Start With A Win - From Start-Up to Seven Figures: A Conversation with Lindsay Pinchuk

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

Lindsay Pinchuk is a former high-powered magazine publishing executive turned business owner and leader.  She is the founder of Bump Club and Beyond --- a community of resources, support, and educational tools for millions of parents and parents-to-be across the country.  In year one, she turned a profit, and then grew her company to a 7-figure revenue each year and her community to over 3 million users. Less than a decade later, she led her company through the acquisition of a large agency holding company.Lindsay shares about the origins of Bump Club and Beyond, which began out of her need for community and resources as an expectant mother. Through the organic promotion of prenatal workouts, shopping events and workshops, the community continued to grow and expand. Soon, Lindsay left her job in Corporate America and took the company national and partnered with major brands, growing into a 7-figure company. And, after nine years, she sold her very successful company and stayed on to run Bump Club. In 2021, she made the decision to leave Bump Club and Beyond and now she owns and runs Lindsay Pinchuk Marketing & Consulting where she helps female solo entrepreneurs and large female-founded brands through coaching, consulting and courses. Through her transition from the corporate world to becoming an entrepreneur, Lindsay took a couple key principles with her: networking and the sales process. She shares with Adam how she took these skills that she had learned as a magazine sales executive and plugged them directly into her new endeavor. Lindsay also talks about the importance of being willing to ask for help. And she gives listeners some practical ways to be creative in getting help as a beginning entrepreneur with a small amount of revenue. And to round out the episode, Lindsay shares the best leadership lesson she has learned is to know when to say no and to be able to actually say no when it’s not the right opportunity or the best place to spend your time.Episode Links:Lindsay Pinchuk Marketing & ConsultingDear FoundHer podcasthttps://www.instagram.com/lindsaypinchuk/Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://twitter.com/AdamContosCEOhttps://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/Join the Leadership Factory and get early access to courses and exclusive content from Adam!

Welcome to Start With A Win, where we give you the tools and lessons you need to create business and personal success. Are you ready? Let's do this. Coming to you from Brand Viva Media Studios, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. How you doing? Hey, I'm doing so good. Right on. The springtime is here. It is here.

I know. I love the spring. It's beautiful outside. I spent the weekend staining a fence, you know, out in the sun. That sounds like a lot of fun, buddy. Well, you know, when you do it for someone you love, it makes it worthwhile. There you go. And then you sit there in the afternoon going, wow, what a beautiful fence.

Yeah, look how this fence looks brand new. Awesome. We have an amazing show today. We do have an amazing show today. Our guest is so cool, has an amazing concept. I love it. Can you bring her on? Yes.

All right, so we got Lindsay on here today, Lindsay Pinchuk. She's a former high-powered magazine publisher, executive, turned business owner and leader. So she's got a lot of knowledge for us. And she's the founder of Bump Club and Beyond, a community of resources, support, and education tools for millions of parents and parents-to-be across the country. So, Lindsay, welcome to Start with a Win. Thanks so much for having me. It's so good to be here. Lindsay, it's great to see you. This is a really cool concept because, I mean, as a parent, I mean, it's the information, the help, the networking, things like that that you provide is truly incredible. But I want to take a step back into, I mean, you're a high-powered magazine

executive. Tell us your story. Everybody wants to know, okay, you went from this great corporate career to entrepreneur, starting to help people in mass. Tell us your story. Yeah, of course. So funny thing is I loved my job. I mean, really and truly, I loved my corporate career in magazine ad sales. I was hired by the Hearst Corporation at age 23 to be an account executive. I was the youngest one on the floor and I loved every minute of it. And for 10 years, I created and sold advertising sales plans and programs and integrated marketing programs to Fortune 500 companies. I was traveling all over the country. It was amazing. I was working for brands like Redbook and Good Housekeeping. And I had just an amazing team around me. It was

