We were lucky to catch up with Renee Trepagnier recently and have shared our conversation below.

Renee, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

What does it take to build a successful woman-owned small business in a patriarchal economic system? As a woman bootstrapping her own small business while navigating through midlife, I learned to rely on some lessons I learned from my lengthy career in the tech industry. Here are some of my strategies, including some Pro Tips, that helped me along the way:

1. Navigating Gender Bias:

Women often confront stereotypical perceptions about their leadership abilities and business acumen. Early in my career, my tendency to take charge of a situation got me noticed, but my promotions often took longer than my male counterparts. I had to work harder and longer and make more noise to advance. Sometimes, it meant finding another company that was more open to women in leadership roles. Know your worth, use diplomacy, and never sell yourself short.

> Pro Tip: It is crucial to build a supportive network that includes other successful women. These women can provide guidance, mentorship, and advocacy. In turn, look for other women earlier in their careers for whom you can advocate and support on their journey.

2. Access to Funding:

There is a well-documented gap in funding opportunities for women, with female entrepreneurs receiving significantly less venture capital and bank loans. It is even more challenging for women of color. As recently as a decade ago, female angel investors were as rare as giant pandas. Female startups were virtually unheard of. Happily, that is changing. In 2022, there was a seismic shift in women becoming angel investors. And they are enthusiastically supporting female founders. If you need funding for your startup, search for female-focused grants, funding networks, and angel investors committed to supporting women-led businesses.

> Pro Tip: I cannot emphasize enough the importance of financial literacy. Seek specialized financial planning and investment training to bolster your confidence in funding pitches and negotiations.

3. Balancing Responsibilities:

Career women are often expected to manage many roles, balancing their careers with caring for children or elderly parents. Many women rely on time management and prioritization skills, but there is often not enough time in a day. Early on, I learned the importance of setting boundaries and sharing these responsibilities at home while delegating work to my team. These skills will be essential when you start your own business.

> Pro Tip: Introduce flexible working conditions for your team. Some people have different family obligations, and allowing for those variations will foster loyalty and support diversity among your team.

4. Leveraging Experience and Wisdom:

By the time I reached midlife, I realized I had gained a wealth of leadership experience and deep knowledge of managing teams and optimizing operations, which has been invaluable as we’ve built our business. Likewise, my co-founder’s experience with Sales and Marketing complements and rounds out our skillset.

> Pro Tip: Look for ways to capitalize on your personal and professional experiences as you discover all the hats someone needs to wear while you launch and grow your startup. Look for creative ways to fill gaps in crucial roles with outside help when necessary.

5. Building a Personal Brand:

When starting our careers, we don’t always think about our “personal brand.” However, crafting a personal brand can help you crystalize what you stand for and what people can expect from you. Over time, I have developed a personal brand through the content I post on LinkedIn and other social media accounts that reflects my values, experiences, and unique perspectives. This brand has been a powerful tool for connecting with prospects, customers, partners, and investors.

> Pro Tip: Remember that your online presence is public and reflects your values. Your mastery of digital marketing tools will enhance your visibility and brand recognition, which will carry well beyond your website and paid ads. Ensure consistency across these sites, and always be kind and professional.

6. Cultivating Resilience and Adaptability:

The journey of entrepreneurship is fraught with challenges, and it takes a lot of hard work. Like your daily exercise routine, you can build resilience by working on it every day: maintain a supportive network, take advantage of continuing education, and always make time for personal development. Remember to focus on long-term goals and don’t sweat the little stuff.

> Pro Tip: Celebrate your successes and learn from failures to foster a growth mindset essential for long-term business sustainability.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

By the time I reached 55 years of age, I was overworked, tired of the bullshit, and ready to start making my own rules. That’s when I started thinking about building my own company. I wanted to create a business in which I wanted to work. To prioritize people and the planet over individual profit. To have an executive board that wasn’t made up of 100% white males.

