BeTempered
We believe that everyone has the potential to achieve greatness, and that the key to unlocking this potential is through personal development. Our podcasts are designed to help you cultivate the skills and mindset you need to achieve your goals and live the life you want.
BeTempered
BeTempered Episode 79 - Aligning Business for Longevity with Erin Flynn, CEO of Cladwell
A great story does not skip the hard parts, and Erin Flynn refuses to. On BeTempered, hosts Dan Schmidt and Ben Spahr sit down with Erin to trace the real path from Indiana gym floors to Silicon Valley boardrooms. She chased a dream, ran into walls, and still chose to build a company and a life that actually fit. Her early chapters read like a crash course in grit. She graduated into the 2009 recession, rode a bus six hours a day to an unpaid internship, and turned a blog into a bridge between brands and creators. Then came her first startup, the shock of blunt sexism in investor rooms, and a humbling move back into her childhood bedroom when both money and luck ran out.
What changed everything was not louder hustle. It was alignment. Erin joined Cladwell, helped it grow, and then faced the VC treadmill that demanded free growth and breakneck scale. When the numbers no longer served customers or the mission, she did something few founders even consider. She bought back the business, raised values aligned capital, and rebuilt the app around a simple promise. Cladwell now helps people get dressed with what they already own, pairing weather smart suggestions with a capsule wardrobe philosophy that encourages doing more with less. Motherhood added urgency and perspective, faith shifted from a slogan into a steady rhythm, and her love for design grew into real estate renovations, boutique lofts, and kitchen design studios that put craft and service at the center.
The conversation also dives into her bestselling book, The Road Less Worn, where she clears out the closet of her life and keeps only what still fits. Identity, failure, resilience, and the courage to swim sideways out of the rip current. For anyone who has felt pressured into a version of success that did not feel like their own, Erin’s approach is a lifeline. Choose profits over posturing, customers over vanity metrics, and values over speed. She shares practical insight on fundraising, bias, creative focus, and building businesses that breathe, along with a hopeful reminder that company failure is not personal failure.
Connect with the hosts at www.betempered.com and www.patreon.com/betempered. Explore Erin’s work at https://cladwell.com/ and her design and development projects at https://eastmain.com/. If this conversation encouraged you, follow the show, share it with someone who is building their own path, and leave a quick review so more people can find these stories.
Hi, my name is Allie Schmidt. This is my goddamn hand Catrin's Glass.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks, Allie. Things like doors and windows go into making a house. But when it's your home, you expect more, like the great service and selection you'll get from Catrance Glass. Final replacement windows from Catrins come with a lifetime warranty, including accidental glass breakage replacement. Also ask for custom shower doors and many other products and services.
SPEAKER_05:Patron's Glass, a clear choice.
SPEAKER_02:I want to share something that's become a big part of the Be Tempered mission. Patreon. Now, if you've never used it before, Patreon is a platform where we can build community together. It's not just about supporting the podcast, it's about having a space where we can connect on a deeper level, encourage one another, and walk this journey of faith, resilience, and perseverance side by side. Here's how it works. You can join as a free member and get access to daily posts, behind the scenes updates, encouragement, and some things I don't always put out on other platforms. And if you feel called to support the mission financially, there are different levels where you can do that too. That support helps us keep producing the podcasts, creating gear, hosting events, and sharing stories that we believe can truly impact lives. And here's the cool part Patreon has a free app you can download right on your phone. It works just like Facebook or Instagram, but it's built specifically for our community. You'll be able to scroll through posts, watch videos, listen to content, and interact with others who are on the same journey. At the end of the day, this isn't just about content, it's about connection. It's about building something together. Not just me and Ben putting out episodes, but a family of people committed to growing stronger through real stories and real faith. So whether you just want to hop on as a free member or you feel called to support in a bigger way, Patreon is the door into that community. Because at the heart of Be Tempered has always been simple real stories, raw truth, resilient faith, so that even one person out there that hears what they need to hear, and Patreon helps make that possible.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome to the Be Tempered Podcast, where we explore the art of finding balance in a chaotic world.
SPEAKER_01:Join us as we delve into insightful conversations, practical tips, and inspiring stories to help you navigate life's ups and downs with grace and resilience.
SPEAKER_03:We're your host, Dan Schmidt, and Ben Sparr. Let's embark on a journey to live our best lives.
SPEAKER_01:This is Be Tempered.
SPEAKER_03:What's up, everybody? Welcome to the Bee Tempered Podcast, episode number 79. 79. Today's guest on Be Tempered is a force of nature, a competitor, a creator, and a woman who's lived every chapter of her story with grit and purpose. Aaron Flynn is a former college athlete, turned award-winning entrepreneur, CEO, and author. She's the founder of Cladwell, a company she's built from the ground up, and then had the courage to buy back when the story didn't go as planned. Her journey is one of risk, failure, faith, and relentless resilience. Aaron wrote a book, The Road Less Worn, which became an Amazon number one bestseller. And for a good reason. It's an honest look at what it means to build something meaningful in a world obsessed with image and speed. She talks about taking the long way, the hard way, the road that builds character, not just success. She's lived the highs and lows of a startup life, navigating the pressure of leadership, and come out on the other side with a deeper purpose. Not just to build companies, but to build people. Aaron Flynn is a competitor by nature, an entrepreneur by calling, and a storyteller by heart. This conversation is about resilience, redemption, and the courage it takes to keep walking your road. Especially when it's the one less worn. Aaron Flynn, welcome to the Be Tempered Podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you made the trek up here this morning a beautiful day.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it was. This fall foliage is out.
SPEAKER_03:It is. I'm afraid we might only have it's supposed to rain Friday.
SPEAKER_01:And then maybe a little snow.
SPEAKER_03:Then maybe a little snow. We're going like today's high, I think it's like 67.
SPEAKER_00:Don't speak of snow. Not yet. Not yet.
SPEAKER_03:Nauseous. Yeah, Monday doesn't look good. No. Looks cold.
SPEAKER_01:But Enjoy today.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, enjoy today. And um, but no, thank you for making the trek. We've got a mutual friend, Brian Ballinger, and uh, he kind of made the connection with both of us and said, Hey, you need to talk to Aaron. She needs to share her story. So you can thank him.
SPEAKER_00:Great. I will have a word with him later. I think I'm getting lunch with him.