awesome. So there were no issues with that. And then I got pregnant and it was planned. There was no issues with that either. And I very easily could have gone about my life and continued working in ad sales. But when I got pregnant, we were living in Chicago. We still do. We live in the suburbs and we're transplants to Chicago. And I had no support. I had no community. And at the time, none of my closest friends were pregnant. We all have fifth graders. So I was no community. And at the time, none of my closest friends were pregnant. We all have fifth graders. So I was just first. And I said to my husband, like, there's nowhere for me to find pregnant people. I mean, once I have this baby, sure, but like, there's nothing. So I said, there has to be some kind of business in this. And I started hosting events, like literally like

prenatal workout, a shopping event at a maternity store. Then people were like, what's next? What's next? We started bringing in speakers. You have to remember, this was before like social media. This was before Facebook had business pages. When I told people I was hosting this first event, it was like I sent an email to everyone I knew. I put it on my LinkedIn. I put it on my personal Facebook and that was it. And we had 50 people show up to each of the first two events. There was clearly a need for in-person community at the time. Meetup was a thing, but it was kind of hokey and people were getting lost on message boards. And as an expectant parent, I didn't want to get lost on the message board. So I ended up starting this community simply by showing up and being pregnant.

And we grew alongside social media. We grew alongside the needs of our community, along my needs as I had my baby. We expanded and I started hosting events for moms. And after I had my daughter, I made the decision to not go back into corporate America. There had been some changes on the team at Good Housekeeping at the time. And I just felt like if there was a time, that was it. And the worst that would happen was that it wouldn't work out and I would go back and that's fine. So I ended up leaving corporate America and pursuing this full time with the goal that the first year I would pay my nanny. We had a part-time nanny. I exceeded that goal and really and truly put my heart and soul into building this community. And as I built

the community, it became a business. And I started getting sponsors and people were buying tickets in masses to our events. And people were reaching out to me to bring our events to other parts of the country. We started working with brands like Nordstrom and Target, The Honest Company, every stroller and car seat brand out there. I didn't pay for a thing for my kids. It was pretty amazing. And then, you know, social media obviously made it so that we needed to be more digital. So we were doing content online. We were doing webinars. I mean, we really, really grew. And nine years later, I was approached by three different entities to sell my company. And I ended up leading our acquisition to a large agency holding company in 2019, where

I went and worked for two and a half years. And last summer in 2021, I ended up making the decision to exit. And now I am starting all over building a community for female founders. I love that. Okay. So what's the name? Have you named the new community yet? Yeah. So I have a podcast called Dear Found Her. And so online, you can find the Dear Found Her Facebook community and the Dear Found Her podcast. My company is Lindsay Pinchuk Marketing and Consulting. And I'm helping both single individual solopreneurs and large female-founded brands,

both coaching and consulting, on growing their own communities and monetizing them. This was a brand. Bump Club was a brand. I grew to be seven figures. And I was sharing with someone the other day that, not to sound dense, I'm not like that.

I don't want to paint myself in that light not like that. Like I, I'm, I'm not like, I don't want to paint myself in that light, but you know, in the beginning of bump club, I was a brand new mom. I had two kids in three years. I was running this company. I was busting my butt because that's just what I do. And in like the fourth year, my husband said something to me at the end of the year. And he's like, do you even know how much you made this year? And I didn't. And I, we, I like called the bookkeeper. I was like, can you like print me a P&L? And then I was like, holy shit. Like, this is like real. Like we were, we were just under seven figures and I was, and I had staff at the time and that's when I hired a CMO and, or, you know, and to help me out,

but our COO, sorry. But so, I mean, it was, it was a wild ride and it's been so much fun. Right on. Well, congratulations. First of all. I love hearing the successes of entrepreneurs. And I mean, especially somebody who comes from the corporate world and is an entrepreneur. To you, somebody who came from the corporate world and is an entrepreneur, it's so amazing to experience this. And this is a big part of what we discuss on this show is some of the principles and the traits to get you there. The whole what got you here won't get you there philosophy. So what did you, give me two or three or even just one or two things that you took from the corporate world to introduce into your entrepreneurial space? Because you wiped the

slate clean except for everything that's up here in your head and what's in your heart. What did you take from one to the next? I think there are two big things that I took. The first thing was the ability and the wherewithal to network, really and truly. I mean, I was in sales, so I was networking all the time. At Hearst, I had an expense account that many would be jealous of, and I had to take people out all the time and entertain them. And the power of not only networking, but also understanding your customer and really putting your clients and your customers first were really, really important in terms of bringing that to a new business. Because all I did when I started a new business was network. I mean, that's what that those skills were, why I was able to pick up the phone and call Britax and say, Hey,

I have this great, you know, these events in Chicago, your car seat needs to be there. Within two weeks, we had a meeting and they were sponsoring my events. They still work with bump clubs. So, you know, that was really a big part of it. And then the second thing was the sales process. So, you know, I worked for a magazine and in a magazine, the revenue model is both the circulation, obviously, but that's very small. And then the advertising. And I was able to bring that over to Bump Club and the circulation in Bump Club was the ticket sales and the people who were coming. And the advertising were the sponsorships and the ads that were running. We didn't really take ads for our website, but we had major, major sponsors that were

sponsoring events and then paying us to create activations for them specifically that we would then bring our audience and community to. So without the knowledge of the sales process, I mean, I was translating, transferring, sorry, exactly what I was doing at Hearst over to my new company just for baby and kids and online. Awesome. I guess the old adage,

nothing happens until somebody closes a deal is true, especially when you're starting your own company, right? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I mean, when I started my own company, I'm thinking about it like, it was funny because when I started Bump Club, I had no plan. In terms of closing a deal, I think I very vividly remember the first deal I closed with Bump Club and that was Britax. But you use those deals to build bigger deals. So yeah, I guess so. Cool. All right. So networking and then the sales process.

But it took some humility in your leadership in that process, I'm sure, going from you're in a corporate entity. You have this incredible support structure. You talked about your expense account, things of that nature. And now it's just you by yourself. And you're going, wait a sec. You're doing everything from taking out the trash to making the phone calls to picking nature. And now it's just you by yourself. And you're going, wait a sec, you know, you're, you're doing everything from taking out the trash to making the phone calls, to picking up the phone, to saying, I need some marketing. And you're going, I need some marketing. Well, you got to

hold up the mirror and go, that means you have to go do the marketing. You know, how did you adapt that humility of going from that, that big corporate machine to you and understand time to go. You really have to know when to ask for help. And help does not mean hiring someone full-time at six figures. There are a lot of different creative ways to get help. My very first employee was someone who came to me. She was fresh out of grad school. She had gone to summer camp her whole life, so she had never had a job. And we got connected through my network. And she said, I just need some experience. And I started paying her hourly. Honestly, she ran errands for me. I was a new mom. I didn't have time to bring our stuff to events to set them up. She would do that for me. From there, her role

with me grew. She was with me for six or seven years and she ended up being my director of events. And then the other person that I hired initially was I hired someone, I hired an accountant initially to help me just with all of the filing of my taxes and incorporating my business. And I just kind of am of the mindset that when you cannot do something, if it's really taking you so much long, just it's really taking you so much long, just find someone to help you do it. Ask someone for help. Barter if you need to, if you don't have the money. You know, there are so many different ways as an entrepreneur that you can be scrappy. And other entrepreneurs know that they've been there too. And it will come back to them. It will come back to you. You'll pay it forward later. I'm paying it forward now.

And that's fine. Like, it's totally fine. You just, you don't have to think that, you don't have to be in the mindset that you have to have a whole team when you're first starting to answer your question. And I was real creative. I had a lot of 1099s.

I had a lot of moms who were working for me part-time that really just wanted to own something and to be a part of something. All of my first employees were customers of mine that then became brand ambassadors. I didn't pay them a dime at first. They got free events to Bump Club. They got swag. And then some of them became my employees later on. So you just have to be creative. That's really so cool to look at it from that perspective. And you're so good at making it clear and transparent

to everybody listening to this. Let me take you back to those early days and even some days now, because I mean, let's face it, you're starting another company. Sometimes as an entrepreneur, not sometimes, all the time, you realize that, okay, I'm an entrepreneur. I work 12 hours a day. I just don't know which 12 hours. We've all heard that adage. You sit down to have dinner at the end of the night. You're looking at your family or whatever, and you're spent. You're exhausted. It's not like you left the office and you said, okay, I'll deal with it tomorrow. You get to the dinner table and people go, how was your day? And you're like, I still have these things to do. How do you find the energy within yourself?

Because you're a pretty energetic person. You're driven. I can see it in your eyes. And I can hear it in your voice. And you're like, there's no slowing this girl down. I'm going after it. But you have a family. You have to have me time. Being an entrepreneur is, everybody says life balance.

I think that's a bunch of BS. It's life allocation of- Yeah, there's no balance. Exactly. I mean, what do you have to say to everybody when they go, corporate job, entrepreneur? I mean, entrepreneur is hard. Corporate job's hard, but there are different kinds of difficult.

What comes to mind? I mean, really and truly, I prefer, I like being an entrepreneur because I like working for myself. And if I'm in a work, I want it an entrepreneur because I like working for myself. And if I'm in a work, I, I want it to be for me and on my time. That's what, like, I always say the irony of the situation is I for sure worked so much more and traveled more eventually, um, with bump club than I did at the Hearst corporation, but it was on my time and I got to decide when I was going or who was coming with me. You know. As my kids got older, sometimes

my family would come, which was amazing. But in terms of how do I do that and how do I make that happen, it's really important to point out to anyone who's listening who's a parent that you have to ask for help and you have to rely on your village. I would not be able to do this without the help that I have. I have always, always, always had a no-pair. It's something I'm very transparent about since we had a part-time nanny the first two years and then I got a no-pair. A lot of people have this misconception that having a no-pair because of their living

is very, very expensive. It's actually one of the most efficient forms of childcare out there and it's flexible childcare. So I have this woman, it's been different women. We've had 10 girls under the age of 26, probably living in my house under the last eight to 10 years. They help me with everything with my kids,

but they help me with my kids so that when I'm done with work, I can be present with my kids. And I would not have been able to do any of this, both Bump Club or Dear Founder or Lindsay Pinchuk Marketing and Consulting without these girls who have become like family to my family. Between them and my husband's support, who he has been

an incredible support to me in making this decision. And also my parents, my family, they don't live in town, but they have always been so supportive. And like my village, right? I mean, like if I have an issue, I call one of my kids' friends and I'm like, Hey, I have this interview. Can you grab my daughter or whatever it might be? And you have to be able to ask for help so that you can spend time with your kids when you're, when you're done at the end of the day. That's a huge leadership lesson. I mean, it's just not a self-preservation lesson. That is a leadership lesson because when you, when you translate that, you know, be willing to ask for help throughout your organization, I mean, and you had an amazing exit.

Congratulations on that. Thank you. But you look back and you go, wait a sec. I'm looking for what's next. these different leadership lessons in that process of saying no to things so you can say yes to other things, of delegating appropriate, how much is that time worth to me versus how much is my time worth to other things? Just some of those questions like that. So let's talk about your next venture and the leadership lessons you're taking forward with you, because that's really what your next venture is about, is building those women

leaders, those women founder leaders. And correct me if I'm wrong on that, but that's my understanding of the new organization. What leadership lessons are you taking forward into that? And what truly do you want people to know about the new venture? The number one thing is to know when to say no and to be able to say no. Early on with Bump Club, I felt like I had to say yes to everything. I was kind of like this, like darling new startup in Chicago and I was invited to things and, you know, and I would go and then they wouldn't always be,

it wouldn't always, not that it always has to be something that gives back to you, but it just wouldn't be a fit or it would be a waste of time. And I got really good at realizing where I needed to spend my time. And a lot of that was building my business, not showing up at all of these events just to show my face. With this new business and also over the last two years with the pandemic and everything that has happened, I very much understand what is

