986 Chelsea Clark:

Wings of Inspired Business podcast EP986 – Host Melinda Wittstock Interviews Chelsea Clark

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Chelsea Clark:

Because there’s a lot of brands paying a lot of money, it gets inauthentic. You can get paid to make one post about a product that you’ve never used before and will never use again. And of course that’s inauthentic. But then there’s a lot of creators that make really great content and they’re perfectly on brand for, for whatever the product is, and they do really well for the brand. So, there’s definitely both sides. But that’s like any industry, right? Like there’s awful contractors you know, they’re terrible to work with and then there’s the amazing ones that build your dream home. So, they’re really just marketing freelancers. And in a world where content is so, so important and used in so many places and where most people, you know, 45 and younger don’t necessarily watch TV or listen to radio, there’s really no choice. 

Melinda Wittstock:

More than a decade ago I ran a data analytics company that perused what was then the entire Twitter firehose for clues from people’s social conversations about whether gradually fade music here they would make a good “micro-influencer” for a brand. It was long before influencers were a thing, and I remember having to explain to myriad clients why authentic “third party” promotion was more powerful than advertising. So today I chat with Chelsea Clark who has built an influencer agency that aims at products for moms called Momfluence. We get into everything from what it takes to build a great influencer campaign to how to juggle entrepreneurship with motherhood.

PAUSE no words from 5-8 seconds…with music full

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, (Start to fade music GRADUALLY under my voice – here) epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who has built a platform and agency dedicated to connecting female creators—especially moms—with brands and high-impact marketing campaigns. Chelsea Clark went from running vegan restaurants in Canada to navigating burnout and relocating to Costa Rica, and today she shares her entrepreneurial journey, how motherhood fueled her business pivots, and why she believes moms are the ultimate market-makers.

Melinda Wittstock:

We also get into the evolution of influencer marketing—from inauthentic product plugs to the powerful rise of micro-influencers—and unpack how AI and custom software are transforming the industry behind the scenes. We talk strategy and tactics for all sorts of businesses navigating the influencer world, and also about what it takes for a mom to build a flexible, fulfilling business that supports her family life, and her strategies for managing growth without sacrificing sanity. 

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Chelsea Clark.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Chelsea, welcome to Wings.

Chelsea Clark:

Hi. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you’re an entrepreneur and you’re also a mom. So, what better then to combine those two things? Tell us a little bit about Momfluence and why you started it.

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, I was unemployed and I had a newborn and a three-year-old. I tried to go to naturopathy school near Toronto, and I really couldn’t handle being in any more school. Like I was burnt out after university and so the idea of four more years of school on top of it just was not appealing to me. I actually was working at a, a vegan restaurant at the time. I was really into healthy food, and they were looking for a new partner.

Chelsea Clark:

So, I actually bought out the previous partner, and I became a restauranteur overnight, which is a wild ride. I did that for 11 years with my partner who became my husband and father of my kids and rest. Running restaurants is a whole thing that, you know, special club of people that sacrifice their lives for.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s really a hard business actually. I think a lot of people have kind of naive dream, this sort of romantic of like they’ll, they’ll sort of, I don’t know, retire and have a restaurant. That’s not a retirement job.

Chelsea Clark:

It’s a permanent newborn baby or like the age where they just start to crawl and they’re everywhere. There’s absolutely a problem every single day. There’s so, so many small problems that over time it really does defeat you. Even, you know, even if you’re having fun and you’re resilient, it really gets very exhausting. It’s a hamster wheel. You have to have, you know, cilantro in stock because it’s in a recipe. Right. It’s just crazy, the details.

Chelsea Clark:

So, I became really, really good at running a business from running restaurants because we had franchises at one time. We had three of our own restaurants. It was wild. But once you have kids, obviously your time changes. And when I got pregnant with my second child, I was like, I’m not doing restaurants anymore. I’m so done at this point. And we moved to Costa Rica. Like everybody who’s burnt out wants to get better by the beach.

Chelsea Clark:

And that’s where I started Momfluence. Because at the end of owning restaurants, I got our food into retailers. So, health foods chains, grocers; they would carry our prepackaged foods, and it was really easy to get that set up. So, while I was in Costa Rica, I started with these little water shoes. I was like, I could probably get you into retailers. Let me help you. And then it kind of grew into this little distribution company I had where it was mostly mom owned, like small businesses and mostly kids clothing or kids products. And I would get them into retailers.

