need to do this, this, this.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I I think it is just putting pen to paper.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: Everyone's got great ideas and big ideas and they want to do it, but like you have to understand.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think, especially when women are starting businesses, they're like, oh, I can get 20,000 in sales, like, you know, within a month or whatever.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, what are all your costs?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: You actually spent 40,000 to get that 20,000.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, you're not making a business.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to, you have to think about the profit side, which I think a lot of new founders don't always do.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm saying that because I didn't.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I was like, just drive the sales, drive the sales, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like everything that we kind of give in this roadmap within the book and and within our course and things like that is based on mistakes that either one or both of us made.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're creating this roadmap to go forward.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the whole reason for writing the book is that we needed a fact-based way to idea all the way to scale.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we're I'm a huge reader, and the books were either written by men who, you know, could go down in their parents' basement and eat ramen for three years until they got their app together.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we had kids, that was not gonna happen.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then the more female-oriented books, there's almost none.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones that were out there were very mindset-based.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we kind of thought, wait, we actually need the how-to guide.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so the book has some mindset work because I think, moms, we have our own special demons that we are fighting, but the power moves Victoria talks about, I mean, everything is super data and fact-based and logically follows from the other, and the back of it is all worksheets, including examples of how we did it.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Anything where people could like start to see how tangible their business was or their business plans were.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it was the whole reason for the book.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: We just never found anything that we related to that we thought, you know, a mom or an aspiring mom would be able to build from.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so we wrote it.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had actually a lot more fun doing it than you'd think because we are are great work partners as well.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Our my weakness is her strength, and vice versa.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that part was easy.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: But really, what was like kind of fun, but maybe kind of like tear-jerking as well, is we had gotten advice that it needed to be really story-based.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: So we thought we're we're just gonna tell our real stories.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're not, you know, we're not covering anything up.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like you will see the idiotic decisions slash mistakes that we both made continuously in our personal life when the business was going great and vice versa.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, the process was actually kind of cathartic because I don't ever take a step back and think about what maybe I've accomplished.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just go through and keep doing things.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but it was also like kind of fun for us because we realized we had these stories, and I would have my memory of it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Victoria would have her memory of it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it was like slightly different, and it would make us either laugh or cry as we were editing it, thinking what a ridiculous moment that was that we're writing about.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: It for me, it was like it was a really joyful thing.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, it it was I the story part of it and reliving it was amazing.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: And like, remember, we sat in your office and we and we were going through like, I don't know, it was like when we left or something like that.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: And like she and I had two totally different views of what had happened.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the same actual events had happened, but how we looked at it was totally different.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it was crazy, but kind of awesome because, like, again, like I think we're really lucky, and I do I call I call it you that we're unicorns all the time.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's not often that you find a business partner that you get along and you're such a yin and a yang with, and particularly two women, like two type A strong ass women, like that doesn't always mesh to like a good outcome, and it really has for us.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like, you know, we weren't work wives' best friends at the start of Claremont, like that came over time, and so like it's just funny to see how that that not only the evolution of a business, the evolution of our families, the evolution of our relationship, like it really came out through there.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: And like, you know, I said it earlier, like the power moves, really like how you go from ideation to scaling, is very practical, very, I think, easy to kind of follow as you create that business.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you can jump in at any point of whatever wherever you're at in building your business or thinking about building your business, but it really is based on where we screwed up, like and how we know now how to do it better.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, I think there is a line like in the book somewhere where we said this was meant for you, so you don't have to make the mistakes that we did.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so I think it was in a very practical application of it.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was very like validating too because you realized as we were telling our stories, or I realized that you probably already knew it, but like we've really saved each other both like physically on any given day.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I have to run.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: You have to take this call for me.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: But also, like, there's a lot of really emotional moments where I think I would have made a really big mistake if not for my partner, the bull, who was like, we will not do that.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a great vignette in the book, which is like 100% true.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I've written about it in Founders File too, that I was so bad at pricing that I would do a proposal and I wouldn't like put a price on it because I Victoria was gonna completely slap on a different price.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I we would go through the whole same thing where I go, that's fine, you're in charge of that, but I think this is gonna happen.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it never happened, and we always got more money, and she was always right.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, I think it's kind of funny as you go through the book, just how our relationship changed and strengthened, but also like you definitely see that you need someone to help you with your blind spots, and we were super blessed that we had each other and that we were open enough to be like, okay, that is a blind spot, I'm just gonna hand that to you and and let you fix it.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we wish it kind of for every woman because I think it it kind of saved us, and people don't realize how close our our families are.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like Victoria's an aunt, I'm an aunt.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's just they're used to, oh, you're on the phone with Victoria, okay, fine.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that was just so much fun to write and see that because at the moment you're not taking a step back to see how lucky and joyful some of those moments were, and they would not have been had we been solo preneurs.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we're we are lit mission-based.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Victoria will talk a little bit more about it.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: We are we want 10,000 women to build seven-figure businesses.