Emily Merrell  0:04  

Welcome to the Sixth Degree Podcast, the podcast where we grill our guests about the things that make them tick and find out how human connection plays a role in their life. I’m your host, Emily Merrell.

 

I’m your host, Emily Merrell. And today I’m thrilled to have Kayden Terrell and Emily McDonald, co-founders of my founder circle on the podcast. Ladies, welcome to the show. Thanks for having us. Ah, hi. Thank you so much. I have to admit, this is actually the very first time I’ve interviewed two people at once. I’ve been interviewed with another person, but actually interviewing too. So you are my guinea pigs to see how this goes, Oh, yay. Well, luckily, we have a lot of experience talking together.

 

We have a lot of experience talking is what you’re saying? Definitely. Because that is something that we can agree on. But before we dive in, I would love to just you know, hear a little bit about both of you. I know in Kedah, you are the founder of intentional money. And Emily, you are the founder of the stylist, la. Can you go ahead and introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit more? How did you come together to start my founder circle? And keto? Why don’t you kick it off for us?

 

Ankita Terrell  1:22  

Sure. So I graduated with a degree in economics, wanted to work in venture capital, work for a venture backed startup, did analytics for many years and ended up in nonprofits. So this was all in the span of eight years. And then realized I needed to bring my backgrounds together and went to business school to try to figure out how do you have money be a force of good? How do you change business to be better, help people be socially conscious, and all of that. And so when I graduated from business school, I was really looking for a way to encourage people to invest money in a way that not just made them money, but also made business better. So that kind of was the foundation for international money. It’s like how do we speak about money, not as I make money, or do good, but they we as women can be in charge of our finances, we can figure it out, we can both create generational wealth and as entrepreneurs spatially figure out how we can pay ourselves so we’re not living in the feminine fi cycle.

 

Emily Merrell  2:24  

So unnecessary. Where were you when I started my business? Because I feel like

 

Right, like it’s definitely something where I had no idea what I was doing on the money front, and I and I feel like having someone such with your background and your expertise would have been in my back pocket would have been the most helpful thing. And Emily, how about you? How did you start the stylist LA and what inspired you to start the stylist LA? Before I answer that, I want to say what you just said is literally why we started our founder circle.

 

Emily McDonald  2:58  

We’ll come back to that in a minute. But what you said about starting your company and money is very, very common. So that’s what we’re aiming to solve. Um, hi, everyone. I’m Emily. And I am originally the founder of the stylist la which is a clothing rental company targeting the millennial and Gen Z consumer. So I started the company in 2009, The Rolling Rock in my living room, I know it’s insane. She doesn’t open two retail stores in LA and San Francisco, which Emily has been to

 

steal the company’s seven figure company raised over a million dollars in venture capital, we were a hit. We were doing really well on Instagram doing really well as a company and COVID hit. So very long story short, the company is amazing. It still exists today, we majorly scaled back, had to lay off most of the team, closed the retail stores and shifted to an online only model. It’s a great company, profitable now much smaller, but it needs less of my time. Because a lot of its automated, we have a logistics partner and things are just a bit simpler than they were when it was running full speed. Um, and honestly, it’s such a blessing because I have found a passion in coaching and consulting for female founded startups. And so that is really what I started doing during the pandemic while the stylus delay was downsizing. And I’m so grateful to have both opportunities because the style of selling has taught me so much that allows me to be a better guide for female founders. And so I started coaching and consulting, and then on kita and I met at a six degrees event, which is hilarious. And I reached out to her because I wanted her to come speak to my first mastermind about founders and money because from my personal experience, founders and money is a really really tricky, tricky space. And like I didn’t pay myself for years, the styles delay I made a lot of mistakes I would never make again. And like you said I wish I’d had on kita 10 years ago So, I’m gonna answer but gives you a bit of the big picture. No,

 

Emily Merrell  5:04  

I love that. I love that background too. And I’m so blown away that you started in 2009. I don’t think I put it together. But it was 2009 and part of my brain also 2009 I’m like, we had Wi-Fi back then. But we probably did. Right. I’m thinking if we

 

Emily McDonald  5:21  

hadn’t started yet. Yeah. And to be fair, it was very much a side hustle at first Rent the Runway started in 2009. Like they weren’t big yet. I literally had a roll back in my living room with sample dresses, we moved into our big la showroom in 2014. So I’d say that’s when we really started taking off. And then 2016 was when we dressed all the bachelor girls. And that was when we really liked it, and had an uptick. So crazy.

