Untangling with the Beyoncé of Business
FemGem37 Unlocks Networks & Champions Mental Health
To be in the presence of FemGem37 is a revelation. She emits honesty, rawness, truth, and hope. FemGem37 — Katy Campbell – grants you the chance to be equally vulnerable, freeing yourself from limiting thought patterns.
This liberation is a big part of her personal and professional mission: to improve our mental health. Katy’s a vibrant soul, backed by a stellar track record of experimentation, dedication, and focus.
Katy’s social media handle, Bey of Biz, reveals two key things: her love of superstar Beyoncé’s music and Katy’s own keen business acumen.
Katy cares deeply about founders – she aims to alleviate their struggle and amplify their success. To see how she got here though, let’s peer back at her career. Doing so unearths English literature, journalism expertise, corporate communication, PR, brand work, plus scores of mentorship and leadership examples.
She’s achieved the ‘expat circuit’ here in Berlin, as an ambitious and young manager at Rocket Internet, then Zalando, and later was tapped for a formative communications role at APX. Katy’s had first-hand experience as both a co-founder and founder, and has lived to tell about it!
Basically, she’s legit. FemGem’s Founder Dora Dora sat down with her for a remarkably deep conversation on Katy’s own journey and what you can learn from it.
Now Katy shares her story with at least two goals in mind: 1) make mental health more accessible to people, especially given the future of work and 2) open up influential networks in support of innovation, diversity, and underrepresented founders.
Prioritizing Mental Health
Katy found her way to solving mental health issues through a variety of paths: family members, personal struggles, and seeing first-hand what impact solution can have in the workplace.
She’s driven to remove the stigma of mental health, and to provide services to people in Berlin, especially English-speakers for starters. She’s been building solutions in order to make this a reality, including an app she’s creating to solve her own needs, which she aims to release for free for the greatest impact.
Other actionable ways Katy helps the community are the groups she’s formed: Nasty Womxn and Formation. NastyWomxn is an inclusive Linkedin group with monthly meetups (returning to life September 2020) that helps people navigate the workplace, negotiations, and career paths.
Formation, named after Katy’s muse Beyoncé (which is also where her social media handle ‘Bey of Biz’ comes from), focuses on getting underrepresented founders connected with potential angel investors, to APX (where Katy remains connected), and accelerating business development.
For founders seeking cross-border access to entrepreneurial mentoring from other experienced founders, the best move is to sign up for FemGems Club, which just launched! 💎 🙌🏽
Storytelling Bombshells
“Everything was going well, so I decided to quit.”
Listening to Katy is like you’re sitting on the couch with her, feeling all the feels. That’s how she pulls in listeners with her masterful storytelling and unique lilt, peppered with salty phrasing. When she says, “Everything was going well, so I decided to quit,” we want to know more!
For this FemGems episode, there’s simply no substitute for hearing her stories first-hand: like meeting her cousin for the first time and traveling Europe with him, mentoring Gaza-based founders while noises crack overhead, giving up snazzy jobs for the great entrepreneurial unknown, and coming clean about bouts of rock-bottom depression.
In lieu of trying to recount those stories in more detail, I’ll focus on some knowledge gems, or founder journey bombshells as she calls them, that Katy delivers in an practical way.
Protips from the Bey of Biz
- Put yourself first. It’s not only ok to do so it’s crucial and the right thing, in order to truly take care of yourself. Founders face enormous pressure but that pressure should fuel rather than drain you. If it’s too draining, re-evaluate or seek help.
- Stop worrying about what others think of you. Concern yourself less with other people’s opinions (they’re likely too busy regardless) and more with your own opinion. She finds solace in Brené Brown, who quotes a saying from Teddy Roosevelt, that no one can comment on what’s going on in the “battlefield” if they’re not out there, too. According to Katy: “It doesn’t matter what people think of you; it matters what you think of yourself because that’s the image you’re projecting.”
- Investors: Open up your network. Networks are for sharing. Open them up. Share contacts. Hear out founders and supply them with new contacts who can help, even if you are not interested or available to actually invest.
- Founders: Reach out. Do your homework about the founder journey, reach out to other founders who have experience; listen to podcasts like FemGems; educate yourself about what you are getting into.
- It’s all about teams. Teams are the most important indicator of success. Ensure you have a solid team so that you can pivot when needed, get investment when necessary, and get along.
- Put people first. Product-market fit, traction, sales, or anything else follow after. Ensure people on a team feel appreciated and involved.
- Have an appetite for learning. According to Katy, the “best founders are the ones who are coachable and willing to be mentored. Because they are hungry to learn.” Katy concludes:
“Being a founder is learning, networking, and just having that inner confidence that you can get there at some point.”
The Big Takeaway
Katy walks us through how she learned (the hard way) how to put herself first. By prioritizing her well-being, she can be of better service to others, specifically founders. What she demonstrates is self-compassion that leads to domino-effects in acts of empathy and compassion.
Mentoring is another way Katy brings true impact. It requires her to vet what she says, and be creative on the fly. It also means sharing her network and democratizing access to investment. She connects founders to clients, investors, and future team members, asking:
“How can I take what I have and give it to you at 10x, so that what you are doing will be successful?”
To benefit from more of the Bey of Biz’s saucy wisdom, tune into the full podcast, in her conversation with FemGems’ founder, Dora Petrova. This episode has generated the most reactions from listeners so far, so hop on it to hear what it’s all about.
Do you want to get access to the knowledge and experience of inspiring women entrepreneurs? Apply until August 9th for the first cohort of the newly launched FemGems milestone-based mentoring platform!
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