The Billion Dollar Community Propelling Women To The Top - Carolyn Childers of Chief.com

So I have a friend who's part of it and he's in He runs an agency. And I'm pretty sure it's sixty thousand a year. So quite expensive. I think it's only two events a year that they do. So it's almost it's basically an events business.

And they sold for hundreds of millions of dollars recently. to uh PE. Just like I think a PE company. And then another one is uh Aventa. Have you heard of Aventa? I haven't heard of Aventa. Okay, so it's E, V, A, and T A.

Aventu was sold to Gartner for like two hundred and fifty million dollars. And it was almost like the same thing. But it was worse because it was advertising driven. The reason why we asked you to come on is because Chief is awesome. And we love community based businesses.

And most community based businesses have horrible business models. And from the outside it appears as though you have from the press and whatever I can just read about in the internet, it seems like you've got a really good business model. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about today was that business model because we've talked a lot about Tiger Twenty One. And uh YPO's kind of interesting.

But uh you guys are like The next Kinda Person attempting this and it seems like it's working really well. And that's what I wanted to ask about.

Yeah, awesome. Well, uh congratulations on on the podcast and uh And was excited to come on and chat'cause There's been a lot happening for us at the beginning of this year, so Yeah. And before this, you where were you, Casper? No, that was my co founder. So uh we both have been in kind of the New York City ecosystem for a while.

Um, I actually I started the startup scene at uh a launch I launched and ran soap.com. Uh, under Mark Lore, Quincy got acquired by Amazon. Then went over to South Korea and worked on coupon, which is the Amazon of South Korea. And then

most recently, right before Chief, I was at handy running operations for them. Uh, and my co founder Was at Casper, so yeah. And when did you decide when did you go all in full time on Chief? Uh I probably went full in two thousand eighteen is when uh officially left

Uh other positions and dedicated myself full time to this. And uh it was one of those things that I felt like I had to Do the full commit and actually like put everything behind it, or else it would just like keep that slow crawl of kind of an idea. Um because

Uh Without pulling putting everything in it, it just You know, wasn't making the same progress that They really needed to make. I do the same thing and I that's what I tell people uh what what's I think the phrase is uh

I used to say it was burning your bridges, but it's not. It's burning the ship. So like there is this like Kind of Quisador, I forget who his name was, but it was like uh where he like landed in America or somewhere like that and they're like Look, we have to succeed now because I just burned the boat. So like we're not we ain't going home. And uh I guess that's a story. I don't know if that's real or not, but that I b I totally believe that that's the uh That's the m the the way to go about this. And

Mm. What chief what it what w how would you describe chief as it is now? Yeah, so Chief is really focused on senior executive women. Uh it's you know, under the phrase that we hear so often of it gets very lonely at the top, um, but it gets lonely at the top for women a lot more. Um and our mission is really to drive more women into positions of leadership and keep them there. And and by focusing on that kind of senior executive woman.

You know, our belief is just getting more of them in true positions of influence, the ripple effect that that could have across all different companies and organizations is is really where we wanted to go and kind of tackle this first. And I kinda call it like a YPO above her VPs, which is Basically like And this is all from the outside. Obviously I'm not a member, but this is you basically it looks like what you get you pay like Some sum of like five to eight thousand dollars a year ish, and you get and the company pays for it and you get to meet up with like a core group of like five or ten different women, or it's the same women.

Um, and then you have like a coach and then you have the ability to like chat with the entire group whenever you want online. And then I imagine you have some type of like programming throughout the month. that you can join as well, right? Is that ba is that basically the model? It's It's very, very close. Um, so I would uh YPO definitely was a inspiration for us for sure, um, where they only focus on CEOs and presidents. Um, that is their entire focus. And as a result, not surprisingly, it's largely men that are a part of YPO, since that is what the makeup of a CEO and president of YPO I think of like old white dudes.

Ha ha It's it's not far off. Um and it was just an inspiration for us to say, wouldn't it be great to have an organization like this focused on women. So we're VP level and above. We s we also have a lot of CEOs and presidents who are women that are a part of the organization, but we focus on VP and above. And as you mentioned Probably the Part of what we do is what we call our core groups. It is this group of ten individuals. We go through a very curated process of finding the right group of ten to come together.

They meet every month. There's an executive coach in the room. And that's Called core for a reason. Um, it is the heart of of The service that we provide. But around that we have all sorts of different um services and and

and resources that you can tap into. So we have our own programming that you can attend as much or as little as you would want to. You can tap into the whole network through our community product. We even have clubhouses in three cities across the US that you can um that you can use. So lots of things that are kind of around the around the core experience, but that truly is the heart of what we do. What was the original idea?

