Female Founders: Ivey Childers of Southbound Tequila On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Doug Noll
You can change course and reinvent yourself anytime. — I knew I was ready to close the chapter of owning the bakery even when everyone around could not understand how I could give up something I created. It ended up being such a successful choice and now I am in a new career path as CEO and Co-founder of Southbound Tequila.
As a part of our series about Women Founders, we had the pleasure of interviewing Ivey Childers.
Ivey Childers is a spirited Entrepreneur and esteemed Recipe Developer. After fifteen years in pursuit of a unique profile for cocktail recipe development, Ivey journeyed Southbound to Jalisco, Mexico to find the tequila that was both the perfect mixer for her unique cocktails and standalone sipper for drinking neat or on the rocks.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My creativity in the kitchen as a recipe developer has always been the magic button for my career path. I have developed over 40 different cake flavor combinations tracing back to the year 2000. From then, I spent all of my free time developing cake recipes which is how my first business, Ivey Cake bakery was born! When my small business took off, I would come home after a long day and make a cocktail. I wasn’t finding anything that I loved to drink, so I started recipe developing tequila cocktails but still couldn’t find something perfect. I realized it wasn’t the cocktails but the tequila itself. Fast forward, after partnering with a producer and a master distiller, Southbound Tequila was born! The perfect premium tequila for both mixing into an elevated cocktail and a standalone sipping tequila.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
One thing that stood out to me was a conversation that I had with one of my male consultants while I was visiting a distillery in Mexico. I mentioned my children in a passing conversation, and he was shocked to learn that I was a mother. After watching me in “business mode” for over a year and a half, he could not fathom that I could do both and just assumed I wasn’t a parent. I found that to be both interesting but also in line with how it feels as a mom and a CEO. His assumption that I must choose between motherhood and a strong career was jolting and made me proud to be such an established woman in the field.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Passing the torch / hiring people to take over portions of my business is one of the hardest things to get comfortable with. One hilarious memory is one of bakers baked a unicorn cake for a child’s party that ended up looking like an inappropriate body part. I learned that my fears of letting other people represent my business aren’t always irrational, but some things are out of my control!
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
In my beginning years as a baker, Kathy Bonnet gave me my first wholesale cake account. She was the founder of a high traffic, well-loved, Nashville café called The Picnic. I was in my late 20’s hustling to start my business, Ivey Cake, and she saw herself in me. She would often give me many quick moments of advice and listened to my daily challenges. She helped me through kinks that naturally come with running a business and I could tell she really wanted me to succeed. I already had the magic of great cake products but learning how to turn it into a business took a lot of strength and help from Kathy. She was witnessing me in the middle of figuring it all out and I was witnessing her where I wanted to see myself in the future.
Today, I am grateful to my current co-founders of Southbound Tequila, Ryan Santi and Austin Sherman. Both men come from scalable businesses, and they championed me to take the CEO seat of this company. Going from a single owned bakery to a large-scale business has incredible learning opportunities every day and I have leaned on them to help me grow this business to where it is today.
According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
From my perspective, getting a loan to start my business was one of my biggest struggles due to my income at the time. Even though I had proof that I had grown Ivey Cake into a booming business, the only way I was approved for the loan was because of my domestic partnership. As a woman, not everyone who wants to start a business wants to be married as well. Another struggle I had was becoming a mother and having to make sacrifices in my career which was overwhelming and slowed the momentum of growing Southbound Tequila. Since my husband is a touring musician, I was taking on a larger role and found it to be challenging to balance the work life balance.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
As a society, we can do something as simple as supporting local women entrepreneurs and women led businesses. As a female founder myself, I strongly encourage other women leaders to pay our female employees equally as men and give women the opportunity to gain leadership positions. If your company is thriving, you should be of the mindset to improve the financial position of your employees as well. Working in a bakery, I worked with mostly women and saw the struggles of balancing motherhood and business firsthand. The first regional sales manager I hired with Southbound Tequila is a woman. As a leader, it is extremely important to give women who have the grit and determination to work hard in a male dominated category. It’s so important to pay attention, learn and see the value in these details.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder, but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
The first and simple reason is that more women founders will create change for more equal opportunities. Growing up I knew I wanted to do something special with my life, but I didn’t see that example around me. So many of my friends growing up worked for a few years and then chose motherhood. I saw many people give up on their dreams of getting a master’s degree, writing books and even starting a business to become dedicated caregivers. While there is nothing wrong with that path in life, it was important for me to be an inspiration to other young women to show that you can do both. When you believe you can create a life that you want with intention, you get to really see your choices and your power.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Being a founder means you are always confident. Imposter syndrome is real, and I go in and out of it all the time.
Being a founder means you are at the top and should be mostly teaching others. I lean into mentors all the time and ask for advice often.
Being a founder means you can’t be vulnerable: Being vulnerable is such an important quality when leading a company and leading individuals and talking to your consumer. Vulnerability is what connects us and when you lead a company vulnerability and authenticity is a language that translates impact-fully.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
If you are easily set back by rejection or disappointment, you probably won’t thrive as a founder. I think I am a good founder because I am passionate about my projects and business ventures. I have a balance of creativity, risk, and I am operationally driven. As a founder you need to be inspirational to those who are going to work alongside you and for you.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
You will occasionally have really bad days that might make you want to quit. Being overwhelmed is a part of starting something new.
It might feel like no one cares about what you are building. As long as you do, that’s all that matters.
Decision making is sometimes hard, but even the wrong ones are usable.
You will have imposter syndrome often
You can change course and reinvent yourself anytime. — I knew I was ready to close the chapter of owning the bakery even when everyone around could not understand how I could give up something I created. It ended up being such a successful choice and now I am in a new career path as CEO and Co-founder of Southbound Tequila.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Gosh, I am still working on the bucket list of things to join in on. My first born daughter Leona is 7. She had open heart surgery in 2020 and also has an intellectual disability. As a founder, I have always wanted to donate my company resources to organizations that are about funding research & creating pathways to save lives in the CHD world. We contribute to Brett Boyer Foundation throughout the year as well as the Alzheimer’s association which is near and dear to my heart since my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be?
I think I would like to see everyone having the ability to have direct and easy access to mental healthcare.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I would love to chat with Ina Garten. She seems so kind, down to earth, incredibly smart, universally loved. I think she could give me a lot of wisdom and advice as I navigate my business plan for recipe development, entrepreneurship, and empowering the home entertainer.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.