 

Emily Merrell  5:46  

It’s incredible to see that trajectory and how, you know, when you start a business, it starts with, you can truly start from your living room and then expand to the bachelor nature nation, which is huge. But then also the downsizing. And sometimes it’s going back to just keeping things simple. So I loved seeing I remember on Instagram, seeing a picture, where Emily, you were visiting DC and you met Ankita in person, you guys were having lunch and you tagged us in on Instagram in your post. And then a few days later, my founder’s circle popped up on Instagram as a suggestion to follow up. So in Kedah, can you tell us a little bit more like what is my founder circle, how it works? And how can people learn more about it? Yeah,

 

Ankita Terrell  6:30  

So yeah, we met for lunch. And it was actually funny because it was over Thanksgiving. And we just decided we’re both in the same city, we just had this online, kind of breakout room serendipitous connection, or maybe there’s no such thing with six degrees. Or maybe it’s all all

 

Emily Merrell  6:48  

your life before you can see.

 

Ankita Terrell  6:51  

Well, you have a skill. So when we met for lunch, we really realized the areas that we had in common, and we were also blown away by how complementary our skill sets were. Right? So like, we realized that Andrea is very much big picture, loves marketing, loves online, and all those things. And I’m very much okay, like we have a strategy to get us to where we want to get to, like, what are the numbers behind it? What are the KPIs we’re tracking, and a number driven approach. And so that’s kind of why we’re like, let’s just do a free webinar and see what happens. So we put it out to the wall that we’re going to do a free webinar and 75 people signed up for it. And we started because we had, we didn’t, it’s not like we like the paid advertising or anything that was very organic. It wasn’t even friends of ours over 70, most of them were people we didn’t know. And we just posted it to a couple of channels and societies that we were part of, you know, and we just like this is what we’re doing, we think it’s really important to track your metrics, common, we’ll talk about it. And after we saw that success, we kind of put out a Calendly link. And we’re like, if you want to book a call with us, like we’d love to talk. And then we were like, okay, you know, all of these people are clearly in the same boat, where they’re, they’re looking for support, and they really want to grow their business in a way that’s sustainable, that’s holistic, that’s wholesome, that allows them to be who they are. They’re not, they’re not jumping on the kind of social bandwagon right off the bat, but they’re doing it in a way that’s sustainable to them. And so we created a mighty network community. And so you can find out that my founder is circle.com, and what we do is we offer monthly workshops, that are all targeted to growing your business, we have just speakers. So it just depends on the month. So like, for instance, you know, when you’re thinking about earlier in the year, like in February and March that there are taxes later on in the quarter, and launching, and things like that. So like we’re very intentional about when we do things. And we also work one on one with clients and have done several VIP days since we launched. And it’s, it’s really cool.

 

Emily Merrell  8:54  

I love it, I love the fact that you both have this skill set. And rather than deciding to, you know, fight over clients, you both could probably help service the same person that you came together and you’re able to unify your offering to an individual. So Emily, you know, I think it’s also incredible that you had this experience of having launched a business, a scaling the business, the fundraising part of the business, you know, as you see entrepreneurs kind of enter the scenes, are you finding that people are still as interested in like venture backed funding? Are people more like building their businesses where they’re self funded and scaling on their own?

 

Emily McDonald  9:33  

Who so that’s a tough question, because I think that the VC market is really hot right now. Like from what I’m seeing, personally less people seem to be raising money. But like the big picture is, I don’t think that’s true. I mean, I think unfortunately, women are still getting such a small piece of that venture pie. That’s it. It’s really sad to see that but I don’t like to think in a good way. The trend of raising money being cool is going away, which is great, because raising money is actually the beginning of the process, not the be all and end all. And I do think that now we’re giving, we’re highlighting, we’re giving, you know, accolades to companies that are bootstrapping and getting to 5 million in revenue. And that’s incredible. So I think like, as far as the big picture goes, the narrative is changing. And I think it just depends on the type of business. To be perfectly honest, I think VC funding is very specific for very specific types of businesses that want to grow in a way. And I think one thing that’s important to say is like, I think one thing about Anchieta and I that we have in common that’s very different from a lot of other networks or other coaches is that one of the things that inspired me to partner with akitas, her background, I mean, we both have, like, very solid experience in very different areas. She went to business school at one of the top business schools in the country, and worked for a VC firm and worked for VC backed startups. So like, not to toot our own horns. But I think like, when you’re talking about VC, I’m like, I have a perspective from raising it. And from running a company that had VC funding, and there’s a lot of good and bad. And I think Anchieta has a different perspective about it. But I do think it just depends on the company. And I think and hope that the narrative is changing, where we encourage bootstrap companies, and they’re on the cover of TechCrunch. Not just, you know, raising a Series A round.

