Statement of Beliefs

Core Principles of Founding Females®

At Founding Females®, we celebrate that women build businesses uniquely. Here are our core values…

Women deserve to be paid adequately for the value we create

• First and foremost, women deserve to be paid in accordance with the value we create. We do not believe in working for free or working for “exposure.” There is an expensive opportunity cost and perpetuation of the status quo when we pour into organizations that don’t value our work.  Appropriate response to requests for free work in any form are simply, “No, thank you.” or “My rate for that is $XXX/hour.” No justification needed. Voting with our voices is powerful, but voting with our dollars, time, and energy serves as a more effective conduit of change.

• We don’t believe in “just working harder until someone notices.” We boldly speak up for ourselves and for all women in the name of the value we create. Importantly, we create healthy boundaries where our value is under-appreciated.

• We praise women for charging appropriately. If we can’t afford it yet, we’re empowered to believe we’re capable to figure out how to change our circumstances so we can afford it in the future.

• We know we can’t save our way to wealth, as defined by the four freedoms of time, money, relationship, and purpose. We don’t believe in pinching pennies or saving excessively to make ends meet. Rather, we believe in using our incredible minds to create value in the world and charge accordingly.

• Statistics show that when women create wealth, we also tend to create more opportunity for other women. Charging adequately is simply a way to create more opportunity. At Founding Females®, we’re rooting for women to become wealthy so we can go out and change the world.

We’re empowered to design a career on our terms

• As quoted by Erica Nicole, who left corporate America to start YFS Magazine, “The glass ceiling that once limited a woman’s career path has paved a new road toward business ownership, where women can utilize their sharp business acumen while building strong family ties.”

• We believe in “building a business around your life and not a life around your business.” 

• Women face the unequal challenge of figuring out how to fit a career in the cracks between other important responsibilities upon which the wellbeing of our society rests. The 9-5 structure of time tends not to work well for entrepreneurial women because women tend to handle the majority of (often unpaid) responsibilities like child rearing, parental caretaking, and community-related responsibilities.

Women can leverage business to pursue the four freedoms of time, money, relationship, and purpose

• We believe our businesses are incredible vehicles to achieve wealth, as defined by having adequate time, money, relationship, and purpose to thrive and scale to new heights (“The Four Freedoms” is an original principle by author and entrepreneur, Dan Sullivan).

• There is no ceiling with regard to the income we can earn, the amount of free time we can create, the enriching relationships we can cultivate, or the purpose we can fervently pursue within the ever-expanding bounds of female entrepreneurship.

• We believe limiting factors that have dictated women’s potential are merely dated suggestions. We are capable of transcending existing barriers and setting new standards for all that women can achieve.

We are a lifeline to each other

• We aim to become an ever more diverse population in race, ethnicity and culture, religion, orientation, age, ability, and industry.

• We recognize “crabs in the bucket” are a reality of life. We wish them well and focus our energy into women with an abundance mindset.

• We believe there’s enough success to go around wherein even women in the same industry shine more brightly standing next to one another.

• Our common denominator is entrepreneurship. We are not only tolerant, but welcoming and celebratory about our differences. 

• We believe we can thrive more abundantly within a community of women who understand the struggles and triumphs of entrepreneurship. Alone, we’re capable enough to perform well. Together, we lift one another to heights unrecognizable to our own limited efforts.

• We link arms, share specialized knowledge, and mention others’ names positively in rooms they aren’t in to clear the path for more opportunity.