We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Maren LaFollette a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Maren, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
My whole life, I have loved makeup. So, in 2019, I began my journey with producing makeup-related content for social media. This endeavor led me to gain makeup clients for weddings, senior pictures, photoshoots, etc. I’ve always known that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, and as I entered my mid- to late-twenties, I started to feel like I was falling behind – that I wasn’t successful yet. So, I decided to jump at the opportunity to take social media full-time with my sister-in-law. We started a User-Generated Content (UGC) business together, making lifestyle content for all different types of brands. After almost a year of working together, we began to burn out. I realized that it wasn’t the content creation that I was passionate about, but rather I was chasing anything that would mean I get to be my own boss. When we decided to officially shut down our business, I was left with endless questions about who I am, where I’m going, and what I wanted. Even with an incredible support system, I felt so alone. From my perspective, everyone around me was happy, successful, and had a plan for themselves. I started dissecting other people’s lives, looking for clues as to what I should be doing with my life. As you can guess, that did not work because what everyone else is doing is not indicative of what my life is supposed to be. And that’s when I started to realize that being in your 20s and 30s is incredibly challenging. The idea of having the ability to explore endless possibilities for yourself seems very exciting; however, it’s also one of the most overwhelming and paralyzing experiences. The more I contemplated this reality, the more I realized that I am not the only 20- or 30-something experiencing these feelings. In addition to my lifelong love for makeup, I always loved and excelled at having deep and meaningful conversations with people – in fact, growing up, I always wanted to be a therapist. As I started putting all of these pieces together, I started to feel this incredible pull to use my ability and passion for connection to help other people in this stage of life figure out what they want for themselves and how to build a life in alignment with their values and priorities. And thus was born my life coaching business, The Clarity Buzz.
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?
My name is Maren, and I am a multi-passionate late 20-something from the Midwest with an entrepreneurial thirst. I have always deeply valued connection and excelled at helping to talk through thoughts and ideas with others. When I was working full-time as a User-Generated Content (UGC) creator, I was on the hunt to connect with local small business owners to pitch my services. Instead of cold emailing, I wanted a way to meet these other entrepreneurs to actually build a relationship. It turns out that all the networking events, at least near me, were catered to young, corporate professionals, working for huge corporations (i.e., not my target market). So, my best friend and I decided to start an organization called Creative Social Club in Des Moines, Iowa. Our mission is to build a community of local small business owners and others with creative endeavors.
Months before we launched Creative Social Club, my sister-in-law and I made the decision to shut down our content creation business, which led me straight into a downward spiral full of questions about what I am doing and what I truly wanted out of my life. The light during this very dark time for me was knowing I just wanted to help people. As I followed that string, I had the realization that what I was experiencing is actually extremely common for people my age. So, I set out on a mission to help other 20- and 30-somethings navigate these periods of uncertainty.
For Creative Social Club, I am most proud of how this organization has been received by our community in Des Moines. We knew there was a gap in the networking market, but we didn’t expect it to be so greatly loved from our very first event. It has been an extremely rewarding experience to witness new businesses being discovered and strong connections being made between creatives.
As for my life coaching journey, I am beyond proud of how I have navigated some of life’s greatest challenges at such a young age. From the unexpected loss of a sibling, deep questioning of my identity, passions, and values, friendship breakups, challenges in a romantic relationship, business building, you name it. I have lived a life FULL of emotional hardship and growth. For me, it’s all been worth it because I’ve learned so many tools along the way that I can now share in order to help others through their own ebbs and flows of life.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I spent 4 years as a content creator, one of those years full-time. I spent every day during that time truly believing that social media was my dream career. Three years in was when I first started to feel unhappy, and I figured I just needed to change up what I was doing, so I began to make more lifestyle-related content. This led to co-starting a social media marketing agency with my sister-in-law. She had a really great eye for creative direction, and I had the strengths to plan, manage, and sell. When we got our first few contracts together, we were over the moon! This. This is what I wanted, and now I’ve got it. As we grew, we wanted to connect with local business owners to help businesses in our own community. As we searched for a way to easily connect with other entrepreneurs, we were floored at the fact that all the existing networking groups were specifically for young corporate professionals. It was around this same time that I started to realize that my passions did not lie with being a content creator, but rather this was a path for me to finally fulfill my dream of owning my own business. The more I tried to suppress these feelings, the more frustrated I became with our work. Weeks later, I learned that my business partner was feeling the same way, and we decided to close our business. To say I was devastated and lost was an understatement. I spent years believing that this was my path, but after a lot of reflection, I was able to pinpoint the pieces that truly brought me joy and creating content was not one of them. I enjoyed the background work of being an entrepreneur, connecting with other business owners, and problem solving. So, I began taking all of these aspects of my experience and pouring them into co-building a successful networking organization for local creatives and small business owners! Without my social media journey, I never would have stumbled upon this gap in the networking space and I never would have started Creative Social Club!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In 2019, my brother, Jack, unexpectedly passed from an undiagnosed heart condition. We were both in our early 20s, living together, figuring out how to be adults. When he passed, my whole life was shattered. I was left alone at our house, in a city two hours away from our family and all of my friends, working at a job that I did not enjoy. Jack was someone who just went for what he wanted – every single time. He didn’t fuss about the what-ifs or the opinions of others. He just moved, learning and pivoting as he went. As my life continued with my new “normal”, it became second nature for me to live as Jack would live. Now… I’m a much more emotional person than he was, so I do my fair share of fussing, but I began to move as he would move. 99% of the time, I can easily imagine what he would encourage me to do, and it gives me the extra confidence to act. Eight months after he died, I moved back closer to home. I took a job offer from a company that I was unsure about, and it turned out to be the greatest job of my life (until it wasn’t). I began putting myself out there and posting makeup tutorials on Instagram & TikTok. I decided to buy a house at 23 years old – after thinking about it for all of 5 minutes. I decided to leave my toxic job without another job in place. I started my social media business with my sister-in-law and quit my new-ish corporate job. I closed my business and returned to my corporate job, tail between my legs. I hit pause to learn about myself and my values. I traveled the world. I started two new businesses. I just kept moving on what my heart wanted because I know that’s exactly what Jack would do.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theclaritybuzz/
