Founding Females® Helps You Take Your Best Next Step

Before Founding Females® was a movement, it was just one woman with a laptop, a strong cup of coffee, and a serious knack for systems.

Back in 2015, our founder Francie Hinrichsen used her MBA, entrepreneurial spirit, and unrelenting grit to launch a virtual assistant business called Simply Integrated, helping small businesses clean up their messy backends with smooth, strategic processes. She loved the work—but something was missing.

Francie craved connection. Not just networking events or business card swaps—but real conversations with other women who were building small businesses from scratch. Women who could both sharpen and support her—and who she, in turn, could encourage and empower.

So she did what any scrappy, heart-led entrepreneur would do: she grabbed her accountability partner, picked a coffee shop, and made a promise—we’ll meet once a month, even if no one else shows up.

Spoiler alert: Women showed up. A lot of them.

The monthly meetups, originally called Lipstick & Lattes, caught fire. They became a safe, energizing space where women could swap stories, solve problems, share resources, and most importantly—link arms instead of compete. The energy was electric, the support was real, and the ripple effect was undeniable.

Meanwhile, Francie’s own business was evolving. Her superpower for marketing, community-building, and revenue growth didn’t go unnoticed—she became the go-to woman for growing things that matter. But the more she worked in the small business ecosystem, the more broken parts she noticed.

She was asked to work for free (too often).
Her expertise was minimized by people who should’ve known better.
And the "how-to" playbooks? They all seemed to be written for a very specific kind of entrepreneur—the kind with a stay-at-home spouse, few caregiving responsibilities, and a golf habit. (Sound familiar?)

That’s when Francie realized what many of us have felt: Women entrepreneurs needed a different kind of support—one that understands how we nurture, connect, and lead. One that understands the importance of building a business around your life and not a life around your business.

So she built it.

She dug deep into what makes women-owned businesses tick, flourish, and falter. She developed the now-signature avatars: DIY Dolly, Passionate Pearl, and Full-Scale Fiona—each representing a unique (and wildly important) phase of growth. Every program, blog post, download, and mastermind meeting is filtered through this lens: What do women actually need to thrive in business?

Today, Founding Females® is a vibrant, mission-driven movement with education-rich resources, free community meetups, a tight-knit online mastermind, and a message that’s loud and clear:

You don’t have to do this alone. We’re here to help you grow—with strategy, soul, and the occasional strong latte.