Female Founders: Maya Myers Ginzburg of All Moringa On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Doug Noll
Surround yourself with people who believe in you. No matter how confident you are, success comes with failure and we all need someone to lean on or to pick us back up every so often.
As a part of our series about Women Founders, we had the pleasure of interviewing Maya Myers Ginzburg.
Maya Myers Ginzburg is the Israeli American co-founder of All Moringa, a natural and organic luxury supplements and beauty products brand with all products made with the Moringa Oleifera Tree. Before launching All Moringa along with her husband Tzvi in 2019, Maya spent nearly twenty years as a luxury event photographer between Los Angeles and New York. Maya and her husband are passionate about spreading the knowledge of the many many benefits the Moringa tree has to offer and through their journey and ever growing community, she has become an advocate in the vastly growing movement for clean living.
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?
Thank you for having me on Authority! The earlier part of my career was spent as a creative. I was a photographer for almost twenty years. I loved my craft and still do, however after learning what it took to run a successful business, I learned that I would always be somewhat limited as my clients depended on me, in person, to provide creative services. I realized that if I were to achieve the kind of financial success I wanted for myself, it meant that my source of income would have to eventually become passive and self-sustaining and to do that I would have to build a product based business instead. When I met my husband I hit the jackpot, and not just because we fell in love… we realized that we made a great match in the business world. We combined his background in agriculture and online marketing with my knowledge of business management and luxury brand spaces. Those, coupled with our passion for health and wellness lifestyle and the magical Moringa Oleifera tree brought us to the birth of All Moringa!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Starting the business from being a consumer, it’s been fascinating to dive into the natural health / wellness and beauty industry as a brand owner, I’ve learned so much!! I can’t think of a specific story but I can say that in all the research we’ve done since our launch, we’ve restructured almost every aspect of our lives from our diet, topical and cleaning products, to even the water we drink! There is a world of information out there on how to live a clean, natural and healthy lifestyle and I am so grateful to all the growth we’ve experienced as a family and continue to do so.
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?
Naive me thought hey, let’s make Moringa Tree leaf and seed products and stick them on a website and voila! We’ll be rich in a few months! I’m not sure why I thought it would be that easy when it had taken me a number of years to build a company in my former career. I was quickly reminded to stick to the leg work, and it is the marathon (not the race!) will reap the best results.
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?
I am very lucky that my husband Tzvi and I went on this business journey together. We work very well together where we can each take the lead in the aspects we are strongest at. For that, I am grateful to him. He is very strategic and I’m the risk taker. In that sense we balance each other out. I can’t imagine what it’s like for some of our partners to see us in action. We may come across as a comedy act but at the end of the day it works.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. 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?
This is a great question. Women have been given the weight of the world to carry. From a time where they were expected to serve as the family and household caretaker, with the feminist revolution, they quickly became expected to maintain the caregiver role while simultaneously joining the work-force and maintaining a career. Can you imagine having to build a company on top of that? This is still a huge problem. Building a company takes a lot of time, resources and most importantly, support, and this last need, if you ask me, is the thing women need the most. Support from our partners, our peers, our educators, our government, even our competitors! Women are brilliant, innovative and best of all, we are excellent multitaskers. But we can’t be expected to do it all without a village. With the right support system, the sky’s the limit.
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?
In reference to the previous question, we as a society need to provide many more support platforms to help women succeed. This includes childcare services, more economic assistance to new mothers (and partners who support!), more educational and mentorship resources not just through non-profit organizations but through government programs. Creating support systems has so many levels and this notion is not an easy task as it’s embedded into our global culture but again, if women could somehow carry less weight on our shoulders we would see so many more leaders in all industries.
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?
Well first off all, as I touched on earlier we are naturally, in simple biological terms, multitaskers. We are natural problem solvers and innovators and we’ve had to be all of these throughout history. Can you imagine how much creativity and innovation can bring our world to a better place? From solving conflicts to technological growth, and especially to what I am most passionate about: healthy living!
