the bossbabe podcast - 82. How to Raise Enough Money to Launch Your Business

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

We’re joined by Suneera Madhani, Founder and CEO of Fattmerchant, a payment processing platform that has been dubbed the ‘Netflix’ of the credit card processing world by Fast Company. Suneera was named the ‘The Most Influential Woman in Payments' by Payment Source and has also been featured in Forbes, Fortune, INC Magazine, Huffington Post, and multiple high-profile publications. With over $5 billion in payments processed to date, it’s easy to focus on Sunnera’s success but like any entrepreneur knows, the road to success is never easy. Ridiculed and underestimated as a minority woman, Suneera takes us behind-the-scenes of her epic journey to becoming the powerhouse that she is today. From how she bootstrapped her business to raising over $20 million in venture capital, Suneera is sharing it all on The BossBabe Podcast.  Get that glowy, dewy skin for yourself. Learn more and take the quiz to find your ultimate Glossier skincare routine. Plus, all new customers will get 10% off their first order on glossier.com/podcast/BOSSBABE

I have no background in technology. I just know this customer. I know the pain points they have and I know what I want to solve for them. There's nobody that cares about your company like you and that's the end of it. There's never going to be that. The biggest lesson that I have is your values need to align and if something doesn't feel right in your gut, you're probably right. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis, CEO of Boss Babe and your host for this week's episode.

This week, I'm interviewing Sunira Madani and I just know you're going to finish listening to this episode feeling so inspired and capable of achieving absolutely anything. Sunira is the founder and CEO of Fat Merchant. She's a payments and technology innovator who has catapulted her business idea from a startup to processing over five billion dollars in payments, completely disrupting the payments ecosystem and being labeled by Fast Company as the Netflix of credit card processing. In this interview, we dive into so many different things discussing Suneera's success in raising $20 million in venture capital, as well as running a company with over 100 employees. We also talk about motherhood, organization

and being disciplined. You already know I don't love the term balance. I really prefer harmony and I love to find out from mum's CEOs how they manage their time. I've worked with a lot of women over the years and I know one thing for sure, mums manage their time and productivity better than anyone else ever. So I love to get the tips and tricks and this conversation seriously delivered on all of that and more. You're going to love listening to Sanira's story as well as the actionable tips and tricks she shared along the way so as always take a screenshot share your biggest takeaways on Instagram and tag me at I am Natalie and at bossbabe.inc because we'd love to share it this podcast is brought to you by Glossier okay let's talk about beauty I often get hormonal acne and so I'm really specific about my routines

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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 vision of success. Suneera, I am so excited to have you here. We've been talking already for so long before the interview kicked off and I just know this is going to be an epic one. So welcome to the Boss Babe podcast. Thank you so much, Natalie, for having me. I'm so excited to be here and honestly quite

frightened when we're talking in the intro. You're telling me that this is probably going to be one of the most listened to podcasts so far. Yep, I know it's going to be and it's going to be great. So I would love to dive in and you just tell the audience a little bit about you and what you've been able to achieve with Fat Merchant. So a little bit about me. I launched a company in 2014. It is a payment technology company. And what that means is we're in B2B services. It's not sexy, but it's credit card processing for small to medium sized businesses. I launched the company all by myself in 2014. And it was one of the hardest things for me to quit my job and get this idea into reality. And so my background, I was actually working in the payments industry. And the industry was just very stagnant.

There was no technology, no automation for the small businesses, and their fees are extremely high, except credit cards. Yet as an economy, we've only gone more and more cashless. And so while I was in the industry, businesses are being nickeled and dimed for their payment processing. I like to call myself an elder millennial that was subscribing to every subscription-based product I can get my hands on. And this is pre what we call subscription economy. And so I didn't understand why instead of doing all these percentages and variable margins for our businesses, why nobody came up with a flat monthly subscription model, like an all-you-can-eat model in payments. And so that's what I launched. And I launched Fat Merchant. And that's F-A-T-T.

It stands for Fast Affordable Transaction Technology, but it was meant to be crazy fun, unlike any payment processor like most SMBs have worked with. And when I say SMBs, I mean small and medium sized businesses. And so in 2014, that first year, we did 5 million in payments our first year, and we were picked up by every major publication from Forbes, Fast Company, TechCrunch, you name it. We were called the Netflix of credit card processing. And since then, we went from $5 million to $5 billion in payments in exactly 5 years. So the growth has been just exponential. Now we have over 100 employees, 4 offices nationwide, and I've raised about $20 million

in venture capital thus far. So the journey has been quite tremendous. So that's a little bit about the background of Fat Merchant. It's just incredible to even sum that up, going from a business idea to processing over $5 billion in payments. And I know Fast Company called you the Netflix of credit card processing. So just absolutely amazing what you've been able to achieve. But where did this idea come from? So I kind of get how you got here, but do you have a background in finance? Like how did you decide that you were the one

to solve this problem that you were seeing? That's such a great question. I do have a background in finance actually. So I went to University of Florida. I graduated in 09 with a degree in finance actually. But that 09 for anyone who remembers was the absolute worst time in US economy. And there were no jobs in the market in finance. So I actually had to pivot and take

