How A Business Coach Can Help You Unlock Your Potential As A Founder

Do you feel like your business is stuck in a rut? Maybe you're making some progress, but not as much as you would like. Or maybe you've plateaued and don't know how to move forward. If this sounds familiar, it might be time to find someone who can help guide your process. A business coach will work with entrepreneurs on refining their vision for the future, improving current processes, and providing accountability.

Selfmade, Brit + Co's program for female founders, provides an opportunity for entrepreneurs to build their businesses through coaching and curriculum...designed specifically with women in mind.

To better understand how this experience works, we looked behind the curtain and got up close and personal with coaches from our most recent cohort. Taylor Dowd, Selfmade's Program Manager, noted that the coaches are a huge part of Selfmade's magic.

"It’s important that I give major recognition and appreciation to our Selfmade coaching team," Taylor said. "Niki Shamdasani, Bex Morley, Ashley Smith, and Ana Pischl have all made such a positive impact on the 350 women that were a part of our most current cohort. I was lucky enough to be a part of every accountability pod and coaching session, thus seeing the growth that both our students and coaches experienced. I got to witness everything from the raw, vulnerable feelings that these women experience while building the business of their dreams to many just as moving moments of celebration and cheers." Now on to the coaches' perspectives! We interviewed them on all things entrepreneurship and Selfmade: how they've found success personally as entrepreneurs, their advice for aspiring female founders, and standout moments from Selfmade's class of Fall 2021.

What To Expect From A Business Coach In Brit + Co's Selfmade Program

Ana Pischl is a Digital Product Strategist with eight years of experience working and consulting for various startups as a Product Manager. Her sweet spot is building 0 to 1, with an obsession with user experience and data. Her career throughline is connection. As a first-generation American, she has always been curious about systems, how to break into them, and, ultimately, provide others the opportunity to do so as well. As a result, she’s impacted people’s lives through technology alongside some brilliant teammates. Currently, she’s helping women (2,400 and counting) launch businesses of their own through Selfmade. In the past, she’s helped people move in the pursuit of their dreams and unlocked $20MM+ in revenue at Zeus, a YC company; generated $10MM+ in income for housekeepers at Fairy (acquired by Postmates); and democratized access to jobs for thousands of college students at her startup Kubby and as a founding team member at Leap (acquired by Facebook).

What brought me to coaching: First, I want to make starting and growing your business approachable and achievable for as many women as possible. While that starts with learning, it ends with action. So often, founders give up too early because they don’t know the steps, get lost in their many ideas, or don’t have the confidence to follow through. I’m here to help give founders a gentle nudge in the right direction and breakthrough anything holding them back. Secondly, my favorite part of working at Selfmade is connecting with our entrepreneurs. I love getting to know each of the founders that comes through our program. I feel really humbled and fortunate to help so many founders. They inspire me every day.

Strategies I recommend: Depending on the situation, I’ll pull in different strategies, from finding the nugget of a brilliant idea to fueling growth through partnerships and ads. The Selfmade curriculum covers everything from A to Z, but I can go deeper with individual entrepreneurs in one-on-one or group sessions. The lessons I keep coming back to are: (1) Setting up strong business foundations: learning to empathize and learn from your users, design thinking, and setting up your business fundamentals. (2) Learning from the world around you: talking to your users to validate your ideas and cut through the noise in your head. Putting your ideas into the world to get feedback. Focusing on not just your idea, but releasing some control and seeing what the world does with it. (3) Mindset matters: seeing where we have limiting beliefs and how we might be able to identify them and move past them. (4) Connecting and networking: Oftentimes, I’ll offer to introduce the founder to someone I think would be a mutually beneficial connection at the end of my calls. Having people around you that can help as mentors, friends, and partners goes a long way. (5) Lastly, how to sell as a non-sales person. This is always a tricky thing. But if we break it down, you have a business that provides value to people. Why wouldn’t you want to shout that from the rooftops? Why play small when you can have a big impact on people’s lives?

My most memorable Selfmade moment: My favorite coaching sessions are when others participate and offer each other feedback, encouragement, and support that extends far beyond what I alone can give someone. The most memorable parts of Selfmade are the connections you make. I admire the founders that show up consistently for themselves and others.

My advice for female entrepreneurs: The best learning you can do is take action. Put your ideas into the world and see what they can become. It’s really a beautiful thing. My second piece of advice is to remember that you CAN do it. One of my favorite quotes is: “Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, and you can influence it...once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Niki Shamdasani is the co-founder of Sani, a lifestyle apparel brand inspired by South Asian culture. She also teaches design thinking to organizations ranging from PRX to UNC-Chapel Hill's Hussman School of Journalism. Before Sani, Niki was on the Program and Investments team of Matter, a startup accelerator and venture capital firm in San Francisco and New York. She graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2015.

What brought me to coaching: I have always valued the coaching I've received from others, so when I was first asked to help coach some student startup teams at UNC a few years ago, I was excited to finally be able to pay it forward. That's why I've continued to coach, including now through Selfmade. Everyone has to make their own mistakes, but if I can help people avoid making a few of my mistakes, and if I can be a thought partner for them, my journey as a business owner is even more worth it.

Strategies I recommend: The strategies I provide are around mindset and tactics. When it comes to mindset, I want the people I work with to become really comfortable with constantly changing and ambiguity. I also want them to have a bias towards action. Taken together, I want people to find ways to take action even when there isn't a clear path forward. It's important to test and refine. I also provide tactical advice around building a business, whether that's figuring out where to build your website or how to get started on TikTok.

My most memorable Selfmade moment: I will never forget a Selfmade student that came into the program with a cupcake business. She saw a fair amount of success with it, but she didn't feel she was solving a problem or need and thought she had to find a different business that did. There was one session when my entire pod group helped her brainstorm what gap she was filling. Some talked about how baked goods were an expression of love, but that they didn't have the time to bake themselves, others talked about how getting baked goods for themselves was a form of self-care. Hearing everyone express so many reasons they would want a business like hers to exist made a clearly visible impact on her. The last time I talked to her, she was still working on this cupcake business with more energy than ever!

My advice for female entrepreneurs: Never be the one to say no to yourself. Don't hold yourself back from reaching out to a potential customer, investor, or partner. Don't hold yourself back from raising your rates when the time is right, don't hold yourself back from that business expansion that feels scary. I have to tell myself whenever I preemptively decide not to send that email or make a call because I think I could get a no. Everyone will hear no's, but let that come from the other side. You never know when you might get a yes that you never dreamed of.

Bex Morley is a freelance illustrator and pattern designer who has sold and licensed her designs to well-known fabric, stationery, and home decor manufacturers worldwide. She is also a business coach and creative cheerleader who loves to help others find their own voice and get clarity on their business goals. Before working as an artist, she launched a successful jam business, manufacturing and selling to local retailers.

What brought me to coaching: I have always enjoyed analyzing how things work and helping people realize their full potential in life. I think I’ve always just done that automatically, so I didn’t think about using those abilities in any formal way. Gradually over the past few years, more and more different people kept telling me that I should teach or coach. I didn’t think about it much to start with, but eventually, I started to listen to the many voices that were nudging (and lovingly pushing) me in this direction. Once I decided to become a coach, I started to talk to people about my intentions, and it seemed that opportunities just kept presenting themselves to me. I said yes to those who led me in the right direction, so here I am. It’s one of the most natural and fulfilling things I have ever done.

Strategies I recommend: I have discovered that I’m very good at breaking down tricky concepts and putting them into easily understandable frameworks, which helps me explain things to people who want to understand things quickly. I encourage everyone to know the purpose behind doing something, rather than blindly following directions; to celebrate their differences and be authentic to themselves, because that is their superpower; and to have the courage to do scary things to gain confidence (rather than waiting for the confidence to happen first - because it won't). I also like to inject humor into coaching when appropriate because business doesn’t have to be dull and serious, and terrifying all the time. It can be creative, fun, and exciting! This can really help shake up people’s perceptions of what they’re capable of and change those self-limiting beliefs.

My most memorable Selfmade moment: I’ve been blown away by how smart, supportive, and inspiring the women taking the Selfmade course have been. I have developed so many valuable relationships over this cohort, and I know that many students have formed firm friendships that will continue going forwards. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to connect with this fabulous group of women. Some of the biggest takeaways in my pod were: keep testing your ideas; don’t wait until you feel confident to take action; done is better than perfect; you won’t know until you try.

My advice for female entrepreneurs: (1) You are capable of way more than you realize, so keep challenging those self-limiting beliefs. (2) You haven’t failed until you stop trying. Everything else was just a test. (3) It is not your job to make other people feel comfortable.

Having spent ten years in medical device sales and three years coaching C-Suite executives from LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, and more, Ashley Smith's passion for communications has only increased over the years. Her awareness for voices, heard and unheard, is keen, and her heart extends to women who have conformed to societal expectations, which have crippled their ability to strive for excellence over perfection. From corporate leadership development to shelters for underprivileged women, Ashley and her team are building a strong foundation in what it means to be self-confident so all women can unleash their greatest potential and believe in the power of SHE.

What brought me to coaching: I've been a global communications coach with Own the Room coaching C-Suite executives from LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, and more. When I took the Selfmade course myself for the non-profit I founded, I found a community of like-minded women that I wanted to surround myself with regularly. So it was only natural to share my passion for coaching with my Selfmade sisters. When the opportunity presented itself, you better believe I accepted with gratitude!

Strategies I recommend: My approach to coaching is a blend of mindset and communication. I want to build a foundation of self-confidence in women so they can clearly, concisely, and effectively communicate what they need and deserve, whether it's in business or life in general.

My most memorable Selfmade moment: My biggest breakthrough was when I received this message from an individual within Selfmade, whom I'll keep anonymous. "Ashley, I don't want to take too much of your time, but I NEED to reiterate, you totally turned my world around. In the last 24 hours, I restarted my offline website, rewrote the bio and purpose statement, and wrote a blog entry in my own voice. I'm no longer consumed with making sure I explain every detail so I can't be thought of as a fraud. Instead, I'm recognizing I know just a little bit more than my reader, and my own unique voice makes my topics engaging!

My advice for female entrepreneurs: No one will ever believe in your dreams more than you do, so don't wait around for someone else to bring them to life for you.

Feeling inspired to find a coach? Enrollment for the next Selfmade cohort begins in the Spring of 2022. Until then, join the waitlist to stay up to date on all things entrepreneurship and announcements regarding the next wave of Selfmade.

Lead photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash.