Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Dani Strang, Co-Founder of Maggie, located in Edmonton, AB, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Maggie is the world's first unlearning/EdTech platform where all women (cis, trans and non-binary) can practice re-establishing their connection to their authentic expression.
How?
Each month, we select a magazine anchored in exceptional journalism for small groups of women to deliberate and explore. The resulting dialogue re-creates the conditions where women tend to abandon their authentic expression. Instead, we've designed a space where women can learn and experience that on the other side of their expression, they can feel safe and celebrated as their authentic selves.
The goal?
Through consistent practice, Maggie's proprietary model can help women dismantle old neurological pathways that stop them from expressing important perspectives, ideas, and opinions in not-so-safe spaces. We want to drastically change how women communicate in critical conversations.
Tell us about yourself
What stops women from authentically expressing their innermost ideas, perspectives, and opinions, especially in the conversations where they are needed most? This is the question that fuelled the creation of Maggie.
I call the first chapter of my career my one-way ticket to 'loss-of-sense-of-self-ville.' As a woman in leadership, you would think that in an executive position, having climbed all the way up the corporate ladder, I would feel the strongest sense of expression, advocacy, and inner harmony. Rather, I traded the story of success for self-betrayal and abandonment. This led to my chronic burnout. In my recovery, I started to wonder how many women felt as suppressed as I felt in their working/corporate lives. To my own shock, my feelings were widely held and shared.
New in my entrepreneurial journey, I moved past my 'what if' and Co-Founded Maggie as an innovative practice to actively support women in their suppression to expression journeys.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
Securing funding in an unconventional place. In the fall of 2021, I went into grant writing mode. I knew that the path to traditional venture capital was full of disappointment and let-downs for women (only 2% of women secure available VC funding), so we decided to look into some other avenues. We wound up securing a $10,000 grant to produce a docu-series. So, we decided to create problem awareness and pilot Maggie on film. We now have extensive, professionally captured content to help us launch Maggie.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
No one will love your idea as much as you do. Ever. And sometimes, that's riveting! Sometimes, it's incredibly frustrating and lonely.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Find a Co-Founder. I could not imagine going on this journey alone.
- Experiment often. If you have an idea, test it. Don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. The more you test, the less hurt you are when an idea doesn't work out the way you planned.
- Treat your company or organization as a living entity. One that has emotions, feelings, and perceptions. It radically changes how you show up for that 'person/company.'
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.joinmaggie.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joinmaggie/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinmaggie/
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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