How is it different than how it evolved into into what it is today? What was the original premise? I as we did this last fundraise, it was funny, we pulled out our seed deck of you know what we were showing when we were raising and It didn't change that much, which is kind of phenomenal. You always hear so many stories of Yeah, we tried this, we needed to pivot because this wasn't working or that wasn't working. And the heart of what we wanted to do was always very much.

What it is today, I think the biggest change that we've undergone is. Most of our services were all happening in person when we launched. That's the reason why we had kind of these physical spaces. We had the clubhouses. We were doing core in person. Um but with the pandemic everything moved over to virtual.

uh which has, you know, in some ways been a a small silver lining for us in that we've been able to, you know, extend to more cities faster because we don't have to do big build outs. And it's actually even more powerful and engaging for our members because this truly is like the movie trope of the busy woman. And now instead of having to, you know, Trek across.

A city to get to a clubhouse to get the benefit of chief. It's now in your pocket wherever you go. And at this point Did I see fifteen thousand members? Is that right? It's

Close to fifteen thousand members, yes. Wow, or I maybe it's a th I forget what the pr the you you guys You whatever you what it's at thirteen or twelve, whatever it's said recently. Because you raised a hundred million in funding at a one point one billion dollar valuation. So it's like It's a pretty huge business and

You only launched what three years ago? Like launched uh live uh publicly? Three years ago? Three years ago. Yes. That's crazy, right? It is, it is. I can remember back when we were launching and we're like, We're gonna have just a hundred great members as we launch and we're really excited and um even from the very

beginning and the launch that we had um We had thousands of people sign up for a wait list for Chief, uh and now Yes, we're close to fifteen thousand members. Um but we have a wait list of close to sixty thousand. Um which is

Kind of incredible. Um and I think it just really shows. How much a community like this is truly needed. Um, and the value that it's that it's really creating for our members. So let's say you're at fifteen thousand. Let's just say the average price is six thousand. That's ninety million in revenue.

I imagine the truth is like give or take twenty percent, maybe, and I don't know if you say that or not what it is, but regardless If it's in that ballpark, it's a pretty substantial business in a And such a sh uh that's Let's say Sixty to a hundred million in recurring revenue.

In three years. That's wild, right? It is. It is. And I think what's really What I feel so much privilege of on in any given day when people hear about cheap because it's such a mission oriented business. Um, that's what they think of. They're like, Oh, it seems like such a a

Good business, um, but great mission. And I don't think that people realize that it's both like a great mission and a great business. And I think, you know, we live in a capitalist society and being able to have both of those things come together. Idiot would say that are You just do the math. Like it it makes sense. Like this like if you scale to like fifty million in recurring revenue in three years. That's a great company. You're probably a lot higher than that.

I mean What that uh Do they know how to do math? They can they use a calculator? I don't know. I've I've talked to a lot of VCs, so there's still needed to be a lot of convincing

So when I started the hustle Um So the hustle was my company. We sold it to HubSpot. When I started the hustle, it was just a it was basically just a daily email. And it It was

relatively easy compared to what you have started because The person receiving the email had no idea if there was a million people or one people. getting it. Like that didn't impact their experience. And then we started trends, which is like our subscription business, and that had a paid community. And that sucked because I had to make it cool before I thought it was gonna be cool. So like I had to like convince my friends to like

join and post in it. And like make it seem like a you know, it's like a restaurant that already has customers before you actually know like if it's any good. When you so I know these businesses can be tough for that reason, how Were you able to get your first, let's say, ten or even a hundred people because It's like you're selling them something that isn't real, but it only becomes real when they're sold and bought in and like commit to it.

Yeah, I mean I think that they're Um Was a lot of Small tactics that all bubbled up to, you know, uh a a meaningful investment in the brand that allowed for people to understand what we were trying to build and who we were trying to build it for.

Um And I think we were really fortunate in having just some really amazing early members that kind of kept that ball rolling. But it was everything from Yeah, one of the things that we did was have a physical space at the onset and The physical space in some ways was like

marketing for us to kind of show a brand that we were trying to develop and um uh and and really bring that to life. Uh we Uh that was a conscious decision and investment into the brand Things like we didn't have a social media presence at all. Um, because uh we felt like

What were we gonna say? How would it be meaningful and it actually helped to create like this really interesting tightness of people that were in the community versus trying to you know, uh shout it out into all of the different social media areas. Um so there were a lot of things that I think we did And ultimately like U word of mouth was by far Our entire

Acquisition. uh strategy um which was pretty amazing. Um became the mouth play. You just emailed like your ten or twenty closest friends and they probably told a handful of people and you just said, like, hey, we're launching this in like sixty days, apply. And we'll let you know if is if this is a good fit. Yeah, I mean

It was not just our closest friends. We definitely sent some cold emails out to people that we had never met before, and I remember even some early V C conversations where we were showing, you know, here's our first members And they were like, Oh, so are these just all your friends and Lindsay's friends, my co founder, and were like actually no. That's not the case. Um, it was it was Amazing a cold email to CC executives at Fortune 500 companies and people were excited to join. I think Be able to

Also reference the YPO model, which a lot of people understood. Um helped to create some of that traction. Um And even the companies themselves, so our model is one where We uh you know sell directly to her, she then goes and gets it sponsored within

within her company. Um, and we didn't know how well or how easily that sponsorship would go and company signed up really quickly. I think for them they look at you know, one on one executive coaching can be thirty thousand dollars for a six month engagement. So uh relative to that, this was a great way for them to invest in some of their top talent.