SPEAKER_03:So that's what I heard. That's what I heard. So, how we like to start is from the beginning. So, if you would talk about what life was like for you growing up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, first I will say thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And I'm gonna try to do my best to keep my nerves in check because I really don't like talking about myself. I tend to regret when I say yes to things like this. So I'm gonna do my best here. Um, but yeah, childhood. So I grew up um in a small town, about small Indiana town, about an hour from here. There was no stoplight in town. I was surrounded by cornfields. And like any good Hoosier does, I quickly became obsessed with basketball from an early age. But it wasn't just basketball, it was a huge part of the culture in both my family life and then also in the entire town that I grew up in. So my mom was a coach. So I kind of grew up a gym rat, which kind of just run around with her from practice to practice. And then my papa was a coach as well. He, I think coached, he coached the girls' team and then also coached the boys' team and won a couple of county attorneys, won a couple of sectional titles. So, and this is all before, you know, class basketball. So he was kind of a known entity in town. Um, the high school that I went to did not have a football team. So everything was oriented around basketball. So our, you know, Friday nights were spent at the gym and also homecoming, you know, that was around basketball season, not football season. Um, to give you even more context to how I grew up, uh, if you go 60 miles west of where I um of my town, that's where John Wooden grew up. So if you're unfamiliar, if anyone's unfamiliar with his story, you know, he's an Indiana kid, ended up going to play, I think, Division I college basketball. I think he went to Purdue.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. And uh then went on to become, you know, one of the most decorated, uh, most winning-ness coaches in NCAA college history. Uh, he took the UCLA Bruins to, I think it was 10 national titles, and seven of those were consecutive. He coached Bill Walton, Karima Joule Dabar. And but I would say the thing that he was known most for was his Midwestern value set and really teaching like that Indiana basketball fundamentals. So that's 60 miles west. So then if you go 60 miles east of my hometown, sits Mylan, Indiana. So if you're unfamiliar with that story, the classic David and Goliath tale of you know, the 1954 boys' basketball team goes up against a much larger school, much larger team, and ultimately upsets them and wins the state title. Um, the real coach of that team was an alumni at my high school. And that ultimately inspired the movie Hoosiers.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um also, I think my elementary principal had like a guest role as the referee in Hoosiers. So, I mean, I can remember uh any rainy day or anytime we had a sub, our teacher would roll in the cart with the TV that sat on top and play Hoosiers, which tells you two things. I grew up in the Mecca of Indiana basketball, and that Indiana Hoosier hysteria propaganda was alive and well in the 90s. Um, but I say all of this, I tell you all of this because it was such a big part of the culture that I grew up in. And uh, you know, sports has so many good things. It taught me grit and determination and certainly how to get back up when things don't go your way. Uh, but there is a very fine line between hard work, working hard because um, you know, you think you're uh want to become the best version of yourself, which is what you know John Wooden spoke of a lot. And then there's working hard because you think you can control the outcome. And there's this uh story, and I tell it in the book, which is that um I don't even know where it comes from exactly, but there's two fish and they're swimming along in the ocean, and an older fish uh swims by and he looks at the two young fish and he says, uh, how's the water, boys? And he swims on, and the two fish look at each other, and one looks to the other and says, What the hell is water? And I think that perfectly sums up how I grew up. Like basketball wasn't just in the water, it was the water. And I, you know, I was wanted to be a good kid. So I went to school, uh, got good grades, got on the honor roll, um, you know, joined the clubs, joined all the sports, and then wanted to earn uh a scholarship to go play in college. And ultimately that hard work um, you know, did that for me. I ended up earning a full rights scholarship to go play Division II college basketball down in Memphis, Tennessee. And so from my perspective, like that was my default that, you know, work hard that gets you results. Um, and it wasn't until I got to like senior year in college and I was completely and utterly burnt out. I, you know, my body was pretty much breaking down. And I just thought if I can make it to the finish line, I would have done it. I've achieved my goal. And I did. So I just kind of, you know, grin and beared it, bear through it. And once I got through senior year and started kind of my career shortly after that, that was really when it all kind of just started to fall apart. Because that same default mode that I had didn't work anymore.
SPEAKER_03:Was it because basketball was over? It was such a huge part of your life that you didn't know how to um, you know, what was next for you, that challenge.
SPEAKER_00:So I graduated, it was uh 2009. I remember, I think it was I don't know, a couple months probably before graduation, sitting in a stats class, which not a big fan of. Um, but my teacher, and actually it may have been stats slash finance, and I can't exactly remember, but he had previously worked, I think, at Lehman Brothers, and he had CNBC on, and you know, just watching basically the stock market crash and these banks that had been around forever fall apart. And he turned to the class and said, I hope you guys are going to go on and get your master's because none of you are gonna find a job in this market. And I, you know, 21, 22, can't remember exactly, but somewhere around there, and thinking like, I don't really know what he's talking about. I don't watch the NBC, I don't know. Um, but I quickly found out because I, after college, um, my husband actually got a job that took us to Northeastern Pennsylvania, thriving metropolis of Scranton. Um, and I could not find a job. So I had sent out, I think, 300 uh resume, you know, applications and was getting rejected because people not only at that time, they weren't hiring new marketing grads who had no previous experience. They were literally getting rid of entire marketing departments. And so I ended up taking a free uh internship at Weight Watchers headquarters in New York City because we were about two hours from New York City. Um and I took a bus uh three hours in and three hours out to not get paid a dime just to try to build up my resume because I couldn't find anything. Um and my husband just I was really down one day, and he just looked at me and was like, have you thought of have you thought of writing? Um and at this time, again, at this point it was 2009, and the uh the internet was around, but it was new. We went, it's not like it was today. There was no social media. So uh blogs had really just started, and there was, I think, blogger and maybe Tumblr had just started, and then WordPress. And so he set me up a makeshift WordPress and was like, just write for 90 days. So I started writing, and basically my thought was like, if I can't find a job, I'm gonna have to figure this out on my own. And again, that kind of same mentality of like, well, no one's gonna give it to me. I'm just gonna have to work hard and try to do it. Um and that opened up so many doors. So I started blogging every day. I ended up uh getting to go to New York Fashion Week. Brands started sending me clothes and you know, different products. And then um I even had a small stint on a reality TV show for a hot minute.
SPEAKER_03:Um what what can you say what it was?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was all on the line with Joe Z. So Joe Z was a creative director of Elle magazine, and he um it was almost like an American idol for designers, like they would come in, and I was one of the judges that they came in. Um the funny part about just real this is a sidetrack, is that before um that, like before we are actually in the room where they were filming, the producer came into us and she was like, You have to love it or hate it. Nothing in between makes for good TV. And I think I was like, that is all right, now I understand how TV works. Um, but no, so I got to do, like I said, Fashion Week, got to do this uh TV show, and then really just started opening up this opportunity between brands and bloggers. And that was the first time I realized, oh, the these brands, they don't know how to work with me. And PR agencies, they are reaching out and they're basically treating me like I'm a journalist who's gonna, you know, write an article where I'm just a person in my house in Pennsylvania who likes to talk about fashion occasionally. So that got that that was where I, you know, saw the first opportunity of ah, there's something here and there's this gap. Um, and Colin, my husband and I, we we had been talking about what it would be like to, because he was at a corporate job and we were, you know, fresh out of school and just trying to figure out like what would it be like to have our own our own business. And so um ultimately he ends up quitting his job, and we created our first startup company from there around all around connecting influencers with bloggers, and this is before people called them influencers. So yeah, and that kind of led us into you know the whole startup world.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, now you you've glossed over a couple of things. Your husband being a little bit of a lot of people. Your husband being one of them.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So talk about how you met him and and how that relationship developed, because it sounds like um he's a go-getter. Yeah. Right. And he he encouraged you to start writing. And uh so so talk about that relationship, how it started, and then how it blossomed.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Remember that part where I said I don't normally talk about my first one? This is gonna be new for me. Um yeah, so I he's from Cincinnati. I'm from a small town in Indiana. We both went seven and a half hours to Memphis, Tennessee to play basketball. So he was on the boys' team, I was on the girls' team. I think we met the first day there. I think he actually famously asked me, uh, how much does a polar wear polar bear weigh? And I said, and then I was like, I don't know. What are you what are you talking about? And he said, enough to break the ice. Hi, I'm Colin. So that is actually how we met.
SPEAKER_01:Nailed it. Right.
SPEAKER_04:It's a good one.
