One simple piece of advice that stopped me in my tracks this week
+ the child care crisis, Olympic feels, consumer tech wins, lots of book stuff, and two spectacular wines.
Hi friends.
As a first-time entrepreneur, I get a lot of advice.
Some of it is excellent and I take it to heart. Some of it is unsolicited, often bordering on mansplaining (I work in a male-dominated industry, after all). Some of it is just wrong.
This has led to a neat new skill, born out of necessity—learning how to decipher between the good and the bad advice that is thrown my way, almost daily.
Over time, I’ve started to be more adept at wading through the constant barrage of strong opinions, friendly suggestions, and genius ideas to figure out what is worth embracing and what I have to politely (but firmly) decline or ignore.
This is a newer phenomenon since becoming a founder.
As a marketing exec, I had subject matter expertise. It was easy to know what to listen to because I had built up authority in the space. It’s a totally different scenario in the early days of running your own company. You are wearing multiple hats and learning things on the fly. You need guidance, but figuring out who is best qualified to give it is trickier than you think. Sometimes you are in uncharted territory, and just have to learn things the hard way.
That leads me to this week, when someone made a simple and powerful comment that I really needed to hear—and put a lot of this into perspective for me.
I was on a pitch call with a seasoned wholesaler who asked about our product expansion strategy. I shared that for a variety of reasons, we will maintain focus on our current line-up—6 varietals of high-quality California wine in our signature packaging format. We firmly believe we have a lot of work to do on the current offerings before splitting focus to create something else.
To hedge, I also shared that we would expand at some point. I mentioned that we regularly get asked to produce kegs, ready-to-drink spritzes, canned wine and more from everyone from distributors and retailers, to investors and customers.
He nodded sympathetically and responded:
“Everyone is going to have a great idea about how to spend your money.”
Damn. So simple, so true.
One of those sage-yet-obvious comments that really got me thinking.
Since launching Juliet, everyone has had ideas about how to spend our money. Sometimes it’s a new product or an amazing event or influencer that we just have to partner with. People have told us to buy a tasting room, rent a Hamptons house for the summer, and pop up at Cannes Film Festival. We get referrals for talented (read: expensive) agencies weekly and no one is shy about telling us to increase headcount.
To be clear, we love to hear each and every one of these ideas.
All of it is well-intentioned and many of the suggestions are valid. But it’s easy to forget that the ideas are delivered in a vacuum, often without in depth knowledge of our business, and definitely without any consequences for the advice-giver.
As a founder, it can be tempting to get sidetracked by every shiny idea that comes your way, especially when the people suggesting it are qualified and smart. It can also feel uncomfortable to disregard them. In the back of your head you’re always thinking … maybe they are right, maybe we should be doing this.
The reality is this—no one knows a business better than the people running it.
Ultimately it’s on the founders (and leadership team) to parse through the noise and make the best decisions possible about how to spend the company’s time, energy, and resources. They are not only the best equipped to do so, but also the ones who are accountable for how those decisions pan out.
So I took this simple piece of advice as a reminder to have the courage of my convictions. In business—as in life—everybody is going to have an opinion about everything you do. It doesn’t hurt to hear them out, but ultimately you need to get comfortable with looking at the full picture and deciding for yourself what the best path forward is.
Without further ado, here is a round-up of interesting things on my radar, as well as one spectacular thing I (sort of) drank this week. ⬇️
xAllison
Welcome to On the Rise—weekly musings on founder life, navigating the business world, and women's empowerment from award-winning entrepreneur Allison Luvera, Co-Founder & CEO of Juliet. Subscribe (for free!) today.
On My Radar:
The lack of affordable child care in the US continues to be garner a lot of attention: Which will hopefully lead to more action at some point. In the meantime, labor force participation among women with young children has hit a wall since September, when billions in government child care aid expired and many companies started mandating office returns leaving many women with children in a lurch.
On a brighter note: Retired Olympian Allyson Felix, who has long been an advocate for child care support for elite athletes, created the first-ever nursery and family space in the Olympic Village in Paris. One more reason to love the games.
