Dear FoundHer...Real Founder Stories for Women Small Business Owners

Lindsay Pinchuk | Female Founder & Small Business Marketing Expert
  • 4.9 (1.1K)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Semiweekly

Dear FoundHer… is a How I Built This–style podcast sharing real stories from female entrepreneurs, female founders, and women in business, especially women 40+, who are building companies on their own terms. Hosted by award-winning entrepreneur Lindsay Pinchuk, each episode features honest, thoughtful conversations with women CEOs and founders navigating leadership, decision making, career pivots, and business growth. These are the stories behind the success, the lessons, the marketing strategies that actually work, and the leadership moments that shape women building and leading businesses. From Bobbi Brown to Rebecca Minkoff, Peloton’s Jenn Sherman & Dr. Becky Kennedy to Gail Simmons, Dear FoundHer… brings you conversations with some of the most influential female founders and leaders of our time. Dear FoundHer… explores what it looks like to grow a business with clarity and confidence, from starting a company for the first time or after leaving corporate, to scaling responsibly, managing teams, building visibility, getting press, and creating sustainable growth. Topics include leadership development, confidence at work, business strategy, marketing strategies and tactics, company messaging, community building, and showing up confidently. There’s no fluff. No gatekeeping. Just real insight, shared perspective, and practical wisdom, because building businesses is better when women learn from each other. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 1h ago

    Getting Eyes on Your Small Business without a Publicist

    RSVP and join us on Thursday, September 10 for: Your Next Chapter on LinkedIn: Turn Your Experience, Expertise and Network Into Opportunity Host, Lindsay Pinchuk shares her personal journey with public relations, gaining visibility and the challenges small business owners face. She emphasizes that entrepreneurs can achieve visibility without a publicist by mastering the art of pitching and leveraging local and niche media. She provides a four-part framework for effective pitching, strategies for post-press engagement, and real-life examples of success. In this episode you'll find:   The importance of owning your visibility foundationFour-part framework for effective pitchingStrategies for post-press engagement and leverageReal-life success stories of entrepreneurs landing press independentlyThe difference between earned and owned mediaHow to identify and target the right media outlets and contacts For more follow us on Instagram @dearfoundher. Subscribe to The Foundher Files, our Substack, for more tips straight to your inbox every week. Join our networking community, The Dear FoundHer... Forum Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  2. Sep 1

    Bootstrapping a Business on a Car Loan and $2,000 From Mom

    Join the only networking community for women business owners 40+ now through September 3rd with the code SUMMER and save $200  Rachel Berliner built Amy's Kitchen for nearly 40 years without taking on a single outside investor. No outside investors, just a loan against her car, $2,000 from her mother, and a $10,000 bank loan. That is bootstrapping in its truest form, and it turned into a company whose products are sold in 57,000 stores today. On this episode of Dear FoundHer, host Lindsay Pinchuk talks with Rachel Berliner, co-founder of Amy's Kitchen, about what real founder stories look like once the funding rounds are stripped away. Rachel explains the decision-making behind her very first product and why she chose the best ingredients over the cheapest ones, even when it meant slower profit for the company. Rachel also walks through scaling responsibly, from the moment Publix came on board to the years spent building new plants and working with farmers to expand organic production enough to keep up with Amy's growth. She shares how the company approached sustainable business growth without ever taking on outside investors, and why her advice speaks directly to women business owners building at any stage of their journey. Press play to hear how a bootstrapping mindset turned a kitchen experiment into a private company still owned by her family, and the advice Rachel has for any founder who refuses to give up. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Community update and today's guest introduction 03:58 Pregnant, bedridden, and craving real food 12:30 First trade show and instant customer demand 13:07 Losing their production partner and taking production in-house 14:18 Bootstrapping the pot pie machine themselves 17:55 The Publix meeting that changed everything 22:20 Building new plants and scaling with farmers 28:03 Letting go and building a leadership team 34:10 57,000 stores and Walmart entry 37:11 Advice for women founders just starting out Connect with Rachel Berliner: Follow Amy's Kitchen on Instagram  Subscribe to The FoundHer Files  Follow Dear FoundHer on Instagram  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. Aug 25