 

Ankita Terrell  11:28  

Actually, um, you know, I don’t know if you mentioned this, that Emily pledged to the same company that I worked at, now. And we realized this when we only had lunch, we were talking about a disturbing pass. And I was like we loved it, this VC in New York. And she was like, oh, that’s crazy, because I flew out to pitch them. No, we missed each other by a few months. But it’s just not that many VCs, especially back in the day that would talk about a brand new female founder. And the numbers are

 

Emily Merrell  11:56  

changing. Can you talk a little bit more about that, you know, I would love to hear a bit more perspective about, you know, in Kedah working at a VC firm, like if you are listening, and you are thinking of raising money, like what should people have prepared before they even approached a VC as a VC or someone who was working at a B, VC company, like what were the things that you’d look for in a company. And then Emily, I want to hear your perspective of pitching VCs because it’s something that we don’t hear many women talk about, and their experience of like, actually getting the money securing the money and being rejected from.

 

Ankita Terrell  12:33  

I mean, I think my first thought, and we actually talked about this, the first time we met is that it’s a misconception that you even need to raise VC money. Most businesses don’t need to raise VC, they can bootstrap all the way to success. And if you do need to raise VC money, it’s kind of like knowing your market inside out. And having done that work, where you bootstrap for a while you raise precedence, you’ve done family and friends, you’ve done all these things to prove your business model. And now you’re raising the money to scale. It’s kind of like don’t waste money out of desperation, because you really need it, because you’re going to give away equity, or you’re going to end up with a venture that is not aligned with who you are. So those that’s my biggest thought is like, be 100% sure of why VC.

 

Emily Merrell  13:21  

And for people who are raising money just to take a step back for people who are like, what is a VC? I have no idea what you’re talking about Emily? Can we talk about what a VCs VC is? And what kind of companies do actually like to go out and pitch to VCs? Am I answering that one? Either of you?

 

Emily McDonald  13:43  

Yeah. So a venture capital fund is different from angel investors, friend and family investors, they are investing out of the fund that has come that they’ve raised from various different entities and LPs. So they’re investing, they’re looking for really high growth startups. So what’s been interesting over the last few years is they’re all mostly tech based. And so the styles today were like fashion tech, if that makes sense. But what they’re looking for is really high growth and a quick, high exit. So it’s very unique and company. And I think one thing I would say is like, yes, you really need to figure out if raising VC money is right for you. And keep in mind like I raised Angel rounds before we actually raised the VC funds raised from VC funds. So it’s a little bit different. And you can raise friends and family money or angel money without raising VC money. And it’s a little bit I mean, this could be its own podcast, right? Like this is a very, very I would say I don’t say complicated but complex topic. And I spent like a whole year teaching myself how to do it. I would also just say like, there’s a lot you need to know before you do it, unfortunately, and I hate saying that because usually I encourage people to jump in. And I think unilateral you need to and you need to know your business inside and out. Also,

 

Ankita Terrell  15:04  

The thing with venture capital, right, like just to kind of expand what Emily was saying is, they’re looking for an exit, which means the way that you’re going to exit your business is either by selling it to another large company, or by going public. Those are the two most common ways that VCs exit. And there’s very few businesses that can first of all IPO, like that, we’re seeing more and more companies IPO now in the last couple of years, and we ever have, and a lot of them are companies that we were like, a lot of us in this generation were in college, or soon to be out of college, when they when they were created to like random one way Sweetgreen for so many others. But usually that length of time between when a company starts and when they IPO is very long. And very few companies can make it and get sold to a larger company. It’s it’s, it’s anyone’s guess, and whether or not a large company is going to buy you, you know, so it’s, it’s really tricky. And then the other thing is that you’re giving up equity for them to give you a part of some someone or money that means that you’re profit sharing with them. And then they have a say in how you run your company as well. Just something to consider.