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like that is our goal.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's why we exist today.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we have community, we have content, we have a book, we'll talk to people, whatever it is that people, moms or aspiring moms need to get from ideation to scale.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we're trying to put out as many resources out as humanly possible and we'll continue to add to what's out there.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: But we do think the book's a great distillation of all that wisdom.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I think the piece of why we started female Mavericks, I mean, for me personally, and I know it's similar for Beth, but slightly different, but like I I it it's not bullshit when I'm talking about the relationship that we have and how it's evolved over 20 years.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if I didn't have someone watching my back when I was in corporate America starting to have kids, helping to troubleshoot starting a business with me when we were creating that business, like having someone that could take over for me when I had to run to get to that 445 train, like I think life would have been and my career would probably be would have been greatly different.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and so female Mavericks is is the book, the course, the the newsletter, it's all meant to be that, you know, virtual work wife that we were so lucky to have.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like, so you know, again, it's it's definitely more mission-based than it is anything else.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: But like in the book, you'll see that roadmap, how to start your business, ideation, how to create the business model that's going to work for your life, how to build it from ideation to scale.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: We, if you can't wait for the book, we have the course on female mavericks.com that has short video vignettes, a workbook, an ebook, and also kind of that freedom calculator that I talked about earlier and some other extra goodies that you can buy today to start to think about how you might be building the book building your business or how to you know jump off into the water to start that business.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, and then like Beth said, you can always email us.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: Our emails are on uh our website, we're on LinkedIn, we're on Instagram, like anytime.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: We we more than anything like hearing from female founders and in particular female founders that are moms that are trying to do both.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: And we are super responsive.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I woke up this morning to like the greatest text ever from a woman who had found us through founders file, reached out to me and asked if I would talk to her.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she and I kind of ended up talking once a month, and she has had a road, right?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: She's had some really rough things happen.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: So my happy text this morning is she said, Beth, I'm I finally got here.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was now able to hire two employees, and here's what we're gonna do with that.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that is the coolest thing because she started as a solopreneur, it wasn't the kind of business that it should have been, solopreneurship.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: She had to backtrack a whole lot before she moved forward.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we we have we know services really well.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we we wrote from that perspective and we'll we'll create as much content as we can for people trying to do that.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can reach us and and uh we can talk, we're happy to do that as well.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it really, it's mission-based because I there just wasn't a place for us to go.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: We we didn't know any moms in business who were like mom forward.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we always think of ourselves as being mom forward, we're super happy.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like we'll walk in, we'll talk about our kids.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't care.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: We walked into a boardroom, we tell a kid's story, like that was who we are.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you didn't like it, you should go to the firm.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's all men that don't talk about their children.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that you know, we always kind of felt that way.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're continuing that with the community, and we actually want moms to sort of to be mom forward, like we were, to be really proud that you're a mom too, and not to hide it, which we felt like sometimes in corporate America we had to because we tell a funny kid story and the whole entire room would go completely blank and dark, and that would be it.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we we were always trying to create spaces where where you could tell those stories and be comfortable.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can find us on female mavericks.com.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: That will have a pre-order to our book that's live.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: You can order the course and the worksheets and the extra goodies I talked about on our website as well.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: You can find us on Instagram as female Mavericks, you can find us on LinkedIn as Female Mavericks, and you can email either of us or DM us in either of those platforms.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, weekly we put out founders file.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's a free newsletter, it'll always be free.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's super heavy, good content for founders.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's on our website and some of our social channels as well.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, probably so much less than we want it to be.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I hope what we are right now, and I we do get some feedback, so that feels good, is that moms who have great ideas seem to be getting more and more comfortable with the idea of launching.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think we are desperately attempting to have moms in the conversation, right?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: We can be corporate, we can be entrepreneurs, but like we don't want to hide being a mom.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: That is my defining, I mean, one of the most defining aspects of my personality, one of the things that gives me amazing joy every day.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we feel like this mom forward content, which also hopefully includes really savvy business stuff, makes it more the norm that you could be a kick-ass business person and you could also like want to make it home because you want to see your kids' ice skating program, that that's super normal and you should be allowed to do that, male or female.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we hope.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think it I I I mean, I think the impact is, and I think it's it's just really starting to gain momentum, but to toss out the idea that it's an either-or decision.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's you don't have to just be an entrepreneur or you don't just have to be a mother, you can do both.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the more we can kind of just show our story, I think, and bring in other women's stories that are doing the the exact same thing and making that at the forefront of the conversation, it doesn't you become the rule, not the exception.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for having us.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having us.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: We enjoyed it.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love for you to follow the podcast wherever you listen and share it with another mom building something meaningful.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you want deeper behind-the-scenes reflections that I don't share anywhere else, join my email list at the Mama Making Podcast.com.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here, and I'll see you next time.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love for you to follow the podcast wherever you listen and share it with another mom building something meaningful.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you want deeper behind the scenes reflections that I don't share anywhere else, join my email list at the Mama Making Podcast.com.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here, and I'll see you next time.