Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Clara Ma. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Clara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

If there’s anything I’ve learned in my barely decade long career, it’s that success is subjective and rarely looks like how you imagined it.

When I first graduated from undergrad, I watched as friends and classmates took roles as software engineers, management consultants, financial analysts and more. I lamented over the fact that I had not picked a more “hard skill” major and had chosen to follow my curiosities in Political Science and Media Studies instead. I felt that I was doomed to miss success since my earning potential was nowhere close to those who had chosen a Bachelor of Science over a Bachelor of Arts degree. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that had I not gone down this pathway, I would not have realized my penchant for windy career paths that eventually led me to a Chief of Staff role and then founding Ask a Chief of Staff.

From my journey with Ask a Chief of Staff, I’ve learned that true success encompasses personal growth, positive impact, and the ability to adapt and persevere. Here are the key elements I believe are crucial for success:

1. Authenticity and Self-awareness:
Success starts with understanding your strengths and passions. My journey began not with a desire to be a founder, but with a recognition of my unique skills in recruiting and my experience as a Chief of Staff. This self-awareness led me to create a business that aligned with my expertise and values.

2. Resilience and Adaptability:
The ability to navigate highs and lows is crucial. I remember the elation of making my first placement, followed by the realization that I had started a seasonal business at the beginning of a low season. This experience taught me the importance of emotional resilience and the need to adapt quickly. It led to the expansion of our services to include a community aspect, which helped stabilize our revenue.

3. Focus on Impact Rather Than Scale:
I’ve learned that success doesn’t always mean building a billion-dollar company. Instead, I focus on making a positive impact on a smaller scale, starting with ten people at a time. This approach has allowed me to stay true to my mission and create meaningful change without getting lost in the pursuit of unicorn status.

4. Building a Supportive Network:
Success is rarely achieved alone. I’ve found immense value in building a network of fellow female founders who I can share highs and lows with. This support system has been crucial in navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship.

5. Continuous Learning and Growth:
Even after passing the one-year mark with Ask a Chief of Staff, I still see myself as learning and growing. This mindset of continuous improvement has been key to our evolution and success.

6. Empowering Others:
A significant part of success is helping others succeed. By focusing on elevating operators, particularly Chiefs of Staff, we’re not just building a business, but creating a ripple effect of empowerment and improved leadership across organizations.

Ultimately, I believe success comes from staying true to your values, being willing to adapt and learn, focusing on making a positive impact, and building strong, supportive communities. It’s not just about personal achievements, but about creating value for others and contributing to positive change in your industry and beyond.

Taking time to celebrate each success, no matter how small, has been crucial. This includes even the small acts like hanging the first invoice on my whiteboard as a reminder of what I’ve achieved. These celebrations, whether small moments of positive reflection or popping a mini bottle of champagne, help maintain a positive outlook and motivate me to keep pushing forward.

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.

I’m Clara Ma, founder and CEO of Ask a Chief of Staff (AaCoS), a platform dedicated to empowering Chiefs of Staff and elevating operational leaders in the business world. My journey into this niche industry is a testament to the power of personal experience and the ability to recognize and fill a gap in the market.

My path to founding AaCoS was not a straight line. After graduating from UC Berkeley, I spent nearly a decade working in various roles at startups, predominantly in the tech world of Silicon Valley. My career trajectory took a significant turn when I became a Chief of Staff at an AI unicorn startup, Hugging Face, in early 2020. This role was a first for both me and my CEO, and it came with a steep learning curve, especially as we pivoted to remote work due to the pandemic.

During this time, I realized there was a severe lack of resources and support for Chiefs of Staff, a role that was becoming increasingly crucial in the startup ecosystem. This realization, coupled with my background in recruiting and my experience building a community of over 400 Chiefs of Staff at On Deck, led me to found Ask a Chief of Staff in 2021.

At AaCoS, we provide a unique blend of services:

1. Executive Search: We match top Chief of Staff talent with executives who are looking for the right fit. Our deep understanding of the role allows us to make connections that traditional recruiters might miss.

2. Community Building: We’ve created a network of ambitious Chiefs of Staff, with over 75% of our community identifying as women. This provides a space for knowledge sharing, support, and professional growth.

3. Educational Resources: We offer workshops taught by industry leaders, addressing the specific challenges and skills needed in the Chief of Staff role.

4. Mentorship: Our platform connects aspiring and current Chiefs of Staff with experienced mentors who have excelled in the role.