positions in sales and marketing, which now in full turn has completely prepared me for the role that I'm in today. But I ended up working for corporate just like top fortune 50 consumer packaged goods company. And I hated my life in corporate America. But I got really great experience for three years out of school. And then from there, I was recruited by a payments company, a credit card processing company. And it was also a very large top 50 fortune 50 company. So that was kind of my experiences thus far. And while I was working for this fortune 50 payments company, I was actually in charge of sales, like I was in charge of own my own portfolio. And then at some

point, I moved up to be a sales manager. But at the end of the day, my customers were actually these small businesses that were needing payment processing solutions. And every time that a customer I would like ever go visit a customer, I carry a little notebook with me. And I would write down all the complaints that they had what they weren't happy about., I would ever go visit a customer, I'd carry a little notebook with me and I would write down all the complaints that they had, what they weren't happy about. And I never ever once in three years of working for one of the best in the industry, I ever met a merchant that said, I love my payment processor. I love my credit card processor. Every time I asked any questions, they always went down a rabbit hole of how horrible the experiences are, that there's no customer support,

there's no empathy, their rates continually hike up, even if they sign up for something with one of the banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Chase, and then the PayPal's of the world didn't do solve their business needs. And so there was just a huge disconnect for them. And nobody was really offering any value. It was always take, take, take. And so going through and learning the ins and outs of this industry, I also learned that cost actually was the same for every provider. So it didn't matter which payment processor I worked for or what payment processor it was. Visa, MasterCard, and the card brands, they actually set the rates for what is known as interchange. And that's the base of what the cost for processing is. How processing companies make money is that they

charge their own percentages on top of these percentages. So the cost for processing is. How processing companies make money is that they charge their own percentages on top of these percentages. So the cost of these percentages range anywhere from nothing, like half a percent to 2%. But credit card processing companies then charge their own margins of anywhere from 1% to 3% on top of that. So these small businesses are stuck paying 3% to 5% of their fees to these processors. And a lot of stuff is hidden, they may not know it. And so my background in finance, as well as growing up, I come from an immigrant family. So both my parents immigrated to the United States from Karachi, Pakistan, separately. And they were both entrepreneurs by necessity, not because they wanted to be.

They didn't go to high school, they didn't have educations. And so they kind of had odd jobs until my dad bought his first business. And I grew up in a household of small businesses. My dad was a successful entrepreneur in his own right, but it was always up and down for our family. We've had a ton of different businesses. And so I was always working in these businesses. So I kind of always had the background in business. I understood finance, I understood the small business owner. And when I learned that cost was the same for every provider and nobody is truly offering like a flat model, I didn't get it. And so I pitched this idea actually back to my old team, back to my old bosses. And now there's like an article in Forbes that says her male bosses laughed in her face because that was truthful. That's what happened.

And so I took this idea back to them. And I had like the most insane presentation of my life of why this was going to be successful. And nobody believed in it. Nobody bought into it. So I left that company and I knocked on probably 12 other processing companies to go get this idea into motion. And finally, after about 12 no's, I got some encouragement from some friends and family that were like, you should go do this. And never for once did I ever think that this was an option for me because I never wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Seeing what my family had gone through, seeing how hard it was, I loved the corporate experience in and of itself, just having that security. And so after being reluctant, I decided to go give it a go. And that was in 2013. I quit my job. And March of 2014, I got my licenses and registrations with Visa. And that was like a crazy feat to go do. I was 26 years old, I had $20,000 in my bank account, 10,000 of which I borrowed from my now husband and $10,000 from my brother, who is president of the company as well. And so from their funding I had nothing got registration from Visa found a sponsor bank and Fat Merchant launched and that's

how it got that's the true story that's how it got started. Incredible and since then you've been called the most influential woman in payments you've raised over 20 million in venture and you have over 100 employees which is just incredible So can we talk a little bit about your raising money journey? So having this idea, you obviously borrowed money to get started and start to put things together when you were 26. And so what did it look like to then go on and raise money and especially raising up to $20 million now? Yeah, so the journey for venture capital, I never even actually knew much. I wish there was more resources around this, because I didn't even know that this was an option for me for growth. So when I first

started, I thought this was going to be an awesome lifestyle business. And I was going to have an office in Orlando. That's where I live and have some, you know, a couple hundred awesome customers that we would grow our own firm. And that first year by sheer networking and just being out in the community, I learned about all these pitch competitions that you can apply to. So I had this awesome business plan created. And so I submitted my business plan to these venture competitions. And actually that first year and a half of Fat Merchant, I took home over $200,000 in prize money from various pitch competitions and at different universities. The National

Association of Women Business Owners had a pitch competition. There were just so many all over Florida. I mean, they're everywhere. And so I would show up to a competition, talk about Fat Merchant, and then I would come back with a giant check. Literally those giant checks. I would come home and cash that in. And because we were so scrapped for cash, I couldn't hire a sales team. And that's exactly how all my competitors go to market was through a feet on the street sales approach. What I knew was digital marketing. And so I took Fat Merchant online. So every time that I would cash a check, my first check I remember was $7,500 for the NABO business plan competition, which is the

