According to a Forbes report last April, both the viewership and dollars behind women’s sports at a collegiate and professional level are growing. In 2022, the first 32 games of the NCAA tournament had record attendance levels, breaking records set back in 2004, and largely driven by the new and rapidly growing women’s NCAA tournament. WNBA openers this year saw a 21% spike in attendance, with some teams including the LA Sparks reporting triple-digit ticket sales growth, about 121% over 2022’s total. In 2023, the average size of an LA Sparks crowd swelled to 10,396 people, up from 4,701 peop ..read more

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, The Clear Cut founder and CEO Olivia Landau talks about how she turned her side hustle into a business and shares how founders can leverage social media to create community and build brand awareness. Despite growing up in a family of jewelers, Landau’s family discouraged her from getting a job in the industry because they felt the diamond business was dying. “I never set out to be an entrepreneur or business owner,” Landau said. “I was actually told my whole life by my parents not to do that and to take a safe corporate job. As a first generation Americ ..read more

On this episode of Office Hours, ComplYant founder and CEO Shiloh Johnson talks about the challenges of running a fully remote business and the importance of supporting other minority founders. ComplYant is a tax management platform that offers small business owners and entrepreneurs a simple way to better manage their taxes. Johnson built ComplYant in 2019 — the first year of the pandemic. Building and running a company that’s fully remote comes with some challenges. “Communicating with this large group of people to build this product every single day and all you're doing is communicating ..read more

On this episode of the LA Venture podcast, Bullpen Capital General Partner Ann Lai discusses the metrics that matter for fundraising, how she invests in overlooked businesses, and how she bounced back from her experience at Binary Capital. Bullpen Capital is a VC firm best known for investing in post-seed and pre-A companies. To date, the firm has completed six funds and Bullpen’s latest one closed at $140 million in November. “At Bullpen, we invest in overlooked categories, underrepresented founders,” Lai said. “So basically anything that is not mainstream, over-hyped and that are real goo ..read more

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Fashionphile Founder and President Sarah Davis shares her journey from turning a means of survival into her primary source of income. Needing some extra cash to pay for her law school tuition, Davis started selling random items she had around her house on eBay. She was blown away by how much she earned. “I started buying things to resell and I started with clothing, accessories and shopping at consignment stores,” Davis said. “Trying to look for high end things at consignment stores and also Neiman Marcus, Last Call, Saks Off Fifth — where there's a scr ..read more

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Three Wishes founder and CEO Margaret Wishingrad talks about creating brand awareness and shares the key component to running a successful business. Three Wishes is a New York City-based company that produces a line of healthy breakfast cereals made from high-quality ingredients. The inspiration for her business came at a time when Wishingrad was looking for cereal options for her son as a first-time mom. She realized that there was a gap in the market for breakfast cereals that were both healthy and delicious. “I hadn’t consumed it (cereal) personally ..read more

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, ComplYant founder and CEO Shiloh Johnson discusses her journey to building a multimillion dollar business and making knowledge of taxes more accessible. Prior to starting her own business, Johnson worked at a large real estate conglomerate that was in the middle of a massive audit. After submitting her calculations, Johnson ended up saving the company millions of dollars, but with little personal reward. “I realized two things as a result of that,” she said. “I can do this at the grand level and B, they are never going to pay me what I’m worth. At that ..read more

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Gobble Founder and CEO Ooshma Garg discusses raising capital for her company and her ever-evolving business model. The inspiration for Gobble came from Ooshma Garg’s fraught relationship with food in college. “I was missing all of these other emotional benefits that come with home cooked food,” she said. “So the first thing was fixing that for me with an entrepreneurial bent.” Gobble, a San Francisco-based 15- minute meal kit delivery platform was founded in 2010. In 2022, the company was acquired by Intelligent Food for nine figures, making Garg the C ..read more

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, Sire Design Founder and Director Eilyn Jimenez shares her secret to career success and how her immigrant parents inspired her to go after her dreams. While Jimenez is also known for her hit Netflix series Designing Miami, the self made entrepreneur admitted that she didn’t always have everything figured out. “A majority of people who are successful will tell you they had no clue what they were doing when they started,” she said. Jimenez learned the ways of company management like a lot of people – on the fly, and through trial and error. In her first jo ..read more

On this episode of Behind Her Empire, JLo Beauty Co-founder and CEO Lisa Sequino discusses how she transitioned from her corporate career to a more entrepreneurial path. In 2013, Sequino landed her dream job at Estée Lauder as the senior vice president of brands. It was then, during the height of her career, managing a team of thousands, when she felt the prickling desire to get back into business. As a 40-year-old woman herself at the time, she began noticing the lack of beauty and skincare products targeted at middle-aged women. “I started thinking like, what beauty brands are actually se ..read more