Emmie Faust – The founder of Female Founders Rise on starting businesses by accident, the value of starting in your spare time, and why you should never wait for perfection.
You need to be able to share your vision with the world and get people to buy into that. You’ve got to be a great leader.
I’m not sure I ever decided to become a founder. I think it happened to me.
When I started my first business at 25 I never necessarily thought I wanted to have a business. It was of bit of an accident.
I sat next to the person who would become my first co-founder at an awards dinner. We decided, there and then, to set up a business. I think we had it registered and up and running a few days later.
I learned when I was 25 that I absolutely love being an entrepreneur. There are loads of things I love about running a business.
Empathy is so important. We need that to better understand our clients, our suppliers, our investors, and our customers.
When I first became a ‘founder’ that word didn’t really exist. I didn’t even think of myself as a business owner. I was just running a business.
After a short stint working for a corporate for about six weeks after I sold my business, I realised that I am an entrepreneur at heart and that’s probably what I’m always going to do.
I’ve run multiple businesses now. I think about six or seven.
The ability to get stuff done stands out to me. Being proactive is so important because you need to be able to execute and consistently be delivering on your goals and whatever you commit to.
I really like the idea of a side hustle. You don’t need to go all in, quit your job and throw everything into an idea. There’s a huge amount that you can do on the side to make sure that that idea is wanted and needed. Speak to potential customers to check that your idea is something that people will pay for and that there is a viable business.
Female Founders Rise was also an accidental business. It was a side project that was keeping me busy while I was getting better from not being very well. It totally blew up and now has become my full-time job.
I set up a LinkedIn page, created a Google form, and just said, “I’m setting up a community. If you want to come along, sign up here.” That’s kind of how it snowballed.
With no real costs, I was able to just set up something that showed me that there was need, that there was traction, and that this idea was something that could come to life.
Don’t be waiting for perfection. Don’t be waiting to launch this big thing that’s perfect. You can start tomorrow and take a small action which will start you on that journey to becoming a founder.
I personally wouldn’t go full time on my business idea until I knew that I had the funds to pay myself and to have some kind of runway.
Female Founders Rise was a passion project until I started getting sponsorship and I could see that there was the revenue to sustain a small salary for myself and growth for the team.
My biggest barrier is probably time. I’ve got four children, and obviously children take up a lot of work. Just being a mum means there’s a lot going on and trying to juggle that, maintaining my own wellbeing, and trying to grow my business are three things I’m trying to constantly keep in balance.
I was ill in the past from overdoing it. I burnt out really badly.
It would be great if all businesses would look to diversify the suppliers that they use and make sure that they’re using women-led and other underrepresented founders to buy from.
I personally only invest in female founders at the moment, until the balance is more equal.
Lots of people obviously don’t have the finances to invest in founders, but what they can do is they can buy their products, they can hire their services. They can make sure that they’re diversifying their supplier list.
We should champion women in business. Be there as a support, celebrate their wins, share their posts on LinkedIn, or whatever it might be. Showing female founders that you’re there and that you’re a supporter makes a massive difference.