SPEAKER_00:Um so no, we uh we uh like I said, met the first day, basically started uh dating, and then got he proposed to me senior year in college, and then we got married right out of school, which seems crazy now where people are getting married much later. We were married at 22, engaged at 21, and off to the races. Um and I think he's instilled, he is the opposite of me in so many ways, and and yet our values and I feel like everything we are trying to build a life around is aligned, but opposite in the sense that I am anxious and nervous and I would say have more high energy, and he is steady and calm and you know balances me out in that way. But one of the things I told him when we first started dating was I do not want to be in business because I had seen um what my dad had gone through and just how hard and how up and down that can be, both for a family, but then also just seeing the toll it takes on him. And so that was my one requirement. Like, if you're gonna date me, I do not want to be in business. Um and here we are.
SPEAKER_04:See how that turned out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, but it was, I I couldn't, I think I couldn't stop myself from seeing uh different problems and seeing uh ways to like it sounds cheesy, cheesy, but really to make the world better. Um and he was the same way, and I think he had taken the corporate job out of school because his kind of upbringing was more around, you know, these are the things you do. Um, and that's you go to college, he had an engineering degree, put that to use. Like, don't waste that. So he got an engineering um job through Proctor and Gamble, it's a huge company, and it was a big deal. And so he his family thought he was crazy when he, you know, left his job to also do this startup. So I think we were uh, you know, in it together.
SPEAKER_03:So when you when you started all that, how how long did you continue to go that three hours back and forth into New York City?
SPEAKER_00:So that was I want to say it was four months or so of going back and forth. Um and again, almost that same mentality that I had when it came to basketball. I'm like, if I can get through this, I can I can find a job. Um and I just realized I could do that. Like there was there was a path in which I could continue go, you know. I now was building my resume, start applying again and go find a job, work my way up through, you know, entry-level marketing. That was my background, it was a marketing degree. So um start entry level and then kind of go up and up from there. And I had read a book on the bus trip, and I can't um, I think it's Sir Kin Robinson. I think he's since passed away, but he wrote a book, I believe it's called The Element, and he just wrote story after story about how all the people that we think of who are, you know, successful, they did not have traditional paths. In fact, it was mostly failures that led them to where they are. And that was kind of, I would say, my aha moment as I'm on a bus traveling in to try to get this, you know, um experience. And so when the opportunity presented itself, that hey, I think I think we could create something from this. That was right when the startup scene in Cincinnati kind of started to come alive. Um, and it was more like, okay, with the internet, you can now start building a company outside of Silicon Valley. Um and we had moved back to Cincinnati at that point from um for his job at PNG. But then he um ended up, they were offering buyouts mostly for trying to get people to retire. And he took a buyout. And we used that capital and also everything that we had saved up and put it into our first startup company, and that kind of led us into that whole that whole world.
SPEAKER_03:Were you ever afraid?
SPEAKER_00:All the time. I think I think that's the biggest misconception. If I were to say one thing about, you know, advising people who want to get into entrepreneurship or start a business, is I don't think I've ever not been afraid. It is, you think you said it earlier, being comfortable with uh being uncomfortable. Uncomfortable, yeah. And I think that's pretty much been my entire thing. It's never, I mean, like I said, back in college, I was like, I don't want to be in business. That's it's never been that thing, but there's always uh I think it's when it when the pain of staying on the path and doing that is um bigger than doing the scary thing, that's when you have to go do the scary thing. And so for me, that's just kind of always been been the case. Um, yeah, so it was we're we're gonna do this, we're gonna put everything in it. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. And I can tell you that story, but it ultimately didn't work out. So uh yeah, get into that.
SPEAKER_03:So you so you you essentially take your life savings, your husband's buyout, you're in Cincinnati, and you say, here we go. That that's a pretty big leap of faith.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah. Um so we uh like I said, we're all in. We started getting involved in the Cincinnati startup scene. It was pretty new at that time. Uh going to there's this thing, I think it was called Startup Weekends, where uh you would basically try to put together a company in 24 hours and then you'd have like a demo day. So think like Shark Tank, where you'd get up and you'd do a pitch, and then they'd give people like$10,000 to try to, you know, do their company. Um there's another thing that was happening at the time, which was uh accelerators that's still around today. Um so basically an accelerator is when you uh join a cohort or a class of people and they give you like$25,000 for 6% of your company. But in that time, um, you have all the resources that they have. So for about three months, you're a part of a group and you really work in and out of your startup, you use all their um access to everything they have. And then at the end of that three months, again, there is a demo day. And that demo day is when you try to raise the big series um or seed round. So you're talking like 250,000 to 500,000. So we um went to apply for the the local accelerator there in Cincinnati, and I had gotten an inkling um through a couple different uh scenarios that I wasn't quite fitting into this group. And I think I had growing up with a sports background, I really uh was under the impression that I, you know, kind of had an equal part in this, in this world that we live in. Uh sports is still it's changing slowly, but it's more uh a guy's world. And same thing with tech, but I felt very comfortable in that world. Um but when we went to apply for this accelerator, uh we made it to the final round. We were going in for our interview, and in that meeting, uh, you know, they're asking about the company and, you know, the background and that sort of thing. And I'm telling my background, my experience around being blogger, which is why we're working with bloggers. And the guy uh just looked at me and said, Why isn't he the CEO? And looked over at my husband. Um, and it was almost so shocking to both of us that we didn't know quite how to, you know, react. And so I was kind of like, well, he's still, you know, he's just now leaving his job. He will be full-time, but I'm full-time already on this. And and we both left just being like, What was that? What just happened? And um, and you know, weeks later, I ended up having a uh meeting, or it wasn't even a meeting, there was a friend, a guy we both knew. He had been in the accelerator, the cohort before. So he was kind of like, I was looking to him kind of as a mentor of like, how do I go through this? And uh we went out to eat at a Buffalo Wild Wings and um sat there and I was we were kind of telling him our experience and that sort of thing. And he uh somehow we got on the uh around like fundraising and how to raise funds. And he looked at me and said, Well, I would never give a woman money. Um, they're way too emotional to invest in. And so again, one of those moments where I'm just stopping, not quite, it's not registering like what's happening here. And I just looked at him and was like, uh like even me, I'm I'm your friend. And he was like, Yeah, even you. Um and so after those two moments, I think we both didn't quite know how to go forward. And for me, it was this whole reckoning of I thought I thought if I did all the right things, that it was just this was just a game of working hard. And I could do that in business. I knew how to do that. Um, and I kept running up into this other barrier that I honestly up until that point didn't think existed. Like I had heard of sexism and so forth, that like that wasn't in my privy, that was not in my world. And um, and I I even hate to think like I doubted people when I heard their story before, just thinking like, oh, they must have done something, you know, that sort of thing. Um, so then when I was running up against it, just kind of coming undone in in multiple different ways, and it didn't really stop. I mean, we ended up getting accepted into an accelerator in Detroit. And so we moved, um, put our house, uh, we ended up renting out our house, moving up to Detroit, uh, got up there, uh, went through the accelerator, tried to raise money, and time after time ran into the same thing. No one would invest in us because we were a married couple. We sat in a room where I should have, and I still regret to this day, that I did not get up and walk out because I was in the room. The guy would not even, he was a pretty big time investor, would not even look at me. Um, and I was the one pitching. So it wasn't like I was just sitting there, I was the one talking. Um and and just yeah, just come up barrier after barrier until ultimately um we went for a demo day and tried to raise, and we were running low on money. Um, and my husband, he was playing in like a rec league. Uh, I think some friends had asked him to play basketball. So he went out that night um and he called me on the way home and he was like, I'm Pretty sure I seriously injured my ankle. Um, we didn't know at the time. We were in denial. I think we didn't go to the hospital for uh two weeks. Finally, he went to the hospital. He had torn his Achilles tendon, which happened to be our Achilles heel, because the surgery was$11,000. And at that point, because we were at demo day, so we'd gone through the three months, we had$10,000 in our account. So it was literally the nail in the coffin. And we basically packed up, got all our friends to pack us up. Uh, and we ended up uh having to move back in with my parents in my childhood bedroom at age like 20, 24, 25.