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Often people, especially other women, think that female founders and leaders have had their success handed to them or that they somehow ‘climbed the ladder’ in not so flattering formats. Most female leaders I know, including myself, busted their behinds for success, and success is not a finish line; it’s ever growing and constantly redefined. All Moringa is a newer company and we are putting the leg work in now to bring it to incredible heights. I’m literally answering these questions at 10pm after having just rocked our six month old back to sleep. I want that bonding time with her and that means hitting the computer at odd hours. I put the (sometimes exhausting) hours in because I know what it takes to be successful. I know that our company is worth the commitment, and that with this commitment there are golden moments where I don’t have to work late at night, where I can have adventures with my family, where we can afford to send our kids to the schools of our choice, pick the health providers of our choice, and live a life of our choosing. The majority of founders are not handed a blank check to build a company, we certainly weren’t and as much as we wish we had been, we find honor and humility in earning our success.
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?
Absolutely not everyone is meant to be a founder, but my answer goes back to the whole notion of building a support system. The traits of a founder include resilience, a strong work ethic, drive, passion, and the ability to take risks and not be afraid to fail. Anyone who is not as keen on these traits I wouldn’t necessarily advise to seek a ‘regular job’, because a ‘regular job’ would be a place where they are supporting a founder. So let’s repaint this question shall we? The most successful teams and employees I’ve had throughout my career as a business owner, were ones who I genuinely cared for their success; and my most successful teams were where I intentionally created an inclusive team whose purpose was to support the business. Each and every role of my employees is valuable and if we view our roles as a unit, a support system, then only success can result.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
1 . Owning a business and ‘choosing your own hours’ only comes after the many many many many hours you have to put in outside the typical 9 to 5!
2 . You cannot do it all yourself. Sure, in the beginning if you are starting ground up, you have to wear all the hats. But as soon as you can, the sooner the better, the more you can delegate and hire out the more and faster growth you will see.
3. Be patient, be patient, be patient! I can count the number of times I went on an actual job interview in my early years, actually got full time job offers (that I then turned down) because I thought to myself ‘that’s it, I’m not going to succeed in this, I’m not made out to be an independent business owner’. I remember on one particular day I decided to stop worrying, that every missed opportunity or failure was to serve as an open door and suddenly like a switch, I started earning money. It’s all about mindset and patience.
4 . Surround yourself with people who are successful and who are like minded about business. Surround yourself with other entrepreneurs, friends, networking groups, professional associations. This will build a community and sometimes you will find benefits, ideas, and growth from people you least expect.
5 . Surround yourself with people who believe in you. No matter how confident you are, success comes with failure and we all need someone to lean on or to pick us back up every so often.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Our mission with All Moringa is to expand and constantly grow a community that supports healthy living, nutrition, and natural beauty. I am so proud of the community we already have, and hearing from our customers who have become healthier, solved medical issues with the help of our Moringa plant nutrition products, and have switched to an organic and natural beauty regimen with incredible results is what I am proud of the most. The more we share about the natural ways to build our immune systems, combat chronic illnesses and skin conditions, and nourish our skin, the demand for synthetic and chemical filled products will drop and ultimately diminish the industries that harm us the most.
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? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Our bodies are incredibly functioning and self healing vessels and when our bodies are clean of toxins ingested through food, topical, environmental chemicals, and stress, we are able to heal from just about anything — including in my opinion all chronic conditions. We as a country have one of the most damaging medical, pharmaceutical, and beauty industries where they treat symptoms rather than the causes, and fill products with harmful ingredients that are dangerous for our bodies. There are not enough government regulations that protect us and the leaders of these industries have monetary gains as their priority over our well being. Even with our small company, we are supporting an incredible movement of awareness. If mine and my husband’s company can influence the wellness movement in any shape or form then we’ve done good.
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.
Marianne Williamson will be running for President in the 2024 elections. She has a voice that speaks to many of the issues I named above. She is self funded and does not take any corporate backing. I would love to sit down with her and if anything, just spread her name around to as many ears and eyes as possible.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Thank you for having me here and cheers to your health!
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.