National Association of Women Business Owners. So I took home first place, I take that check, and I put it straight into Google. So I did AdWords, PPC, created an awesome website, and started social. I started social media for payment processing on review sites and blogging on just different types of needs for different types of industries and verticals. And so I put the money online. And so it was able to scale really quickly. And at the time in 2014, it doesn't seem that long ago. This is just when stripes and squares and stuff were just emerging in the marketplace. There wasn't a lot of online digital acquisition happening for customers, yet they would go online to solve most of their pain points. And so we were just there. And so we were able to, I call it, fake it till we made it because customers would call us. And I was Sadie, the salesperson, and I was Susie, the customer

support person. And I was just every hat that you can think of. And it was just 3 of us in our tiny office. And then when we were winning these pitch competitions, the local press, the business journal started writing about us. And we probably had a team of 4 at the time. And then a writer from Fast Company gives me a call saying, I just love this. This is so exciting what you're doing. And I take this interview and I have no fucking clue what the hell I'm doing talking to this writer from Fast Company. And even if like this is real, or if I'm talking to like some junior, junior, junior associate or something. And next day, front page Fast Company, there's an article, meet the woman trying to change the credit card industry. And Natalie, that article goes viral. There's over 20,000 shares from that article

itself just on that first week and a half. Our little tiny office in Orlando with two phones completely shut. Our website crashes. We call it the greatest and the worst thing that ever happened to us. So our little GoDaddy website crashed. We weren't built for scale. I had no CRM system. I had no automation tools. I couldn't handle customer volume. We had to get phones installed. Every startup on our floor was at one point working for a fat merchant for the next four weeks to just answer phone calls and just share volume.

Trello, if you ladies are familiar with Trello, Trello became like our everything. It was our every board ever on Trello was like our first CRM system for Fat Merchant. But what we learned was that we were thinking too small that we needed a ton of technology. One, we needed a lot of internal technology to automate and scale because we're a digital acquisition business for these customers. And then two, we needed our own payment platforms. And we learned so much about our customers calling in of what they were looking for, what their pain points were, that it actually determined our technology roadmap. So that was truly the start of and the heart of Fat Merchant. And then that was November of 2014. And it was just the most incredible time for us. And then from there, we asked for help because I

had no clue. How do I even go start? How do I go build a software product? I have no background in technology. I just know this customer. I know the pain points they have. And I know what I want to solve for them. So I had to get a really awesome technology team together. I had to get a CTO. I had to get a head of operations. I had to set automation internally. And so that was like 2015 was like our building year. And like literally all over our laptops, all over our wall, we called it, we want to build for like 10x. Like if something happens today and it was for 10X. And what's funny is every year we think too small. And so we literally went from 10X to like the next.

We're like, okay, 100X. Like we've already surpassed it. And so just, we always thought ahead for automation. And we're so fortunate. Now we have thousands of customers nationwide. We have like, we actually crossed 5,000 customers last year. We're only, we're US based, we have so much demand for international expansion. So we're looking at some international opportunities for next year. But

it's just been a blessing. So when the fast company piece happened, we're like, holy fucking shit, we need a lot of stuff. And that's going to cost a lot of money. But we actually had a lot of recurring revenue coming in. So we were, you know, roughly at that half a million dollar annual recurring revenue standpoint. And so in Florida, there's not a lot of venture capital, but I joined a technology accelerator, which is like an incubator for tech companies. And from there on demo day, 12 weeks later, we launched our MVP of our payment platform. And I asked for a half a million dollar seed round, which is like the initial funding round for our company. And we were oversubscribed to $1.4 million that night. And so we did about $3 million worth of a Series A. And then I did a B and C round that was externally outside of

Florida investors that were fintech investors. And so I raised two separate tranches, but $15 million in additional venture capital. And I'm gearing up for some very exciting stuff in 2020. And we're not done. So my biggest goal was to take this company to 100 million in value. And we checked that bucket off. And now, like I said, I only, you know, like to go 10x at least. So the goal is to make this a billion dollar company. I love it. And I love hearing how you just built an MVP, you know, minimal viable product out the door just to see if you could serve your customer and you built from there. It wasn't a case of procrastinating and waiting till you had absolutely everything right. You

just took action. I think that's one thing that really comes through from all of this is the need to take action and move even when you're not 100% sure where you're moving. I couldn't agree with you more. And I think that's probably the biggest stopper that I see for most entrepreneurs and especially for women, right? So especially for us boss babes, we're such perfectionists, such perfectionists. And this concept of perfection holds us back. And I had to launch. And honestly, I probably could have perfected things more, but we were just in this conundrum where we had using customers and we had demand for the product. So we couldn't wait. But truly, if it were up to me, I would have found a million more things to continually correct, but it's all iteration. And our platform has evolved so much

since 2014. And it only continues to get better. But I couldn't agree with you more on that point of, you know, progress over perfection and not leading with perfection first. Yeah, it's so true. And so now, like we said, you have 100 employee strong organization, and you're the CEO. What has that been like building a team? Because it's not easy. And I'm sure you've had your fair share of failures in that side. So can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. No, it's not easy. It's so fucking hard. Probably the people stuff is the hardest. Business is easy. The people stuff is hard. And scaling, there's nobody that

cares about your company like you. And that's the end of it. There's never going to be that. The passion that you have for your product, the passion that you have for your company, and I'm sure Natalie, you can relate to this. There's nobody else. But it's important having good partners in place. That's the first layer of it. So for me, the first thing was I knew that I couldn't do it alone and you can't do it alone. If you're going to do it alone, it's not going to be that good. Trust me, don't do it alone. Find the right counterbalance to that perfect co founder that partner and it could be one and it could be multiple. For me, luckily, it was my brother, he was actually living in California. He was a consultant for some pretty big companies. And he had done a lot