 

Emily Merrell  16:08  

I think that’s great to know. So then Emily, you know, you made this transition from the stylist Fellay to like pitching VCs scaling. i The last time I saw you in person, we were at a launch for a new service that you were offering. I think that was February. Was it February, it was far.

 

Emily McDonald  16:24  

Oh my gosh, you read our last event before COVID hit. It was in LA. It was like an influencer party for our new online subscription.

 

Emily Merrell  16:33  

I was there. That was crazy to think about. And then I think like a week later, COVID happened. And as we all know, our lives change significantly. So you know, thinking of you before COVID, you if you If COVID hadn’t happened? What do you think would have happened to you and your business?

 

Emily McDonald  16:52  

So this is a little bit of a deeper conversation. I won’t go too deep. But I was actually in a pretty tough mental health space pre COVID I was extremely stressed out. I was very burnt out. We have been raising kind of on and off for like two years. And raising is very, very difficult. It’s very difficult for the founder, you’re I mean, we pitched over 150 VCs, or 150 investors. They weren’t all VCs, but, um, and 98% of them said no. So, you know, I think I was just in a tough headspace. So for me, the COVID pivot, and all of the stuff that’s happened has been a blessing in disguise. But I also really went through it when COVID happened because we had a huge dream for the stylus. So and especially in 2020, we had just launched that new service, we were supposed to do a couple million in revenue, we were hoping to open more stores around the country who were literally in the middle of raising. So I don’t like to play the what if game, I think we always end up where we’re supposed to be. I also had a baby in COVID. And that I think shifted perspective. Like I can’t go back and forth between SF and La every week, I can’t work 20 hours a day, I can’t be stressed out. So I would say I’ve ended up where I’m supposed to be. And my goal now and Anchieta and I are very aligned on this is to make sure that female founders never feel alone. And to keep people from getting to that burnout spot that I was at pre COVID.

 

Emily Merrell  18:16  

And so talk me through both of you, I want to hear your perspective on this. Like, I’m a new business owner and I want to start my business. What is the first step that I should be taking? in Quito? Do you think from a finances perspective, you can talk about where we should be because all I know is when I started, I had $5,000 in my bank account and like a hope and a dream.

 

Ankita Terrell  18:40  

Well, so if you’re starting a business, by quitting your day job, I’d say make sure that you have at least six months of what you would be standing like what we call the neural budget, which is being run and surviving in your bank account. Obviously this changes if you have a partner that you know you have a partner that has a steady w two job but either way like having some cushion that you can fall back on because you’re not going to get up and running right away. It takes time. And I actually encourage people to be like okay, I can reduce your hours or work before you jump headfirst into your business, I got some traction. And I also want to say one more thing right up and it’s not about finances, it’s about the business and the various kind of things like going out and talking to your customer before you decide to sell them something. And I don’t mean to do free things. I mean, literally go out and ask them if what you’re creating has a use case if they even need it. So yeah, that’s the two things I would say.

 

Emily Merrell  19:43  

I think that’s very sound advice. And I think you know so many people are like I have this dream I have an edge. I mean I’m a whole nother story. We’ll talk about it on a different podcast, but I think there is something to be said about things like, make sure you have a viable product before you cash in. You know, cash out on everything and just decide to go all in on what you’re building. And then

 

Emily McDonald  20:06  

I’m sorry, sorry to interrupt, I kept my part time jobs for like four years when I started the style site. And I didn’t say this, but the style slowly started because the company I worked for went out of business, actually. So I was laid off in the night and got three part time jobs in the industry and started the style site on the side. But it is funny that Anchieta and I met at this time in our lives, because I am such a risk taker. So I’ve changed because of the style of delay. But at the beginning, I would have been like, I don’t need six months of cash in the bank. But that is truly the smart way to do it. I think also just being realistic, and realizing that it takes a long time to build up a business, like I told you, I started the style selling in 2009. And you’re like, what? And it’s that and I also like asking for help. Like, I wish so badly, I’d had a coach when I was doing this stuff like now I have a coach I talked to all the time. And she could have helped me navigate so many things and made me feel less alone. But unfortunately, like your spouse, your best friends can’t fill that role for you.