    From $8K to 100 Stores: Scaling a Business as a Female Founder

    Join the only networking community for women business owners 40+ now through September 3rd with the code SUMMER and save $200  Michele Henry turned an $8,000 investment into a $25 million clothing business, then walked away and started over with skincare. Her second company shows what scaling a business really looks like when you build it franchise by franchise, growing from a single facial bar in Edina to nearly 80 locations nationwide. On this episode of Dear FoundHer, host Lindsay Pinchuk talks with Michele Henry, founder and CEO of FACE FOUNDRIÉ, about the decisions that got her there. Michele explains how a five minute decision led her to sign a lease for her first facial bar just five minutes after selling her shares in her previous company. She breaks down the real estate approach that drove her expansion, and why she believes your first ten franchisees will define your brand. Michele and Lindsay get into managing rapid growth during COVID, why patience matters more than most founders expect, and the years it took Michele to find the right CFO, bookkeepers, and financial team. She speaks candidly about her goal of reaching 100 locations by the end of the year, and joining what she says is a small percentage of female founders who have reached that milestone. Press play to hear how Michele Henry built two businesses from the ground up and what she wishes she knew about scaling a business the first time around. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Meet Michele Henry, FACE FOUNDRIÉ Founder 00:40 From Fashion Boutique to a $25 Million Business 02:55 The Five Minute Leap to Face Foundrié 05:23 Inside the Face Foundrié Facial Bar Concept 07:44 Building Brand Awareness for a New Concept 09:54 Real Estate Strategy Behind Rapid Expansion 11:06 Deciding to Franchise the Business Model 13:14 Pivoting Face Foundrié Through COVID Shutdowns 19:32 Scaling a Business Toward 100 Stores 23:10 Hurdles Behind the Business Growth Stories 25:16 Three Actionable Steps for New Founders 26:22 Why Your Numbers Matter More Than Ideas Connect with Michele Henry: Follow Michele on Instagram  Get actionable tips to move your business forward sent straight to your inbox every week. Subscribe to The FoundHer Files: http://foundherfiles.substack.com Follow @dearfoundher on Instagram. http://www.instagram.com/dearfoundher Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. Aug 18

    Bootstrapping ESW Beauty: Bad Hires, Late Shipments, and Financial Turning Points

    RSVP and Join us for the Dear FoundHer... Virtual Open House and Networking event on August 20th!  Bootstrapping a beauty brand to eight figures before bringing on outside investors sounds impossible until you hear the two financial tools that made it work. Elina Wang, co-founder and CEO of ESW Beauty, joins Lindsay Pinchuk on Dear FoundHer to break down exactly how she built a skincare brand now sold in more than 19,000 retail locations across North America, including Target, Walgreens, Whole Foods, and CVS. Factoring and PO financing kept her cash moving while retailers paid on their own terms, and those two tools became the real financial turning points behind the brand. Elina shares the bad hires that slowed her down, the late shipments from overseas suppliers that forced her to rethink timelines, and the moment she overbought inventory out of fear and what that did to her cash flow. Elina shares her decision-making behind scaling a business while bootstrapping the business, including why she waited years before spending on D2C marketing and what made Whole Foods her first true anchor retailer. Managing rapid growth meant learning these lessons in real time, not reading about them first. Press play to hear Elina's three actionable tips for any founder trying to grow without a safety net. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 Elina Wang's K-Beauty Family Business Roots 03:47 Launching ESW Beauty From Scratch 05:13 Landing Kohl's and Her First Retail Win 06:58 Building Community Before Chasing Sales 09:53 Finding the White Space in Skincare 14:19 Target, Whole Foods, and Anchor Retailers 16:14 Bootstrapping With Factoring and PO Financing 19:36 Bad Hires, Late Shipments, and Cash Flow 20:39 Turning Personal Brand Into Business Growth 29:34 Three Tips for Founders Starting Out Connect with Elina Wang: Follow Elina on Instagram Follow ESW Beauty on Instagram Subscribe to The FoundHer Files  Follow Dear FoundHer on Instagram  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  5. Aug 12