Chelsea Clark:

I could do that from Costa Rica. It was easy. You know, it was kind of exciting to me. But then I realized all those, those companies really didn’t know a lot about marketing, right, and I was suggesting things to them. One of them was, you should work with influencers. And then I tried to find a solution for them and realized everything was very expensive and didn’t really only have moms.

Chelsea Clark:

And so, you know, I have thought about other businesses in far more detail than I thought about Momfluence. Like, I own a ton of domains. I have mockups of products, I have, you know, Canva folders dedicated to businesses. I never launched. I didn’t do anything any of that with Momfluence. I just kind of started. I’m not really sure why. I didn’t even have social media at the time.

Chelsea Clark:

Like, I’m not a big social media person. So, it was a strange departure, but I really like it. I can grow any business. You know, I joke that even, like, if it was a blind business, I’d probably be into it. I just like growing a business. I think I got addicted to problem solving from owning restaurants. And now if I don’t feel like I’m putting out fires, I’m bored. Which is probably like a trauma response.

Chelsea Clark:

But that’s a different podcast.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, well, that’s, that’s incredible. It’s so interesting how entrepreneurs are like this. Like you go someplace to kind of relax and like, I don’t know, and you end up just creating businesses. Like it’s, it’s impossible not to.

Chelsea Clark:

Well, I’m, I’m unemployable. I cannot have a job. My friends would all, you know, have real jobs. Over university summers, I would go tree planting or go to Europe and work in a bar. And then when after university, you know, people start to get their real first corporate jobs. I want to be a nanny because I was like, I go to the zoo and like swim all day. Like, I just, I can’t not enjoy my Day. And that’s why I quit naturopathy school.

Chelsea Clark:

I did not enjoy it. I’m really impatient. If I don’t enjoy something, I’m not doing it. I can’t have a job. I can’t imagine a job I would have other than honestly a nanny because it feels like play a lot of the time. Right. Especially when they’re not your kids and you get to sleep. But if I didn’t have my own business, I don’t know what I would do.

Chelsea Clark:

So, I’ll always be an entrepreneur, and I’ll probably do Momfluence for a very long time. There’s so much growth, not even just financial growth, but just it’s a very interesting business.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So, I imagine especially during the pandemic and post pandemic, there were so many women who were looking for some side, some sort of, you know, side hustle or like business or they’re solopreneurs or they have a lived experience or some problem they want to solve in the world. And so there seems like there are a lot of mom inspired businesses. And so, tell me a little bit about what you actually do with your agency. How do you help all these women?

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, so it’s kind of two sided. You’ll know because you’re Canadian. My first campaign was BMO bank of Montreal. And I was like, oh my God, I have no idea what I’m doing. This is insane. I got it through a connection I had, and I was like way imposter syndrome. I’d never done a campaign in my life.

Chelsea Clark:

Right. But luckily my, my founder at the time was an influencer or still is. And so, she massively helped. But we don’t only do kid products, and we don’t only do mom owned companies. Now it’s, you know, even from the beginning, you know, Sage, Sage was another one of my first clients. I was like, how is this happening? I have no idea. But really, mom fluence is two sided in that it has all these women creators who start accounts from literally nobody, you know, no followers. And grow it into like a very sizable business.

Chelsea Clark:

Some of them, lots of them. I mean, these women like retire their husbands and are the main breadwinners of their house. But there’s also smaller creators who just make enough to stay home or supplement their husband’s income. You know, it really runs like a wide gamut. But on the brand side, we do work with a lot of small companies, but we work a lot of very large companies. And it’s always the same, they have some type of goal. Often it’s like a product is launching in Target or you know, or they just want to work with influencers on a regular basis. And we basically act as their advertising agency and that we do all the work for them.

Chelsea Clark:

We help them find creators that we kind of pull from our network and then we manage the campaign. So, it’s a lot of admin. When I say manage the campaign, I mean chase people for things because that’s what a lot of the work is.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you’re finding kind of aligned influencers for the or these products.

Chelsea Clark:

Exactly right.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, what’s going on with the influencer market right now? Like it was so hot and everybody wanted to be. I remember my 15-year-old daughter one day saying she wanted to be an influencer. And now, I don’t know, is it as effective as it was like, because to begin with it seemed like it was more authentic. Right? 

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, well, it’s funny, Influencer is actually like the top whatever generation. My son’s 10, so whatever group he’s in, it’s the top profession choice. Like that’s what they say when it’s like what do you want to be in? You grow up. I want to be an influencer or a YouTuber, which is really funny and sad at the same time. But yeah, you know, in the beginning influencers started out being just gifted products and they would share with their, with their followers. Right. And really in the very, very beginning, these are people that mostly knew their followers, and they just happened to have a ton of friends. Right.