At Here I Am, we curate themed boxes of self-care products and home goods designed to create a relaxing or enriching experience to help women in midlife deal with the stress and disappointment in their world. I want them to feel good about themselves. We have bath products for unwinding, beauty products for replenishing, and home goods and candles to uplift one’s mood and space. We offer ready-to-go gift boxes, “build your own” options, and a la carte items from our shop. Everything we offer is from women-owned small businesses, sustainably made with love for people and the planet.

Here I Am is a certified B-Corp business on a mission to give women the support they need to break through the structural disadvantages of a patriarchal society and give themselves some “me-first” time.

We have three core values that guide all of our decisions:

> Commitment to Economic Justice: We prioritize collective well-being over individual profit to combat the structural disadvantages of our economic system that negatively impact women and people of color.

> Assurance of Positive Impacts: We purchase our products exclusively from businesses committed to sustainable practices, positive social impacts, and environmental stewardship.

> Support for Local Communities: We purposefully support small businesses owned by women and people of color, helping them build wealth and create opportunities within their local communities.

Women Are at a Disadvantage: The patriarchal system has put women, particularly those of us in midlife, at a disadvantage. What we need is more space and time and equal pay. Though a relaxing bath and good face cream may feel nice in the moment, it won’t give us the time or space we need to thrive.

True self-care requires difficult decisions. It involves setting firm boundaries on how much you can give for others’ benefit. We need to support each other and, most importantly, start loving ourselves as we are. Only then can we see our true potential and operate at our fullest.

We Are Here to Support Women Entrepreneurs: Our main objective is to support women-owned businesses that create self-care products for you to enjoy. If you feel good, then we all thrive. Our mutual success is also tied to the health of our planet. That’s why we actively seek brands that share our commitment to earth-friendly practices, including efficient use of natural resources, minimal waste generation, low environmental impacts, and responsible environmental stewardship throughout their product design and production.

Our Products’ Journey Supports Your Self-Care Journey: The products we offer are designed to make you feel better. That is why we only select products that are good for you and good for the planet. We validate that the products we curate satisfy our expectations in the following areas:

1. Sustainable Sourcing: Are the ingredients sustainably sourced, organic, and good for you? We select products with plant-based, organic, and non-toxic ingredients.

2. Eco-Friendly Packaging: Is the product packaging recyclable, biodegradable, or reusable? We request that our brands use zero-waste packaging and shipping materials when possible and send our products to you in zero-waste boxes.

3. Clean Production Processes: Does the company use clean production processes? We only work with businesses that make products in small batches, avoiding the pollution of large-scale manufacturing processes.

4. Proximity to Sources: Where is the product made, and what source materials are required? We look for businesses making their products in or near their primary location and sourcing from businesses within the USA, reducing the emissions from overseas shipping.

5. Product Lifecycle: Are the products designed to be long-lasting? What does their end-of-life disposal require? We look for products that can be reused, composted, or recycled.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

From my experience, the most essential ingredient for building and managing a high-functioning team is showing them you trust them. Trust isn’t just telling someone: “I trust you.” You have to prove it by giving them confidence to try things, take risks, and do it their way. Showing them your trust requires giving them space to stumble, get it wrong, or even fail. But through those experiences, they will learn and become more creative, committed, and loyal to the business.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We tried several business models and platforms before settling on our current iteration. At first, we wanted to offer a subscription model, so we signed up for Subbly and Cratejoy. Subbly offered a way for us to have a stand-alone website, and Cratejoy was an excellent way to get more eyeballs on our offering. We eventually decided to focus more on gift boxes and individual purchases, so we moved away from the subscription model and those platforms. We are not on Etsy because we are resellers of other people’s creations. We chose not to go with Amazon, mainly because of the economics of their platform and because everything seems to be commoditized. We are not selling a commodity but rather an experience. After Subbly, we set up a WordPress site because it was cheaper and more flexible than the other platforms, but we soon moved over to Shopify, where we are currently. Shopify has reasonable pricing plans, strong support, and a wide variety of templates to get your site just right.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hereiambox.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hereiambox/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hereiambox0
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/here-i-am-box
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@hereiambox
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@hereiambox1