    The Exit, Part 2: Walking Away From My Business, and What I Built After

    Join us on August 20th for the Dear FoundHer... Forum Virtual Open House and Networking Event, it's free. RSVP HERE. Lindsay Pinchuk shares the real story of negotiating her way out of her own company, the moment it finally broke her, and how the exit led her to found Dear FoundHer... Part 2 of The Exit picks up where Part 1 left off: a female founder fighting to hold onto the values and the partnership that built her company, inside a corporate acquisition that stopped honoring its promises and contracted obligations. Lindsay shares the breaking point that made her decide to leave, the values conflict with new leadership during a pivotal cultural moment, and the exact negotiation that got her out of her contract on her own terms. She opens up about blacking out on her last day, flying to Colorado the next morning, and how the idea for Dear FoundHer... was born on that trip. The episode closes with the hard lessons from a business exit that didn't go as planned, and why Lindsay chose to tell this story publicly for the first time, as the entry point into her new Premium series, The Aftermath. This episode is for any woman entrepreneur navigating a business partnership gone wrong, negotiating an exit, or rebuilding an identity after leaving a company she built. Check out The Aftermath, Part 1: What Nobody Tells You Happens After the Deal Closes Subscribe to The Foundher Files, our Substack, for more tips straight to your inbox every week. Follow Dear FoundHer... on Instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  6. Aug 12

    The Exit, Part 1: What Really Happens When a Female Founder Sells Her Business

    Join us on August 20th for the Dear FoundHer... Forum Virtual Open House and Networking Event, it's free. RSVP HERE. Lindsay Pinchuk pulls back the curtain on her business acquisition, the promises made and broken, and what really happens in the first year after a female founder sells her company. In this Behind the Curtain episode, Dear FoundHer... founder Lindsay Pinchuk shares the story she's never told publicly: what actually happened when she sold Bump Club and Beyond, the parenting community she scaled from a side hustle to three million monthly users. Lindsay walks through the acquisition process from the first LinkedIn message to the signed deal, why she said no to one buyer and yes to another, and the early warning signs that appeared within weeks of closing. She breaks down how her company's most valuable partnership, a seven-figure relationship with Target, was taken out of her team's hands, and what that meant for her earn-out. This is a real, unfiltered look at business acquisition from the founder's side of the table, told for any woman entrepreneur who is scaling a company, considering an exit, or has ever watched a deal not go the way it was promised. Check out The Aftermath, Part 1: What Nobody Tells You Happens After the Deal Closes Subscribe to The Foundher Files, our Substack, for more tips straight to your inbox every week. Follow Dear FoundHer... on Instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  7. Aug 4

    How to Tell If a Business Coach Has Actually Built a Business

    Get action oriented advice sent straight to your inbox every week. Subscribe to our Substack, The FoundHer Files for advice you can put into play to grow your business starting today. If you've ever paid for advice from someone with a massive following and quietly wondered whether they've actually built a real business, this episode is for you. Host, Lindsay Pinchuk breaks down why building an audience and building a business are two completely different skill sets, calls out how AI-generated advice is quietly flooding the coaching and course industry, and walks through The Build Check, her exact three-step process for vetting any coach, course, or program before you hand over your money. Along the way, she gets honest about her own business exit, the parts of it that went sideways, and why that experience, not a follower count, is what actually qualifies her to teach this. What You'll Learn:  Why a viral follower-growth number rarely means what it looks like it means, and the ratio math to run before it makes you feel behind •  The real reason so few female founders talk publicly about what happens after they sell a business •  How corporate acquisitions can turn on the founders who built the company, and the pattern to watch for •  Why building a following and building a business are not the same skill set, even when the content looks identical •  How AI-generated advice is quietly showing up in courses, coaching programs, and masterminds without being disclosed •  The Build Check: a 3-step, 15-minute process for vetting any business coach or program before you pay, including the exact search terms and the exact question to ask •  The one question that reveals within seconds whether a coach has actually built and sold a business, or just built an audience talking about it Join us on August 20th for the Dear FoundHer... Forum Virtual Open House and Networking Event, it's free. RSVP HERE. Subscribe to The Foundher Files, our Substack, for more tips straight to your inbox every week. Follow Dear FoundHer... on Instagram. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  8. Jul 28