5. Career Services: We provide personalized coaching and career development services to help Chiefs of Staff navigate their career paths and maximize their impact.

What sets us apart is our laser focus on the Chief of Staff role and our commitment to elevating operational leaders. We understand the unique challenges of this position because we’ve lived them. Our approach is not just about filling a role; it’s about empowering individuals to succeed and drive organizational success.

I’m most proud of the impact we’ve had on individual careers and the broader conversation about operational leadership. We’ve helped numerous professionals step into impactful Chief of Staff roles, and we’ve seen many of our community members go on to become executives themselves. We’re changing the narrative around what it means to be a successful operational leader, particularly for women and underrepresented groups in tech and startups.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

After leaving my role at On Deck in June 2021, I wasn’t planning on becoming a founder. I had experienced burnout from nearly a decade in startups and initially just wanted to take a break. However, during my sabbatical, I couldn’t stop thinking about the challenges I had faced as a Chief of Staff and the lack of resources available for this crucial role.

Driven by this realization, I decided to start AaCoS as a recruiting service for Chiefs of Staff. I remember the excitement of incorporating the business and the thrill of making my first placement just a month after launch. I even printed out that first invoice and hung it on my whiteboard – a tangible reminder of the potential of this new venture.

However, the high of that first success was quickly followed by a significant low. I realized I had started a recruiting business at the beginning of the holiday season – traditionally a very slow time for hiring. As a bootstrapped founder with no outside funding, this timing could have been disastrous. The stark reality of the seasonal nature of recruiting hit me hard, and I found myself facing a potential drought in income just as the business was getting off the ground.

This moment was a true test of my resilience. It would have been easy to give up, to decide that the timing was wrong and return to the safety of a corporate job. Instead, I chose to adapt and evolve.

I took a step back and looked at what was working. While the recruiting side was slow, I noticed that the content I was producing about the Chief of Staff role was attracting a lot of attention. Professionals in these roles were seeking more information, looking to build their networks, and searching for resources to help them succeed.

This observation led to a pivotal decision – to expand AaCoS beyond just a recruiting service and into a community and resource platform for Chiefs of Staff. This expansion not only provided a more stable revenue stream during recruiting’s slow seasons but also allowed me to create more value for the Chiefs of Staff I was aiming to serve.

The transition wasn’t easy. It required learning new skills, developing new services, and expanding the business model. But my belief in the importance of supporting Chiefs of Staff kept me going through the long nights and uncertain times.

This experience taught me valuable lessons about resilience in entrepreneurship:

1. The importance of adaptability: Being willing to evolve your business model in response to market realities is crucial.

2. The value of diversification: Having multiple revenue streams can help weather seasonal fluctuations or unexpected challenges.

3. The power of listening to your audience: The pivot to a community model came from paying attention to what my audience was asking for.

4. The strength that comes from purpose: My commitment to empowering Chiefs of Staff gave me the motivation to push through difficult times.

Today, Ask a Chief of Staff is thriving, offering a blend of recruiting, community, and educational services. This success is a direct result of the resilience I found in those early, challenging days. It’s a reminder that sometimes, our greatest innovations come from our most significant challenges, if we have the resilience to push through and adapt.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

For anyone who is looking to build a social media audience, I always recommend taking a step back to think about what purpose an audience will solve. For Ask a Chief of Staff, having a robust LinkedIn audience helps us with a few things:

1. Establishes us a credible voice in our subject matter – Chiefs of Staff
2. Gives a platform to market our services
3. Grows our network for our community
4. Grow our candidate pool for our recruiting business

Writing for the sake of writing can be a great way to keep consistent at writing and practice those skills, but social media itself does not produce money or lead to success.

Once you’ve determined what purpose your social media audience will serve, then it’s about putting in the reps. Have a clear opinion/point of view that your posts will continue to point back to. Set aside time to write drafts of your posts and then post consistently. Lack of consistency is the number one reason why I see people fail to build an audience. They try writing for a few weeks, don’t see rapid growth, and then give up. The first 10K followers are the hardest to come by, but if you can get to that point, you’ll have built up the habit of writing consistently and your content will start to gain traction on its own.

I highly recommend checking out Justin Welsh’s course on the LinkedIn OS [https://learn.justinwelsh.me/a/2147505019/rLKar6oY]. It was a course that greatly helped me refine my narrative, audience, and content.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.askachiefofstaff.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clarama/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@askachiefofstaff
• Other: https://askachiefofstaff.substack.com

Image Credits

Lily Konings
Amanda Hong