And you got to like I I was uh like reading uh I think so you launched I'm looking at my notes, you launched like Around December two thousand eighteen. Within like a month or two you're you pass seven figures in recurring

Or like a run rate, right? But you had that cash in. And then by the end of the year, you're nearing ten million in revenue. I mean that's pretty wild. Yeah, um we started to sell at the end of twenty eighteen. We didn't officially launch services until two thousand nineteen, in February of two thousand nineteen. And we were just in New York City.

Um so we were continuing to add members in New York City until Around you know mid twenty nineteen we went and raised our series A largely to expand into new cities, um, which At the time was a a more capital intensive way of Of expanding because we were in person, we had to make investments into clubhouses.

And so we were in the midst of those build outs when the pandemic happened. Um and uh that's when we made the full pivot over to virtual. And as we did that, engagement actually went up across every of every one of our services. It was a time where something like Chief was needed more than ever and it allowed us to expand in a much different way. How did you know what to tell the coaches? Like what what to tell them How to run their group. Or facil YPO they've got facilitators. Uh I don't know what you call your uh folks.

But basically like it's I've I've done a couple of these things and they're pretty amazing. It's basically like And some people get insulted when I say this, but it's basically group therapy. And it's awesome and it's incredibly necessary. But a good

facilitator, therapist, like makes or break it a little bit. They do, they do. And I and we do a lot of vetting to make sure that we have the right coaches that are coming on that act as we call them guides on our platform. Um And they're just fabulous. We have close to four hundred um executive coaches that act as guides for us now. Um

And for us I think there's, you know, a a little bit of a beginning introduction into core that is very similar for all core groups. Um in the first few sessions there's, you know, a very prescribed way of bringing the group together, making sure that everybody Creates um A a deep sense of of community even within that group. Uh and then from there a lot of it really is

for the coach to decide the right path for that group. Because every group is different of what they need and what they're looking for. So we have created a lot of content, but it's to the coach and the group to really decide which direction they want to take a lot of those conversations and You know, a a vast majority of those conversations are real time. dependent on what's happening with the people in the room of you know, if somebody's about to

go through a massive reconst uh you know restructuring within their company. They're gonna wanna have a little bit more airtime in that session of people helping them work through some of those things. So It's uh it's heavily structured and guided. But with a lot of flexibility depending on what is needed for each group. So I wanna kinda nerd out a little bit on this on these models on this business, this community business model. I think it's awesome. And I actually think that like

It's With the remote. Or whatever we are in now, I think it's You're gonna see a lot more of these pop up and I think you're the first of this like new age ones. But I want to talk about some old school ones. I want to tell you about my research and you tell me if you've heard about any of these. Have you heard of World Fifty?

I have, yes. What do you know about World Fifty? So I I you're gonna know of all the ones that I know plus more, and you're the only person that is able to nerd out with me on this stuff. So that's why I like you. Yeah, I mean they're all what I have what I have generally found is that Most of the Communities that existed before now.

We're all very focused on the the most senior people for CEOs like the you know, uh and a lot of what I'm guessing you're about to list are all that. Um I think Yeah. But no, no, no, no, one isn't. I have one that isn't. Okay, what's the one that isn't? On deck. A lot of people know what on deck is. I don't even think on deck knows what on deck is. I think they're still trying to figure out like their existence or like you know their identity.

But they are attempting to do something. It seems as though they've piv I have no inside information. This is all just looking at their website. It seems like they're they're they're pivoting into kind of what you're doing. Yeah, I mean, I think uh I have deep respect for them as a company. Um, I think a lot of times what you often find is there's this. Uh what what leads? Does like community lead or does like curriculum and professional development lead. Um and

I think for that. I think it's hard. It's hard. It is, um, and for us Community has always led. Um and even, you know, you could extend that to many other paradigms of like, does community lean lead or does space lead? Like what is the actual service that you are providing? And for us we knew that community had to be the thing that

Always led. Um And even if you think about some of the, you know Business school.

as a as an analogy. Like Yes, a lot of people think you're going back for curriculum. I don't think you do. I think you go back for the network and the people. Um and so For us that has always been the the major Yeah. Thing that we knew we had to focus in on

And I think, you know, for on deck, I'm not sure that they lead with community as much as they do kind of the programming. Um And uh that I think is kind of the the difference that I would see there. So here's a few of businesses in the space that might like surprise the the listeners. So We talked about world fifty. So as I know it, world fifty It's

Basically Uh for CMOs, I think. Just CMOs, right? Uh, I thought it was broader than CMOs. I thought it was actually more of Like CEO Uh

Individuals. It started as CMOs. But yeah, I think it's expanded beyond that. But basically I think they were sold so in the the CMO or whoever it is, and there's like agency owners. So I have a friend who's part of it and he's an He runs an agency. And I'm pretty sure it's sixty thousand a year.

So quite expensive. I think it's only two events a year that they do. So it's almost it's basically an events business. And they sold for hundreds of millions of dollars recently. To uh PE. Just like I think a PE company. And then another one is uh Aventa. Have you heard of Aventa?

I haven't heard of Aventa. Okay, so it's E, V, A, and T A. Aventu was sold to Gartner for like two hundred and fifty million dollars. And it was almost like the same thing. But it was worse because it was advertising driven.

So the attendees would like log on. Like it'd be like this chief information officer, which frankly I don't even Companies that are I've never worked at a really big company, like in order to have a chief information officer, you're g you're gonna be a pretty huge company. So I don't even entirely know what a chief information officer is. But they would host these like webinars pretty much, where like a chief information officer or a bunch of would come and like you know, do like the group therapy thing and explain And like You know How are we supposed to

work from remote and do all this what uh whatever. They just complain and improve at one another and all that type of thing. And they would charge like Bank of America or some big sponsor money to be there. And they sold the company to Gardner for like three hundred million dollars. It's pretty wild. No. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean Event businesses in general uh is a type of business model that I didn't really have much familiarity with until chief and I would never consider ourselves an event company. Um but uh it's been pretty Interesting to see The opportunities that exist for for people in that space for sure. What are the I I used to own an event business and we like did like seven figures in a year on it and

It was a pain in the ass. It was so hard. It's so stressful. It just like Because like There's not many businesses where like if it rains, you're screwed. Like if it rains one day out of three hundred and sixty five days, like you're you're you're poor. What uh what uh what what opportunities do you see with the vents.

Well, I mean I think that there's all sorts of different um angles that people have created in in that world. And, you know, I think a lot of the content businesses have even started to, you know, try to extend into that a little bit more. But Yeah, like Summit series, I think was just like a really interesting model of of what they were trying to create. Had a lot of community within it. Um, but you know, again, it was more events led than I think community led. Um so

It's been an an area that Uh we definitely Pay attention to um because it feels Related, but Uh not in our exact wheelhouse.

For sure. Have you heard of um Vistage? Vista is is an interesting one too, right? Yeah, yeah, Vista is basically like YPO. Um They focus specifically again on that CEO and president profile. Um, I think they're close to like a two hundred million dollar business.

Uh I heard that they're doing a hundred million in profit a year. That's what I heard from a relatively trusted source, but I I don't have proof. Uh of that. W would that would that surprise you? Um I think that

If if you look at some of those business models, so let's take Vista or you take YPO. Um you know, YPO is a nonprofit, um, and yet uh Yeah. might be one of the most profitable nonprofits I would imagine. Um, because What we have is our biggest expenses, you know, we have these spaces, we invest heavily into our coaches, we do a lot of that stuff.

Um For YPO they actually don't have pay facilitators, they train members to be the facilitators of a lot of those groups. Um so It's an interesting model to to think about, um and What a rating.

That as a as a part of that they They do Pretty well. Um, but I've never seen their financial, so I cannot speak with authority on either of those businesses. Wait, Y PO you've never? No, no, I've never seen. It's public, isn't it? Can't you just log in and because it's a nonprofit?

Yeah, they bucket things in ways that I think makes it pretty difficult to really discern what's underneath each thing. Um, so Uh not fully able to Break that down. Right.

Are you guys uh As chief Um, were you able to run it? Mostly break even or will you lose it a lot in order to get big fast because It seems like it worked.

Um I would reframe the the the latter statement to say. Uh we uh were spend to make the experience as as strong as possible. I wouldn't say that we were spending to grow faster. Like I said, most of what we And how we have grown has been through word of mouth. So we haven't had to, you know continue to just pour money into a marketing cycle.