    Christine de Wendel on Starting a Business After Corporate and Raising $145 Million

    Join Lindsay for a Dear FoundHer... Forum Virtual Open House and Networking Event on Thursday, August 20th. Click here to save your seat, it's free.  She spent over a decade scaling two of Europe's most successful tech companies, reaching the C-suite along the way. Then she moved back to her hometown and nobody knew her name. That tension is the heart of this episode of Dear FoundHer, and it sets up one of the clearest examples of starting a business after corporate you will hear this year. Host Lindsay Pinchuk talks with Christine de Wendel, co-founder and U.S. CEO of sunday, the digital checkout platform used in over 3,500 restaurants across the U.S., U.K., and France. Christine spent over a decade scaling two of Europe's biggest e-commerce companies before leaving corporate at 40 to build a company of her own. Her story shows what transitioning from employee to founder really looks like once the safety net disappears. Christine describes the three humbling months she spent building connections in Atlanta before the idea for sunday took shape, and how a phone call from an old friend turned into a co-founding partnership. She also opens up about startup funding and whether having a male co-founder changed how easily she raised capital. Lindsay and Christine talk candidly about networking for women, credibility, and why making a career pivot later in life can be an advantage instead of a setback. If you have ever wondered whether starting a business after corporate means starting from zero, Christine’s story offers a clear answer: the experience, relationships, and skills you have already built still count. Press play to hear how she used them to help raise $145 million for sunday. Episode Breakdown: 00:00 From Tech Executive to Unknown in Atlanta 02:56 Christine's Path From Bain to Paris Tech 05:47 Why She Waited Until 40 to Start 08:25 Uprooting the Family and Moving to Atlanta 11:43 The Phone Call That Became sunday 14:47 How the sunday App Works 16:33 A Review Turns Into Real Restaurant Change 19:08 How sunday Makes Money 20:57 The 2021 Raise and What Came After 22:45 Doubling Transaction Volume 24:25 Why Restaurants Are Slow to Adopt 26:15 Building Brand Ambassadors and Referral Networks 29:47 Funding, Her Co-Founder, and Gender in Fundraising 32:55 Motherhood, Pacing, and Doing It All 36:46 Three Tips for Women Starting Out Connect with Christine de Wendel: Follow sunday App on Instagram Connect with Christine on LinkedIn Subscribe to The FoundHer Files  Follow Dear FoundHer on Instagram  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Dear FoundHer… is a How I Built This–style podcast sharing real stories from female entrepreneurs, female founders, and women in business, especially women 40+, who are building companies on their own terms. Hosted by award-winning entrepreneur Lindsay Pinchuk, each episode features honest, thoughtful conversations with women CEOs and founders navigating leadership, decision making, career pivots, and business growth. These are the stories behind the success, the lessons, the marketing strategies that actually work, and the leadership moments that shape women building and leading businesses. From Bobbi Brown to Rebecca Minkoff, Peloton’s Jenn Sherman & Dr. Becky Kennedy to Gail Simmons, Dear FoundHer… brings you conversations with some of the most influential female founders and leaders of our time. Dear FoundHer… explores what it looks like to grow a business with clarity and confidence, from starting a company for the first time or after leaving corporate, to scaling responsibly, managing teams, building visibility, getting press, and creating sustainable growth. Topics include leadership development, confidence at work, business strategy, marketing strategies and tactics, company messaging, community building, and showing up confidently. There’s no fluff. No gatekeeping. Just real insight, shared perspective, and practical wisdom, because building businesses is better when women learn from each other. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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