In this piece in Inc., Cloth & Paper’s founder, Ashley Reynolds explains how she used social commerce to grow her stationery business during the pandemic. The company leverages social media platforms to share instructional videos that show viewers how best to use their journals and planners. While they predominantly sell products on Shopify, they have seen a growing trend of customers now buying directly from Instagram and Facebook. Click the link above to read more!
This piece in Inc. is a conversation with We Are Rosie‘s CEO Stephanie Nadi Olson. She shares how the challenges of trying to juggle a family and the demands of a high powered corporate job – and then a startup job – led her to launch her own business focused on finding “good work for everyone who needs it in a way that aligns with their life and treats them with dignity and respect”. Her company now has over 15,000 contractors in the marketing and advertising space – whose contracts are capped at 40 hours per week. She states, “For culture to be truly compassionate, it cannot be prescriptive. Leadership decisions cannot happen in a vacuum.” Click the link above to read more about this incredible leader.
Led by ocean advocate and skipper Emily Penn and founded in 2014, the nonprofit organization eXXpedition strives to shift the way people feel, think and act by building a global network of multidisciplinary women who can contribute to world-class scientific studies, explore solutions, and use their unique skill sets to tackle the problem from all angles. eXXpedition has been on a mission to “make the unseen, seen”—the unseen being women in sailing and science, the plastics and toxins polluting our oceans, and the diverse solutions to the problem. Read more about their work in this Upworthy article.
Togethxr is a media brand that is tied to four legendary athletes from a diverse cross-section of sports. Cofounder and chief content officer Jessica Robertson says that Togethxr has a culture that recognizes that women’s sports is “ground zero for every single -ism that’s in culture – which means this is a brand that is going to touch issues of race, gender, sexuality, human rights, voting rights, and so much more.” Check out this article in Fast Company to learn more about this up and coming brand!
Melissa Bradley is the cofounder of Ureeka, a community where entrepreneurs can gain access to the expertise needed to grow their business. Ureeka’s mission is to democratize economic opportunity by enabling community and reducing the cost and risk associated with transitioning from a small to medium business. Bradley is also the founder and Managing Partner of 1863 Ventures and cofounder and Managing Partner of Sidecar Social Finance. In this video, Forbes‘ Maneet Ahuja sits down with Melissa Bradley and discusses access to capital, managing a business during a recession and the overhype of venture capital.
According Altrata’s latest Global Gender Diversity report, having female corporate leadership – either in the C-Suite or as Board Chair – makes a huge difference in terms of gender diversity within the organization. Since CEOs are often recruited from among top corporate leadership, having women in these roles is a reflection of a company’s ability to support and train them while also offering room for advanecment. Read this post from CNBC to learn more.
After raising $2.5M in seed funding, Lisa Health announced the launch of its new app, Midday, which has been created in collaboration with Mayo Clinic. The app provides a personalized digital health solution that illuminates what is happening physically and emotionally during menopause and provides the right intervention at the right time to promote healthy aging. See this article in FemTech Insider to learn more.
This recent piece in Inc. shares three tips for overcoming some of the biggest challenges women of color face in entrepreneurship. These tips include the importance of getting your finances in order so you can establish good credit, looking after your mental health and developing a success-oriented mindset. Check out the link to read the full piece.
This piece from Fortune shares thoughts from 11 female CEOs and Founders as they navigated running their companies while also managing pregnancy, birth and post-partum. Given that more than half of the female-founded companies to achieve valuations of at least $1 billion this past year have founders younger than 40, it is likely that this topic will become increasingly relevant. Click the link above to read more!
Reproductive health issues have certainly been a topic in the news over the past few weeks in the United States. At Johns Hopkins University, two teams led by female graduate students are bringing much needed innovation to the reproductive health product marketplace. One company, Ovubrush, is a technology-enabled toothbrush that monitors biomarker in saliva to identify ovulation windows for conception. Another company, NovvaCup is redesigning menstrual cups to have different collapsible states which will increase ease of insertion and removal. To read more about these companies and the women behind them, check out this article posted in Johns Hopkins HUB.