Motherhood and Entrepreneurship With Ali Koplar Wyatt
We often use the African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child,” when speaking about our community at Mysha. Together, we are more informed, stronger, and confident mothers. Similarly, entrepreneurs also benefit from that same community support and guidance, which is why we’re such big fans of Female Founders Collective. We spoke with CEO and co-founder Ali Koplar Wyatt about the foundation’s goals, why community is important, and the tools that help her navigate family life.
1. Tell us about Female Founders Collective and how it came to be.
Rebecca Minkoff lived in the fashion industry, and saw that it was an exclusive, walled garden. And yet, it was the other founders that she shared info with that she found to be most helpful in her process. Similarly, I came from the venture start-up world, having helped build some of the most culture-shifting brands of our time. I also found that while the journey was lonely, it was the community of founders specifically that were the unspoken secret of successful business owners… they were the sort of Waze for the incredibly congested, and incredibly man-hole ridden entrepreneurial road. When Rebecca and I came together, we both spoke passionately about how we felt that women’s wealth equality would come much faster if women just started more businesses successfully, and created their own future — and own exit. As such, we wanted to create a scalable path to this solution. We created Female Founders Collective as our foundation: a place for women to come together, share insights, trade secrets, resources, and to educate one another. This way, all ships could rise. More women would build, exit, and make generational wealth that they could put back into the system.
2. Can you talk about the importance of community and finding the right types of support as a mother and entrepreneur?
It’s actually very similar I believe. I often liken the entrepreneur experience to that of being a mom. There is no roadmap. There is no guide book. Technology, culture, best practices, resources — they’re all constantly evolving and as such, you need to lean on other people’s insights in that snapshot of a moment to make the best, most informed decisions. Especially as a new parent, a community isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a must. You need to know what to do when your child gets sick for the first time, how to look for the best care for you and your family, what are the best pieces of equipment for travel, what are the best doctors, best remedies, best strategies for supporting behaviors. The list goes on and on. Similarly, for entrepreneurs, you need to know how to create a job spec, what attorney to use, the best CRM platform, what business structure is right for you, how to handle your first hire or first fire. The list is also never-ending, and it’s not something your friends in corporate will understand nearly in the same way your friends who have a business will.
3. How do you think motherhood prepares women for entrepreneurship? And vice versa, how does entrepreneurship prepare women for motherhood?
It prepares you to prioritize, and to rely on yourself as well as to give-in to the fact that you are chiefly responsible for the life of the business, as well as the life of the child, and that’s it’s going to be messy and imperfect and that’s okay. It teaches you resilience, and how to deal with ‘failure’ because you fail as a parent everyday. To be okay with that in entrepreneurship is a superpower as long as you just keep going. You can’t give-up as a parent. That’s both incredibly taxing and incredibly humbling – but it builds profound strength.
4. Any favorite tools that help your daily life running?
The beautiful thing about having a business is that you set your schedule and you set your rules. You have a chance to create the life you want, where you want, and you can do the same for those that work for you as well. It’s incredibly freeing. As for tools: I would say that my tools are my non-negotiables that I have set for myself. I know what I need to thrive as a mother and a business-owner, and I make sure that I back into our calendar, and that I am on top of what I need in the way of support care. You have to remind yourself that you can’t possibly do it all, and even if you think others are… I’ve got news for you, they definitely aren’t. I am super excited to incorporate Hearth into our lives for scheduling because my kids are all roughly in the elementary school age, and therefore their sports and activity schedule is insane. So organization and a weekly look on Sunday what our days look like and ensuring all the pickups are managed is key. I also am a Dr. Becky fan, and when my kids are going through a behavioral issue, I’ll dip into her community to see if I can find tools to solve it. We also have an amazing parent/partner out here named Dr. Betsy Braun, who has given us invaluable advice. And partnering up with other parents has been a godsend as well. Sharing pickups, drop offs, and aligning on rules ends up being incredibly helpful towards ensuring that you don’t have to do it all, and when it comes to holding the line on behavioral issues, there are multiple lines of defense.
Learn more about Female Founders Collective and follow them on Instagram.
