We were lucky to catch up with Erin-Kate Escobar recently and have shared our conversation below.

Erin-Kate, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

Initially, I resisted even the thought of running my own business. Then 2020 happened – the pandemic times and the fast spreading racial reckoning. While there were many challenges to 2020, it also was the final push that ushered me into taking the leap.It was time. I’m a strong facilitator, teacher, and leader, and I wasn’t sure that would be enough to run a business. A combination of amazing friends, new connections found online, and jumping into a values-aligned business coaching course all helped me go from anti-business to running a business grounded in decolonizing practices, divesting from capitalism, and building a healthy and inclusive work environment.

I wrote the copy for a website that a friend helped me set up on Squarespace. Friends read that copy and gave me feedback. Then, thanks to templates, I just started putting the information in there and named the business after me since coming up with a brand name felt way too intimidating. It only took about a week to get everything on the backend set up: federal EIN, bank account, and business registration for my city. It all happened quickly, thanks to some strong executive function skills!

Sometimes, unexpected things take a lot more time. I spent a lot of time figuring out what to use for my business address (my home, a UPS office, a PO box, etc.). I finally settled on a mailbox I could easily drive by to pick up my mail. I also learned really quickly that I don’t have to do all of this business stuff alone. Through my network, I interviewed and hired a bookkeeper, an online business manager, built a network of friends and colleagues who were in similar positions, and hosted a monthly meet-up for BIPOC diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging practitioners, located in CA who were running their own solopreneur businesses. Four years later, we still meet monthly for our online version of a watercooler, where we get together online and catch up, troubleshoot, and talk about what’s on our minds. It has been SO awesome having an amazing group of people I can troubleshoot with – where to get business insurance, how to make sure we don’t burn ourselves out, and making sure we get paid.

It’s been a really amazing experience where I’ve learned that, yes, I’m totally capable of running a rad business, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely or scary experience. We can do things in community and find support.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m Erin-Kate Escobar, the founder of Erin-Kate Escobar Consulting. I envision a world where every person can navigate and challenge oppression as a whole human being. I see building more inclusive workplaces as one way to bring that vision to life. Most of us spend a lot of our lives at work – spaces that rarely place our wellbeing at the center. So, I work with small organizations (typically less than 200 people) to build more inclusive workplaces where people can thrive. I do this through developing and implementing diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility strategies that include healing and anti-racism practices.

Navigating friendship, family, school, and then the workplace as a queer, non binary, Jewish, Biracial-Latinx/white person of color taught me a lot about how the world works. I have a background and training in nonviolent communication, transformational conflict, facilitating groups in conflict, intergroup dialogue, and social justice education. Each of these fuels and supports how I work with clients. I completed a Masters in Education in 2014 from the University of Vermont, focused on equity and inclusion and human development. After graduate school, I spent seven years supporting historically excluded groups in higher education, creating and sustaining mentoring programs, campus wide education initiatives, employee resources groups, programming for students, staff, and faculty, as well as collaborating with branches and small insular groups that were doing groundbreaking work and needed equity and inclusion support. It helped me gain real clarity in knowing I wanted to work with small organizations where we can get to the root of the symptoms people are experiencing.

Now, I offer services related to building diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging into strategic plans, coaching to support clients through the ongoing work of understanding how change is affecting the groups we are working with, and taking note of ongoing issues that can be addressed with an antiracist and healing lens, and providing a variety of workshops and professional development that support employees in implementing new systems-wide change.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

In running a business that is both rooted in and supports organizations in implementing equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging, I had to unlearn a lot of “business as usual” practices. Advice, mentoring, and common practices around entrepreneurship can result in overworking and burnout. I had to learn:

To be the best boss to myself. This has meant unlearning the amount of “grind” just go go go go. This means learning how to cultivate practices that allow me to rest, take time off, and make time for the things that fill my cup.

Build meaningful processes. This has meant reflecting on my intake questions to make sure I can get the most out of discovery calls. I take time to reflect on whether this is the right client for me or if is there someone in my network who would be a better fit.

Interrupt the “bigger is better” narrative or that constant seeking for more (more clients, more money, etc.). By asking myself, “what do I need to nourish me so I can fulfill the values of my business and my services can be truly aligned?” has helped me slow down. I’ve had to learn a lot of beautiful boundary setting, which has been a gift both personally and professionally.

These lessons have allowed me to build a more sustainable business. A business where I attempt a four day (or less) work week. I set aside time for vacations, retreats, reflecting on my business, and putting resources back into helping me learn and grow.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Absolutely! I’d love to share a few of my favorites: Toi Smith ran a group called Business Beyond Profit. She offered a seminar that taught me some of the building blocks for, as she puts it, breaking the spell of capitalism in our entrepreneurship. This included identifying a living wage, expanding what “success” means, making business personal, sharing the profits, and not erasing who we learn from as we apply lessons. These have been pivotal to how I run my business.

Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry who reminds us to build in intentional rest. The culture we live in does not support rest for rest’s sake. We have to build it/make it and take care of it ourselves (and hopefully with the support of colleagues and friends).

Saving Time by Jenny Odell explores indigenous, ecological, and geological time scales to help bring into perspective how each of us want to steward our time and rhythms. I’m really grateful for this resource helping me slow down–not just to imagine but experience a world that is not work-centric.

Emergent Strategy, We Will Not Cancel Us, and Holding Change by adrienne marie brown. These have all played a role in shaping how I build a business that is rooted in wellbeing, sustainability, creating and sustaining ourselves through the unknowns, and creating space for how I work with my clients.

Priya Parker wrote The Art of Gathering and has a podcast and great newsletter that all inform how to host meaningful spaces and build meaningful gatherings which certainly plays into my entrepreneurial thinking.

The National Equity Institute has a great article on how to hire for diversity, equity, and inclusion practitioners that has helped me help clients learn how to ask for what they are looking for or respond with what I can offer to support them.

Kayley Robsham ran a business incubator that helped me really feel into building a business that’s aligned with my energy, aligned with my values, and instilled building something I’m excited to show up to, and learn how to ask for the support I need. I’m really grateful for the program and the amazing folks I met while in that business incubator.

I hope you’ll be inspired to invest in yourself as a founder and CEO and give credit to your influences as just one more way to build a liberatory business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.erinkateescobar.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinkateescobar/