From P.E. Nation's Pip Edwards to Adore Beauty's Kate Morris, nine female founders dish out advice from lessons learned along the way.
From P.E. Nation's Pip Edwards to Adore Beauty's Kate Morris, nine female founders dish out advice from lessons learned along the way.
Starting a business is never easy, but what separates the founders from the dreamers is tenacious execution. As the first season of our Next Generation Innovators Podcast with Sylvia Jeffreys comes to an end, we’ve rounded up the best advice from the women – young and old – who have taken the leap to carve their own paths and build their own businesses.
“I’ve been told to not be emotional, but I will be emotional because that is what gives [P.E. Nation] the heartbeat, and the meaning, and the soul, and the passion. It inspires. It makes the fucking office tick, and go round, and I will not compromise that.”
Image credit: Instagram @pipedwards
“There’s so much space. Pivot, move. If you’re in a situation that just isn’t working for you, you don’t have to stay there. Take all your greatness and move one step to the right or left.”
Image credit: Instagram @christyladylaurence
“[Women] need to be confident, they need to be not afraid of being powerful, they need to make sure they believe in what they’re doing, they need to be passionate in what they’re doing, and once you are those things people take you so seriously. You need to take yourself seriously first. I take myself very seriously, yeah we’ll have a conversation and we’ll laugh but if I’m in front of someone – whether it be a man or a woman – I take myself very seriously. And I take a compliment very well. They’ll say, ‘Your app is amazing.’ I’ll say, ‘Thank you so much’… Be powerful with what you’re saying and people respect that. People take you very seriously.”
Image credit: Instagram @kayla_itsines
“I think in sport, things are a bit more binary. You either landed your jump or you didn’t. You either won or you didn’t. Whereas in life, and in business, it’s much more like a dance in the grey and you need to influence people and work broader teams and it’s not just about you. So part of coming back into the workforce full-time was really just about evolving, and learning how to dance in the grey where you can’t control everything.”
Image credit: Instagram @alisacamplin
“The key piece of advice is to know your worth. One of my mentors, he actually helped me crystalise this, and it’s this whole idea that people pay the price that you put on yourself… It’s about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and I think it’s just pushing yourself into situations that are slightly uncomfortable and asking the question.”
Image credit: Instagram @sylviajeffreys
“Follow what you want to do. Do what you want to do. But be conscious and aware that it’s going to take a long time and that you need to be in it for the long haul. People become successful because they’re good at it, and they’re doing something that they enjoy and they’re where they want to be.”
Image credit: Instagram @bassike
“I think grit and tenacity [are crucial in business], because you do get told ‘no’ a lot of the time and you need to get back up, and you need to have confidence in yourself and really, really push through. All the best entrepreneurs I know are really gritty.”
Image credit: Instagram @tarynwilliams
“Not just with capital raising but with business generally, people do confuse confidence with competence and I think women naturally are more conservative when they forecast. I only ever forecast numbers that I knew I could hit, but men don’t do that… That’s one of the challenges, as women. We’re taught to keep ourselves smaller and be less bombastic about things and at the moment, unfortunately, the game that you’re playing is the men’s game and so you’ve kind of got to go in there and go, ‘Right, what do I think I can achieve?’ And then amp that up within reason. But you’ve got to hype it up because that’s what they expect. Until we get enough women investors in the game to be able to see the way women approach business and to know that’s also valid.”
Image credit: Instagram @kateadorebeauty
“Steph and I have so much respect for each other. I think the most important thing is to respect each other because then when you communicate in any way, whether that’s constructive feedback or whatever, if that respect is there, it’s always going to be received in a nice way because you know the other person is coming from a good place because they care about the business. It’s nice. It’s nice to have someone, especially in the industry that we work in, that you can trust a hundred thousand percent and has your back no matter what. I can’t imagine doing it without her.”
Image credit: Instagram @laura.henshaw
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