Um But for us, particularly over the pandemic and everything else, we wanted to make sure that we were Really investing in the member experience and and continuing to do that and we're continuing to do that and that's why we wanted to raise more capital to continue to do that. Um And you know, I

I think about When brands are are made and yeah, and and it's in those tough times and for us being able to be there for our members through the pandemic when a lot of them at the very beginning of the pandemic there were furloughs, there were all of those things, like how do we invest in that experience over that period of time was really important to us. If an employee if one of your members quits are

Job. Do you just have a team that will just like holler at their new employer and be like, Hey, uh you know, Ashley was a member of Chief. You know, IBM no longer pays for it. And then you like

You know, somehow like get in with that company a little bit. Yeah, I mean th I think that is actually one of the re other reasons that we wanted to go and and raise this money is that right now it is a B to C to B business, right? Like we develop the relationship with her, she then goes and gets it sponsored. And What we have found is that when she asks, the sponsorship has actually been

Pretty easy to get. Um brainer. But the barrier is her asking. Um and so Us going and actually building more of those relationships directly with the company.

It seems like a no brainer for them to proactively do more of this instead of reactively approve. Um and so I think that's a an opportunity for us to explore to really take that burden off of her to to have to go and get that sponsorship. Um But uh Yeah, we we definitely Yeah, twenty percent of

the workforce changes jobs in any given year. So there's definitely a lot of new relationships for us to help Both. The companies and the members navigate. We're talking about Tiger Twenty One and it's cool. So Tiger Twenty One is basically uh you know, a community for people who have I think above ten million dollar liquid net worth.

And That's Cool. That's pretty sexy. Just hanging around rich folks all the time. That's great. But it's actually kind of a tough sell, I would imagine, because it's the person paying for it. And when I heard about Chief Um, I was like oh my gosh, this is like

Uh you know, when I our company when I sold, we were only forty employees. And so we were probably just crossing that threshold where we could afford to send only a couple of employees to like things like this. And I was thinking about like my leadership team. I'm like, man, if one of them come came to me and asked me for this, like this would just be like The easiest of like yeah, yeah, totally. I I would probably make them sign like a a deal that says like all right, but if you quit within a year, like you owe us like some re you gotta have to reimburse us. But uh I was like, Yeah, this is this is just an easy sell for Chief. I understand why this company's gonna get so big. Yeah, yeah. I mean I think we've definitely heard stories where when there has been like

That The There's some companies who I think are like, Well, you're gonna go in and you're gonna meet new people, and that could actually open up new opportunities for you that you may not otherwise have. And it's actually the exact opposite. What we have found is When a company says no on the on the sponsorship

It is a really clear signal to a lot of these people that okay, you're not investing in me. You're you're you're You don't value me. And so that is actually the trigger of somebody thinking about going and leaving and and finding other opportunities. And so they will self-sponsor And go and find something versus be sponsored, be happy in the job that they are, and continue to grow as a leader for that company. What other uh you know, you're focused on your thing.

But A lot of times what we do here is we talk about ideas. So things that we we may or may not do, but it's interesting based off the intel that I know. What other uh niches or opportunities do you like This business model

Or Yeah, I mean I think that Uh This business model in particular

is one that I think will Have a really interesting next few years as um People are still working from home and still in this hybrid world, but wanting that community and those connections. And so I think in those in any area where That feeling of loneliness is is still really present coming out of the pandemic. I think there's some really interesting opportunities. I think the hard part is the the nice

the really nice aspect of Chief is that ultimately it's the company that can sponsor it. And so How do you find those areas and those demographics and those people who need that community who will crave that community? But have somebody like the company that's willing to make that investment in those people. And that's the one two punch that I think makes Chief really Interesting.

Um and harder to find outside of like the professional sphere. Our software is the worst. Have you heard of HubSpot? See most CRMs are a cobbled together mess, but HubSpot is easy to adopt and actually looks gorgeous. I think I love our new CRM. Our software is the best.

HubSpot. Grow better. Yeah, well, I was thinking about this model and I was like, it makes perfect sense for the Uh This group because I was like Uh you know, we have a problem with

uh women not there there's the you know it's not equal in terms of like the representation. So like of course I would invest in this in order to uh Help my folks. And In doing so, like whenever you have a group that feels like they're like disrespected or like they're is they don't like how they're being treated. They bond together in a great way.

It's like us versus the world, like you know, it like mobilizes them. And that type of Every great community is based on that. And I was thinking about it, like, well if you just did this for like Just anyone, like let's say like uh I think there's a company called Venwise. Have you heard of Venwise?

