Welcome Back. Here are the six quick questions. So question number one is, what's your, why? Why do you wake up every day and build these three businesses? It's because I truly thought that I was capable of nothing because of my O. C. D. A. D. H. D. Depression. I had no confidence. I was not good at anything. I was a bad student. I was literally the poster child for like what a failure looks like growing up and I was able to do it just from sheer grit and survival mode. And so my mission in life is to prove to anybody, no matter what your background is, no matter what mental health issues you may have learning disabilities, you don't have any connections. Like if I did it you can do it too. And I felt so many times that it was the end um and that I should just give up and maybe even give up, you know, living and that would have been such a shame because I never would have imagined the person I grew into and it all it took was just believing in myself and truly just being so stubborn and being like I refuse to have this be my legacy.

You know, I'll learn if I'm if I'm not smart, I'll learn, you know, things I'll learn how to do something and be really good at it. I don't have to be good at every subject in school or whatever it is so that that really is my my y every day um in terms of the businesses for the news and new land, it's to you know empower women every single day and with new land to use you know the biggest brands in the world's media budgets and you know Tiktok's etcetera to increase representation and diversity. And you know do these incredible campaigns that actually change people's lives. And with wonder mind it truly is to create a world where having a mental illness is just exactly the same as having a you know physical illness. No one would ever blink twice if you went to the doctor and you said and they said you have high blood pressure. You have to take this medicine. So why are people so judge mental even people in my family still you know so judgmental that I have O.

C. D. And I have to take medicine every day. So that that's my why I really want to change the world because my world has been changed so much and if I can save one life then it would all be worth it. I mean I'm I'm sure you have you you're changing the world. You are you're in there. I love that. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Question # two is what's been your favorite marketing moment so far can be across any of the businesses? My favorite marketing moment probably I guess I have to one's like really just like zero budget marketing moment and the other one is you know more recent when I first started the news that in college I had ambassador program. So I would essentially reach out to people and be like on this intern for this really cool company if you want something to put on your resume which everyone did you know almost 10 years ago um all you have to do is refer you know 10 friends and Then that turned into you know if you refer 25 friends you get a T shirt or you get stickers or whatever and so every morning after I was finished writing the news that before classes I would go to staples with the huge pile of like those envelopes with the cushion of like all the stuff I was sending to ambassadors and so every person had a handwritten note and you know it was just really cool and like looking back it really really felt like I was building something and made me feel like I was literally just putting pen to paper in every single card and getting every single subscriber myself and then you know now something that would be a lot more you know flashy I guess is we did this campaign about just being out for mental health awareness month about just being honest with your feelings and we had posters all over new york and L.

A. And Selena and I post um posed in front of one of them and we just had thousands of people you know tagging us in those posts and um truly you know just painting the town, you know de stigmatized that is so cool, wow, what an amazing, like thrilling moment. Both of those moments, They're so, so different and so kind of like telling of your journey from the start to where it is now. So special and profound in different ways. Thank you. Question # three is what's your go to business resource, like if you're turning to a podcast or a newsletter or a book to learn something. Um honestly, you know, podcasts like yours where there's interviews with incredible women and you know, other entrepreneurs who are just detailing, you know, their lowest lows and how they got out of there and how they build these businesses. Those are always incredibly inspiring to me. I basically built my business, you know, while learning everything about business and uh marketing etcetera.

So there were podcasts that I would listen to about like marketing and trying to get more emails and how to optimize your email list and all that stuff. But now I like to, you know, read books about management. So I'll have like um 100 people by the end of the year who report, you know, technically to me and so it's a lot different than having, you know, 10 people or five people and so just me management books, how to become the best manager, how to, you know, make myself feel accessible and try to be accessible to all of these incredible people that have, you know, dedicated their days now to work for something that me or me and Selena and Mandy, you know dreamt up, how do I make them all feel special and heard and everything when I have so few hours in the day really, those kind of materials amazing. Love that Hundreds a lot. Question number four is how do you win the day?

