Yasmin Nouri
Yasmin is the host of the "Behind Her Empire" podcast, focused on highlighting self-made women leaders and entrepreneurs and how they tackle their career, money, family and life.
Each episode covers their unique hero's journey and what it really takes to build an empire with key lessons learned along the way. The goal of the series is to empower you to see what's possible & inspire you to create financial freedom in your own life.
Entrepreneur Nicole Gibbons joined this episode of Behind Her Empire to talk about how to leave your corporate job and do your own thing.
Gibbons is the founder of Clare, the only Black-owned paint brand in the U.S. Her journey from fashion to striking out on her own into interior design and ultimately to starting her own company is filled with lessons on timing and perseverance.
"I spent my time for five years side hustling, building my confidence and learning the design, trade, learning how to operate a business and gaining enough competence to then take the leap to do my thing full time," said Gibbons.
Right out of college, Gibbons took a public relations job at Victoria's Secret at 21 and worked there for almost 10 years, but she knew it wasn’t where she wanted to be.
Gibbons took on side projects, including starting a blog about home décor, more to satisfy her curiosity than to establish a business.
“None of my friends cared about design. No one in my life, I had no one to nerd out with about furniture and decor,” she said. “And that's really why I started the blog.”
From there, she found herself helping people with their home spaces and establishing herself as a voice in the interior design industry. Eventually, she took on some interior design clients and decided to make the jump to start her own business.
“Initially I had this sort of chip on my shoulder of like, ’I didn't go to design school. I don't have a formal education in design. So how am I going to ever have enough credibility to be taken seriously?’”
The first year was difficult, but over time, her business picked up, and her hands-on approach to helping users pick paints gave Gibbons an idea for a direct-to-consumer business. But she ran into many investors skeptical of her idea of disrupting an industry that was dominated by staid paint companies run mostly by older white me.
"If I pitched you, and you told me it was a silly idea. I'm like, 'You don't know what you're talking about. [On] to the next person who can see the light.' And that was just my attitude," said Gibbons.
As a first time CEO, Gibbons acknowledges she's still learning and isn't afraid to ask for help Gibbons added, "Feedback is a gift."
dot.LA Engagement Fellow Joshua Letona contributed to this post.
Want to hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast? Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.
As the founding partner of Halogen Ventures, Jesse Draper and her team are betting big on early-stage, female-founded companies with billion-dollar potential.
In this episode of the Behind Her Empire podcast, Draper discusses how she deals with rejection as a VC and how women can gain self confidence as entrepreneurs.
"Don't look at a no as a bad thing. Look at it as a 'no for now’. Or maybe you're not talking to the right person. And also, you can turn it around," Draper said.
Draper’s firm, Halogen Ventures, focuses on investing and growing consumer tech companies led by female and co-ed teams.
Before launching Halogen, Draper had a TV series called "The Valley Girl Show" where she interviewed entrepreneurs including Mark Cuban and Richard Branson. While she did get to talk to some female founders there, she said many were too early in their careers to be featured.
Draper grew up with an investor mindset from an early age. At around 10, her father bought her a share of Mattel because she loved its popular doll product, Barbie.
But even with that early exposure to markets, Draper said she had a difficult time entering the venture capital world as a woman. Networking became important as a way to be taken seriously and make the connections she needed to make.
"You know, this isn't talked about enough: You have to lose a lot of money to make money in VC. And I think people need to understand that you can't go out, raise a fund and invest in, like, five deals," Draper said.
She is a fierce advocate for investing in women and the opportunity for using technology and innovation to solve some of the biggest issues facing women and families today. Halogen Ventures, launched in 2015, now has more than 70 companies in its portfolio, including theSkimm, Babylist, ThirdLove and The Flex Company.
Jesse was listed by “Marie Claire” Magazine as one of the ‘50 Most Connected Women in America’. She is also a regular commentator on Cheddar, CNBC and CNN.
In this episode, Draper gets candid about why she didn’t think she could be a venture capitalist and how she overcame her own struggles with imposter syndrome and she shares her advice for anyone looking to manage burnout: delegate and make time for rest.
Hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast. Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Engagement Intern Joshua Letona contributed to this post.
Behind Her Empire Podcast: Modrn Med Founder Dr. Mary Pardee on How Stress Impacts Your Gut
Dr. Mary Pardee has made gut health her life’s work, leading her to found Modrn Med, a telemedicine and virtual wellness company based in Sherman Oaks.
And it was her own personal experience with intestinal issues that led her to become the kind of doctor that wouldn’t tell her patients that “there’s nothing else we can do,” she told the Behind Her Empire podcast this week.
“I wanted to be the doctor that was nurturing, that gave alternatives and that really had an honest discussion about how mental health affects your gut health,” she said. “So this has kind of been my journey, but is just in my own personal healing story to become the doctor that I didn't have.”
As a doctor who specializes in integrative gastroenterology, hormones and gut-brain health, Dr. Pardee sees how stress impacts the gut health — and by extension, the overall health — of CEOs, moms, homeschool teachers and women in other high-stress environments.
“So you can see if you're in a period of chronic stress, which most people are, that you may not have a good libido, you definitely may not want to go to the bathroom because your digestive system is shut off,” she says.
In this episode, Dr. Pardee also delves into the impact that gut health has on hormones, mental health and physical health and the importance of prioritizing self-care.
Hear more of the Behind Her Empire podcast. Subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Audience Engagement Editor Luis Gomez contributed to this post.
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