of operational scaling for these companies. He'd raised venture capital in the past. One of his previous companies, he took that. He was employee number 27 at a major software company in San Francisco that just went public this last year. So he scaled that from 27 to 1000. So he's gone through a lot of those journeys. So when he came on board, he came on board in 2015 with us. And I needed that partner that I could rely on, that I could just cry with because it's so fucking hard. And we're just such a counterbalance in terms of there's things that I'm good at

and there's things that I'm not good at. And there's things that he's so great at and that he's not so great at. And so we really just divided and conquered of here is the organization. And I know that I love marketing and technology and his like sales and operations and finances. Although as a finance major, I don't get excited over profit and loss

statements and balance sheets, right? Like that's his thing. And so we really just separated and divided our responsibilities. And then from there, it's the same thing across each function of the business. And so I know you have that with your partner, Danielle, I don't know how founders do it alone, because it's a roller coaster, like being an entrepreneur, you're fucking on a roller coaster, and every day looks different. And it's always up and down. Like we could be celebrating the biggest highs, and then something super shitty happens in the same day. And this happens on like a daily by like hourly basis. And so finding that initial team is probably super important. How you can get that started is through just your network. But also, you know, you have to make sure

that your values are very much aligned completely, because this is going to be the person or these are going to be the people that you're going to be spending probably more time with than your family. And so they become your family. So it's really important that you have shared aligned values and that you establish those core values of your company that you're just not faltering from. Like this is it. These are our core values. 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. And then from there, you continue to hire in that philosophy. So the first 10 people

in my company were like the most pivotal people. And then from there, they have to hire the next 10. And although you're always going to have a part in hiring of who's going to be in on your company, but you have to ensure that your first level of like, who's around you, you guys are the strongest and you have like complete share ownership and values because they're going to be responsible for the next 10. So that same message that you have, and that vision that you have needs to seamlessly be translated. And that's the hard part. It's not easy. And when we scale the company, and I would say it was like the best culture ever when we were like sub like the first like 20. It was really hard because we had a million different hats that we were wearing. We got some venture capital and we were able to bring on more team

members. And then when we were like sub 50 people, it was optimal. We had different heads of departments, we had different teams functioning for different departments, culture was vibing strongest that it's ever been. But then in 2018, we had to double in size again. And so I don't like to set easy targets for us, unfortunately. And so we've doubled revenue every year since 2014. Wow. Yeah. And so we went from 50 to over 100 people as last year and maintaining like the true integrity of our culture, that was challenging. We made so many mistakes along the way, and which we've had to correct, which was hiring too fast, not firing fast enough, making sure that the core values speak first over job description.

So I can literally go on for an hour over scaling a company and hiring the right talent. But the biggest lesson that I have is your values need to align. And if something doesn't feel right in your gut, you're probably right. And so make sure that that's always aligned. So put your heart over your mind when it comes to people first. And I think that that lesson for me has probably played the strongest over these last five years. And how have you been able to make sure that you have a great culture in the business? Is there certain things that you do? Oh, absolutely. So culture is so funny. People ask me about culture all the time, especially in FinTech, right? So it's not a lot of great companies, you guys, a lot of value-driven companies now. But when it comes to B2B services,

like business-to-business services, it's not exciting. And trust me, culture does not exist. And so for us, like culture was like not a thing that I wasn't like, Oh, we've got to have culture. It just was naturally there from things like it's a very like we call ourselves a fat family. It's like a family environment in the office, just having an awesome place to work like me for me, my environment is huge. I create my creativity, my energy comes from the environment around me. And so I want an office space that's just beautiful and that like an open work environment having different pods that we can

go have little think rooms and huddle rooms but then also having like collaboration spaces so space for me was like a huge piece of it and then two i'm a social bird so events for me are everything i love to hang out with the people that i like to work with. And that's kind of our culture as well. And so every Monday morning, we start the week together, we call it a pump up. And so one person will speak just like five minutes to 10 minutes of a topic, it could be completely anything. And it's supposed to be motivational and exciting for Monday starting, let's get our minds in the right places. And so we'll learn about like the most like ridiculous like things like, you know things. It could be from organization to people's hobbies. One of the next ones coming up is on archery and how one of our salespersons,

it's one of his biggest passions is archery. And so he's going to do a pump up on archery. But there's always a lesson behind it. And so we start our Mondays that way. And then every Friday, we end with our all hands. So we end the week together, we grab a glass of wine, we grab a glass of beer or a beer. And we talk about all the company exciting things that happen as well as all our challenges by department. So we never have tech only works in technology and marketing only works in marketing, we have a lot of cross collaboration. And each of the department heads is it's not just coming from me anymore, right? So my department has lead these meetings on Fridays. I'm there.