SPEAKER_03:What did that feel like?
SPEAKER_00:Pretty deflating. Um, especially when we had made, like I said earlier, like we had made a big deal of going after this thing, him quitting his corporate chat job. Um I was all in because this was my job. Like I never actually went down the path. So I was like, if I can't make this work, like what else is gonna happen? And I just it took me a long time to realize my company failing did not mean that I was a failure. And being him injured, me hung up in our you know, childhood bedroom that hadn't been painted since I was 10 years old, uh, with all my family knowing. Um, but also I think it was this eye-opening experience that was very freeing because it was the worst thing in my head that could have happened at that time. And when you hit rock bottom and realized that at the end of the day, I I had a home. My parents had taken me in. Like my mom was like doing my laundry, like they were feeding us, taking care of us. And that was that was it for me. So it was this eye-opening experience that if, you know, some people take risk and they'll end up on the streets if it doesn't work out. I am the type of person that should take risk because my family was right there when I needed them most. And my aunt and uncle even let us they felt so bad for us because we the whole family was going on vacation. We had zero dollars, so we could not go. Um, but they took us with them, we stayed on the couch. Um, and that was my low. So it just to me, it um while I was really broken at that time, it really broke me open to see like this if this is my worst, I'm gonna do okay.
SPEAKER_03:That's an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, that's that's um I ruptured my Key Lee's tennis. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So you understand the pain and the boot.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And I went for um about a week and a half before I had surgery, but I was in a boot. I knew we were going on spring break. It happened playing co ed um soccer, which I had never played soccer before in my life, but but got convinced to do it. So I I feel your husband's pain with that. Uh was he in a boot or anything? He were just trying to hold it.
SPEAKER_00:So for two weeks it was just um we borrowed crutches from a friend and he was hobbling around. But then, I mean, then the boot lasted for an entire year after that.
SPEAKER_03:So wow. It's just such a powerful story because again, you know, we talk about entrepreneurship and what people how people may view you now. They have no idea. You move back into your bedroom, you know, from when you were 10 years old with your husband. Yep, you know, rock bottom.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:But you didn't stop there.
SPEAKER_00:No, so we like I said, we'd spent all our money. We had rented out our house, so that was the one source, and honestly, that was a blessing because had we not, it we probably would have lost it. But we had um rented it out so there was a family there, and then basically went back to the drawing board. So I applied, started applying for jobs again. At this point, I actually did have experience, so yay for that. Um uh went to work for uh Scripps, which owns multiple different television stations across the country. Um, they pretty much own like I think half of all the local news stations across the country were there. They were starting what was like the ESP and insider of local news, which sounds kind of crazy, but they were trying to put up a paywall. And I was basically the kind of intrapris, so trying to help them navigate this new digital space. Um, and then at that point, that's when uh I we started to get back on our feet. Um, and about two years in, I started to get this kind of itch again of I don't know if this is, you know, this path is for me. Um and speaking of relationships, so one of the things that we have said to each other, both Colin and I, is if either one of us at any point hates what we're doing, we will support the other one to just stop. And so, I mean, a week in, I think I was like, I don't, I don't know if I I don't know if I could do this. Um and he was like, just stop. Like we we'll figure out something else. It's not, you know, it's not a big deal. But, you know, I wanted this was like a challenge for me because I'd never been in that, you know, real job type thing. So I, you know, stuck it out for two years, but that after two years, uh just thought I wanted to kind of get back in the startup world. And so a mutual friend had um introduced me to a guy. He had a fashion company in Cincinnati, Ohio. So it was one of those things that not many people are doing fashion in Cincinnati, Ohio. So he thought, you know, we should meet each other. And we ended up meeting, hitting hitting it off. And then um he offered me a job to come be the head of marketing. They were about to uh launch a women's side of the business, and they wanted uh me to kind of take that on and help them with that. And people think uh at my work at the time, they thought I had like left this, you know, my corporate job for the startup that was all sexy and had a you know a big salary and title. And little did everyone know, I took half the pay of what I was making to go to the startup. And that in my head made sense based off everything else I had done. I was like, well, you kind of got to step back to then be able to go forward again. And if I want to be in this world, I'm gonna have, I cannot have everything. Um so I I left that job and then went and started uh working for Cladwell. So Cladwell was not, I was not the original founder. It was not even named by me. But once we launched the women's side of the business, um, it really started to grow. And that growth ended up getting us into another accelerator. So at that point, we got into 500 startups, which is one of the top accelerators in not just in the country, in the world. And that moved us out to Silicon Valley. So we were in Silicon Valley for about four or five months, got out there, and realized basically we had to throw away our entire business and start over because everything up to that point was websites. So it was building websites, tech was all around that. And this new thing called apps were starting, iPhones were starting. And so we were basically gonna throw away that and start building an app. And at that point is when I really took over, kind of um became a co-founder because we had to rebuild the app from scratch, kind of reoriented the team. And um we ended up getting that partnership with Marie Kondo, who wrote like life-changing magic of tidying up. So we were starting to do bigger things and um kind of took on that business. But with that pressure of Silicon Valley came the pressure to raise money from VCs. And I was terrified because I had already done that once, did not go well for me. And here I was thrown into it again, only this time it was on a much bigger scale. I mean, we were meeting with Andrews and Horowitz, and we were meeting with um like Mark Zuckerberg's sister I had a one-on-one with. So these were like big time names in going out and trying to raise money once again. And once you're on that path of raising money, it becomes this game of billion dollar or bust. And so um they had raised money previously before, and my co-friend and I were in a lot of, I mean, this is you know, a a year later, so we were in a lot of tension because I really thought if we could turn it into a subscription business, we could basically lead our lead our own way. We were we would no longer be dependent on fundraising and we could actually um have a what I call a business. Um, but you know, we saw things differently, and I think he felt the pressure of having already raised money. And ultimately, um, some new investors that ended up coming on really put the pressure on to kind of be like the next Pinterest, next Snapchat. And so they wanted us to go free, um, which meant we had zero revenue and would be fully dependent on raising funds. Um, because at that point, it's just growth is the game. So you got to grow 30% month over month. And then if you do that, you will continue to raise money. But the problem is you have to grow 30% month over month. And even if you are growing, but if it's not that number, it's not enough. And so uh that's the path we are on. And we tried uh our darndest to make it work, and the investors cut us off because they were like, you're not growing fast enough. And by the time we tried to put the paywall back up, um, script subscription to kind of like get back on our feet, it was it was going bust. And so this was August of summer of 2019, and we were kind of faced with this, this is gonna die. This is gonna be the end of it, um, which really was panic inducing because I'd even thrown, we had once we got back on our feet, once we were in a new startup, I ended up throwing more of our money into this, because that's kind of the name of the game. Like, if you're in it, you're in it. And so I was terrified the same thing was gonna happen. This time I did have a little more like, I know I'm gonna be okay, but still, this is not what I thought. I I went through all of this. I thought this one would work out. Um and it it didn't. Um, so he kind of wanted to go on, do something different. I still had a huge passion for this company. Um and while the split did not happen easily, I um my husband and I again, once again, pulled all our money that we had and bought the business. So we bought out the remaining investors. There's a small uh group that got bundled up and came over with us. And uh at that point the team was pretty much done. So we bought whatever was remaining of the assets, and Cladwell was then in my control of being able to kind of build it back up to be what I thought it could be.