Chelsea Clark:

Which is really what an influencer on like a local basis is. Someone that’s really connected and knows a lot of people and talks to a lot of people. But it did, you know, during COVID it grew a lot. And because there’s a lot of brands paying a lot of money, it gets inauthentic. And that is one of the biggest problems with influencers in general. Right. If you, you know, you can get paid to make one post about a product that you’ve never used before and will never use again. And of course that’s inauthentic, so that’s one side of it.

Chelsea Clark:

But then there’s a lot of creators that make really great content and they’re perfectly on brand for, for whatever the product is, and they do really well for the brand. So, there’s definitely both sides. But that’s like any industry, right? Like there’s awful contractors that make terrible, you know, they’re terrible to work with and then there’s the amazing ones that build your dream home. So, they’re really just marketing freelancers. And in a world where content is so, so important and used in so many places and where most people, you know, 45 and younger don’t necessarily watch TV or listen to radio, there’s really no choice. Like you, you have to be present on social media somehow. And that requires some type of content creator. It doesn’t necessarily require like an influencer that gets paid thousands of dollars.

Chelsea Clark:

You know, most brands don’t want to work with those creators for many reasons, but even just on a smaller, like we work with creators that are like 5,000 following or 10,000 or 20,000.

Melinda Wittstock:

So micro, micro influencers in a way, right? That is more authentic, especially if they genuinely have expertise in the products or they actually use the products themselves. Like we’ve seen podcasting as well. When a podcast host does a host read talking about a product that they actually use as opposed to the, I mean those, those spots convert so much better.

Chelsea Clark:

Right, you know.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, are consumers pretty discerning now in terms of the difference?

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, I think so. But I think that everyone’s kind of accepted that this is what it is. Like, I think it’s always assumed that anytime an influencer posts something that it’s being sponsored, that’s why, you know, not sponsored is such a common way of disclaiming like this is actually real. Which is kind of the, the weirdest part of that whole thing that you actually have to make content and say this isn’t sponsored in order to differentiate it. But I think, I think, I mean, I’m, I don’t actually know scientifically, but I will speak as an almost 40-year-old who is influenced solely by social media. I honestly just see it as like normal now. Like I know they’re getting paid, but I don’t really care if they’re showing me something that I’m interested in. I’m just happy that I’m, I’m being shown something that you know and it’s, it’s also discovery.

[PROMO CREDIT]

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Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Chelsea Clark, founder and CEO of Momfluence.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Chelsea Clark:

People follow creators because they’re jealous of their life or envious or they’re aspirational or they’re educated, educational. There’s something about them that intrigues someone to follow and so really it’s a discovery thing. And if they’re getting paid, you know, I’m still assuming I’m naive enough to think that a creator I follow would only do something if they actually want to do it. Because I’m not following the ones that do a post every day. That’s a brand collab.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right, right, right, right, exactly. I remember way back in the day when Gary Vaynerchuk really first proved this model out in an epic way. Like, his first business was Wine Library. And he grew that business by just being on YouTube all the time, like talking to people, answering their questions and sending gifts and whatnot.

Chelsea Clark:

Right? Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I feel like I’ve seen this whole evolution of this. And so now can you credibly build a brand without using influencer marketing?

Chelsea Clark:

I think you can if you get a lot of creator content. So, like lifestyle content made by real people that follows, you know, like trends that are on reels and TikToks, basically you need to mimic real creator content and run ads with it. You definitely can do it that way. You know, really, if you’re, if you’re building a business, you should have people talking about it organically anyway, even if it’s a small number. But you know, if I was building a CPG or some, some kind of fashion company or something where consumers would have to buy it, there’s no way I wouldn’t do influencer marketing. I wouldn’t spend a lot of money on influencers in the beginning for sure, but I would definitely would do it.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, what’s the best way to start? If someone, this podcast, you know, is in the early stages of their business and they’re growing it, maybe they have a, like a direct to consumer or B2C model where what you describe is really vital. How do they best start in this?

Chelsea Clark:

Like, there’s really two camps this falls into because they’re how you can. Like your initial strategy really depends on what your product is or what your services. And for simplicity, we can stick to product. If you have a product that is a high enough value, like 75 to 100 at least, and is something that people want. Right. It can’t be like a UTI training thing. Like it has to be a sexy product people want to talk about or want to share, or it’s cute, right? Like the visual appeal has to be there. Then you can gift for a very long time.

