The Top 3 Questions You Asked Jasmine at Summit

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the show. This is a little bit of a different episode. It's going to be a really quick one, but we just finished our Female Founder World Summit. We had 1 ,000 people in a room. It was absolutely wild and just like we're on a bit of a high, but also so, so exhausted. So I wanted to invite Natalie on the team. You guys have heard from her before on the show. Invite her in because she was kind of around with me all day and hearing some of the questions that people were asking when they were coming up to me. And we thought that I would answer some of them on the show because I'm sure if people had them at the event, you guys had those questions as well.

0:33so first of all how are you feeling you're doing okay it was a big day big big month big week hey i'm good i'm always just concerned about you jasmine but i'm good i'm okay yeah to la tonight that's all right yeah it's nothing that's nothing yeah okay what were some of the questions that you had okay one of the ones that was super popular and also i've noticed this at other events too people always ask how you curated this community i know it sounds kind of vague but seriously how did you get a thousand people to show up yeah okay so this is the thing because like we are not we're not like a mass big media brands like you don't come to the female founder world instagram and see like millions of followers that's not what we're about but like we can sell 800 and tickets and fill a room with a thousand people we were selling tickets for less than a month like i think we were there on sale for just a few weeks and that is not normal like that is hard to do we don't have any paid ads this is all coming through like a handful of instagram posts and I think we sent three emails.

1:29And the reason why we have this super sticky community is because, and it's like one of those things that you hear again and again and again, but it is so true. It is like the niching down. We're really specific about who this content is for. And that limits our size and reach, I think, in the way that it's not like I'm creating super like funny, viral content all the time and I'm not an entertainer. This community is about education, connecting people with each other and people who are on the same kind of journey and trying to go to the same place. So we very much focused on women building businesses who have like a very similar like value set and mindset around what they're building.

2:12And that all just comes from the content that I want to consume and what I like and I use myself and also like you and the team. I feel like we've built kind of like a group that has a very similar like tastes and value set and it's reflective of the community and we use that as a lens for everything that we're publishing and creating. So starting super, super niche and starting with small in-person events as well, because I think that's how you build something really sticky. So we did right in the beginning, we had a group chat to begin with. So people connect with each other online. We did a lot of programming in that group chat, like we still do.

2:43Live calls, even if you have 20 people on a live call, you'd be surprised or at an event, you'd be surprised how that gives you the leverage to get access to someone that maybe one person wouldn't be able to get that access. So we can get a really great founder or expert or mentor come to speak to a group of 10 or 20 that individually those people couldn't get themselves. And so that immediately makes us more valuable as a community, as a place and as a brand. And so I think like leveraging even just like those small group moments to add value and connect people with each other so we had the community space we did the programming and brought in people who added value to speak and then we also did these really small events like the first event I think we did or one of the first events you remember Jules from Deco Beauty you did the bootstrap or baller series with her on Instagram and TikTok which is really fun uh we went to her like little studio in Williamsburg and had like 10 people and brought in a couple of speakers and it was like very chill and easy like I brought I made a cheese board and you know that was only a few years ago and now we're selling out a thousand person events and it's because we started small and you'd be surprised about how powerful having those few people in a room can be because they then go and like proliferate your culture online and recommend you to other people.

4:00I know you said a big part of this was starting small with events and this kind of bleeds into another question that we heard a lot which was how did you get started? Yeah, so the first thing that we published was the podcast. Then we launched the group chat on Geneva, which they've been acquired by Bumble. So that's different now. And we've obviously moved onto our own platform. So we had the group chat, we did the programming in there. We started doing a newsletter and obviously like social and in-person events. If I was doing this again, I probably wouldn't do all of those things. I'd probably pick like one space for the community to connect with each other, whether that's like a WhatsApp group or your own branded app or like whatever, Geneva equivalent.

4:40and I would then have like one main publishing channel. So like I would probably just do like Instagram carousels because that's like what does really well for us. Yeah, they really do. Yeah, and that's what I would pick rather than like spreading yourself across everything. But that's how we started. It's so hard not to when I feel like there's something new. Yeah. Now we have Substack. Like if you were starting now, you probably would have thrown that in the mix. Yeah. It's funny how things change so quickly. A lot of our listeners and people who come to our events know that you have the most adorable child and have another on the way it was so funny at the summit yesterday he kept calling natalie that woman that woman where's that woman at least it's not like that that little girl they're like that woman usually i get like kid or like so it's nice that he knows i have some authority which is great step up for me but yeah he's so cute and it is really amazing to watch you behind the scenes work and manage all of these crazy priorities you have But how, how, how, how do you manage these priorities?

5:40And I know we have a lot of people who are like going through trying to manage a business and having kids and just life in general. Yeah. I think when I was in my early 20s, I thought that I would have this chapter that was like the business career chapter. And then that would end because I would like build something massive and sell it and never have to work again. That did not happen. And then I would have my family chapter and I would like go be a trad wife. But with very money because I'd already made it. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought that was going to be like me then and then me as a mom and there would be like different people, which is so funny because it's not the case.

6:16It all happens at the same time. And very few people even get the opportunity to like, even if they wanted to, to do that like full-time parenting thing and for that to be their full-time focus. and now I realize that oh actually having kids didn't like magically make me this super like I love I love being a mom and like I am obsessed with my son and I'm about to have another baby I'm sure I'll be obsessed with her too but I couldn't not do this business like this is innately who I am I need to be building something I need to be creating something and so these things have to happen at the same time and I don't have any magic kind of solution about how to manage those things and what to do the only thing I can recommend is have babies with somebody who like if you've got a partner have babies with someone who actually wants to be a parent and wants to like step in and do it with you because I couldn't imagine doing this unless like Steve was happy to step in and be primary parent like a lot of the time and failing that having like a really good support system whether it's like paid or grandparents or whatever it is but you need you need that support you need people that you can trust who can be with your kids so that you're not like worried about them while you're trying to build the business and that really is the only recommendation that I have because it is like there is no fix like one one conversation I remember having like very on in this journey was speaking with Barbara Rivera from Ceremonia and I remember her saying to me like you can't build babies you can't build can't build babies during a nap you can you can't build businesses during nap time like you have to have time where you can step away from your kids and be like solely focused on building this thing and yes like Sebastian comes to the events with me when he was really little I'd like strap him to me in the carrier and we would like go and do errands and do stuff for the business out of the house but I need to be able to sit at a desk and focus and have meetings and be a professional person and like step away from the family and so yeah just being able to like create that separation and like try and remove the guilt from it you know before we recorded this we I spoke with Susie Welsh and she's going to be coming on the show soon she's an incredible like um best-selling author and business school professor.

8:24And I asked her about this because she has four children and they're all grown now. And she, you know, built her career and businesses while she was, while she was building her family. And she kind of said, you just make the decision and then don't try and like interrogate it every day. Like don't try and remake the decision every single day, which is definitely something that I have done where I think I, some days you're just like, oh, but today maybe I'll just, he just like won't go today and I'll just like stay home today. And it's like, no, I've made the decision that for the next X amount of years, I'm committed to doing both of these things.

8:55And like my husband is on board with it and that's what we're doing. And maybe in a few years I'll reassess and this will look different. But just like take that decision away from yourself every day and just you've committed and this is what you're doing. And then reassess in a couple of years. I think that was such good advice and definitely something that I'm taking away as well. I love that. That's a really, really good one. And even if it doesn't apply to children or family, I feel like it applies to everything. I feel like one of my strengths is just being confident in a decision and then that's it.

9:28And like, I feel like being a business owner, there's a lot of anxiety surrounding it. But if you're confident in your decision, whatever that may be, and know you're going to revisit it at some point, just not every day, it'll save you so much time. Totally. And like, don't be swayed by the emotion of the day. Like you need to like have, make a decision from a point of like, like reflection and depth. And then just know that you're going to be rocked day to day where you're going to doubt those decisions either way. But you're, you're not letting how you feel in one moment, like make you like reassess all of your decisions.

9:59It needs to be something that's done at certain like milestones or like predetermined spaces. Otherwise I am someone who can be like quite emotional and I can totally see myself being like, I'm just going to move to a farm and like not do this anymore. You do that, I'm coming with you. Yeah, we're all moving to a farm in Australia. Female Founder World Summit at the farm. Yeah, but then we would become some like tried wife content creator. Yeah, that's true actually. It's actually impossible. And then we'd be selling jam. Yeah, yeah, we would be. We'd be in like Whole Foods the next week. Anyway, this has been fun.

10:30I wanted to jump on for 10 minutes and ask those questions because they came up a lot and I bet that everyone listening at home thinks about them as well. Agreed. Thanks, everyone. Bye. I just wanted to jump in and end the show with a quick thank you and shout out to all of our paid Business Besties subscribers. Business Besties bypass literally years of networking by getting access to all of the people that you need to build your dream business. You also get invited to exclusive monthly group business coaching call sessions where you can speak to experts and founders and ask them all of those questions that you just can't Google.

11:07You can cancel anytime. head to bestie.femalefounderworld.com or click the link in the show notes for more.