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Yeah. So where do you go from there? I mean, now you're not at rock bottom, but now your back's against the wall.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Uh big time.
SPEAKER_03:So how do you come out of that? I mean, you gotta come out fighting. That's the only way you have.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and I think at that point, I Colin was like, we should do this. I see your passion for this company. And it was. It was like the whole what ended up happening was like Cloudwell, uh, honestly, our I feel like the identity kind of merged in together where Cloudwell ended up becoming kind of part of my identity in the sense that the company was who I was. Um, and the company's all around kind of this mission around the capsule wardrobe and doing more with less. And I really felt uh passionate about that. Um and so I I was excited to take it on, but I there was about a two to three week period where I had to get my head right around it because I wanted to know that if I was gonna take this on, I was gonna be okay if it didn't work out. I needed to, like I even, I think I wrote out like a fake Facebook post of basically saying, like, this didn't, you know, I tried my best to bring it out from where it was, and um, and it's it didn't work out. But I feel good that I um gave it a shot to revive it. And that's where I had to be before I could say yes to being the CEO because I was um if my I knew if I wasn't right, then there was no chance that we were gonna buy all the assets and basically in a matter of a year it was gonna crumble again. Um, and I also knew that I had to have enough strength to be able to answer uh to new investors. Um, because out of that, we did not want to take on any more investment. We didn't want to go down that path. We wanted to be truly a subscription business that would be basically funded by people uh using the product who love us. But at the same time, we needed about$250,000 to be able to redo the app because it had gotten so buggy by the end of like every investor that would give us advice, we'd throw in a feature to the app. And so it was just a hot mess, and we knew we had to get it back down to the fundamentals of what it was originally. Um yeah, so uh we ultimately bought it, raised$250,000 from a new investor who um their whole thing, which this is crazy to me, his whole thesis is that we would not raise more money. He believed in um up having a profitable business. So he gave us the money, knowing that the way he would make his money is if we had enough profit, he would get a piece of that profit. And that like hard to imagine that that existed. That was a very rare thing. I think he's even gone on to do different things, but that was the timing, it was exactly right, and he gave us exactly what we needed, and um, we were able to turn cloudwall around. And here I am. Um, I don't I don't even know how many years in I'm in, but um four or five years past. Well, that was 2019. So I am yeah almost 26. Um I am almost six and a half years, yeah, past that.
SPEAKER_01:So how did that meeting go? Like with the meeting before, because you went in as a I'd imagine as a CEO for that investment meeting, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:How did how was your confidence with that? Like knowing before you had the kind of the sexism going on with you being a woman and people not looking at you in in the eyes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Did you have any like anxiety about that or yes?
SPEAKER_00:I except my only thing is I knew before, because I was not, I did not want to raise money from a normal VC. And so I had done a bunch of research around who would be the right person to give us, because we just wanted this piece of money. Like that's we just needed a little bit of capital to be able to turn it around. Um, so I had done a bus bunch of research, and I knew that we were aligned from like a vision standpoint, but it was still a matter of, as I have learned, so many people are different from who they are on the internet, um, especially in that world. So there was still a bit of hesitation as I was initially pitching our our vision to see like, was he really the person that I thought he would be? And he truly was. Like I've uh never felt more supported from an investor. And he met with us uh every month for the first year. I felt like truly uh cared about the company, but also like me as a human. Um and he kind of saws through the COVID years and um and yeah, it was it was an entirely different experience.
SPEAKER_03:It's pretty awesome. Talk a little bit about what Cloudwell is, what what it what is the app? What uh if people want to go out and download that app, what do they get? What what what what's it all about?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so if you've I don't know, I don't know if you guys have ever seen the movie Clueless, but there's this moment where Cher goes to her closet and she can't find anything to wear. And so then she turns around and she goes to her computer, and the computer magically puts together outfits for her from the clothes in her closet. Um, I would like to say that that was actually truly the inspiration. That is just a good example for me to describe what this is. Um but we have fundamentally built that app. And so it is a personal styling app that helps get you dressed based off the clothes in your closet and what the weather is like outside. And the whole idea around it is around uh this method using a capsule wardrobe. So, capsule wardrobe is a small, versatile group of items that easily helps you mix and match and create the most out of what you have. So in fashion, there's this thing called fast fashion, very similar to fast food, um, where uh clothes are made cheaply. Um, oftentimes the labor is overseas, we cannot see what's happening over there. Um and then those clothes are sold to us very cheap here. The main problem in that cycle is that we buy so much. We almost treat clothing like a consumable nowadays, and it didn't used to always be that way. Um, and so this capsule wardrobe mindset is around kind of having a smaller wardrobe, but nothing crazy. I'm not like you only have to have 30 items. Like it's not about that for me. Um, but it is having uh every item in your closet should be something you wear and love. And if you don't wear it, then it should not be in your closet. And so this app is kind of like we have this mission around a capsule wardrobe, but the app actually helps that, um, helps you do that very easily.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Very, very unique. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I hope my girls are listening.
SPEAKER_01:I have an older sister, so that's the only reason I watched the show Clueless or the movie Clueless. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00:It's made a resurgence lately.
SPEAKER_01:One bajillion times growing up because my sister was older and beat me up. So thanks. Beat you up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and it's this thing of like, so uh with women, I don't think this is as big amongst men, but I'll although I will say it happens there too, is I would go to my closet every day and say the same thing, which is I have too many clothes and nothing to wear, which was ridiculous because in my blogging days I had collected all these clothes, so I ended up having 450 items hanging in my closet. So to say I had nothing to wear was ridiculous. And it was in that moment, and this is why I was so passionate about Cladwell, is it was in that moment that I realized like I had been sold a lie that a bigger closet meant I would have better style. So it was kind of this this epiphany of if I believe this lie, if I was bought into this, where else in my life have I been following this same kind of story that isn't actually true at all and just leads to more confusion. So the capsule wardrobe really helps you not just declutter, like that I expected. I expected my wardrobe to get smaller, but the thing I didn't expect is to eliminate the confusion and really have a very clear direction about who and who I was and also what my style was. And that is what kind of ultimately changed my entire life direction into thinking like, where else in my life have I done this thing? And going all the way back to kind of that childhood question, that that was my first, you know, after that was realizing, I don't know if this hard work thing that I thought I bought into, like, yes, I believe working hard is important, but I don't think it is about, you know, working hard to get the outcome. And that was very much a story that I had bought into from when I was a kid by no one other than just the culture and and and myself, um, that I realized this this is no longer, this isn't working. And even like the tech world, this is not working for me. I do not have to keep fighting through this. Like that is actually not not going to get me where I want to go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Well said. So you got Cladwell somewhere in that time frame. You have a child.
SPEAKER_04:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:So you got more than just all this entrepreneur stuff going on. You have a child in the in the midst of all that, while all that's going on, right? Talk about that, because that's a whole another ball game.
