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Hi Reader,
Notes from a Female Founder
I waited too long to ask for help. When? Many times. As a female founder and CEO who is responsible for leading my company and driving revenue, I’ve probably made the journey harder than it had to be. Mostly because I had no one to guide me. Why? Because I didn’t ask. In some cases, I was afraid, in some I didn’t know to ask and in some I didn’t know who to ask. This slowed my growth. It impeded my ability to drive revenue faster and farther than I did.
Female founders have a whole set of “extra” stuff that prevents them from driving sales revenue beyond. It’s the unconscious bias that abounds in our society, it’s the trying to be perfect and do it all, it’s dealing with hormonal changes that come with having children and all the stages of menopause. It’s simply not taking time for ourselves and time to rest. It’s the not asking for help.
It’s why I’m on a mission. I don’t want female founders to struggle or suffer. Driving sales revenue can be easy. That makes a whole lot of other things easier. In case you haven’t heard it, here’s why I’m focused on this. I share the full story in this short episode:
👉 Listen to this episode: The shift I’m making to support female founder CEOs
Sales Sharpenher
Most founders start with founder lead sales and then they start to grow a Go To Market (GTM) team. Once a company is more mature and founder no longer needs to sell, do they step back completely?
No. The founder/CEO will always have a role in sales but that role changes as the company matures.
Not sure what your role is?
Ask yourself these three questions this week:
- Visibility: Where can I have the most impact? Where should I be seen? Which customers and prospects are large enough or prestigious enough to warrant a visit or call? Where else can I have visibility. Social Media, Podcasts, Speaking?
- Consistency: How do I show up for my sales leaders and my sales team consistently. What do they need from me?
- Leverage: How and when should my salespeople leverage me? If they need that CEO confidence shown with a client or prospect, when and how should I step in?
What is your role in sales? (not sure, let’s discuss)
This week’s conversation
I hear a version of this from female founders all the time: “I should be able to handle this on my own.”
In this week’s episode, Cheryl Sew Hoy, CEO and Founder of Tiny Health, is living proof that the opposite is true. She started Tiny Health one week after her son was born, tested her way to product‑market fit, and built a science‑driven company while raising three kids, by designing a support system on purpose, not willpower alone.
When Cheryl couldn’t find a gut microbiome test for her newborn, she didn’t wait for someone else to build one. She incorporated Tiny Health one week after her son was born, put $50,000 of her own money into a proof‑of‑concept study, and spent two years in R&D before launching a product that has now shipped over 100,000 test kits.
Three themes stand out for founder/CEOs:
- De‑risk technical credibility. Build the expert circle instead of trying to become the expert yourself. Cheryl recruited published researchers as advisors and hired a dedicated science lead to give Tiny Health authority without needing a PhD of her own.
- Let the market rewrite your positioning. The shift from “vitamin” (general preventative health) to “painkiller” (solutions for baby eczema and allergies) transformed Tiny Health’s acquisition economics and is a repeatable framework for any founder struggling with product‑market fit.
- Design your support system before you need it. She treated childcare, household labor, and paid help as strategic decisions, not afterthoughts, negotiating roles at home and budgeting for support so she could keep building without burning out.
One of my favorite lines from Cheryl:
“I had to surround myself with the expertise I didn’t necessarily have and build that credibility.”
👉 Listen to the episode - and forward it to a female founder who needs a reminder to ask for help
On LinkedIn this week
I shared a bit of my story and more about my passion for bringing a different kind of support to female founders.
👉 Read the LinkedIn post: 36 years ago, I started my first company
To Your Sales Success,
Alice Heiman