306 MINISODE Estrella Jaramillo: No More Ms. Nice Girl

Estrella Jaramillo, co-founder of femtech platform B-wom, shares how women entrepreneurs often let themselves down with what she calls the “nice girl syndrome”. Rather than shying away from conflict or caring about being liked by everyone, women in business must put mission first, be OK with saying “no”, and prioritize time in alignment with that mission. Estrella’s company B-wom assists women in all stages of life from pre-fertility to menopause with health education, tracking tools, and personalized care. She shares advice too on how to know and understand the motivations and needs of your customers.

Melinda Wittstock:         Estrella, welcome to Wings.

Estrella Jaramillo:            Thank you so much Melinda. I’m so happy to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:         I’m so excited to talk to you I think you’re doing amazing things and I want to know what’s inspiring you this year. I can’t believe it’s 2019 already.

Estrella Jaramillo:            I know, time really flies especially when you’re in the middle of such an exciting and transformational time like we’re in where we’re seeing so many female founders racing towards the capital well not [inaudible 00:01:33] there’s more that needs to be done as we’ll probably discuss later but I’m very excited to be a part of this fem tech movement and to continue to work hard to provide women with better health care solutions and with resources to help them feel their best.

Melinda Wittstock:         Ah well it’s wonderful the work that you’re doing. You know, along the entrepreneurial path there’s challenges and for anyone listening whose not yet an entrepreneur thinking of being one, challenge comes with the territory. What are some of your challenges right now?

Estrella Jaramillo:            I think that, it’s funny because when you’re an entrepreneur I think that to some extent you are aware that you’re signing up for a life full of challenges, like that’s what you do as an entrepreneur there’s no other thing you need to be good at than facing daily challenges and becoming comfortable with it and so one of the challenges that we’re facing right now is time and productivity in terms of we’re a very small team and I am the only person in the United States so there’s so much that you want to cover and you want to do that you really need to learn to ruthlessly prioritize and that’s something that I definitely didn’t do that well a couple years ago but once you see yourself in the situation you’re like alright we really need to pick that one or two things that are fundamental and focus on those so you don’t get distracted.

Melinda Wittstock:         So Estrella, what you say is so true and along the way yeah know we all learn so much and so what are the top three go to pieces of advice that you have for women coming up? Yeah know based on your own experience what do you with you knew when you got into entrepreneurship and what would be the top three things that you’d advice any female founder to think about and do?

Estrella Jaramillo:            I’d say the number one is to really keep their nice girl syndrome in check. I think that one of the things that I struggled with at the beginning is that as women we’re raised and socialized as having to be nice to everyone and when you’re, you have very big goals and you are fighting for the survival of your company because you have something that is really adding value to the world, you’re just going to have to get rid of the nice girl syndrome and just like tell people straight what you need and go for it. That’s definitely a thing that I still struggle with and I’m still working on, that doesn’t mean be an asshole obviously it just means yeah know knowing when you need to prioritize your mission over anything else no matter what anyone things.

The second one, I’d say make sure you truly understand the motivation of your client. Whether it’s a person or a business, make sure you understand not just what they need but what will motivate them to make a change, that is to introduce a new element in your lives which is your product. Really nailing down the triggers behind those purchasing decisions I think is what makes a lot of businesses successful.

And the last one is have fun and that’s, this is going to get tough. So the one thing that I say you need to constantly keep in mind is to not burn yourself out and try to have as much fun as possible with it even when things really get tough, try to yeah know get the learning our of it and have fun with it that that’s definitely going to be the thing that’s going to help you stand the ‘back and forth’ and the challenges and face them.

Melinda Wittstock:         Mm-hmm (affirmative) gosh really good advice. So I know that you have a special offer for our listeners today and its so generous and so Estrella, I just want you to share with everybody.

Estrella Jaramillo:            Yeah absolutely so for any woman whose listening to us and wants to learn more about their female health and start to be taking charge of your health journey, download the Bwom app and I will be happy to share a link with you Melinda so you can share it with the people listening for them to have one month off.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh that’s awesome and so we’ll have that in the show notes for everybody so thank you Estrella for putting on your Wings and flying with us.

Estrella Jaramillo:            Thank you so much, happy to fly with you anywhere.

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