But it's so exciting to see them talk about, here's the challenge that we're having right now in marketing. And here's how the rest of the organization can support it. And so being very transparent about that. And that's on the Fridays. And then we always do a quarterly all hands, which is we rent out like a really big movie theater now because we have no space to hold everyone in one room. So we rent out a movie theater

and on the big screen is our quarterly objective. So every objective that is set for me from my board of from like a financial metrics perspective, it's broken down by department and what our main goals are by each department. And so we have a lot of transparency from top down. And so everybody feels very bought in and knows what their part is to contribute to our big goal. And so we do that once a quarter. So those are the meetings that we have as an

entire company. And I think that's really important that decisions that you're being transparent and the team members feel that they are very excited and bought into what the actual goals are. And I see a lot of companies don't share that with their teams. And you'd be surprised on how often that happens that teams just work in their own silos, and they have no fucking clue what they're actually working on or why it matters. So iterating the why making sure that our core values. So we have three core values of the company. The first one is get shit done that is plastered everywhere on our walls. And that is like the most important thing. No job is too big or too small for any one of us. And so I could be the CEO. But if I'm going to see a piece of paper

or a trash on the floor, I better be picking that up. Or if we're slammed in customer support, or something's down, and we have a bug, and we all need to be all hands on deck. That's just how the business operates. And then the second core value is creating joy, right? So creating joy, not just for our customers, but even for the people that we work with. We want to be able to have an environment that is open and collaborative and great energy. We don't allow toxicity into our culture. And so creating joy is something that we're really proud of. And we need that. And then lastly, it's one team. And again, tying back to all of those three things of the one team mentality is team over self. So those are our three core values and it ties back to our mission of Fat Merchant, which is to provide the best damn experience.

Like that is our mission. It's not a credit card processing mission. Like we're not here like, yeah, we happen to have a payment platform that helps you do payments. But our entire goal as a company is to create the best damn experience for a small business. And so that's how we operate.

I love all of that so much. And I can see a lot of similarities in how we try and run the Boss Babe culture as well. Because I think having those core values are so fundamentally important. So you know, if someone is a culture fit, or if they're not, or if the way they're acting is in line with values, or if it's not, it's so important. How did you learn all of this? Did you just kind of feel into it and go along with it as you went? Or were you reading specific books, having mentoring? Like, how did you get the ideas to do these different things? Such a great question, Natalie. Somehow in every podcast and every interview, this line

always comes up. And I think this gave me the most famous thing that I'm quoted for. I didn't go to CEO school. So I don't know. Truthfully, every day is a new challenge for me. And I've just kind of learned with my role growing. But it's just because what's important to me as a human, I just always made sure that I left every corporate position. And I know why I left, right? So it was because there wasn't collaboration. Nobody ever listened to my ideas. If they listened to my ideas, they'd have like millions in revenue right now for you know, nobody listened ever for anything. And so there's things that I kind of learned from my experiences. And I also learned from other people's experiences. And so that's something that because I didn't have, I don't

have an MBA, I didn't like to say I didn't go to CEO school, I like to surround myself with an awesome community. And I think that community is really, really important. And so I have some really great mentors, I do read a ton of business books. Every time I read a new business book, I try to like implement that practice. But it's just kind of taking away like the one or two key takeaways and applying it and knowing to like, just trust myself, I didn't get so far, like I have to just be self confident in the fact that I don't know everything. And I think that's my vulnerability. And saying that is actually helped me succeed because I surround myself with those that do know their one zone of genius. So I don't know how to operate a

50-person inside sales team, but I have a fantastic fucking head of sales that does. I don't know how to create debt reconciliation or accounts receivable. That's not my zone of genius, but I have an incredible CFO that does. And so surrounding yourself with a team is critical and finding that right person that can help alleviate that from you. And then trusting that that's their zone of genius. And so for me, what I just have to do is I get to ensure that strategically that the organization is moving in the right direction. Everyone's goals are aligned, that everyone's talking to each other, but I trust in each of my different to do their job. And so raising your hand, asking for help, you can't do it alone. And it's okay to say, Hey, I don't know this. So let's bring in an expert here. And so that's how we've been able to

scale. And every time that I've raised capital, the company continues to grow bigger. And I'm like, I can't believe that I'm still the woman that's running my company. That was probably one of my biggest fears. And truthfully, it was like a horrible insecurity, which I shouldn't have because obviously, we all have negative self-talk. And I do it to myself all the time. My biggest fear is that my board one day is going to be like, oh, well, here's a new CEO. And my board will probably laugh if I ever say that because they think that I'm just doing an incredible job.

And obviously, I am because I've been able to grow. I've been able to scale, I've been able to, you know, get through these challenges. But sometimes like as a woman, I continually doubt myself too. But I have to like trust in the fact that I've surrounded myself with smart people, and they're not going to let me fail. And as long as I'm being vulnerable, as long as I'm, I'm not hiding from it, like if something's wrong, not hiding from it, like tackling the problem, coming up with solutions as a team. So we're very collaborative. And I think that that is what's really helped me along this way. And how did it feel for you to give up some of that control to have a board that could, you know, one day decide that it's time to replace you? How was that?

You know, it's one of those like mind blocks that you think is like the worst thing in the entire world. And then it happens and you're like, Oh shit, I grew from that. It's been fantastic. Like it has been fantastic. It's an accountability circle, right? So whether it's like a formal board of directors or not, or advisors have an accountability circle, your business will go 10 times further. If you have to show up every month with a KPI report saying, here's what I did. Here's what our revenues are. Here's what our revenues are. Here's what my challenges are. Here's how I'm going to fix them.