SPEAKER_00:I think you're the first person who's ever asked me that.
SPEAKER_01:Which that would have been right when everything was going on, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. So he was born in April of 18, and we bought the company August 2019. So I spent, I mean, there was not much of a maternity leave because it was a startup and you know, it wasn't like we had an HR department or anything like that. Um, but two weeks after I had him, which was not an easy delivery, and uh, I was like recovering from a C-section, and we held a meeting in my house to try to figure out how we were gonna make the next payroll. So it was intense from you know, the moment I had him all the way through trying to actually um, you know, when we were buying the company, and that period was it was like so sweet in so many ways because I feel like having a new baby um makes you see things in totally different light. Like I have so much more appreciation for my mom and my dad. Not that I didn't then, but like seeing, you know, there was one time my mom came down because I think uh Colin was sick, he had gotten the flu, I was sick, I had gotten the flu, and then Rooney was sick, uh, my son. And I'm like, we, I cannot, I don't know how to take my care of myself, let alone the child. And so she came in a flu-infested house and took care of him while we were able to recover. So just like different, you just see life, I think, in a different way. Um, but also I it did give me a little, I would say, fearlessness in the sense that um I felt like a new person in that things weren't, I had this, I'd done this hard thing. If we had a baby, we had our own family, and I I didn't want, I wasn't gonna let what happened to me in my first startup happen again. And so I think at that point, that's where I'm like, I'm I'm all in on this. And if it means that you have to go and I'm staying, I'm staying. Um, but it was a tumultuous time because we had taken on what's called in the industry, like bad money. So it was an investor that we needed because we needed the money, but we did act, we actually did not align with where they wanted us to go. But we were desperate. And that ended up being really the death of the company because they were the ones that advised us to do things. And at any point in that time, we could have stood up and said no, but we didn't. Um and yeah, so that and they were out, so we were literally, I had a new baby. We were flying out to I can't remember if it was Santa Monica and back um to, you know, try to raise last minute money. We took a trip to Chicago to try to raise last-minute money. So all of this is happening. Why I have a less than one year old in the house. Um, yeah, I feel like I didn't answer that fully well. Because it's in my head, it's still like a mush of just things, but it was not the maternity uh, you know, that I had imagined. It was a different experience.
SPEAKER_03:What are you afraid of? Is there anything out there you're afraid of?
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I am scared of everything. And I wish if you met my child, you would understand he is also scared of everything. Um I think it's just that I I just I have a hard time not doing what I really feel like in my core I should do. And um you're saying like a faith, you know, journey. It's that uh that there is no bigger journey of faith than trying to do something creative, trying to be in business in a way that is good for people. There are there are a lot of businesses and a lot of leaders who have no problem being in business and treating people like crap. Um, but if you're in this to try to make things better for people, it is hard. And um, I am very uh, like I said, a very scared person. But I cannot not do what is what I have that when I have that feeling inside. I cannot not go forward with that um to a fault. There's probably many times I should do something else. Um but yeah, I I don't know how to describe it exactly, other than it is truly living your life um without knowing what's going to happen next. And I think I have made a commitment to do that very thing.
SPEAKER_03:You're not you're not scared of things. You're fearless. I mean, you may not see that, but you are fearless.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks. I don't know if I believe you, but wow.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, what a story. You just keep, you know, you get knocked down, but you get back up. I think that goes back to your basketball days. That's where you that's what you learn in sports, is that you didn't win every game you played, right? And those losses are the ones that you remember. That's those are the ones that you learn from. I was just yesterday was at a uh at an event with about 350 high school students, and I was in a part of a breakout session. And my message to those kids was I encourage them to do hard things, to intentionally put yourself in difficult situations so you can learn how to react. And I asked them all, I said, you know, if you think but you look back on your life, you know, these are kids that are freshmen in high school to seniors in high school. How many times did you do you remember something impactful where you were sitting on the couch? None. How many times do you remember something where maybe it was a practice that you had or a game that you had that you lost where it sucked? That's where you learn, right? You learn when it sucks. And I think um, you know, when I when people ask me about entrepreneurship, everything you've said, like I'm I have a story to match not not every one of your stories, but the feelings. Like as you're telling those stories, I can specifically remember dates and years and how I felt. Um and entrepreneurship is man, it's a roller coaster. It's a roller coaster of emotions. And you're right, you know, I I don't live in fear, but you're constantly. A little bit on edge.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Because there's a lot of pressure.
SPEAKER_00:And I would say that the highs are high and the lows are low. And that's the that's the roller coaster. There's just hardly a steady. I mean, it's you have to get there mentally yourself. But the running a business and that sort of thing, that is yeah, I couldn't agree more. And the hard the hard things, the, you know, doing hard things. I think I mean certainly people have said that when, you know, I was a kid, like we can, you know, we can do hard things. Um I never thought it would be internal. Um you think of that very much as a physical thing. Oh, I can run, you know, the sprints that we were gonna run. Or I don't know, my college coach would make us run a mile or it was a two-mile. They called it the buck lap because we were the buccaneers and we've had to run, and I hated it. But that's kind of what was in my head when you would hear growing up around, you know, being able to do the hard thing. And everything from my 20s and 30s has taught me that the hard thing has been very little physical activity and very much emotionally, you know, how do you treat people when everything's falling apart? Um, how do you treat your friends? How do you treat your partners? Um what's it like when you have no money in your bank account bank account? How do you get back up? Um and it's things like that that I think really test you and ultimately determine who you are, but I didn't realize that. And certainly I I you know didn't realize that growing up.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm right there with you. I you know, you talk about the highs and the lows and all those things, and and when you're if there's ever a point when when I'm in the middle and things are like, okay, we're all right, I'm in the back of my mind, I'll think of where's it kind of where's it at? Here it comes. You know, I'm waiting for that phone call or somebody to walk in the office. And and so I I I feel everything that you're saying. So, you know, you make it through that time. We're almost in 2026 now, but that's not the only thing that you do. Cladwell is not the only thing you do, right?
