the bossbabe podcast - 326. Danielle’s Departure from Bossbabe + What’s Next

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

In case you haven’t seen the news on social media, we released a big announcement about some changes here at Bossbabe. After 5 years as co-founder, Danielle has made the decision to step down from her role at Bossbabe, and focus her energy and ambition in a different direction. This decision was made with the utmost care and love for all of you, our community. In this episode, I’m answering your most asked questions about how we arrived at this decision, if Danielle and I are still friends and what you can expect moving forward to this next chapter. We are so grateful for your continued support. HIGHLIGHTS Realizing we both wanted different things personally and for the business Every angle we explored to see what would be best for us moving forward What Danielle + Natalie were texting each other as they posted the news Changes + what is coming next for Bossbabe to help you create a freedom based business Templates I use to run every single thing in my life and business that I will be sharing with you FOLLOW bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie

A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own version of success. Hi everyone. Okay, I don't even know if we're going to post this. I've sat down and tried to write notes about it and I just keep getting tripped up because I feel like it is a really

hard thing to talk about. But as you may have seen, we put a post up on the Bosswave account and we announced Danielle's departure. So I'm just going to kick the podcast off with that announcement note because I'd really prefer the announcement to be in both of our words and just exactly how we want to communicate the message. So I'm going to read the announcement and then we can talk about it. So we posted last week, dear Boss Babe community, throughout the years, our commitment to you, our community has never wavered. You are the heartbeat of Boss Babe and have been the driving force behind every success and milestone we've achieved your dreams aspirations and journey have deeply influenced this company leaving a lasting impact on all of us however just

as life is a constant journey of growth and evolution so too are our passions and visions at the end of last year we took a reflective pause to align our community's needs with our own personal paths and with profound gratitude we realized it was time to make some changes and embrace the new adventures that await us. With that, we have bittersweet news to share. After five years as co-founder, Danielle has made the decision to step down from her role at Boss Babe and focus her energy and ambition in a different direction. Please know that this decision was made with the utmost care and love for all of you.

Our purpose has always been to empower and uplift and in order to continue doing so we must also honor the callings of our hearts. The best way to serve you and pursue our dreams is to venture forth on our own paths with gratitude for the achievement we have accomplished together. While Danielle sets off on an exciting new journey we remain so committed to our goals at Boss Babe. Natalie will lead Boss Babe's next chapter and you can expect exciting updates soon please join us in wishing danielle the best her influence will always be a part of boss babes dna and this brand community and our products would have never been the same without her contribution we are so grateful for your continued support so that's the official statement we put that out i'm sure listening to this podcast

you have noticed that there haven't been any podcasts from Danielle in quite a long time. Like I've said, this news isn't new to us. This news is something that has happened. You know, we've worked on it. We have gone those separate ways in business and we have been working on that. But like I said, there was reasons we didn't post it, couldn't post it, and it's just taken some time for us to figure out when is the right time for us to put that out there because it is quite hard having a public relationship

and a business that is tied to both of you. It's not the most simple. It's not like you just say, okay, let's do this and no one asks any questions. Of course they do. I will say, you know, there was no big drama. There was no big, huge fallout. There was no big thing like that. It was a case of us both starting to realize last year that we wanted to go in different directions, both personally and

with the business. And as co-founders, that's really challenging because we built this business to support where we want to be in life and our life and how we want this business to support where we want to be in life in our life and how we want the business to support our lives and up until last year it had been it was supporting us and in the ways in which we wanted to live our lives and we had a shared vision for the company not always there always being a bit of back and forth and we'd always found a way to meet in the middle and I would say last year we just realized, I do think we are in different places. I think we are starting to want different things from the business and that doesn't need to be wrong.

Neither of us needs to be wrong. No one needs to be made wrong in this situation. It's just a case of having some really uncomfortable conversations and being open to figuring out what's gonna happen next. It wasn't necessarily a linear conversation and decision on what was gonna happen next. It wasn't necessarily a linear conversation and decision on what was going to happen next. It wasn't very clear, okay, this is what's going to happen and we're going to move on like this. It really wasn't like that. It took quite a long

time for us to decide what would be right for us personally and for the business together. And we did take our time making that decision. We didn't rush into things. We slowed down and we just navigated the best we could. This was brand new to both of us. When we co-founded this company, I don't think either of us could have imagined how big it would get so fast. Like it really was like a rocket ship the way that Boss Babe took off. And I think, you know, it took a while for us to catch our breath we were on this rocket ship it was like a flying carpet ride and we were just following it and saying yes and saying yes to what our community wanted and what the business required of us and we just kept adapting and going and going and going and when your business is scaling that quickly you don't often have a lot

