Building While Flying

Entrepreneurs building a business is a non-stop grind. The shift from working within an existing mandate and mission to building your own empire requires an incredible amount of discernment, discipline, and resilience. Many Black women, women of color, and gender expansive founders take on the unique burden of building concepts, brands, and business within a private, start up ecosystem that gives far more resource and support to our white counterparts. We don’t have the luxury of safety nets, resources co-pilots, or the map to make it to our ideal future.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Beatrice Dixon, CEO and Founder of The Honey Pot Co., Rachel Liverman, CEO and founder of Glowbar, and Deepah Gandhi, co-founder and COO of Dagne Dover for a powerful discussion on building a vision and bringing it to life as they navigating the entrepreneurial skies as a woman founder. As we created space to better understand the journey of building a new concept, brand, and business from a place of being counted out and under-resourced, these threes amazing women founders shared these powerful insights:

Lean on Aligned Connections and Community 

We know that community is important for founders in their journey to build sustainable brands. They can offer any number of resources from reminding you why you started this journey, to providing insight and expertise to take your brand to the next level. Both Liverman and and Gandhi shared the impact of investors who believe deeply in the power of female led brands. Turning away from the from traditional white male-dominated VC funding route, both founders found alternate funding structures in private equity and patient capital that allowed them to scale sustainably and in alignment with their ideal brand vision. Dixon too prioritized investor fit in securing one of the highest exits for a Black woman founder, in a $380 million deal with Compass Diversified. As much as we want to defy the statistics for women founders. she chose to prioritize alignment over the highest number. We get to call in those who support and believe in us.

Pause to Prioritize Care

In the world of entrepreneurship, "things are constantly shifting," says Dixon. When things are in flux we must call in moments to be present and grounded in who we are. Dixon offers that meditation is "being able to [take] just a second and be here, right now, and not pick up anything else. Be intentional and focused and have a moment of, 'It's hard, but we can do it.' Liverman likes to share positive affirmations, and even shared one with me as I confessed my nervousness before we jumped into the live discussion. Getting responses like "You are just as capable as anyone" or "There is no one better to do this than you" has helped Liverman get through hard times, she says, and she offers the same support to her friends.

Recalibrate Using Your Ideal Vision

As well as serving as a co-founder and COO of her brand, Gandhi is also an adviser to other "high-growth businesses." She encourages women entrepreneurs to focus on the long-term goal for their company. With a brand that is grounded in creative vision, it’s important that all decisions come back to those core values. On days when she wants to hide away from all her challenges and stresses -- which Gandhi calls her "cocooning" moments -- she thinks back to that long-term goal. Is whatever happening making that long-term goal worse, neutral, or better? If the answer is "neutral" or "worse," she moves on. "Don't regret," she says. "Just move on and look forward."

Check out of the full discussion belong to tap into what it could look like to building your vision while flying.