Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Lara Holliday, Founder & CEO of Tide Risers, located in Brooklyn, NY, USA.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Tide Risers is a deliberate community offering coaching and learning opportunities to enable women to reimagine success and redefine leadership. Designed by women for women, Tide Risers enables us to uncover and amplify strengths, build skills to overcome obstacles, and play a leadership role in our own lives, personally and professionally. I founded Tide Risers in 2017 with this truth in mind: when we as women work together, we all rise. To that end, we are committed to seeking advancement opportunities not just for ourselves but for one another. Our community is grounded in a set of leadership principles that orient us to the highest standards of relating to one another as women and as professionals. They enable us to create and sustain a culture that is supportive of the Tide Risers' mission and our vision for the spirit of collaboration we want to model. Our leadership principles of Abundance, Authenticity, Courage, and Ownership make Tide Risers an experience unlike any other. They set the stage for a rich and potent learning environment that sets Tide Risers apart from any other training, leadership development, or networking opportunity on the market.
The Tide Risers' learning and development methodology is fueled by the powerful dynamics that emerge from the foundation of a strong, deliberate, diverse community. We learn and grow best when we are exposed to a variety of different perspectives and life experiences, and the trust, curiosity, and confidentiality we create through our relationship-building practices give women the confidence to push themselves outside their comfort zones to meet new challenges. To provide the flexible learning and leadership development opportunities required by women professionals, we offer live, online courses, independent pre-recorded training workshops, private and small group coaching, and in-person events and retreats. We also offer a membership plan that gives women the ongoing structured support of resources, community, and accountability throughout the year. Our community has grown organically to over 350 women across the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America, representing a diverse mix of industry backgrounds, life experiences, and global perspectives.
Tell us about yourself
A number of years ago, I started noticing a pattern in my coaching practice: a number of my female clients were coming to me with very similar issues and feeling completely isolated within those issues -- like they were the only ones this thing was happening to. They wanted to make a change to enable them to live a more fulfilling life, but they were unsure how to shift direction or make meaningful plans for their future. They were experiencing a lack of mentorship, sponsorship, and inspirational leadership. They felt that their professional and personal networks were too limited but were frustrated by the networking opportunities open to them. They were feeling stuck. And that feeling of being stuck was creeping into every aspect of their lives. I sat in my chair day after day, listening to the women sitting on my couch share remarkably similar stories. I couldn't stop thinking about the power that could come from enabling these women to find what they were looking for in collaboration with one another rather than picking away at these challenges alone. To do that, however, they would each need to reclaim their agency. That would require a process of deep introspective reflection on who they were, where their strengths lie, what was holding them back, and what skills they needed to build in order to advance. I was pretty sure that was something I could create for them.
Here's why:
I was raised by strong feminists to believe that, as a woman, I could do anything, and that's been a huge advantage for me. What happened over time, however, was the notion I internalized that 'I can do anything' somehow transformed into 'I should do everything.' So I had this huge work ethic, and between work, volunteering, and family, I would take on way more than I should. I would go through periods of huge stress and productivity, and then as soon as I had delivered on something, I would collapse and be ill for days. This obviously wasn't sustainable, but it took me some time and some deep reflection to understand why I couldn't break out of that pattern. I came to realize I was working within a framework that I hadn't designed for myself or consciously agreed to. That framework of 'I should do everything' had become a part of my identity and my operating practices, and I wasn't even fully aware it was there. You see, I hadn't actually created intentions for how I wanted to BE in this world. I was simply following what I felt I should DO in this world. I didn't have a framework to help me make decisions to proactively design my life. So I began to imagine what that framework might look like and how to deliver it. The end result is my thriving business, Tide Risers, which now includes over 350 powerful women leaders across the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
I launched Tide Risers in New York City in 2017, thinking I'd have to twist the arms of my five closest friends to participate so we could pilot our newly designed curriculum. To my utter surprise, we received 47 applications in our first recruitment cycle. Clearly, we had struck a nerve. In 2018 I started to plan for a 2020 launch in the U.K. As you may imagine, the pandemic threw our plans for a loop. At that time, all of our programming involved highly curated in-person events, and I didn't know if our members would stick with us if we weren't able to provide that.
In March 2020, facing lockdowns, job losses, and a sense of global uncertainty, I was concerned that my business would collapse. But our members started telling us that they needed Tide Risers at that time more than ever. So we overhauled our curriculum to translate it to online platforms, launched lower-cost programmatic offerings, and worked hard to figure out what our members needed. We learned a lot about how to nurture community within online spaces and developed new skills out of necessity. As it turns out, there are quite a number of advantages to transitioning the bulk of our program online, including reduced costs, streamlined management, and the ability to access customers anywhere in the world. As a result, we've completely redesigned how we deliver Tide Risers, which gives us the potential for much greater scalability going forward.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
One of the hardest things about being a business owner is the feeling of isolation that can come with it. When the buck really does stop at you, and you have to make critical decisions that will set the course for the future of your business and the people who depend upon it, you can feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. That's one reason Tide Risers has been so successful: many of our members are independent business owners, and the thought partnership, support, and accountability they gain from our community help sustain them.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Know your audience and your competition. You'll need to package your business in a way that is new and innovative, and that will require deep consumer insight.
- Take care of yourself. The more successful you get, the more time you have to spend looking after your health – mental, spiritual, and physical.
- Find community. The sheer breadth of skills required for a business owner is breathtaking. You'll need to find people who can offer resources, thought partnership, support, and accountability.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://www.wearetiderisers.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreTideRisers/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearetiderisers/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laraholliday/
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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