Source: Forbes
The “future is female” may be a slogan that became popular on social media, but the state of women in business shows an undeniable progression towards making this statement a reality. There are 11.6 million women-owned businesses, employing nearly 9 million people and generating more than $1.7 trillion in revenue.
Despite this rapid growth, nothing can prepare someone for entrepreneurship. Between strategies to scale, brand acquisitions, pivoting from your initial business, feelings of loneliness and sometimes depression, there is a high cost for pursuing your vision. A price that some entrepreneurs have to pay for through a series of turbulent times and obstacles.
Entrepreneur and Media Mogul, Necole Kane knows a little something about transitions and transformations. When she made the decision to shut down her celebrity gossip blog in 2015, NecoleBitchie.com, the website pulled in 20 million paid views a month. Walking away at a time when she was perched at the top of her field resulted in confusion from readers and a self-afflicted pressure to top her success.
Today, her women’s lifestyle website, xoNecole, was acquired by Hollywood power player Will Packer in 2018 and has now become a brand that is rooted in positivity and empowerment. Through the umbrella of xoNecole, Kane and her team publish content and create elevated experiences that celebrates while educating an often-forgotten demographic of women: black women.
Here Kane shares five lessons for leaders and entrepreneurs on how to navigate the uncertain waters of business while staying true to yourself.
Have a Detailed Vision
According to Kane, too many entrepreneurs launch without having a long-term plan for growth and sustainment. She recalls starting her first website NecoleBitchie with an idea of the number of readers she aimed to acquire by end of year but had no plans or forecasts beyond that goal. Learning from this experience, she now ensures that she consistently evaluates whether her actions are aligned with her big picture. Without it, she believes that founders can get pulled away from their business values, “It’s so easy to get knocked off your path just because of opportunities that people bring to you. They may sound good at the moment but then you look up one day and you’re way off the path that you had.”
Don’t Go It Alone
Entrepreneurship can be an isolating and lonely journey. With no one in her network facing similar obstacles, she needed advice and had nowhere to turn. Kane remembers, “when I was pursuing an acquisition, I had this huge fear because I didn’t know anyone that had ever sold a business before and the only black woman I knew that had sold a business at the time was Lisa Price [of Carol’s Daughter].” However, she did not have access to Price, which left her wishing she had a mentor to help guide her through the process. Now Kane recognizes the value of surrounding yourself with mentors but advises that it is not always necessary to look to higher-ranking professionals for wisdom. Kane states, “side to side mentorship is super important but I don’t think we pursue it as often because we look at mentorship as someone that has been in the business for ‘x’ amount of years. Sometimes that’s really not the case, it could just be pursing mentors that are in fields similar to you – you guys can have an exchange of information, you can contribute whatever your expertise is and vice versa.”
Be Where Your Audiences Are
Knowing her market led Kane to move from New York City to Atlanta, GA to live and operate xoNecole. Since making that decision, the site’s readership has quadrupled since January. “The Atlanta move was the best move we could have made for the brand, that’s where our audience is,” she recalls. With the mission of being the go-to source for young women of colour looking to be inspired, Kane has recently ventured into the event experience space. Her first event, back in April, was Pyjamas and Lipstick—a girl’s night in experience that welcomed new readers to xoNecole and increased the brand’s visibility. Recognizing that these events are what her audience is looking for, Kane will produce other experiences including the upcoming, ElevateHER Crawl, presented by Toyota Corolla on August 3rd. The series elevates women makers, crafters, artisans and entrepreneurs in a celebratory manner built on the foundations of inspiration and sisterhood.
Get Your Mind And Body Right
A ritual that has helped Kane maintain mental and emotional health as an entrepreneur is the discipline of fitness. “When I went into my fitness journey, that’s when xoNecole started to really take off in terms of me pouring what I was learning from fitness and getting in the gym every day and the discipline it takes getting up at 5am every morning to get your cardio in before work, getting your meals in on time,” Kane explains. Finding activities that serve you outside of your business is ironically, what propels entrepreneurs to succeed in their ventures. “As an entrepreneur our whole day is a hustle and grind, and there is no space for things that fill us up and for me its fitness.”
Never Stop Feeding Your Vision
“I used to set intentions every morning,” says Kane, “I would write out exactly what I wanted to happen. The day I started doing that was January 2016 and one of the things I wrote that day was ‘You will receive a huge opportunity today.’ And that’s the day that Will Packer emailed me.” The power of manifestation each morning helped Kane get clear on what she wanted for her business, which led to xoNecole being acquired by Packer’s company. Kane believes that getting swallowed up by the busyness of entrepreneurship leaves no space for founders to manifest the things they truly want in their lives. Her routine, “I wake up every morning and I write down exactly everything, and I’m detailed. If I want 2 million new readers tomorrow, I write that down.”