It just gets you in that thinking of growth. And so it has been an incredible blessing. I love my board. We're all in for shared interests, right? Because we're all major shareholders of the company. It is crazy that I don't own 100% of my company, right? That was a concept. I also had to learn that raising venture capital, that I have to give up a pretty significant percentage every time that we raise venture capital. However, my percentage might be smaller, but the enterprise value of my company is actually

worth a lot more than 20 times of what I had could have originally done by myself. So it's not a bad thing. And it just having this accountability circle is really, really important, whether that come from a board of directors, or from a community that's super important. And I know I've needed a community, especially like, you know, for something that, you know, we're 30 minutes in, and I haven't even talked about or my kids. So during this process, I actually had two daughters. And so I have a three year old and a nine month old baby girl, and two girls. And it was probably one of the hardest things.

One, I'm so invested in my business, growing every year. I have to travel like crazy. My schedule is completely packed from 8.30 until 5 every day. Every half hour is completely booked. So I'm a slave to my calendar right now, unfortunately. But the business has grown tremendously. And during this process, I've had two babies. And for me, family life is just as important as work life.

And I couldn't find a community of working moms that... It's just so hard. Once you become a working parent, to be able to grow in your career. I've seen so many women either just say, I'm going to take a pause. I'm going to stay home. I'm going to have my babies and I'm going to go back. And unfortunately, when that happens, we're actually held back. We don't have the same opportunities because we're like three years out of the workforce. Our skill sets aren't transferable because so much is changing in

today's technology landscape. And it's just so hard to go back into a work environment. And so I see some of those brilliant friends of mine, when they get pregnant, they're like, well, either I'm going to stay home or they're so miserable at work because they have no balance with their family. And so during this process, I started, I've had an Instagram, but I started sharing just kind of like the daily, the juxtaposition of my life of being mom and boss all day. And so hence my handle mom boss co. So that's where everyone can go follow me and please go follow me. I think you're gonna love the content. And it just started growing. And this little community of we call hashtag mom boss just started growing organically. And I haven't, I barely spend, you know, any time on the Instagram. But it's

definitely just like my daily stories, what's happening, little tips, motivation, like I've got a really great toolkit that I didn't realize. I'll go speak at a ton of conferences. I'm like a major keynote. And I do a lot of workshops. And one of the most requested thing that I get is work-life integration, work-life balance. How do I juggle mom shit with business stuff? And people are actually more interested in that than even the business scaling stuff.

And I have so many things that I just thought... When I tell my friends, like, well, don't you just do this? They're like, no, that's genius. You need to talk about that. And I just thought everybody just does it this way. And so I share a lot of what works for me. But I'll tell you, I don't miss a beat. I make sure that my family life is just a priority. Yeah, I'm go, go, go all the time, but I also make time for myself. And so I just manifest what my week is gonna look like. I make sure that I plan my workouts

because that's really important to me. My health is really important to me. My me time is important to me, but also drop off, pickup, schedules, caretakers, events for the week. And then I've got all the fat merchant stuff in the day. I've got all these community stuff. I do a lot of stuff for just, I'm like a huge feminist, obviously. So I'm always like trying

to get awesome, you know, planning like a vision boarding workshop, you know, at my house, like at the end of the month, I'm always working on like all projects that I probably shouldn't because I don't have time, but I make the time. And what I tell people is like, look, we only have 24 hours in the day, right? That's the same amount of time as Beyonce, right? As Natalie, as Sanera, as anybody that you can think of. That's the one thing that we have in common is like, that's all the amount of time that we're allocated. No matter how much money you have, no matter how much power you have, you'll never get any more of that. So if these are the hours that we're given, it's up to us to choose wisely on how we spend that time, right? And if we divide out, if you get rid of all of the bullshit in your life,

and you start actually doing like a time accountability map, you'd be surprised on how much time you spend on stuff you probably shouldn't be spending time on. And then once you put down like, okay, here is what's important to me. And for me right now, that's fat merchant. For me right now, that's my kids. For me right now, that's mom boss. Like that's pretty much it. Like that's a full plate in and of itself. And then that little time of me time, date night with my husband. And I look at and I zoom out from a month standpoint is where I start. Then from a week standpoint, and then from a day standpoint, you actually have a lot more time than you think. You're probably just wasting it on things that you shouldn't be wasting it on. So just getting clear with strategy, clear with prioritization. I'm pretty

much running your life like a business. It's how I end up doing it. But you can do it. And ladies, we can have it all. We truly can have it all. And I'm a living example of that. I'm not stopping. My company is going to continue to grow. I'm still going to get excited about the mom boss community and just being a fucking awesome

feminist because I think there's a lot of change that needs to happen here. And then I can't miss a beat with my kids. Like these are all things that just need to happen. And if you prioritize and you set the right intentions to do it, you can do it. So let's chat about that then. So what does it look like on a daily basis for you to do all of this? Because it's not just like you are a mom and a boss, you are working out, you're taking care of yourself, you're probably accomplishing a lot more than someone with less responsibility is. So what does that look like for you? Okay, so a day to day. So I'd like to zoom it out from like a week standpoint. So I dropped my daughter to school. So her school, so something that I changed was her school was like a different

direction than my office. And that just like wasn't going to work. And so her school is literally four minutes from my office. And so we get to enjoy my office. Our office is downtown. So it takes like 30 minutes in traffic to get to from... I live in the suburb in Orlando. And so it takes like 30 minutes to get to downtown. And so we enjoy morning times. And I know you're a huge advocate of morning times. You have to just get up earlier.

