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- 🛡️Success Secret Weapon: Emma Grede Dishes on Hers
🛡️Success Secret Weapon: Emma Grede Dishes on Hers
15+ funding opportunities, an AI spotting 🦄 and a deep dive into the working woman’s playbook
Jasmine Crockett
October 08, 2024
Featured Story
Emma Grede’s Best-Kept Secret to Success
It isn’t what you think. Not smarts or skill. While those play a role, they aren’t the secret to Emma Grede’s climb to the tippy top of the fashion industry as the CEO/co-founder of Good American and founding partner of SKIMS. It’s failure. And more importantly, learning from it. "I think often we don't talk about failures. I'm the opposite. I do [it] all the time," she explained in a recent ABC news feature. "Because I know that everything that I've done, that hasn't worked, I've taken a bit of those learnings and spun them into something new.” |
I use my failure as fuel, too. It drives my next move. I used to get down on myself when something didn't work out, but now I see it as a tutorial for my future. I scaled my first company too quickly, so now with my second, I’m being more thoughtful about where I need to be present and what projects to take on.
But it’s a mixture of hard work and Grede’s lean-in curiosity that’s led her to not only trailblaze her path but for women and Black entrepreneurs too. Grede’s the first Black woman investor on the business reality TV series, Shark Tank, and the visionary behind The Fifteen Percentage Pledge, an economic justice nonprofit committed to reserving 15% of shelf space for Black-owned brands.
So, the real losses? They aren’t failures. It’s the inability to learn that’s the real waste. So, count it all gain.
Psst. If you’re a black-owned, e-commerce business, consider applying for The Fifteen Percentage Achievement Award for $200K no-strings-attached funding plus mentorship and pro bono consulting services. You’ve got nothing to lose.
Need to Know
See the 19 best female investors with 👀 for unicorns unveiled by “Moneyball for Venture Capital” proprietary AI.
Application open: Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship. Be one of the 50 women entrepreneurs chosen for the year-long fellowship with immersive digital education, a $5K grant and exclusive networking opportunities. App closes 11/1.
Check it: 15 grants, internships and training opportunities for women entrepreneurs by GrantWatch. From $100 micro-grants to $75K across diverse sectors and disciplines.
The venture fund closing the gender funding gap: HearstLab, already investing $100M in 70+ women-led tech companies across the globe. Register for the next Pitch HearstLab event in ATL on 11/12.
Grab your 🍿 and get cozy for a night in with Inc.’s 8 Must-Watch Movies for Entrepreneurs.
Estée Lauder announces 2024 recipients of its inaugural Emerging Leaders Beautiful Forces grants giving $200K across 4 diverse recipients to further emerging leaders’ bold ideas. Keep up with the program (and 2025 app) here.
Industry Updates
Take a peek at LinkedIn’s Top 50 Startups in 2024 including women-owned Jones Road and Midi Health.
Dig into the McKinsey & Company’s 10th Annual Women in the Workplace Report dishing on underrepresentation in the corporate pipeline, the broken rung and the working woman experience.
Amy Schumer, Sherly Sandberg, Tori Burch, Connie Britton and Brandi Chastain join forces in a $5M SPV within the $60M Series B round to advance menopause telehealth startup, Midi Health.
Something’s gotta give. Research study found women don’t support women in VC funding in this Fast Company article.
Quote of the Week
Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.
Resource Spotlight
📚 Book Craving radical business success? The Lean Startup is your must-read to build greatness through innovation and adaptability. | 🎧 Podcast Anu Diggal spills about What Women Founders Still Have to Prove on Inc.’s new podcast, From the Ground Up. | 🎧 Article The how-to behind Getting Certified as a Minority-Owned Business by NerdWallet. |
Ask the Expert
Question: What is one of the biggest challenges in scaling your business (and how did you overcome it)?
Answer: Outside investment is hard to obtain, hands down. In my interior design business, Joy Meets Home, I restructured my business plan so I didn’t have to seek outside investment. Instead, I created a repeatable cash flow (like a subscription plan) to put money back into the business. My advice? Get down with bootstrapping to use what you have more strategically before seeking outside funding. Then, rinse and repeat.
Stay inspired, stay unstoppable,