 

Emily Merrell  21:08  

I think I want to say, you know, you started in 2009. And correct me if I’m wrong. But I also don’t think asking for help was like instilled in us in the same way that it is now. Like, I felt like when I worked in the corporate world, you don’t ask for help, you figure it out yourself. And you’re a failure. If you ask for help

 

Emily McDonald  21:25  

startups or startups weren’t as trendy then. So there weren’t as many like, easy like Shopify wasn’t around. So we had to build a website from scratch, like, it was definitely different. I think now, founders are very lucky that there’s a ton of resources. But it’s also tough, because that means that things are more crowded. And there’s like a million founders, and a lot of them aren’t necessarily super serious about what they’re building. So I think, you know, I think there are pros and cons to that. But I would just say like, talking to your customers really, truly is the number one that I think I always say this, I’m like, Have you asked if anyone

 

Emily Merrell  22:00  

wants this? I’m like, No, I just want it myself. So I’m gonna build it really advocate

 

Emily McDonald  22:04  

for our clients to send out surveys to Google Forms, and collect email addresses at the bottom for people who might be interested in your idea, like one, that’s a really great lead gen idea and to like, you’re collecting feedback on your potential idea.

 

Emily Merrell  22:20  

I completely agree.

 

Ankita Terrell  22:21  

So I want to do what I was saying for about five to six months. I think there’s a difference between procrastinating on starting a business or being afraid to do it versus being smart about it. And similarly, like collecting Google Forms and addresses, sometimes people use customer research as a procrastination tool. And that’s not the point of death. And the point of this is not to ask your family and friends to fill it out. Because they’re going to be nice to you and ask complete and total strangers, if they will talk to you about this, this potential way that you could help them something is gonna come out of it.

 

Emily Merrell  22:54  

And so then, you know, based on all the information that you said, having the six months runway during the Google forums, what’s the next step from there? Because do they register their business? Do you guys think it’s smart to register a business when you don’t even have a customer? Or should we wait till we have a customer before the business happens? What’s the first chicken or the egg?

 

Emily McDonald  23:16  

Okay, that I might have different answers, actually, I would say start getting your business first, and then get the like, get in, like, Do you have any revenue? I mean, it depends on what stage you’re at, like, do you even have a website yet? Like, do you even have a logo or anything like that, like, you definitely need to set up an entity early, you don’t have to wait to get your first money in. But if it’s just an idea, like, if it’s an idea that hasn’t been fully hatched, you’re not doing anything with it, yet, there’s a rush to get an entity. But for tax purposes, as soon as you start making money, you need to have that entity. And they’ve made it pretty easy now to do that. So I do think that’s something you should do. But it also doesn’t need to be something you do before you figure out what you’re building.

 

Ankita Terrell  23:58  

Yeah, I mean, I think our answer is actually the same. I would say, go out and get your first customer, figure out what you’re doing. And then you can build the entity. And when we’re not tax accountants, we actually are not tax accounting. So I’m not going to give too much advice here. But what I can say is that there’s no real difference between being a single member LLC and being a sole proprietor, which by default, you’re a sole proprietor, right? Like if someone is just done mowing your money, you’re by default, a sole proprietor and you need to be filing the 10 99k form. So there’s no difference between so like, it’s just kind of like just got started.

 

Emily Merrell  24:30  

Yeah, I think those are both great, great, great, great answers. And I think it’s I feel like we’re on the dating game right now where I can ask you questions, but

 

Emily McDonald  24:38  

I love it. Well, I feel like people get hung up on this entity thing. And I’m really familiar with it because the stylists only raise money, we had to change the type of entity like, I’ve done a lot of stuff in that realm, but don’t get hung up on that. And like one thing like I will repeat one thing on key to seven. A lot of people are using these things as procrastination tools. Watch, like, the most important thing you do is watch, get a paying customer.