of time to step back and reflect I would say the first time that I got to step back and reflect was during my maternity leave. It was the first time that I'd really taken time off from the business. And when I stepped back and got a real chance to reflect during my maternity leave, it was a realization that I wanted to do things differently. And I do want to say, you know, this is no reflection on Danielle. I have so much love and respect for her. I always have. I always will. She is an incredible friend and businesswoman. So my choice of wanting to do things differently was really no reflection on her, but it was a personal thing. And I think, you know, I have shared many times before I had a challenging time during my postpartum period. In maternity leave, that's when things were, my identity was shifting. I didn't

know who I was, what I wanted. I came back a little bit too soon, to be honest. And I was struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety. And I wasn't really in a place to be even putting into words where I wanted to go with the business. We both were kind of feeling that. Danielle was exhausted like she took on the business while I was off and it was really exhausting so I know the two of us were just in a place where we were like okay we need to step back and just think about what it is that we want, what it is that we want to build because if we don't do that intentionally this business is going to keep scaling and scaling and scaling. And before we

know it, we might have built something that neither of us really want to run. And that wasn't what we wanted to do or build in our lives. So that's really what it was. And we realized, okay, we do have different paths. We're going to probably go in different directions. What does this look like? And we explored every angle, literally every single angle and played around with so many different ways of doing this and structuring this and who steps out or do we step out? You know, there was every possible thing you can imagine we played with and we tried on and we would see what would feel right and what would be the right move for our community, for our products, for our audience, for us individually, for our families. We really did try so many hats on in this decision. And so it ultimately ended up the way

it did. And like I said, this is not a new thing. And it's something that we finally are talking about. I will say it feels like a big weight off of my shoulders to have this out in the world. I'm sure Danielle feels exactly the same. The two of us were texting the morning of, we were like deciding on the time we were going to post it. The two of us felt so nervous just to put it out there because although we have the most incredible support of community along the way in these past few months we have had you know some comments and things and in the dms and on posts we'd put out that were just really uncomfortable and weren't necessarily the nicest and we both just felt really nervous like I didn't know how this was going to go was everyone going to comment saying they don't want to be part of

busbabe anymore because I'm running it was people going to comment saying they were disappointed in Danielle leaving like neither of us knew how this was going to go we really didn't and we hoped that it would go well the two of us were texting just sending like vomiting emojis and just like let's get it out there let's just brace let's hope for the best and it was like we both posted with our eyes like half open we were texting back and forth okay I think it's okay I think we're good. And I will say, I'm just, it makes me really emotional. I mean, this isn't new, but just putting it out there does make me super emotional because it's such a big shift, but to hear the response that you guys have had and the way that you've supported, I cannot tell you how much it

means to me. I care so deeply about Boss Babe and about our community and to feel like I have been welcomed in open arms with this new season truly means the world and if you're still listening to this podcast after the announcement I really just want to say thank you it means a lot and I don't take for granted what we have built and the community that we have at Boss Babe and like all big transitions it is is just nerve wracking. You really never know how it's going to go. And so I am very, very, very grateful that it has been so well received. So I just want to say thank you for that.

It is sad, but again, it's not new. So this is not something that me and Danielle are actively dealing with. I just want to put that out there. We have had time to process this to work on this to go in our own different directions to build new we have been having plenty time to do that so it's sad but it's not new we are doing great um let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform kajabi you know i've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating

pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash boss

babe in terms of Boss Babe so we will be going in a bit of a new direction I have been sharing this for a while part of where I really wanted to go and what I really wanted to start sharing and what was on my heart was a lot of how can I help women build freedom-based businesses I don't have a desire and by the way I am not whatever I say here is not what Danielle wanted I just want to put that out there what I share it doesn't mean she wanted or didn't want. This is just me personally. I'm only speaking from me, from my heart, from my side. I will never speak on behalf of her or share what her visions are. That is not my place. On my heart is I don't want to build a venture built company. You know, I don't really have intentions of selling Boss Babe. Again, not saying she does. I'm just, just want to preface

that. I want to build a freedom-based business. I want to build a business that allows me to have the freedom that I want to have in my life, whether that's my time, my location, my schedule, financial. I love to build more freedom into my life. I have always been obsessed with freedom. It's really important to me. And I feel like I've really been able to do that with Boss Babe. And part of what I want to do moving forward is teach other women to do the same thing. And a big part of how I've been able to do that is systems. I have systems for everything, you guys. Literally everything in my life has a system. I have an entire operating system for my life, for my business. And what I really want to bring into Boss Babe is more of that. I want to share with you what it really has looked like to build a freedom-based business,

to build a business that gives me what I'm looking for and gives me the kind of harmony that I want to have between my family, travel, business, growth, a relationship, all of it. I want to share that stuff. And so a big transition that is happening is our membership. The membership was the first product we ever launched. It's always been my favorite product. And I want to go all in. I want to go all in on our membership, the society, and I want to completely change the way that it's been done. I want the society, our membership to be the place you come to learn how to build a freedom-based

business and I don't just want to focus on content and community like curriculum and community I don't just want it to be talking head videos and a community you can tap into I literally want to give you every system I have whether that's a spreadsheet notion template um word documents presentation drafts social templates Like I literally want to give you templates for every single thing I use in my business. I used to run my business, run my teams. I want to give you templates for every single thing I use in my life. And have you be able to plug into that? Because what I find is when there's just too much curriculum, like talking head videos, and then you go away and do the work on your side, it takes a lot of time. And so often you're creating things from scratch. Whereas I have

templates that I'm literally using to run my business, whether it's the playbook I use to have my assistant coordinate my emails, my schedule, my calendar, all of that, or whether it's the playbook that I have my house manager run my entire house on, or the meeting slides that my team fill in every single Monday, or the scorecard that I run my entire company on and the metrics that I track. I just want to be a really open book. I'm sure you've noticed I've started to share a lot more in our revenue numbers, profit margins, issues that we've had in the company I've been really honest and transparent about. I want to continue being really open and honest and say, listen, if I've got the template, you can have it.

And I was thinking, you know, do I create a high ticket program? I thought this would initially be like a $10,000 high ticket, more like a mastermind thing. And people could come in and they get everything. And I just thought, you know what, I want this to be really accessible as well. And I just, I'm just going to put it all in the membership. So anyone that's currently a member of the society, when we launched this, which is going to be very soon, you're going to get grandfathered in and get given access to this product for free. Anyone who isn't a member, you'll be able to join. It's going to be double the price of what it is right now. It's still going to be an absolute steal. Like it's why I could easily be charging 10 times what I'm

actually charging. Maybe we will in future, but right now I just want to get this out there. I want you to be able to run with these templates because I know there's so many things, even like going viral on social media. So many people think that it's guesswork. It is not guesswork. There is a simple formula. I've been running this formula since even before I had Boss Babe. I did this for my product-based company before Boss Babe. I have been doing this for so long going viral is literally a formula and you can do it through a spreadsheet and I want to give you those spreadsheets I'm so committed to just being a full open book with you and going all in on the membership part of me thinks you know if we did that from the beginning would the business look different I feel

like it's easy we listen so much to our community and they were like teach us how to grow on Instagram like okay so here's an Instagram, teach us how to grow on Instagram. Like, okay, so here's an Instagram course. Teach us how to do the launches that you guys do. Okay, here's my launch course. Whereas I think, what if I just went all in on the society and if I won the launch course, I could have made it a little bit more expensive,

but I would have been able to continue building that community. That's kind of where my head's at now is, let me go all in on one thing and do it really, really, really well and see what happens so if you are not yet a member of society I really recommend that you join because you're going to kick yourself when what I'm launching actually comes out you're going to be like wait

I have to pay double the price now yes we will absolutely not be um reducing the price for anyone unless you are in the society we'll be sending you login codes you'll get in completely free but if you are not a member you will have to join at the new price so that's the new direction I mean there's so many other things I can share about the new direction we have some really really really really big things launching next year um maybe some stores that you're going to see us in I don't want to give too much away there's a lot coming but ultimately I just want to share and I I guess we will post this. I will publish this podcast episode. When I first started recording, I was like, I don't even know if we'll publish

this, but I feel like I just want to talk. I just want to come and address it. I am going to talk through a couple of questions. I got sent a lot of questions on Instagram. I'm going to answer those, but I ultimately just want to say I'm really, really grateful for everyone who has supported me and Danielle in this transition, me staying in Boss Babe and Danielle going and doing her new thing. I cannot tell you how much it means to me. It really, really does mean the world. I didn't know how this was going to go and I'm just grateful that you're still here and that you still want to be part of this community that does mean the world to me so with that let me answer a few of the most common questions that I did get sent in on my dms um one of them was I'm just relieved boss people still exist I was so scared it was the end it is not the end it's absolutely not the end I'm still

so committed to boss babe and our future together I have so many things planned and I just want to continue to make it better and better and better um someone said exciting new chapter will you be looking to expand the team again soon we are always hiring at Boss Babe really amazing a players and tech like typically that comes from us headhunting someone or us getting a an amazing job application or like a cold email from someone that we're like you are such an a player there's no way we can't not hire you you'll fit really well into the team that's generally how we've expanded the team we're really lucky that amazing talent comes to us and pitches themselves in