SPEAKER_00:It's not. Um we so we have always dabbled in uh real estate on the side throughout really throughout all of this. Um I was telling him earlier around us moving every two to three years. We would basically find a house that we liked and then we would renovate it, and then we would sell it. So kind of like a flip, but it wasn't really in a this, we didn't go into it with a flip. It was more like, I'm gonna, I need to, if I wanna like this house, I gotta renovate this. Um and then yeah, then we would buy another house. So we kind of have done that on the side ever since that first startup. Um, and then about I think it was 2021, 2022, we uh bought a building um in Madison, Indiana. So uh down near Hanover College, there's uh it's a really, really cute river town. And there was this 10,000 square foot building that was dilapidated. And we had never done anything that big. And we ended up buying the building. The owner had passed away, so it was just kind of sitting there. Um, and it took us about three years to renovate this building completely, and we've turned it into like a little mini boutique hotel with I think it has eight Airbnbs that people can go stay at. And after that uh experience, I think I was like, I can't do this for myself anymore. I'm tired of spending our money. Um, but I I mean I love design. I've always loved design. And at the about that time, my husband was going through his own kind of situation where he um he previously worked at a uh, he was in app development, so they had a product agency, and he ended up selling his shares of that company. Um, and it that story in and of itself, it all fell apart. And we were in a lawsuit for about a year, um, and talk about another trial time where basically the entire friend group that I thought I had eight years ago is not the same that we have today. Um, and we went through this period also at the same time trying to renovate this building and came out of that completely exhausted. Um exhausted, and I say that, but each of us also like really liked the work. Like the work of he loves the business side, thinking about how to manage the money, and I love design. And at this point, Cladwell was kind of in a good spot. I really uh say, like, achieved the millennial American dream where it was kind of like passive income coming in, but I didn't have to spend every single hour sweating throughout the day about it. Um and he was looking for his next thing, and this company came up in Cincinnati and it was a husband and wife couple, and they were looking to retire. And uh it was a kitchen business, like a cabinet company. And I think again, everyone thought we were crazy. Like, what are you doing? You never cabinets? Like, what are you doing? Um, but we saw as an opportunity to be able to do renovations for other people. And we could never financially figure out how that worked, which is why we always did kind of our own flips. We could never figure out how to make like design in the Midwest work. And this was a company where um, you know, people come in and we basically get to do the design for free, like get to help them renovate their um and design out their entire kitchen. And we uh provide the materials. So the design is all kind of built into it. Um, so we just that was about a year and a half ago, bought our first business on the west side of Cincinnati, and just a month ago ended up buying another location on the east side. It was kind of we came, we came back after the first year we came back from spring break. And it was the first spring break that we had gone on or trip that we had gone on where I had nothing to contemplate. Like Cloudwell was in a really good spot. We had we were a year into the West Side business, and that was looking really good. And I'm like, I have, I have nothing, like the book that was about to release. I'm like, this is great. And then no joke, Monday we get back, and the broker that we had worked with on to find the West Side location emailed and was like, I just, I just felt like I needed to reach out to you guys because there's this company on the east side and it's a very similar situation, and I just think you should look at it. And I was like, no, no, we just we just got settled. Like we can just breathe for the first time. And the moment I was like, it's fine, it's gonna be just some like, you know, not not too great of a company. And I opened their website and it's like they do modern kitchen designs in Cincinnati. And I'm like, so uh we met with a similar situation, husband and wife comfortable comf uh husband and wife couple um ended up kind of wanting to retire and um we took it over. So now we have a west side business and an east side business. So yes, we have multiple things that we're kind of dabbling in, but they all seem to kind of work together in one way or fashion. Um and it keeps us busy and sane. And I just feel like being creative in that way, um, in a way that like I really feel like I'm using my skills to help other people is what I'm meant to do. So this, you know, I complain about it or whatnot, but I I we really, we really, really enjoy it.
SPEAKER_03:You thrive on it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I'll ask you the million-dollar question that everybody asks me. How do you do it all?
SPEAKER_00:With a lot of help. I think if you're going to live this type of life, you have to be intentional about your time and also not afraid to ask for help. So, you know, Collins family is mostly in Cincinnati, and his mom comes helps us out some days to pick up our son from school. And um, my parents are only an hour and a half, and so they help in a lot of ways, um, even just talking out, you know, different problems. Um and I think it's it's just really important to be intentional, but I will say that the problem that I had when I was in the tech world was that I was not practicing alignment in the sense that it constantly felt like I was being um so honestly, here's the here's the analogy I'll try to give you is I think of this as kind of like a rip current. So if you think of a rip current, um you slowly kind of get pulled out into the water. It's very subtle. And then once you're kind of in the middle and you realize, oh, I'm far from the beach, you start panicking. And in that panic, you start fighting. That's the natural response is to start fighting against the water, to try to make it back to the beach. And I think of my entire experience in the startup world and the tech world like that. I realized I was really far out of myself, away from myself. And I was panicking. And so, but my panic was work harder, work harder, try to fight through this, go find the next investor, do what I need to do, like be more like the people, like try, try harder. And the way out of a rip current is to swim sideways. So if you swim horizontally, um, you can get out of the rip current and then back to shore. And that to me is what this experience has felt like. So instead of fighting, I've gotten out by completely leaving an industry that I did not feel like I was my best self in, getting out of that industry in aligned with more of my innate skill set, which people have told me forever that I should be doing design, and I did not listen. And I finally feel like I'm aligned with who I am and what I was meant to do in this world, and I've gotten back to shore. And it's all through um just again feeling like, oh, I know who I am and what I'm supposed to be doing first, trying to fight um to keep up.
SPEAKER_01:That's a really good analogy.
SPEAKER_03:Very good. What role has faith played in your life?
SPEAKER_00:I'm the daughter of a preacher, so there's that. Um a huge a huge piece, but I would say different than um So here's how I think about it is there's that uh verse that's I think it's in Acts that's like uh they first called them Christians at Antioch. And also I'm really bad at quoting Bible verses, so I feel my mom's probably gonna listen to this and be like, that's not the right idea. Um but they first called them Christians at Antioch. And I love that because they did not call themselves Christians, they were doing things that were different, treating people differently, living differently, and people saw that and called them something else. And that is what I feel like to my core, I aspire to do. It is not necessarily not that there's anything wrong with you know speaking about your faith, um, but I think I aspired to do that in my businesses, I aspired to do that in the book. Is this was not about being overtly Christian as much as I hope and pray that people see how I live and be like, what's going on there? And then call me a Christian. So that is kind of how um how I think about my faith and um living. And like I said earlier, it's it's you have to have faith to be an entrepreneur. I don't know how people do it if they don't. Um, because there's so many times I'm just like, please help tomorrow go well. Um because it's just such a huge part. I think also that rhythm of praying every day, uh, just to get my mind right and knowing that I am part of something bigger. So if this doesn't work out, it's gonna be okay. Um, but I need that in um to be in this.
SPEAKER_03:That's a great answer. I'm uh final two questions. Yeah. So you wrote a book.
SPEAKER_00:I did.
SPEAKER_03:What year did you write the book?
SPEAKER_00:Um, when did you start writing? I guess it was 2023. So it took me took me three years because I had no idea what I was doing.
SPEAKER_03:So what what inspired that?
SPEAKER_00:Really, it was it was the week between um, I guess about three years ago, the week between Christmas and New Year's. And um that's one of my favorite times because I think in a business world, like nothing's happening. No, no customers are coming to you unless you're like in uh selling clothes or something. Um, not many people are coming to you during that period. So it's always my favorite time of year. We went up to my parents, we came home, and I really thought I was gonna burst because I had all these things I had gone through in the startup world were just inside my head, like all these experiences. I mean, I talked to Colin about them, but I didn't really talk to anyone else about them. And I stayed up late one night, everyone had gone to bed, and I went in the room next to her bedroom and just started writing. And then I ended up writing um one of the first the Buffalo Wild Ween story. Um, I ended up writing that first, and then another story after that. And it just all started to come out, and I realized that I think I had a lot built up that I need to say, but there were also these kind of through lines between. Um, but it really wasn't until about six months of writing that I thought, okay, I think this could maybe be something. Um, and like a capsule wardrobe, I was really familiar with kind of decluttering my closet. And the book was all around kind of decluttering all these stories that I had held on to for so long that had shaped my, you know, identity. And I didn't realize I was, didn't realize they were driving my life. So it was all around kind of taking, like you do with clothes, like taking out one story, one um mantra at a time and kind of facing it and putting it in the light and being like, do I, do I really even believe this anymore? Um so that was kind of when I came up with the whole kind of concept around, okay, I think this this book would be like 10 years of therapy and three years.
SPEAKER_03:How did it feel when it was released?