Chelsea Clark:

You can get lots of creators. So, you know, some that are small, some that are bigger than small, agreeing to make content for you just for the product. Right. Like think about like anything, wellness clothing, home stuff. I mean, it’s very, very endless what you can gift somebody. So, a very big gifting strategy is the easiest way to start. It takes a lot of time to manage it because they’re all humans and you have to follow up with people. Like, I’m not trying to make it seem like it’s an easy program to run, but at least it’s cost effective.

Chelsea Clark:

Right? And that’s something we do for brands too, because you’re not paying flat fees. Right. All you’re sending is product, which is far, you know, a third maybe of what the, the value of the product you’re sending is. If you have a product that is low value or not sexy. Like I think about, I don’t know, like a thermometer or really food. Food is very hard, right. Like if you have a $10 box of popsicles, how are you going to get anyone to agree to make content for that? Then you need to switch to a paid model and you’re just paying people the lowest you can, which is really a hundred. And you could do a lot of those too, right.

Chelsea Clark:

Again, you’ll get like a gamut of people that have, you know, some very small accounts and some slightly larger accounts and then you, you can make your learnings from that. But like starting with either free or a hundred dollars per creator is what I would start with. And that’s what my strategy is for lots of brands that start and don’t have a ton of money Rids, it’s, you know, $100 because there’ll be flops, there’ll be tons of people that don’t work out or you don’t want to work with. 

Melinda Wittstock:

On an operational or management level, it sounds a lot like herding cats. Like I can imagine that it takes a lot of time and like, like, yeah, like you said, you’re dealing with people, you’re dealing a lot of unpredictability. Like, do they actually like follow through post, working all the analytics behind it, all of that stuff. So yeah, so I imagine this is where you come in and you provide a lot of that management. Is that right?

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Even just, I mean, you don’t know what you don’t know Right. And so, when you go into this, you know, lots of brands would think, I’m going to send them a gift. I’ve agreed with Marie that she’s going to do this over email and let’s see if she does it. Well, you might never hear from them again. Right. They could ghost you.

Chelsea Clark:

They might just only do stories. And I think that because brands or people running this don’t know what is the norm, they’re not sure how to approach things or what, how to mitigate things or what creators are being, are receiving from other brands in terms of like expectations. So, yeah, we basically make sure that people actually do what they say they’re going to do, or we replace them or we just don’t use people, or we can tell the red flags from the beginning. I mean, yeah, this is really all we do. Like other brands have asked, you know, do you do Pinterest or do you. Other things? There are so many nuances in influencer marketing that this is the only thing we do. And you know, we can. I’ve run, I don’t even know, probably like 700 campaigns now.

Chelsea Clark:

I’ve come across almost every problem. Ah, yeah, there have been lots, but there’s lots of great people that are, that go above and beyond, and you know, again, like, it’s just like any, just the general population you’re engaging with. Some people are terrible to work with, and you never want to speak to them again. And most people are very kind and nice and do what you ask or what they agree to.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that, that’s just true of business. Like business would be easy weren’t for the people, you know?

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so do you have some sort of like operationally, like, do you have like, like a whole software platform that. Right, tell me.

Chelsea Clark:

Yes, that and how that works? Well, that’s what. When I initially started Momfluence, back when I was living in Costa Rica, I started with software. I did not want to be an agency. I never even imagined do managing anything for anybody. That was absolutely not what I wanted to do. I love the idea of software. Don’t know why, but I did. And what I built was, or what I had someone build was a, a site that was really cobbled together with WordPress plugins.

Chelsea Clark:

Right. Which is like a great MVP and proved that I had a business because people were paying me, but it became very limited in terms of how custom it could be. And so over years I’ve slowly built with my partner who’s a coder, software and so now we have our own software and it’s much, much, much easier. It takes a lot of the heavy lifting out of it because, you know, I can directly see, you know, someone’s audience demographics, like a creator’s, you know, engagement rate, all these metrics that you’d have to just manually find. But it still is a very, you still have to send a lot of messages, right? There’s, it’s a lot of follow ups. Honestly, I think that the, I think that the saying was, it was like 15 emails back and forth for every collaboration, you know, checking in, did you receive your product? You know, they ask a question. It’s just, it has a human, a human level that I don’t think many other. You know, if you’re running paid ads, it’s just you and your Meta Ads library and, you know, you’re figuring out what you’re doing.