unique ways so that's kind of how it's going right now. Many, many, many people said, are you still friends? I would say this is the most common question. And to be honest, it's a question we've had all year long in all of our DMs, comments on all of our posts, all of the things. Danielle and I's relationship changed when I moved to Austin. Like we used to literally live together and then we lived pretty much on the same street, right? Like we were just at each other's houses constantly. It has changed. Like it does just does when you are in a completely different state and you don't see each other as often. It doesn't mean that there was any drama. It just means like for me, I've been in a different stage of my life. Like I moved to Austin. I had a baby and I was just with my baby. Like I wasn't really traveling.

I wasn't really leaving Austin. I was just completely in my baby bubble and not sleeping. So definitely not socializing and, you know, had so many unread messages and missed calls from friends. Like that's just the season I was in. Any of you who are moms will get it. Like being a new mom for me just wasn't the most social time. Like I really was just in survival mode. Like, holy shit. Like I am now a mom. I'm not really sleeping. I'm figuring out like how to do this business thing and be as present as I can with my baby. Cause I really, really do love spending every waking minute with her. Um, so it just changed. And then also our personal and our business relationships

were very intertwined. I'm not going to say that the, I don't want to call it a split, but like us going our separate ways in business wasn't hard. And I'm sure she would say the exact same thing. It has been devastating, honestly. Like we worked so closely together. It's just hard. And at the same time, I class Danielle as someone like family to me. I have, and I always will care about her. I wish her nothing but the best. I've seen some of the things that she's launching and I just think it's absolutely incredible. And she's going to become a mom soon too. And I really genuinely could not be more happy for her. I think it's absolutely incredible. So there's really no drama to be had here. I don't have a single bad word to say about her, nor will I. If you spoke to me private

you'll know the same thing. I care about her so much and there's really no tea here to be spilled. A few people said, how does it feel to run Boss Babe now on your own? And how does it feel being able to do things a hundred percent your own way now? Um, do you know what? It feels great, but it didn't feel great in the beginning. I want to be totally honest with you. It was hard in the beginning because I'd been off on maternity leave them. When I came back, we both like Danielle was exhausted. We both had to take a lot of time to realign. So we just kind of put the business on ice to be honest with you and just figure out what we wanted to do we knew we had to step back and in order to move forward that's just how it had to be and I've shared bits of that already in my newsletter like I've been really transparent about things in business being really hard

towards the end of last year and at the beginning of this year. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. Things have been hard. And I would say things really took a turn in the last few months and things feel really, really good now. I feel like I'm in an amazing place. I'm really enjoying having the freedom to decide how I want it to go, like really execute my own vision in Boss Babe. You know, when you have a co-founder, it's great when both of your visions align, but but if not you do have to find compromises and the right thing for the business and for you guys individually whereas running it on my own I feel like I can be super clear on where I want to go and I feel really good and I feel really happy so yeah I do feel really good someone else said will Danielle remain in the influencer school content or will everything be revamped any content that you have currently with Danielle in you'll still have access to that she has also been doing coaching calls still in the society the past few months she will be

transitioning out of there now but we are not taking any of Danielle's content away from you guys any content moving forward I'll be doing on my own doesn't mean she won't come and do something in the future no like totally open to that. I'm sure she is too. That's just not where we're at right now. But she will still remain in any content that you have previously purchased. All of her existing podcast episodes are still here. They're not going anywhere.

So if you ever want to go back and listen to those, you absolutely can. And those were kind of the main questions. Everyone's like looking for tea. And I'm like like there just isn't any like you know it's just hard having a public relationship is really challenging and I think we have both just done the absolute best we can during this this transition phase I know we both have a lot of compassion for each other in what we have navigated it has just been a challenge it was a business or is a business that grew exceptionally fast and we both came up for air and we're like okay let's decide where we go from here so this is where we are and I feel really excited about where we're going I'm really really grateful for all of your support I hope you know that I'm really excited about what's coming next. I have some really big things

planned and I'm sure you guys will continue to support Danielle just as I will. So yeah, thank you for listening. I will publish this. It was less, maybe it was super word vomity. I feel like it went better than I thought it was going to go. I was like, Oh God, am I just going to get on there and cry? Am I going to just like word vomit? Like what is actually going to happen? I don't know, but I did want to address it because I know Danielle has been a really big part of this podcast. Um, so yeah, thanks for listening to my spiel and we will continue and resume as normal. you