Yeah. Yeah. It and I I think it's basically just what you're doing, but for everyone. And I'm like, Well that's Why is that succeeding and why is Chief succeeding in that vend wise and those or they are probably succeeding, but they're probably no ne nowhere as big and impactful as you guys. Um It's because that like this idea of like it's us versus the world, that type of you need that in any type of community, I think, to in order to mobilize one another and to feel

Bonded. Yeah. Uh Ven West I think focuses in on um Senior executives, probably like C suite executives, and high growth startups. That's like their their focus. So um And Uh

I think a lot of what they do uh really focuses in on that peer group model solely and doesn't have a lot of the community the broader community around it. It doesn't have that shared mission, um, and I I would potentially reframe what you said just a tad to say like I don't know that it's as us versus them as much as like

A galvanizing mission that brings you together that just makes you feel really bonded. Um And it doesn't have to be at somebody else's expense. But it is a a feeling of togetherness that is created. And I think that is what um you know the the mission of chief really does allow for is that that broader connec connectedness within the community. Yeah, that's what I I I don't mean like uh

I said us versus the world, but it was it's definitely it's not like uh we're trying to kick anyone's ass. It's like uh You know, not everyone can identify with how we feel. Finally I'm I'm amongst my tribe and others don't exactly understand. Uh you know, Vistage could be cool. I think Vistage is I think I Vistage, I think their whole like shtick is uh Well, it it's kinda like blue collary, so like someone who owns like a moving or plumbing company that does like ten or twenty million in revenue and And that person to themselves probably says like I feel alone like you know, I don't uh I don't hang out with people like me. I I need to find like my people.

Um And so like there it's like that uh Finding your Your tribe maybe is a little bit better than us versus the world. Yes, exactly. Um it it is that feeling of

Um Thank you. I don't have a group of people that understand my context easily. Um and finding that being able to be able to tap into that um and

be able to have the confidentiality that goes with some of that too,'cause a lot of what happens in these peer groups Is you know, pretty raw, honest, authentic conversations that is is hard to have with just anyone. How are you as a founder able to get intel and insight into your customers and your product? Because

I bet you're you don't go to some of these group I mean you you don't go that would That wouldn't be great to have you uh you know, like the big boss and and a bunch of these groups. So like how are you able to learn quickly and figure out what's working and what's not? Yeah. I mean I uh we do not. It's a it's a confidential space for them to have their conversation. So we're not able to, you know Watch what is happening in each of these sessions.

But I think, you know, even going back to what we were just talking about of There being a galvanizing feeling around this mission. Our members are just so passionate about this mission that They are not shy. to give us feedback on anything and everything. Um so

Uh we It has truly been kind of a an amazing experience to be able to Get. all of that feedback and be able to create some of this.

In partnership. Um, and we have some amazing members who have stepped forward and Um, you know, we have one member who's like, I'm gonna just run a sub board services community group within chief and bring in speakers and help each other find opportunities and so you've just seen such a Um uprising of both Feedback?

But also really big uh interest in in stepping forward and helping to create stuff together. So for one of our communities we have like fifteen thousand ish paying members. Sort of like you have but like Not even close to the the the amount of revenue, but a a lot of people But we um

And like the hardest part. In terms of like Tactics for starting a community is that I found Is getting people to participate online.

And it's like literally like just the friction. And so a lot of the things that I've done, I've built so like so many things, so many I've built a bunch of different communities. on Facebook groups because I have never seen a platform get or a community platform get as much engagement in terms of um People

It people in the group. Uh the ratio of people in the group to the the ratio of uh People in the group to people who participate in the group. But then a lot of people I've seen, like I've got uh a couple of friends that have huge blogs and they just go, you know, let's just say like one of these blogs is Financial Samurai, Financial Samurai dot com personal finance blog. It's awesome.

He was like, Oh, I'm just gonna create a form on my website, financial samurai dot com slash form. And he even though he's got this huge audience, the forum is crickets. And it's because like literally going to that website and posting on a forum is in like it's like a point zero one percent. like ratio of people in the community and readers.

participating. Whereas Facebook I've found it to be like if you have a hundred people in the group Like ten or twenty people will actually participate, which is pretty astounding. Have you been able to crack that code with getting people to log in and go to your website? And making it all happen.

And participating? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So um We we started early days in a Pretty similar tactic, um, candidly, of Where are they already and how do we you know

not create that additional friction of needing to go to our proprietary You know. App, website, et cetera. Um, and so we actually started early days on Slack. Um, and it was

Amazing to see the amount of interaction that was happening there and and how much uh people were you know stepping forward to help each other to connect to all do all sorts of different things The problem is that like Slack is definitely not built for a community of No man, Slack sucks. I hate it. Like you can't you don't even know who you're talking to unless they've properly filled out their pro like it's just not the the the forum. And so we switched over to ours. um our own in in twenty twenty.