Chelsea Clark:

There’s not a lot of human interaction. So, software is fun. And that’s why I kind of say Momfluence has a wide, you know, shelf life for me. It’s not like I want to sell or stop what I’m doing or I’m bored. Because now software has added a totally different side to the business that is again, a new set of problems literally every day. Because if you have software, there’s always something new or something that doesn’t work because someone wants something different. It’s really fun and it’s good timing because I, you know, totally, honestly, I hated being an agency and I still don’t like the parts of it that we do. I, I don’t like being responsible for everybody’s campaign.

Chelsea Clark:

And when you manage a bunch of brands and their campaigns, I’m still responsible even if I’m not right. I have campaign managers, but at the end of the day, it’s my responsibility. I want to be responsible for one thing and that’s software that’s better for me than 50 brands and their problems.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, it’s more scalable business, but it’s also really handy and especially with AI now too, being able to track the analytics and actually understand what’s working.

Chelsea Clark:

Mm.

Melinda Wittstock:

So how much does AI play a role in what you’re doing right now?

Chelsea Clark:

I mean, there’s some brands that actually want to get AI content made. I like, will never do that and I don’t think, I don’t think it’ll be a big part of the brands we want. They really want, you know, more normal seeming content. But maybe I’m just behind on that. We use AI on our platform and AI as the platform gets more complicated will be incredible for, you know, basically, basically strategy. Right. Like, I think that’s where AI comes in to play with influencer marketing really well. And so, to be able to take a list of creators that we might have to manually figure out what the best lineup would be based on such and such criteria.

Chelsea Clark:

To have something that will do that, you know, really quickly will be really fun. And so yeah, my, my partner’s really into AI and I always think of things that it could do. It’s just one, you know, got to start small, make sure the platform works for what we’re, what we did before. That’s kind of the first step. But yeah, AI will be amazing.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, well, with the analytics it really helps. So, everything fulfillment to like actually figuring out what’s working or even competitor research or like, you know, when, when all these platforms change their algorithms, for instance. I totally get what you’re saying about the agency thing. Like way back, I think my, yeah, it was my fourth company Verifeed we were actually identifying who the influencers and micro influencers were from their social conversations. Right. And it was a really heavy data-based platform with a lot of machine learning and natural language processing and whatnot. We had the whole Twitter firehose. 

Melinda Wittstock:

But I always had so much pressure from all the clients to become an agency and like I didn’t want to do the campaigns. This was like a data analytics company. It’s like, look, we’re telling you who your customers are. We’re telling you and qualifying who the right influencers are for you. Right, yeah, that’s great. But can you now do the campaign? It’s like, well, no, it’s like not what I do.

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, that was a smart move.

Melinda Wittstock:

I mean, yeah, because I, I didn’t really want to do that agency side of things. So anyway, it’s, it’s bringing that back.

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, I can’t, I can’t wait until the day that I don’t manage campaigns. Which is, it shows you how much work influencer marketing is. Because all these companies, in the very beginning I had a self-service model that was really cheap and I had a managed campaign model that was not cheap. Everybody wanted the managed campaigns and that’s when I was like, okay, fine, I’ll just, I’ll do that for a while. Not knowing how much it would just be a communication juggernaut it’s wild.

Melinda Wittstock:

But I suppose business owners want a done for you situation, right?

Chelsea Clark:

Like, yeah, completely in the end.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And, and so that, that, that makes a lot of sense. So, it’s a pretty competitive field. Like it’s noisy. And so how, how do you differentiate from all the others out there? I’m trying to think of the ones that I know, like, say a platform like Grin or like, you know, there’s a bunch. 

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, yeah, there’s lots. Yeah, yeah. And back, back when I was researching doing this, I had calls with some of them. I don’t know if Grin was one of them, but again, a lot of those are just really expensive as a, as a low campaign, like entry level, you know, might be like 30k or you’re locked in for a year. I set out to make a company that would service these smaller companies that didn’t have 30k or didn’t want to lock into for a year contract. So pricing is one. We have a much lower barrier to entry of 2K, which is not, you know, hardly anything if you’re doing advertising and, and really having only moms. Like my.

Chelsea Clark:

I do a lot of cold outreach. That’s my main lead generation. And the number of people that say, like, comment on the fact that we’re only moms or like, great name or great concept. Right. There are so many brands out there that Grin would be okay for them, but it would have a lot of creators that they absolutely don’t want to work with because they don’t. They’re not moms or they’re not women of the right age. And so, I think by having a niche, even though it’s kind of a funny niche because it’s like massive.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s a massive niche. Like, it’s huge.