What are your am or PM rituals and habits that keep you feeling happy and successful and motivated? Honestly, I won't lie. I mean sometimes I lose the day, like truly, even if I do something incredible and like, you know, 16 year old me would have died. Like what I did was able to do or whatever. It's just unfortunately, you know, especially with three businesses, there's just always something next. Like it's never just like I made it and it's all great and again, I chose this for myself. So I absolutely am not complaining and that's why like I work so hard because I want to do as much as I possibly can. But there are very few days where I feel like I won the day because I maybe because I'm hard on myself. But I guess when I feel like I truly won the day, it's when I, I am at peace with the fact that I didn't do everything that I knew I needed to do that I gave myself time to re nourish myself and that I spent time with people I love and sometimes that can be a losing day because I feel like I didn't do enough.

But truly, you know, those days are when I feel like when I can go to sleep and I can think about all of the things that I didn't do and and be okay with it because it was worth it to, you know, have the memories and the connections with people I love or doing whatever I did instead. 100% Question # five is what's been your worst money mistake in business and how much did it cost you? I think probably in the early days of the news that I'm like, I'm so careful now, even though we have a lot more money to play with. You know, we just because I never had the luxury of just getting a huge check until you know, uh, news that was successful. I just, every single penny I look at as you know, how are we maximizing this? And so I think the biggest money mistake I've ever made was probably not firing somebody fast enough that I knew was not working out.

And it probably cost me about like 100 grand. Um, in terms of the salary, but also like the opportunity cost um, of having someone who was going to be efficient. It could have been, you know, much more than that in terms of opportunity cost. But, And like from salary and also finding someone to replace them and in the time it took whatever, you know, I think it was probably around 100K. Or more. Mm Yeah that's come up on the show quite a lot when it's you know, not getting people out of the business fast enough and and trusting that instinct that you needed to let someone go. Yeah, for sure. Last question question number six, what is just a crazy story? You can share good or bad from the journey of building these businesses? Um Gosh, we have so many stories I guess. Um I'll say a bad 11 story that I like to tell people because again you can feel like such a failure as an entrepreneur as a person who works hard and just wants has a dream.

Um when I was like 23 and I was trying to raise capital for the news that I had a meeting with the owner um and like the head honcho of um one of the biggest VC firms and he's very well known and old and you know, just like like the creme of the creme and I was so excited to have my meeting with him and I basically did my pitch and then like was like you know any questions and he looked at me and just started laughing and I was like what's so funny And he goes, you remind me so much of my granddaughter and I was like, oh well your granddaughter must be like really smart and like a great entrepreneur and he was like, his whole face just dropped and he was like, no, my granddaughter has no idea what she's talking about, talks way too fast and is not successful. And I was just like uh right to my face Yeah.

And I was like, it was like a moment where I was like okay, and I just packed up my stuff and left and I got into the Uber and I just burst into tears and I said I refused to spend one more second trying to raise money from people like this instead of just growing my business. And it was the best decision I ever made. But at the moment I felt, I mean this person was the authority on, you know, who's going to be successful, who's not and in the moment I felt completely crushed, but it was the best thing that could've ever happened to me. Yeah. God, so disappointing. So disappointing that people, you know, act and treat others like this, especially when you're coming from a place of authority and like people look up to people like that, but thank God for the silver lining, Love that for you. Yeah, that'll show them, you know, whenever you feel like something is so wrong and it's the end, it could honestly be the best thing that's ever happened to you. I like to say, you know everything happens for a reason.

100% Daniella, this was so cool, I'm so grateful that you came on the show and shared so openly and so vulnerably. I'm just, I'm so grateful. I love what you're doing and I'm excited to see it grow. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be part of the incredible collective of women that you've interviewed and just thank you so much for your time. Hey, it's dune here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the female startup club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out female startup club dot com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter, we send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D. C. And interesting business resources and if you're a founder building an e commerce brand you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called hype club at female startup club dot com forward slash hype club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate.

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