There is no other way around it. You have to get up before your family. And that's what I start every morning. Get up before my family. Have my me time. I get to work out in the morning. I get to have my cup of coffee, I get to write my intentions for the day, I get to just get ready for the day. And then from morning time breakfast, we always have as a family. And so we have like our morning snuggles, we have breakfast time. So I'm there with my family in the morning, and then kiss the baby

in the hubs. Goodbye. I have a caretaker at home. I'm very fortunate for that to have an Annie. But whether that be daycare or whatever the option, I drop my kids to school. I drop Mila to school right now. And that's something that no one can take away because our morning drive time is 100% quality time. We jam out to Lizzo. We have the best mornings. It's just me and her. She just has the most funniest conversations every day. So that morning time is me and Mila time and I get to drop her to school. And so I get into the office actually between 9.15 and 9.30. So I get in just a little bit later than most people, but I also have a million, bajillion other things that I do on and off, on my off times. So I get to the office between 9.15, 9.30, and then my meetings are started. Sometimes I have meetings earlier, but most of the time,

it's like 930 is my first meeting. And then from 930 until 430, I have a pretty traditional work meeting cadence with all the different stuff that's happening for a fat merchant. One day a week, I work from home. And so that is my day where I actually keep the kids home. So Mila doesn't go to go to school that day. And I know that's probably not a great mom thing for me to do. But I need her sometimes more than she needs me. And so the kids are at home, I have a caretaker at home as well. And then I'm just getting shit done. Like I'm working remote, but my kids are around. So I'm just like, I get to spend a little bit more time, the baby is really little. And so she's just with me. So I get to feed her, I get to just snuggle with her, but I'm still working remote. And then

I have rules, I have a two night rule. So there's so many events that I have to I'm speaking at, I have to travel for a conference, and there's a lot of stuff happening. So I have a two-night rule. So there's so many events that I have to... I'm speaking at, I have to travel for a conference, and there's a lot of stuff happening. So I have a two-night rule. I will not be away from home for more than two nights. And so if there's an event or something, I usually like to do that on my work from home day from a workout standpoint. So that's like Monday through Friday

is what that looks like. And then weekends are 100% family time. And so Saturdays are usually are crazy. We do all our... And it's not... I've gotten rid of all the errands in my life. And so I'd rather spend my time, quality time with my kids than doing laundry and to be doing groceries. I miss those things sometimes, but I've found services and I know everyone's financial situations are different. But what I will tell you is that getting groceries delivered, it's 15 bucks a month. It's not that expensive compared to the amount of time that I'm going to be spending away from my family or away from my business to be doing that.

And so I found little shortcuts to not do the chores so that when I'm there, I'm actually 100% present. I don't do other shit while doing other shit. So I do that one thing. And so my focus and attention is on my kids when I'm home. When I'm at work, that's there. When it's my workout time, that's my one hour, that's my time. And so Saturdays and Sundays are 100% family times. And then during nap times, because my kids are little, they nap for two hours every day. That is when I go take care of, I will get a massage every other week. People are like, how do you manage to find time for a massage? Well, I am fucking stressed out all the time. And like I have chronic back pain.

I need this massage. I need to go to the chiropractor. There's no other time to go besides Saturday afternoon. And so I've like zoomed out of my week of my month and I look at my calendar and I'm like, okay, here's what I'm gonna fit in my massage. Here's I'm gonna fit this in. Here's what my workout so I work out three to four times a week ritual with myself every Sunday 430 I go to this hot yoga class. And so that's my time. Sunday is our family day. Sundays are like at my mom's house. We watch football. It's been like the same tradition forever. So we all go to my mom's house on Sunday, and I get to just like relax with my kids. And then we'll I'll sneak out to go to my yoga class. And so I manage work, I manage those events. And Faisal and I do date night once a

week too. And so whether that be Saturday night is usually date night, our kids go to bed at 830. So getting them on a good bedtime routine, and then you call a babysitter, or you have a friend come over, you know, and my mom and my mother in law, actually, I'm so blessed live in the same city as me. And so and we're like the first to have kids in our family. So everyone is always like, I want to watch the kids. So Saturday nights, it's Faisal and I date night. So we're not boring. Like I'm still like I'm 32. I love to go out.

I want to like a week. My husband and I've been together for over 10 years. And my relationship with my husband is a priority for me. And so that's how we make it work. And also my husband's an entrepreneur and he's a very successful entrepreneur. So his life is also just a different crazy. But together, we just kind of like set the intention of what this week looks like ahead. And so right now I'm calling you, I'm in Palm Springs. I live in Orlando. I'm here for,

you know, I was nominated as one of 12 winning women for Ernst & Young. And so I'm here for the strategic growth conference, but because I had to break my two night roll, I actually brought the family with me. And instead of staying in the hotel where the conference is, I have an Airbnb right next to the hotel, I go to work, and then I come home to my kids. And so we make sacrifices and not everything is perfect. But that's how we make shit work. And because that's I just want to be with my family and be able to still do what I love to do. And I don't want anybody to be able to separate that for me or choose that for me. Yeah, I love that.

And I love how you're talking about just making it work. And it might not always be conventional to everyone, but it works and that's the way to do it. So say, for example, when you're in Palm Springs and is it Milad who's in school? Yeah, Milad's my three-year-old. She's in like toddler three. So she's like not in real school yet.