Chelsea Clark:

It’s huge.

Melinda Wittstock:

And, and it’s funny because, like, to a male investor, maybe it would say, seem like you’re some sort of like small little part of the market, but actually like, massive, massive. Women. Women handle most of the spending.

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah. So. And I’ve worked with like, you know, men’s shaving kits and had calls with barbecues and golf simulators. I’ve done mortgages, winter tires. Right. It’s not, it’s, you know, it’s supposed to be like 80% is the stat that women make purchases, you know, of the household of up to 80%. It’s got, it’s way more than that. Right.

Chelsea Clark:

Women are Just the natural organizers and sorcerers, and they just run. So, who do you want to speak to? You want to speak to people that are running the show? In most cases, that’s women.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so how do you define, like, your success in terms of this. Because, like, every woman that comes on this podcast, we’re all bouncing and juggling so many different things. Right. And you’ve mentioned you like to have fun. Like, you get, like, you get kind of frustrated if you’re not. So how do you balance all that? I mean.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Chelsea Clark:

It’s a great question. Like, in terms of my time, like.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, your time or just how you prioritize. How you prioritize the growth of the business while being a mom and, like, wanting to have a life.

Chelsea Clark:

Yes. How do you juggle? I do. Yeah. I don’t work that much, which I always feel really weird. Sometimes I leave a podcast. I’m like, why do I talk about the fact that I don’t work that much? It’s kind of strange. But I’m not.

Chelsea Clark:

I’m not one of those people. I mean, I did that when I had restaurants. I worked all day, every day, like, literally. And, I mean, it was kind of fun back then. It’s different. You’re in a social environment. I worked with my friends. I was young.

Chelsea Clark:

They were my age. Like, it was kind of like I was at a party all day. Right. Even though it was tiring. But I’m not gonna sit on a computer for 10 hours a day. There’s just no way. So, I work school hours. Sometimes I don’t start till 10.

Chelsea Clark:

I stop working at 3. I don’t work nights or weekends unless I really want to. So, you know, in a week, I might work 30 hours. Like, probably never done that, honestly. Maybe in the very beginning, but because I don’t have a ton of time, I don’t do things that I think someone else can do. Right. There are some things for sure that if my partner was listening, he’d say, you shouldn’t do that either. But I’ve, from the very beginning, got rid of small tasks that I could pay someone else, and I would find people on Upwork.

Chelsea Clark:

I’ve had, you know, I wouldn’t call them assistants, but task people that do things that I’m like, I shouldn’t be doing this. Someone else can do this. That was before I had employees. Now I have employees, and they actually manage things, like, day to day. So, you know, if it’s a nice day and I don’t have something to do. Like you’re a Canadian, you get it in the summer if it’s nice, I’m probably not working that day. I’m probably outside on the beach enjoying life with my kids. Right.

Chelsea Clark:

I, I don’t want to, I’m not a slave to my company and I’ve still managed to grow it without doing that. If I had restaurants, could I have done that? No. But you know, I kind of designed this business to be able to be flexible. Like this morning, I was at my kids primary school concert. I just, you know, having time, flexibility is, is huge. But I’m more efficient, right? Like when I go, when I go to work in those five hours or four hours, I don’t take a lunch break, I don’t go for walks. If I eat something, I eat while I’m working. Like I power through work, you know.

Chelsea Clark:

And I’ve listened to productivity podcasts not to justify my not working very much, but really they say people actually have four hours a day of productive work and then you’re not being productive or you’re not, your brain’s not as sharp. Right. So, I don’t think that we really, any of us should work eight to ten hours a day. But I do have, I do have big goals for my company. You know, I want to sell at some point for millions of dollars so I can renovate houses, which is my real passion. I don’t want to do this forever, ever. But in 10 to 15 years, I want to sell. And you know, I have a lot of hard work to do to get, to get there.

Chelsea Clark:

But I, I, I like waking up with like a challenge. You know, it gets me out of bed. I have a goal with this company and I’m not looking to do it instantly. Right. Like I’m not, I didn’t ever get VC money; I never wanted a boss. And when you say, you know, grin, what’s the difference between someone like you and grin? Grin has like in every other platform hundreds of thousands or no, millions, millions of dollars of outside funding that was never going to appeal to me. So, I’m here for like the long haul and the long, and you know, I’m a turtle. I want to take things slow, and I want to work 10 hour days and I’m here for like 15 years and it’ll, you know, I’m not looking for like a quick exit.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s really good that you know that. Like, I think a lot of founders go into it not really, not really knowing like who they are. And the minute you take venture money, you’re on the exit path and they want a return and it’s got to be a big return. And you’re on that path like you’ve effectively sold part of your company. So, it’s not without cost, you know, doing it, doing it that way.

