Lessons from an Entrepreneur: Cyclical Models Require Closure (pt 1/2)
There’s a kind of ‘closing’ we don’t talk about much – closing a venture or initiative. I’m closing Creatrix. Here’s what I learned from the journey, and why it feels in integrity to call it a wrap.
There’s a kind of ‘closing’ we don’t talk about much – closing a venture or initiative. I’m closing Creatrix, an initiative of mine. Here’s what I learned from the journey, and why it feels in integrity to call it a wrap.
Last fall, I set out to create a women’s leadership incubator that centered embodiment and regenerative economic principles. I wanted to design a new model of entrepreneurial support to help women create and lead ventures in ways that are more natural and sustainable for us, inspired by my own path in entrepreneurship and two years coaching women entrepreneurs with similar struggles.
I felt strong conviction that new models of entrepreneurial support were critical to bend the culture of entrepreneurship towards regenerative and feminine forms of leadership. If we are to create businesses that move beyond extractive cultures, I feel we need different models to support those creating them. So I set out to make one.
I assembled an incredible team of 5 expert practitioners and gave us 8 weeks to recruit a 20 person cohort. I came to learn that timeline was unrealistic. In short, we weren’t able to generate the interest we needed to have it run, and we didn’t get it off the ground.
When I openly shared that I was pausing to pivot the program, I was surprised to discover there was more interest than I realized. But I learned the interest existed at a lower price point—one that would make the program financially unviable for the team I’d brought together in the near term, or require an additional 6 months of recruitment (bootstrapped by yours truly) to generate the right conversion math for the viable price point.
I’ve been avoiding sharing this message. I don’t enjoy telling the world that I tried to do something that didn’t work. Fear tells me it harms my credibility. And it may, for some. But in reflection, I asked myself about the pattern I’m observing repeat in myself:
What kind of person takes risks over and over, offers new things to the public, is willing to listen to what is and isn’t working, and lets it inform what’s next—even when that means acknowledging failure?
An entrepreneur does. It’s part of the job.
If we’re not taking risks, creating new things, and learning what doesn’t work, we won’t ever create anything new. Processing the residue, including shame and disappointment, is quite literally the cost we incur along the process of creating an innovative future.
Here’s what I learned: I didn’t give myself the 6-12 months of content creation and audience building that would have made this program successful at the price point needed. I also didn’t give myself the time I needed to run a good process to pursue the fiscal sponsorship route (essentially equivalent to raising a seed round) that could have made it viable even with entrepreneur’s price sensitivity.
The truth is: Bootstrapping 6 months of daily content creation as a talking head is not my dream, nor my superpower. It is not where my skills and energetic flows give me strategic advantages. It would drain me to the point of not having anything left to actually give to the women who’d come into the program. And what’s the point of that? To practice what I preach about honoring my own energy, I had to acknowledge this.
But most critically, I had to come to terms with this: I had not yet built the capacity to coach 20 women at once. And I don’t just dream of coaching. Across the large arc of my career, coaching is a relatively new skill set of mine, while operational leadership is very much not. It’s not surprising that it’s felt incredibly hard to try to make a living using only one of my smallest, newest, muscles. Designing Creatrix reminded me just how much I love being in the trenches as a leader, in build mode. It inspired me to dream up many different kinds of creations that come from my interests in embodiment, entrepreneurship, and systems change.
So, Creatrix won’t be continuing in the form we dreamed.
The good news: If you were interested in Creatrix and want to work together, I’m available for select advisory work. I offer 3- and 5- session packs for founders and execs who need strategic direction on specific challenges within my areas of expertise. Two incredible facilitators from the Creatrix team—Wendy Haines and Ellie Kempton— also offer 1:1 coaching across somatics and nutrition. Amanda Martinez teaches various classes across LA, and Dana Spano’s business, Entreprana, is one I personally vouch for to proactively shift the energy of an individual or organization. I’d encourage you to reach out directly for 1:1 support if you felt deep alignment with what we were offering.
The even better news: I personally have clarity on what I can offer of value, and what dream is calling next. Stay tuned for my second post on that!
My deepest thanks to all of you who expressed interest, engaged, applied yourself in the workshops we offered, and helped bring the program to life. Especially Amanda Martinez, Dana Spano, Ellie Kempton, Wendy Haines, Jaileth Acosta, and the team at Varied Management.
I hope this share inspires even just one of you reading to find the courage to close with integrity. After all, that’s what moving towards a circular economy is all about.