Speaking of the Olympics: Is anyone else feeling like this year the games are turning into the feminist dream we all need right now? So many huge wins and historic moments for the female athletes in the US and beyond.
Some highlights so far:
Ilohna Maher proudly wearing a bold red lip on the rugby pitch to show you “don’t have to sacrifice your femininity to play any sport”
The “Golden Girls” of the US women’s gymnastics team simultaneously making a case for mental health, otherworldly resilience, and diversity with their series of history-making performances.
Paris also marks the first-ever Olympics to reach gender parity among the athletes competing (it only took 124 years, but who’s counting).
In business news, there has been a lot of high-profile fundraising activity in the consumer tech space recently: Several massive rounds and valuations were announced, as well as smaller rounds led by prominent VCs.
Three deals on my radar:
Spring Health: A massive $100M Series E and $3.3B valuation for the AI-powered mental health startup led by April Koh, the youngest female founder of a Unicorn.
Flo Health: Another unicorn was born with a $200M Series C for Flo Health, a fertility and period tracking app that aims to “revolutionize women’s health”. Congratulations are in order for the two male founders.
Joy: Forerunner led a $10M Seed round for Joy, a platform that wants to transform how parents access guidance and support.
Another theme lately seems to be prominent female politicians publishing books: First, I read about the launch of True Gretch: What I've Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between. Impeccable timing on that release, someone on Governor Whitmer’s team deserves a raise.
Then I was targeted with a social media ad touting Hilary Clinton’s upcoming tour for her new book, Something Lost, Something Gained.
Lastly I heard about Nancy Pelosi’s The Art of Power. Yes, please. Love her or hate her, you have to admit this woman navigates Washington like no one else. I’d personally like to know her secrets.
In other, less serious book related happenings: Juliet was served at a lovely Tory Burch event for author Tessa Bailey, hosted by 831 Stories, a new community for lovers of modern romantic fiction. They officially launch in September but sign up for early access here.
Continuing my search for the perfect block heel shoes: I am trying to refrain from any shopping until Fall, but I can’t resist a Larroudé sale. The quality-to-price ratio (excuse my business terminology) of these shoes is unmatched.
I ordered the Flora Mule in Gold for just $157, perfect for my upcoming trip to Mallorca. ⬇️
What I’m Drinking:
To celebrate two years of Juliet Wine (!), my co-founder Lauren organized seats at an intimate winemaker dinner in the Roscioli cellar.
We were treated to a five course Italian meal paired with eight Tuscan wines from Sebastian Nosello—a rising star in Montalcino, who currently oversees the program at Podere le Ripi, as well as his own project Bakkanali. Aside from being a charming dinner companion, Sebastian is known for a steadfast commitment to sustainability and biodynamic farming (we heard quite a lot about bees), and is a champion of innovative winemaking methods (“new terroirs” … “free of rules and regulations”).
Now this was an absolutely phenomenal culinary experience—one of those moments when I feel so grateful to work in the industry and be able to do these things as part of my “job” (also lucky to have a business partner that thinks to coordinate this stuff).
The timing was tricky though as I’m currently taking a few weeks off of drinking. I had to exert maximum willpower to keep myself to one or two sips per glass served.
Of those precious sips, the standout wines for me were:
2022 Cappuccetto Rosa: This was technically a rosé wine made from Sangiovese grapes with 24 hours on the skins, but the wine had enough juicy red fruit, intensity and structure to qualify as a “chillable red” in my book (exactly what I’m loving this Summer).
2016 Brunello di Montalcino Amore e Magia: Sebastian talked about this vintage with awe, and this wine was a powerful yet silky expression of it. Aged wines often show bold fruit tempered by aromas of “otherness”, whether that be earth, tobacco, or spice, which become integrated over time. This wine had a beautiful earthy, herbal quality to balance the red and purple fruits.
All in all, a pretty perfect Monday with top food, wines, and people.
That’s it for now—see you next week! ✨