Women entrepreneurs don’t have it easy, to say the least. When it comes to trusting yourself and your motives, your vision can seem blurry. Often we question ourselves: Is it a good idea? Is there a market for my product? How can I break way into getting my idea off the ground? Am I realistic or unrealistic about my business prospects?
Whether you are on the verge of coming up with an idea or trying to do something incredible, it can be a challenge. Majority of women entrepreneurs have felt like pulling their hair out at some point in time (I know I have).
You need to learn to trust yourself.
However, sometimes just believing in yourself isn’t enough. As a woman, mother and entrepreneur, I’ve needed guidance and advice to ensure I’m making smart decisions. I’ve personally found that networking with successful women entrepreneurs that have been through similar ups and downs has tremendously impacted my projects and given me the support I was yearning for.
After all, we are all women trying to do something amazing and be successful in the business world. So what a better way than to ask questions and get guidance to help trust yourself in the process? This is the motivation behind Creative Women Conference.
Enjoy personal insights from these inspirations women entrepreneurs who are also speakers at the event coming up in May 2017.
#1 Recognise a problem and think how you can do it better.
In an interview, Liat Mordechay Hertanu shares how her and her partner created the personal assistant app 24me, which was featured in Apple’s “10 Essential” productivity apps. Her inspirational idea came out of a serious problem:
“The concept of 24me came out of my own life challenges. I built a beautiful family with three kids in less than four years, while relocating to the US, pursuing my EMBA and working full time. I was struggling with my most precious resource: time. I remember that day when I was late for a meeting, got a late payment fee for one of my bills and had zero time to fill the refrigerator with groceries. I thought to myself – there must be a better way to juggle everything! That was the moment Gilad, my partner in life, and I decided to build a virtual personal assistant. We wanted to create a technology that would help people all over the world manage their lives efficiently, so they would have more time to enjoy the things they love to do.”
At the Creative Women Conference, expect to be awed by Liat Mordechay Hertanu. She’ll also be sharing strategies and techniques in her keynote speech: Work Smarter, Not Harder! Personal & Professional Productivity. Get your notes ready!
#2 Test the market to know if you fit in.
In a conversation with Genna Elvin, she may be young but, goodness, is she one powerful woman breaking the way in her industry. She knows the challenges women entrepreneurs face and the struggles of ensuring a product is attractive in the market. Genna has also had to trust in herself as she has felt the need to prove her abilities to her male counterparts. She’s raising her toddler and also running her company, TadaWeb – a truly amazing woman.
“Before you start a business you need to test the market. The quickest route to failure is not having a sustainable or scalable product market fit. Once you have determined that your idea has the potential to alleviate significant pain in the market, or create enough valuable with a “vitamin” there should be no stopping you. Building a network is also a very important component in the early days. It is then more than ever when you need people who really know how to build and grow a company as your advisors. I think for women we are lucky in this respect, as I have found that over and over again there is a feeling of empowerment when women get together. I have found that most of us just want to help each other and so the track to getting to really top players can sometimes be shorter.”
Genna Elvin will be presenting on how to Leaning Out Your Business Model For Better Results and conducting a workshop on Speeding Up Your Career & Business Metabolism.
#3 Don’t go at it alone. Find the right support.
Alise Semjonva is a tech girl and entrepreneur that has designed one of the world’s most favourite data visualisation tools, Infogram. According to Alise, learning to trust in yourself means getting involved with people that are in same shoes you are; you need support. It is about networking and learning from others in the community to gain the confidence to move forward. Of course, it is also ensuring to know if your product is desirable by tapping into customer data. Now in 2017, there is so much online data you can tap into to learn about your clients and actually design or improve a product for any business. Here’s an interview highlight from a start-up magazine:
“Apart from truly believing in the democratization of data visualization, I got inspired by the start-up community. It is built around sharing knowledge and helping each other to become successful. I was a bit afraid to quit everything, and I had to jump into the unknown, but every victory that Infogram won — including prizes in conferences and trust from the first customers — encouraged me to continue on.”
Join Alise Semjonova at the Creative Women Conference as she will be going into detail how you can learn to trust your idea and design a product WITH your customers – NOT for them. Learn that data is no magic trick and anyone can learn how to use it to their advantage.
#4 Trust in yourself to progress and grow.
Farzana Baduel is the Founder and CEO of Curzon PR, an award‐winning global strategic communications firm with offices in London, New York, Dubai and soon to be launched in Delhi, and a mother. The interesting thing about Farzana is that she wasn’t originally a PR woman. But she felt it was the perfect progression as she expressed in her interview “Why Work in PR”.
“Choosing to start my own PR agency was a perfect outlet for my accrued attributes from previous roles where I served as Vice Chair of Business Relations for The British Conservative Party and was involved in fundraising for the Conservative Party. Constantly being in the crossroads of media, marketing and advocacy is something that appealed to me as it allowed me to be actively engaged with different aspects of business at all times.”
She admits that it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t the end of the world if she fumbled a few times either. She advises start-ups to think about their brand positioning relative to their competitors. What is unique about their product/service or the way they do business, and what is interesting about them? Think about the strongest angles and communicate them consistently in press releases and all marketing materials to deliver the right message to the target audience.
If you are joining Creative Women, get your questions ready! Farzana Baduel is an extraordinary woman that will be more than thrilled to network with the ladies at the conference and answer your burning questions.
If you’re looking to network with a high calibre of women who know what you are going through and the struggles to climb to the top – look no further. The women mentioned above are just a few of our speakers that will be joining and speaking at the Creative Women Conference. So far we’ve got 13 fabulous women speakers coming from Germany, UK, Latvia, USA, Luxembourg and more. AND we’re so excited for other women to meet and learn from them.
I’m ready to network! How about you? #CreativeWomen2017