Everyone says it gets much easier when your kids are like five and they're in like regular structured school because they can't really miss it right now she's like in a toddler three little daycare program and the baby is gonna go into that program when she turns one and so yeah so that's what so you were talking about palm springs right now yeah and so do you think things will change when they're in school will you still want them home a day and want them to travel with you and really get to experience, which I think is so great that they get to see what you do and they get to be involved in that too. Because even though it's your business, it's a family business and it's something that

they get to really see and be part of. Yeah, I think it's super important. And especially because I'm a girl mom, I'm like a huge advocate for this. Like I wish I had more people to look up to growing up like I didn't. And there's not a lot of women in my industry, let alone in tech. And I take Mila everywhere. And that's another thing like I show up with my kids on Thursday night. Last Thursday, I spoke for Orlando had their first ever girl boss meetup. And I was the main speaker for that I took Mila with me, I was on stage, and she was literally sitting right next to me. If you follow all my stories, you can I think it's one

of the highlights somewhere. And I have to clean up my page. I'm sorry, my highlights are like so full. I promise Natalie, I will do that. And by the way, quick shout out to IGA. I'm an IGA client and it is like one of the most epic courses I have ever taken. So just a shout out there. Mila came with me. So she was with me on Thursday. And then Friday, I did Pitaka Shaw, which is like a Japanese TED Talk. I'll tell you about that later. It was like at the Performing Arts Center was like a huge show. And my family all came in. So the bait like everybody got to watch me it was like a 7pm show. And so baby was up later, but everybody was there. And then they went home and then Faisal and I went out afterwards. So that's kind of like what the

typical days look like right now. And they're little, but I think it'll actually get easier when they're older, because I do feel like I connect more with Mila now that she's older than the baby because the baby is like on such a routine that it's hard to change her routine. So with the baby, like I actually stay home on like that one day a week is more for her because Mila can still like I come home like she doesn't go to bed like we could stay up if like I come home after like a I missed the night before and she could just sleep in my bed and we can like watch a Disney movie together and it's okay that she stays up you know until 9 30 or 10 like she will be fine the next morning and so I'm kind of one of those like whatever works

moms and I know that doesn't work for everyone but I also it's just what works for me so I think I'm done with the kids now. So I think two is enough, but it's definitely the working mom life is a struggle. And so my goal is to, there's an amazing community of boss babes out there. There's like an amazing, I know there's a lot of mom bosses out there. And so my goal in 2020 is like,

just continue to bolster up this community and hopefully get you guys like all the resources that work for me, you know, scaling a business, you know, even growth in your career. So not everybody has a business, but they want to continue to like expand and grow in their roles and how to go get director positions, how to go get manager positions, how to go run shit and how to ask for more pay. There's like so many things that I've learned that I feel like I just need to share. And so I'm excited to start getting to work on that for everyone next year. I love that so much. And then just some advice before we leave, what advice would you give to

another mom who has their own company or is super ambitious in their career? What advice would you give to them? The advice that I will give you is don't forget about yourself. So in this process, because you want it so bad, you're just so focused on the career stuff and then you have a shit ton of mom guilt Like mom guilt is something that we all struggle with and So in that process then the leftover time you're like struggling like crazy with your kids because you're trying to make up for All the time that you're not with them Just remove that one like remove the guilt and it's really tough to do because we all still go through it

But in this process because you have two, just different things that are pulling you in two different directions, the last person to eat is you. And if you don't eat, then like you can't be there for either your business or your family. So it's so important to make time for yourself. And whatever that looks like, whether that be just quiet time, whether that be time to take care of your body for your mind, whether that be meditation, whether it be yoga, whether it be a crazy taekwondo class, whether it be a hobby, I don't know what that looks like for you. But make sure that your priorities are also met, not just on a like the last list, like you have to make it a top priority every week. And so if you are full and you're in the best place, spiritually, mind, body, then you will be in the best place to actually make your business go further and your family will actually be better supported. And so that was something that it took me a little bit to learn. And I feel like this last year and a half, I've finally come to that acceptance that I can't put myself off any longer because

everybody suffers. And so my advice is ladies, put yourself first, it will do wonders. And you don't even have to be a mom to do that. Like you're just even from like a work standpoint, family stuff is always there. Relationships are always there. There's always that component of everyone's life, whether that be kids, whether that be friends, whether that be your spouse, whatever that may be, we put ourselves last. So you can't pour from an empty cup. So make sure you take care of you. I love that. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast and for everything that you've shared. I know this was such an epic episode. And so for everyone listening, where can they find you? So you guys can all find me on Instagram at mom boss co and so and I've been pretty good

about responding to my DM. So if you guys are listening, send me a DM. I know that you listened and I'd love to continue the dialogue. I'm always open to sharing if you guys have questions, struggles, things you want to learn more about. I'm also going to be hopefully launching, you know, an accelerator, a little program come 2020. And I'm now gearing up for what you guys want to learn more of. So I'd love for you guys to be part of that journey with me to help build that out. So find me on Instagram and DM me. I'm not on Facebook. So this is the best place to find me that way. And my email and stuff is all on my Instagram as well. So find me there. If you loved this episode please subscribe download a few more and please leave us a review

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