Chelsea Clark:

And I mean sometimes it’s tempting. I’m like, I’ve thought about it over the years because I know that our growth is inhibited by that. But at the end of the day, I have two small kids, they’re 10 and 7 now, they’re getting older. But you’re, when you have small kids, your priority is your kids. Like they are the pressure. I don’t need any other pressure right now at all. So having the pressure to make like serious reports on a night that I didn’t sleep because my kid was sick, like that’s a nightmare to me. I’d rather be unemployed.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. I’ve had venture backed businesses and businesses that weren’t. When my kids were small, the business I had was not, it didn’t have any funding. It was sort of the same thing because I didn’t have that external pressure and so I could create the business around my life.

Chelsea Clark:

Right, exactly. My freedom is the most important thing. Like I, I make good money right now. I don’t, I’m not needing anything more. I, and I have ultimate time freedom. So, in a lot of ways I feel like I don’t need, I couldn’t ask for anything more.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. You’ve alluded to a lot of the different challenges that you have, but what’s one that’s facing you right now? Like what’s one of the hardest things that you’re dealing with at the moment?

Chelsea Clark:

I think, I think anybody that is in a growth period, which I guess is most businesses all the time, but really this is like a hypergrowth period. Because our software is pretty new. I think that I struggle sometimes, prioritizing. I’m someone that wants to do everything at the same time, but there ultimately is only one of me. And, and because I’m really the only. I have people, I have employees, but there’s no one else. Like on the strategic side, I don’t have an equal partner. I have a coding partner.

Chelsea Clark:

That’s very different. Right. He’s the tech side, I’m everything else. And so sometimes I get distracted with, you know, we should be doing this right now. I should be splitting my time and doing this. So really it’s time management, I think, and, and not feeling the guilt for ignoring things that you feel like you should be doing.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s the hardest thing for every entrepreneur because I think entrepreneurs wired to like, just want to do everything all at once and we’re all impatient and like, you know. Right. And so, like having the discipline to know what’s now, what’s not yet and what’s never.

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Gradations between all of those. I think that’s actually one of the hardest things, just even in terms of your mental space.

Chelsea Clark:

Right, Totally.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think everybody struggles with that.

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, yeah. And then I think, I think it do feel like a failure if you’re not doing something right because, you know, it’s like, oh, yeah, I’m not doing that. But I, I, I think that it has to just be, feel more normal. I think that if you have your own company, you always feel like you’re doing something wrong or you could be doing something better. Right. That we’re on ourselves to some degree. And, and I’m not very good at seeing what I’ve accomplished because I always feel like, well, I’m not doing this, I’m not doing this, I should be doing this. So, I think that maybe the psychologically hardest part is just reminding me, myself or oneself how much they’re actually doing when it, when all you see is what you should be doing.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right, right.

Chelsea Clark:

That’s more, that’s more of an internal thing. And like I’m type A and I’m a Virgo and a perfectionist and all those things. So. Oh my God, it’s like my perfect storm.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s like my son who’s a Virgo and he’s a 19-year-old entrepreneur and like, just watching him deal with all his perfectionism…

Chelsea Clark:

Oh, it’s so hard.

Melinda Wittstock:

…in an entrepreneurial context, and I was like, it’s okay, Finn, like, doesn’t have to be perfect.

Chelsea Clark:

I know it is hard. I, I struggle with that all the time. I really do. The number of things that I, you know, and every creator would say this too. Every creator has drafts saved in their, you know, hundreds of drafts saved on their Instagram or TikTok of things they haven’t published because it’s not perfect. And it’s like I would tell them as someone on the outside just publish it. No one will even notice that it’s any different from what you normally do.

Chelsea Clark:

Like, you’re the only one that sees that. And I need to say that back to myself because I have lots of projects that have started that I’m like, that’s not perfect yet. So, I need to do more research and then it’ll be perfect. Then I’ll do it and wasted the time. But, you know, I’ve come a long way, you know, especially when you have little kids. God, it’s like overwhelming to start a company. My son was three months old when I started this, so doing it.