SPEAKER_00:It was it was good. I I think the night before a friend had called me and she I'd given her an early coffee, and she was telling me that she, her son, plays baseball, and she was her husband was driving to the games and she was reading it to him as they were driving. Um and so starting to hear stories like that was a huge relief that it was resonating. But to be honest, that was where I had the most fear. This was the first time. I mean, there were things in this book that I hadn't told close family members. So this was the first time of me really putting myself out there. And it wasn't that I was scared of like, you know, people on the internet reading it or even reviews, like I could care less about that. Like I want people to read it, but that wasn't the scary part. The scary part was like my inner circle reading it. And and there was this big question of would the world burn down after I put this out in the world. And I think it was really helpful to know that I could say what was on my mind um and be myself and the world still stands afterward.
SPEAKER_03:And what's the name of the book?
SPEAKER_00:The Roadless Worn.
unknown:The Roadless Worn.
SPEAKER_03:People can get it on Amazon.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you can go to um the roadless worn.com that actually sends you directly to Amazon, but you can get it anywhere. So um I think it's on Walmart and Barnes and Noble's and all that sort of thing. It's also an audiobook. So if you're not a reading type, um it is on Audible um and I believe Spotify as well.
SPEAKER_03:Awesome. All right, last question. Yeah, it's been awesome, by the way. Oh, good. I mean, it's fantastic. You you've you've brought so many memories, uh, you know, just the challenges that I've been through. I hadn't thought about in a long time, just by you telling some of your stories. So thank you for that. But last question if you could sit on a park bench and have a conversation with someone living or deceased, who would it be and why?
SPEAKER_00:I've thought a lot about this. I don't have a great answer. But here's what I will tell you. I think it's either Jesus. He'd probably try to talk to me in parables, and I'd be like, listen, I need some straight answers because you talked in stories and now everyone's confused. So if you could be clear, that would be great. Um, so that, or like Joanna Gaines. And I say that because I think um it sounds kind of like superficial on some level, a celebrity business owner type thing. But she has done the thing that I think I aspire to do in the sense that it feels as though they have figured out how to do family and have a business. And um also she would host a great party. So there's that. Um, but it would be great to kind of talk to someone who's hit like that peak level of you know, success in the worldly sense. And I'm sure she has a thousand stories. So to be able to ask questions on how did you navigate this to get to where you are would be a fascinating um conversation for me. So Jesus and Joanna.
SPEAKER_03:That's a great answer. You got anything else to add?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So what would be your advice? Like we have entrepreneurs on here every once in a while. Um, and I think this might be our first one as a woman, I I think if I'm forgetting somebody. But the struggle that you mentioned there, um, with especially your first startup kind of falling, and it seems like it's really not even your fault. You know what I mean? It was something you can't even control. Um, how did you get that confidence in yourself? And what would you tell like somebody else that's maybe wanting to become an entrepreneur as a lady that you know are might face the same struggles that you did, and maybe the advice to keep them going?
SPEAKER_00:I think for for one, it's changed a lot, I would say, for the better since I uh went through it. So when I went through it, this was like pre-me too, pre anyone even um talking about the fact that I say the stat in the book and I and I think it's slightly shifted. Um only 2% of women get funding from investors. So it was incredibly hard at that time. It is still incredibly hard, but the momentum is the awareness is there. And so people are more um say trying to help women entrepreneurs. There's a lot of different uh women VCs that have come forward as well as uh specific funds for female entrepreneurs. My advice is to know it's going to be hard. Because I think that was my problem, is I was in this, you know, bubble growing up in a small town. Um, a lot of people supported me with sports. So I I was just completely unaware this existed. And I kind of think that was my problem. It's because I went up against it and I was like, I don't understand what's happening. People today, I feel like if I were to give them advice, it would be, no, this is this is going to happen. Like you will run up against people who will not treat you the same. But you're almost better to accept that fact and then figure out how you're gonna navigate it. Because if you're in denial that it doesn't exist, then you're gonna be in for a rude and rude awakening. And if you try to fight it the entire time, you're just gonna exhaust yourself. So you really got to figure out what works for you to be able to push through it. And um, I'm not gonna say that it's easy, but I think it can be worth it. Um, and it's just a matter of again, figuring out how do you keep your sanity through through it all. Um so acceptance, I would say, is probably the biggest piece of advice I would give.
SPEAKER_03:Would you change any of what you went through now, knowing where you're at now?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if I would change necessarily like the path I went down. I will say toward the end of um Cladwell and or like Cladwell before we had taken it over. Um and certainly some of those meetings, I wish I would have used my voice more or stood up for myself more. And I think I just didn't have the confidence that I have today in that. And it's really confidence by just like, you're just a person. Half these VCs are just it's not even their money, it's the firm's money. Um and I just was there was such a weird power dynamic in it all. And so it felt very much about like proving myself and trying so hard. And I would just tell my younger self, like, don't try so hard. Um, like just be who you are. And in some ways, I just think that actually would have resulted or led to better results than kind of me trying, trying. Um yeah, but I wouldn't necessarily change because I think it it's it's hard to say I don't know how I would have ended up where I am today.
SPEAKER_03:But you gain confidence through experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, that's where it comes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, man. Thank you. This was awesome. Like this I didn't know what to expect. You know, you and I had a conversation and I've done done a bunch of homework on you. Um but this has really uh been cool for me again because you've taken me back to, you know, in 2003 when I bought the business and all the the trials and tribulations that I I went through, you know, being young and dumb and not really knowing anything, but you know, being to the point that where you're at now and where I'm at now, um, I I think the confidence thing is huge because that's you know, that's probably in the last three years has clicked for me, is where I finally started to gain some confidence and and realize exactly what you said is like it doesn't matter who you meet with, they're they're a human being, they put on their socks the same way you do, they put on their pants one leg at a time, you know. Um, and you know, all those those sayings are cliche, but they're true. Yeah. And um, you know, we're we're all here for most of us are here to help others um to get better every day, and um, you know, and the only way you can get better is is through experience and to gain confidence and to not stop. So you have proved that beyond measure. So good job.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Take that as a win.
SPEAKER_03:How uh how can people connect a website, uh, the app, the book? We kind of talked about that a little bit, but give any uh if the if somebody wants to get a hold of you, can they reach you through your website?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um so if you go to cladwell.com, that is where all things cloudwell are. Um I even think there's a banner right now there that leads to the book. So it's like cladwell.com slash the roadless worn. That has all my information there. Anyone can email me. It's just Aaron at Cladwell or Aaron at cladwell.com. Um and then there's the cladwell Instagram. So that's at Cladwell app, um, which I manage. So pretty much pretty easy to get a hold of me. Um that's all the things app from the design kitchen design business. That's East Maine. So if you go to Eastmaine.com, that actually is the both locations, as well as it has the link to East Main Lofts, which is the place down in Madison, Indiana that we run. So I think those are the two main things. And yeah, I would love to hear from people.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's that's awesome. We'll uh and we'll link all those when the uh when the episode drops. So thank you again for making the track and sharing your story. And uh we certainly wish you and your husband and and your son the best. We talked a little bit before we started recording about you know your son's starting into sports and all those fun things. So now you're gonna add that to your your daily endeavors along with all the other things you're doing. So it's exciting.
SPEAKER_00:The joy of parenting a seven-year-old boy.
SPEAKER_03:We both have some experience with that. That's good. All right, everybody. Continue to like and share and support the show. We appreciate your ears and go out and be tempered.
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