Um And it has sustained. Um, and I think for us a lot of it is around, you know There's the these known touch points that are going to come up. You're going to on every month you're going to have a core meeting that's going to pull you into the product in order for you to go and and get what you need to get to go and have that conversation. Um, and there's many of those types of things that you know there's there's many utilities.

that exist within the platform that pull you in and then once you're in draw you into a lot of the community aspects. Um so it's been really great to see um and It's everything from you know I it I'm looking to hire somebody to um I need an employment lawyer. Like there's just so much need and network to be able to tap in to do that. You can't really do that on a LinkedIn um at this point because if your LinkedIn is like mine, I think I know like

I know like twenty percent of the people that I'm connected to at this point. Um and so it's a really valuable utility and resource that we've been Really excited about how much people have engaged in it. And it's not just to go on and doom scroll and, you know, look at our content. It's actual utility for them. What I'm about to say kinda sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it's not. It's a it's very much a compliment. But basically, you guys have created this brand. The reason it sounds bad is'cause I was gonna use the word like elitist, but that's not fair. I don't mean like elitist in a bad way.

Maybe elite. Like Just like bad asses. You know, like it's it's like Harvard or something, where it's like it's hard to get into Yeah, there's not much on the internet about it. You guys'cause I don't think you have a Twitter or a Facebook or an Instagram. You only have LinkedIn. And so like there's this thing where it's like

I don't know if you like to admit it, but it's like FOMO where it's like, Oh man, like the cool peop the people who I wanna be are part of this thing. Uh I wanna be part of it. Uh but I can't. You know, I gotta get accepted. How do you how do you go about creating a brand like that on purpose? Is this just something that came natural to you? Like how how do you make this where it's like uh so I mean you just executed that strategy well.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean we Uh we like to think of ourselves as vetted. We are a vetted community. We're not an exclusive community. We're not an elite community, but we are vetted because Um So many of the people that are members

de facto fall into the mentor position or you know the manager and so really for it to be a beneficial community for her, it has to be vetted. For people that are more of her peers. Um and You know, I think that there is a level of

aspirational branding that we wanted to to create with Chief because Candidly, if you think about Even like three years ago as we were building this, if you heard the term a women's professional network. You would not think of something aspirational. It would be like warm white wine, name tags, and pants suits. Like that is what would be like in your mind of what a women's professional network was. And so it was really important for us to create something that

Felt. Um, like we were celebrating our members instead of what so often a women's professional network gets created into. Um and That was why you know, we talked about that at the beginning of this, but that was why we wanted to have a space that felt um that that brought that brand to life that helped to showcase what we meant by that and Um, and the space really allowed that brand to come through. It's why we didn't want to be on a lot of those social networks. I think my my co founder and I were talking about like a social media strategy where we're like

What are we gonna do? Just put inspirational quotes out there like every week? Um, like we've seen that. Like how do we make this feel different? Um and so It was very important for us to really Create a brand that we thought our members deserved. How do you think this story's gonna earn

Uh and in terms of like uh You're gonna Is someone gonna buy you? Do you think that like a LinkedIn would buy you? Do you think you wanna go public? What do you w what's gonna happen five or ten years down the line, you think? Uh I think that We are excited to keep any and all option open.

Um, but at the end of the day Um The entire value Of this organization is our members. Um, and so and it's

Our members are here because they are They need the value that we create, but they also care deeply about our mission. And so anything that we do, any partner that we you know, want to um talk to any strategy that we go and enact has to be very much in line with that mission. Um and I've been very fortunate.

in going the V C route that we've been able to find the right partners who can come on as those VCs that understand that that leads everything and anything for us. Would you want to be CEO of a public company? Ha ha Uh it has never been on my bucket list of things that I like.

Um, but I want Chief to be Uh as successful as it ever could possibly be. Um and uh I want there to be A great outcome for our members, our team, etc. Um and That leads more than anything.

Well this is awesome. Um This is this is really intriguing. You've You haven't done a ton of podcasts, I think, right? No, we have we have our own The New Rules of Business by Chief, but uh I've not been Uh on many podcasts.

As a as a guest. Do you think uh good. And I I noticed that, and that's why I wanted to talk to you. Do you think that Um You're just so under the radar for I think how The the the uh

There are so many other businesses in the in our little circle jerk startup world, it's kind of full of stupid hype. And there's so many of them that are we talk about so much, but they're like kind of bullshit, like not good companies and they're gonna go nowhere. But then you folks are the exact opposite, where you're like

Seem like you actually have a pretty substantial business. I think it's gonna be actually incredibly big. Very few people are talking about you. You know what I mean? And I I find that I I kinda think that's actually cool. And I wonder to know, how do you how does that make you feel?