important in life and my priorities. And that is my family first. And so I know when to say no. And I'm not going to always say yes to every little thing. And truthfully, I'm not going to say yes to a lot. I really have trimmed the fat on a lot of that. And that is really what I want to instill and empower in the women who follow me and the women who turn to me for advice to not feel the pressure all the time. Unless you really are curing cancer, I am not. I am not a doctor. I am not saving lives. And if it has to wait till tomorrow, it's okay. So that is really the big lesson. And then the second part of your question was, what do I want people to know? I want people to know that they can do it. And I want to empower people to make the decision to move forward with whatever it is that they want to do in terms of starting a business.

I think a lot of us hold back because we wait for perfection and we say the time is not right, or I'm going to have a baby, or my kid is starting camp. There is never a right time for any of this, whether you're a male or a female. And so my whole notion is really to just do it. Just get your shit out there and do it. It's not going to be perfect. It's going to change. It's going to change over time. There's going to be numerous iterations of what you're doing. I've already had two or three pivots and changes since August. It hasn't even been a year. But at the end of the day, I want to help other female founders find the success that I found. And if that means sharing my lessons or helping them one-on-one or them taking a class, I want to save them the time.

It took me probably, like I said in the beginning of this interview, five years, right? Before four or five years before I was like, oh my God, I have like this actual viable business. I don't want other people to go through that. I want people to know from the start, save those five years and really be gung-ho from the start. Because I think had I made other decisions early on, I would have been able to grow and sell my business quicker.

Awesome. You know, learning from your lessons, and that's truly what we build these leadership networks for, is to learn from the lessons of others. I call it standing on the shoulders of giants. You bring together great minds and then you learn from those and lift yourself up because everybody's lifting up together. It's incredible. And we get to reach down and help others during the process. Where can we find your new business? Where can people check you out online and make sure they connect with you? Yes, you can find me on Instagram at Lindsay Pinchuk. It is me answering. I don't have a virtual assistant that really like, there's nothing that makes me more annoyed than that when I get a like an automated response from someone I think I'm talking to. So it is me. I love to converse there. Please follow me there and reach out. You can also find me at lindsaypinchuk.com and you can listen to my podcast every Tuesday and Thursday,

wherever you listen to podcasts. It's Dear Found Her, Dear Found Her. And I had just some really amazing guests on the show and I have some great women coming up. And these are not just stories for females. I mean, every single person out there can benefit from the life lessons that these founders have shared. And a lot of us don't talk about the negatives, right? And that's really a narrative I'm trying to change is I want people to learn from my lessons. I am being transparent and I'm encouraging my guests to be transparent as well. Awesome. Make sure everybody you check out Lindsay online. You will have those addresses in the show notes as well. So Lindsay, thank you so much for being on here. You're such an

incredible entrepreneur, an amazing leader. You're changing people's lives and helping them realize what they can be. So thank you so much. I do have one more question for you that I ask everybody that's on the show. Lindsay, how do you start your day with a win? There are two things that I do to start my day with a win. First is before I go to bed the night before, I always look at my calendar and make sure I know and am prepared for everything that I have coming up. I don't like to wake up to surprises. And sometimes the morning can be a little hairy with my two kids.

So that is the number one thing that I do before bed every night. The other way I try to start my morning with a win is I really try to get off on the right foot with my kids in the morning, which is like no screaming about the brushing of the hair and like, you know, like the lunches and everything like that. I really try to make sure that we are all in a good place when we walk out the door. Hence why I have an au pair. She helps a lot with that because that way we all start our day on the right foot. Awesome. Lindsay Pinchuk, amazing human being, great leader, and incredible entrepreneur. Thank you for being on Start With A Win.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure. Hey, and thank you for listening to Start With A Win. For more great content, head over to adamcontos.com. We got a new site up looks beautiful and uh you can head over there and get information about what's going on uh leadership coaching i mean there's just a lot of great stuff happening over there so head over to adamcontos.com if you haven't already and until next time remember start with a win.