Keep Your Sleeves Rolled Up

Now, will jasmine be a top, middle, or base note? A what note? I asked in our early perfume meetings. These are the three fragrance notes that make up a scent. All I knew then was that I was at a base level of learning. I spent a year absorbing everything I could before launching our first fragrance this fall. I feel most out of my comfort zone when I’m starting a new endeavor. Uncertainty brings me back to my roots of being a beginner again. 

Desire can trump knowledge in the early years. The hunger to learn propels you forward in ways a business book never can. The caveat is that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I learned what I needed to build my career. I just learned it from the school of hard knocks. We’ve all earned a shiny degree from that fine institution. I’m pretty sure I graduated Summa Cum Laude. 

Curiosity is the hallmark of a beginner’s mentality for me. I’ve learned how to be resourceful and ask the right questions. We started The Female Founder Collective as a small passion project and didn’t have the budget to hire producers for our first shoot. Our founding team member, Elisabeth Leonard, and I secured the space, videographers, and stylists. We asked hundreds of founders to join and support the launch. We brought it up in every conversation, leading to our fashion week partner, Leslie Russo, putting the force of IMG behind it. Soon after, Alison Wyatt joined as my incredible co-founder, rolling up her sleeves from day one to turn this vision into reality. We didn’t have a business plan. We relied on our experience of getting things done. The FFC’s grown to nearly 10,000 female-founded companies and is a small but mighty team.

Optimism fuels you when you’re starting out. You’re eager to say yes to new opportunities. I didn’t have much to lose then. It was only me and my five-piece collection. I got creative with new seasons and designed a bag that I wanted myself, the Morning After Bag, which remains our most iconic. There’s a lot on the line today but we never let that inhibit us from taking risks like launching Little Minkoff or pioneering the store of the future. We’d never scale if we replicated what worked in the past. Stagnancy is success’ Achilles heel. 

The beginner’s mindset can appear glorified. Of course, you’re not impacted by failure. You’re just trying things! It’s all an experiment! And, while that’s true, it doesn’t numb the growing pains of building a new skillset. I am 20 years into my career and falling down still hurts. Prior to starting my podcast, the agency I signed with calculated that I’d get a certain amount of downloads per episode. It sounded promising so they sold ads and didn’t do any marketing. Launch day rolled around and we got a fraction of what they anticipated. It was truly humbling. I realized I needed to develop it on my own and called 20 hosts to ask about their approach. We’ve since built an incredible community of listeners by doing the groundwork.

Humble pie is hard to swallow. Still, I think it’s good to get kicked to the curb sometimes. Do scraped knees feel good? Not at all. They keep your ego in check, though, and force you to never feel invincible. Nothing comes easy in life or business. 

There’s an ongoing conversation about retaining the beginner’s mindset as your company grows. I think it’s the only way you can grow. You’re always a beginner when you’re striving towards big goals. Courage comes from hunger in the early days. Now, it comes from the grit that got you here. The stakes are higher but you’re a lot smarter. There’s confidence in knowing that you’re still that scrappy 25-year-old who can figure it out. 

How do you hold onto the beginner’s mindset in business? Let me know in the comments!