I'm right where I want to be. Ha ha ha I I uh I think that there's actually something really amazing about um Being under You know, uh

hyped. Um I I really Like kind of Making sure that we are focused on the most important thing, which is like building a great business and not like uh and even for Lindsay and I, you know, uh as co founders Um, part of the reason why we don't do a lot of Yeah, publicity and other things is because we

Yeah. are actually trying to showcase our members more than ourselves. Like they're actually a hell of a lot more impressive than either of us are. Um, and so it it feels it feels right for what we are creating, um, to be heads down and focused on building a great business versus You know. Uh

Building hype. Yeah. Well, it's awesome. Where where are you from? Where were you raised? I uh grew up in Ithaca, New York. Nice. Okay. So you're going to be able to do it

So and and where's your co founder from? Also upstate New York. But like New York City, upstate New York, like an hour. Not my true upstate New York. Well, that's badass. I'm uh I'm I'm happy we got to talk. I think it's amazing what you guys have accomplished. You're you're under the radar, I think. And the reason I wanted to talk to you was I noticed not a lot of people had talked to you. And Yeah.

I don't know. I feel like Maybe uh I could like uh I take a little bit of pride in like We spotted this winner, not quite early on. You already raised money at a billion dollar valuation, but like Uh B maybe maybe maybe a billion will be considered quite early for how the story ends, though.

So uh Uh. Uh, I'm really appreciative that you guys uh that you decided to come on and give me a Give me a shot. Yeah, no, I was excited to come on and and have the conversation and

Um Like I said, I think a lot of c people I I remember very early days of even just trying to get a lawyer to like help us establish the company and like Yeah, was talking about wanting to be V C funded and I literally could not get a lawyer To

work with me'cause they were like, this should not be a V C funded business. This is a very nice, you know, lifestyle business. They're like, I can't even get a lawyer but I'm gonna pay do this. So it's it is nice to be able to you know, celebrate some of these wins and um And for people to know that We have a deep mission, but it is a a great business, too. The lawyers wouldn't talk to you and and you're happy that you're able to like celebrate this win. Yeah, uh so yeah, we I couldn't even pay lawyers to to represent us. Um

So it's nice to have these wins and be able to, you know Not only show that we're a really mission oriented business, but we're a great business too. And I think that's first of all, I hate when people say it when say, Oh, this is a knife light This is a nice lifestyle business. I hate that for Yeah. A

There they're Trying to insult you. In be insulting a little bit. And B, they're wrong because Lifestyle businesses are o like

What? What does that mean? It's a lifestyle business. Oh, like it's just a company that can make like twenty or thirty million dollars a year in profit and I could just own it all. Yeah, then it is a life like yeah, well like Well lifestyle but what's that mean? Like like Like I don't I don't know like Mars Candy, like a family owned business that's like the largest company in the world. Yeah, sick lifestyle. So I I I cannot stand when they say that. I think that's really stupid.

But With your with your business, I do think I'm like Man, I would want to be greedy and own the whole thing. I wouldn't want to raise money. And so d is there any do you think Do you think you'll have regret about raising money, or at least a about raising as much money as you have because The business model is

pretty freaking perfect. Like it's like a pretty efficient, amazing model, I think. Yeah, I mean I think that there is a A a a definite strategy that businesses like ours could have of going Very slowly and using proceeds from the The business to

feedback into the services that you want to create. That's definitely one Way that the strategy could go. Um I think I

I do not think that I would have any regret with the the way in which we are going. Um because I think we're impatient of trying to build a really meaningful powerful network for badass women that that that need this. Um and You know, at the heart of the mission is like to drive more women into positions of leadership and keep them there. It's Over two hundred years before we get to gender parity in senior executive positions, and if a little bit of dilution means that we can go and execute on that mission faster.

I'm game. I understand why people invest it. You're very good at your pitch. You've honed in. You you seem like a a force to be reckoned with. Congratulations on everything. Uh I'm happy I got to speak with you. Thank you uh for coming on. Do you Do you use social do you is there any Is there any uh thing that you wanna plug like your your your I I don't even think I saw you using social, did I? Yeah, I'm not I'm not as much of a social media person as my co founder.

Uh I'm on LinkedIn, but um yeah, I think the thing I would plug is is our podcast as well, The New Rules of Business by Chief, um, which we just launched last year and so People want to check that out, they they can see us there. How's it going? Podcasts are a pain in the ass to grow, aren't they? It's fun though. I actually like I every single uh podcast episode I'm kind of like this is like a nice little learning experience for me too. You're just talking with like experts in their fields and

Uh learning a ton through it that I'm really enjoying it. I think it's fun to do. So at the hustle when we so w we are acquired by HubSpot, so we don't have advertising anymore, but before we were advertising or to make money. And when that was the case It was

Very tough. It was very hard. And'cause it was like, all right, how do we get downloads up? How do we get downloads up? For you folks, like maybe because you're not making money directly from it, it's still important to get big or whatever, but it's not like You know, you're not gonna go hungry.

Uh, and so yeah, if I was in your position, I would think it's awesome as well. Yeah, that is true. That we are not a advertising led podcast business. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. This was fun.

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