Melinda Wittstock:

You and I have a lot in common. Like my. My daughter was six weeks old when I first started, and I didn’t plan it that way because I got like, I got pregnant while I was kind of building it towards launch. Yeah, I was just thrown into this kind of crazy thing. 

Melinda Wittstock:

I had this epiphany about myself that being a mom made me a better entrepreneur and being an entrepreneur made me a better mom. Like, the two of them in tandem were actually really quite good for each other.

Chelsea Clark:

Mm. Yeah. It’s crazy. It’s like we don’t have enough going on. 

Melinda Wittstock:

Men wouldn’t be able to do this, right?

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And like women can do this, which is amazing. But, like, we do it because, like. Like we can. I’m just convinced of this. That does not necessarily mean it’s the right thing necessarily, but, like, our brains work in that way where we can do a lot of things all at once. Dots.

Chelsea Clark:

Yes. Yeah, we really do. We have, you know, our brains. Probably the synapse overlap is just incredible. I think that it’s an interesting question. I mean, it’s hard because I was an entrepreneur before I was a mom, and I definitely had more brain power. It’s all work was all I thought about. 

Chelsea Clark:

And I loved my business. It was so much fun, so I didn’t have to think about anything else. Now having kids. Absolutely. My work suffers, if you want to put that in quotes, because, like air quotes, because it suffers because I might. My mental space is divided, and I care way more about my kids than I do about my business. Right.

Chelsea Clark:

Which is funny because it gives them the life that they have and love. But I think that it makes you just prioritize more. And I think that’s a really good thing. I think a lot of people that don’t, like, back when I had restaurants, I definitely did not need to work as much as I did, but because I had the time and, and there wasn’t this external pressure to live a life, I worked way more than I should have. So, if I didn’t have kids right now, I would probably work as like 10 to 12 hours on. Because I love my business and I, I just enjoyed, you know, solving problems and growing. Right. I’m a growth addict, so having kids forces me to take a break.

Chelsea Clark:

And a break is what you actually need to not burn out. Right. So, it’s actually saving me from myself because at 3, 3:30, I gotta pick my kids up no matter what, don’t care what’s going on. And I don’t get moms that can work when their kids are home. I can’t even check an email. So I gave that up a long time ago.

Melinda Wittstock:

But that’s good for you, right? Like, that’s a real discipline and, and it’s a boundary and it’s, it’s good for you. Like, because I think sometimes we can work fewer hours and achieve more because we’re doing the things that really matter.

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Chelsea Clark:

And I feel that crunch when I start work. I’m like, okay, I have three, like four hours. I can’t do this. Someone else has to do this. Where you get really good at delegating and that is how you grow. But you know, you have to. My partner always tries to convince me, like, you need to be redundant. And I’m like, I’m absolutely not redundant right now.

Chelsea Clark:

But yes, I need to not have a job. That’s when my company’s optimized and working its best. When I’m not needed.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah.

Chelsea Clark:

Right. And then I can just work on strategy and new things and that’s not where I am right now. But that’s okay. It’s a goal.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. A hundred percent. So, for anybody listening, that needs a good influencer agency and yeah, a mom. What’s the best way to connect with you?

Chelsea Clark:

Yeah, LinkedIn is probably best. Or DM’ing me on Instagram. That will get passed along. But LinkedIn is, is awesome. It comes right to my inbox. I love when people reach out to me with like a quick strategy or like I have this product. What could I do? You know, I want to help people beyond just selling things.

Chelsea Clark:

So, anyone can always message me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, Chelsea, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us today.

Chelsea Clark:

Yes, thank you. Thanks, Melinda. 

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Chelsea Clark is the founder of influencer platform and agency Momfluence.

Melinda Wittstock:

Please give the show a 5-star rating and share your reviews on Apple and Spotify—it helps more entrepreneurs like you find the secret sauce to support and grow their businesses.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s it for today’s episode. Head on over to WingsPodcast.com – and subscribe to the show. When you subscribe, you’ll instantly get my special gift, the WINGS Success Formula. Women … Innovating … Networking … Growing …Scaling … IS the WINGS of Inspired Business Formula …for daily success in your business and life. Miss a Wings episode? We’ve got hundreds in the vault, all with actionable advice and epiphanies. Check them out at MelindaWittstock.com or wingspodcast.com. You can also catch me on LinkedIn or Instagram @MelindaAnneWittstock. We also love it when you share your feedback with a 5-star rating and review on Apple, Spotify or wherever else you listen, including Podopolo where you can interact with me and share your favorite clips.