 

Emily Merrell  25:04  

I think I’m not saying that so many people spend a lot of time on their website and overthink their website. Well, I can’t launch my website’s not done yet. Oh, I can’t launch my website. It’s not perfect yet. My logo, it needs to be changed. And just a friendly reminder, if you’re listening and you’re procrastinating, either on the entity or getting started or you haven’t figured out the name, just start and you will figure it out. And all the other things will fall into place. Perhaps conversations with your potential clients will lead you to finding your name. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it can be pivoted as you go. And that’s that we’re bred to be perfectionist and have things be perfect right from the get go. And sorry, Charlie, but it’s life and like things are going to things are going to go in flux and sometimes don’t work. And sometimes they won’t.

 

Emily McDonald  25:57  

It’s actually one of my biggest pet peeves is perfect procrastination by pretending you’re doing other tasks, like people are like, what I need to write my business plan. And I’m like, No, not really. Like you don’t really need a full fledged business plan. Like, do you have customers? And one thing I want to really say about anyone that wants to raise money as you have to attract I can unless you started Facebook, and you’re going to start a second company, or I guess, meta, whatever, anyways, and maybe not Facebook today. But anyways, I think that’s important, like getting customers. And we hear time and time again. People are like the web and helping friends and family for free. But I haven’t charged anyone yet. Like that’s as far as like, yes, but then also get paying customers. Yeah. Yeah,

 

Emily Merrell  26:40  

I can, I completely agree. Well, I want to ask you guys. So how can people work with you both and find my founders circle and be a bigger part of that community? In Kedah?

 

Ankita Terrell  26:54  

Yeah, so my father’s choco.com. We do the first month for free for community events. And we love having people come to the workshops. And then the other way that you can work with us is if you want to do a full focus strategy day, we love doing that with people. And what we do is it’s not just one day, we do it one day, and then after two weeks, we do the second part so that you have time to implement in between and then we offer three months of support after. So it’s like a high focus prep for launch. So if you’re about to launch a product or service, and are just kind of creating the roadmap or creating the one way to launch that. So those are the two primary things we take. And then we’re working on a bunch of other ideas.

 

Emily Merrell  27:35  

Amazing, anything you want to add?

 

Emily McDonald  27:37  

Yeah, so the VIP day is eight hours. So it’s broken into two days and four hours. But yeah, we’re really excited. We’ve come up with a few ideas for different offerings for different stages and different needs of businesses. Our biggest thing is to be your tactical partner. Like I joke that we’re your where your business therapist and your CEO level strategist like we will get in the weeds with you, we will help you with strategy. But we’re really there like our customers who use us. We are catapulting their businesses forward and making huge transformations in their businesses. So our next product offerings are going to be how we can do that at different stages of company lives, and the different needs associated with those stages.

 

Emily Merrell  28:21  

That’s amazing, especially with both of your backgrounds, the expertise that you bring to the table is like

 

Unknown Speaker  28:27  

unmatchable. Thank you. Okay. Okay, well,

 

Emily Merrell  28:32  

we’re gonna wrap up this portion and jump into one of my favorite portions of the podcast. This is six fast questions. Actually, before we do, I do want to know what your Instagram handles so people can follow you on the interwebs.

 

Ankita Terrell  28:48  

So it’s my founder Soccer is the one that we do together. And then my other one is an intentional money coach.

 

Emily McDonald  28:57  

My other one is founder Emily.

 

Emily Merrell  28:59  

Amazing, okay. Oh, by the way, Emily, my mom saw a founder Emily pop up the other day and she goes,  Friend or foe? She’s been threatened. She’s like, there’s another Emily and she’s the founder. I’m like, Mom, it was the 80s Everyone including named Emily, but I, I forgot to tell you that. No, now we’re gonna move on to six fast questions. So this is one of my favorite parts. It’s gonna be very quick. Don’t put too much thought into it. But in Kedah, can you tell us an unknown fun fact about you?

 

Ankita Terrell  29:32  

Yeah, in college, I was the NCAA soccer referee and timekeeper. Oh, I love Emily’s other Emily’s say she I know that.

 

Emily McDonald  29:41  

I did not know that.

 

Emily Merrell  29:44  

No play soccer with Ankita um, what about you?

 

Emily McDonald  29:48  

In college I chipped my two front teeth falling off of a balcony face first into concrete after a football game day. off a balcony. I shouldn’t say that. It wasn’t off like it was off a deck like a step.

 

Emily Merrell  29:59  

Glad he didn’t trip your brain. That sounds like a very serious fall in Kedah who would be a dream person to be connected with, you know how I love connections.