We were lucky to catch up with Tiffany Grandchamp Melnik recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tiffany, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

In 2020, I opened Women Lifting Women as a side gig. It was my passion project. At the time, I was working full time as the Chief Operating Officer of a non-profit in St Paul. I was making a good salary, had benefits, and a sense of job security.

In June of 2021, I left my “comfortable” job to run Women Lifting Women full time. It wasn’t because Women Lifting Women had become the success that allowed me to leave my job. I was still in the beginning stages of a bootstrapped startup.

I left my job because I was coaching women to live out their true values and arrive as they are in the workplace, at the same time I was going to work everyday with misaligned values. After COVID, my job changed a lot. It no longer aligned with my values as a leader. That was causing considerable stress.

So, I made the decision to focus on the company full-time, not really knowing how I would provide for my family. It was a big risk!

Fast forward to 2024, and I’m still here. Women Lifting Women has evolved so much in the last three years.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Women Lifting Women is a company with a mission to close the gender pay gap. We work direct with customers to provide trainings, workshops, upskilling, and coaching. We work with businesses to provide consulting and support for women in the workplace.
We recently created a line of products to raise funds for different non-profits, charities, and to support our annual women’s conference.

We are all things equal pay.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Women Lifting Women started in 2020 as a “passion project” while I was working full time as. Chief Operating Officer for a local non-profit. It was intended to offer support to women, knowing they were leaving the workforce in large amounts due to the pandemic.

Once I worked with my advisory team and figured out my first service offering, leadership development, I was getting more and more busy.

About 9 months into juggling both the business and my full-time job, I decided to take a leap and focus on Women Lifting Women exclusively.

It was a risky move. I bootstrapped the startup and only had about 6 months of savings to get it right.

Seven months later, I still wasn’t where I wanted to be. So I used my second business to supplement Women Lifting Women. My second business is a consulting company. I would take contracts in various companies and spread the word of Women Lifting Women.

In 2022, I was finally getting Women Lifting Women gigs. When Roe V Wade was overturned, I felt a deep desire to do more for women. Or to speak in a louder voice about the inequalities women face.

I started doing more speaking, and we started working with larger corporations. In 2024, we launched a direct to consumer sales channel, to get clothing and work products branded with fierce and empowering messages.

Our biggest seller is our yoga pants that read, “Pummel the Patriarchy.”

Today we are planning our first annual women’s conference to continue spreading the message about equal pay.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Managing a team requires emotional intelligence, empathy, strong strategic acumen and even stronger communication skills.

One of the greatest tips I got in my leadership studies was to always imagine you are the employee receiving the direction, communication, tasks from your boss. I’ve re-written communications to teams with this mindset.

The other piece of advice is to humble yourself and be open to listening to your teams. They have great ideas and maybe it’s not your preferred path, but creating a space for people to speak up (and intentionally listen to them) goes a long way in earning trust and keeping a team happy.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.womenliftingwomen.org