Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal and business development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Anna Dewar Gully, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Tidal Equality, located in Toronto, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
My business is called Tidal Equality, and we are focused on helping organizations build equality better with our powerful solution, Equity Sequence. We work with influential organizations around the world that are willing to innovate and evolve toward becoming one of the most equitable and inclusive organizations in the world, and we teach them an equitable innovation methodology called Equity Sequence that we invented to help everyday employees from the frontline to the topline contribute to equitable value-driven change. Our clients are open-minded and curious about how to build equity, diversity, and inclusion, and we work with them to demonstrate how reducing bias and inequality in decision-making and expanding equity in decision-making and design will ultimately create more value for customers, employees, and communities alike. Our solution, Equity Sequence, is an elegantly simple system of five questions that anyone can apply to the decisions and designs they are working on to spot and reduce bias and expand equity. It helps organizations apply equitable decision-making where it really counts across their entire system. Some of our clients describe it as Agile or Lean but for making more equitable decisions and designs, and our clients are using the questions to make incredible, value-driven change while showing it is possible to reduce and resolve the problem of inequality.
Tell us about yourself
Prior to starting Tidal Equality, I worked in a number of large public institutions in public policy, transformation, and strategy roles. I was always obsessed with reducing injustice and inequality in organizations, and I felt like the emerging diversity, equity, and inclusion approaches were not actually helping to solve the problem of inequality because they were not shifting organizational decision-making -- the point at which our bias can translate into negative outcomes and experiences for other people. I left my day job to forge a more strategic and innovative approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion and met my Co-Founder Dr. Kristen Liesch. We joined forces to develop new approaches to building equity and reducing bias in decision-making in mid-2018. We've created two evidence-based methodologies so far -- Equity Sequence (R) and Wave (R).
Do you have daily rituals for work / wellness / fitness / mindfulness?
I wake up really early to have alone time, which is hard to come by in my life. I usually wake up before the birds at 4:50 am. I swim three times a week, which I find to be the most mindful exercise; I can't worry about anything when I'm swimming. I walk my dog every day, and that keeps me connected to nature, grounded, and moving. And I try to sit down for dinner with my family almost every night of the week as in our hectic lives, that's just about the only time we all have for connection.
These don't always feel like enough to manage the grind of work and family responsibilities, but they definitely help, and I really notice their absence if I miss one or more of the routines; they are essential to my well-being.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Our biggest accomplishment was hitting $1M in revenue without any investment -- because every one of those dollars created an equitable impact, because it's incredibly hard to reach that milestone as female entrepreneurs without access to capital, and because it told us that our business has a real future and we should put ours all into making it work and making an impact.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
Being a business owner is not for the faint of heart. There are times when you feel scarce, like the opportunities are dwindling or a wrong fit, and in the early days with a business like ours, there were days when we felt like the world didn't understand what we were trying to do. So I would say one of the hardest things to do is stick to your strategy and your vision on the darker days. You have to stop, breathe, and find a different way through to the resources and opportunities you need to succeed.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Really put your mind to thinking about what is not working for the customers you are trying to serve, connect directly with the people you are trying to serve, and learn about their challenges directly from them.
- Form a strategy that responds to those challenges, and stick to it -- don't do a little of everything.
- As you refine your strategy and get focused, make sure you do the most valuable thing you can do for the customers you wish to serve, and the rest will take care of itself.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.tidalequality.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tidalequality
Twitter: https://twitter.com/tidalequality
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annadewargully/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
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