Women I Want You to Know by Andrea L. Johnston™

Stop Building Alone: How the Entreprenista Founders Turned a Friendship Into One Exit and a Global Founder Community

• Andrea L. Johnston • Season 1 • Episode 8

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What does it take to exit one company, start another from scratch and build it into a global community of over 3,600 women founders, all with the same business partner? For this week’s guests, the answer is equal parts strategy, friendship and an unshakeable belief that women founders are better together.

In this episode of Women I Want You to Know by Andrea L. Johnston™ Podcast, Andrea sits down with Stephanie Cartin and Courtney Spritzer, co-founders of Entreprenista, a global membership community and media platform reaching millions of women entrepreneurs every month.

Before Entreprenista, they co-founded SocialFly and grew it from a side hustle into a thriving social media agency before exiting in 2024 and investing in growing the Entreprenista brand. In the episode, Stephanie expressed that building a business is hard. Building it alone is harder. And as a member of Entreprenita, you do not have to build alone.  

Stephanie and Courtney built this community specifically because they knew what was possible with the right people around them. What they share here is not theory. It is 15 years of partnership, one exit and a second company built with more intention, more clarity and a team designed to carry the vision forward.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

  • Why trust, communication and vision alignment are the three non-negotiables of a high-performing business partnership
  • How Stephanie and Courtney naturally divided into sales-and-relationships versus finance-and-operations—and why that clarity accelerated everything
  • Why the 2020 pivot was not a crisis response but a strategic move they had already been planning
  • How Courtney is approaching the Entreprenista build differently
  • Why Stephanie still believes visibility is the single most underrated growth lever for women founders
  • How Stephanie and Courtney stay aligned even when they disagree

Links and Resources:



SPEAKER_02

We were actually gonna sell our agency at that point. We worked with our business coach and said, we need to build entrepreneurs into a membership community. We need to make a plan to do this. Courtney can focus on growing the agency. We divided and conquered for a few years, followed our plan, and that's what led to building the membership community.

SPEAKER_01

Hi everyone, I'm Andrea Johnston, entrepreneur, communications executive, and believer in the power of women and the unlimited potential in all of us. On Women I Want You To Know, we shine a light on real women who are breaking barriers, blazing new trails, and redefining what leadership looks like. These are real conversations about ambition, drive, difficult choices, and impact. The kind you won't hear anywhere else. Because every woman's story has the power to propel another from dream to reality. This is Women I Want You To Know. Hi everyone, and welcome back to Women I Want You To Know. I'm Andrea Johnston, and I am thrilled with the two guests we have today. For the first time ever, we have two guests, but they also happen to be two amazing women who co-founded a community called Entrepreneista. Welcome to Stephanie Carton and Courtney Spritzer. So happy to have you here today. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Andrea.

SPEAKER_01

So excited to be here and share with everyone. Well, as you know, I'm a huge fan of Entrepronista. I think back to when I started my first company, and I so wish I had had a community like Entrepronista, but I'm glad that as I'm building in this phase of my career, I do get the benefit of this incredible community and network that you've brought together. But one of the things I want to start with in our conversation today is really your business partnership. You know, how did you meet? How did this all come together? Because this is not your first rodeo. You actually are on your second business together, right? So tell us a little bit about your background and your history together.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, Stephanie and I have been business partners for a long time. We met actually, I think I was a year out of college at the time, and we happened to meet while we were both on vacation in Miami. So I always like to say all roads lead back to South Florida. I was living in Massachusetts at the time. I had taken a job at an insurance company after college, and Stephanie was living in New York City and happened to meet my best friend from college, and we all met each other in Miami. And then Stephanie and I became fast friends. We stayed connected even though we weren't living in the same state through social media and actually Skype. And then I moved back to New York for a job with American Express. And it was while I was there that they were doing all of these big partnerships with Facebook and Foursquare and Twitter at the time. And I had shared with Stephanie that I wanted to get into social media marketing. And she said, let's start a business on the side of our jobs and start an agency because she was really passionate about it too. So we did, and I would love to say that we were very strategic and sat down and said, You were gonna do this and I was gonna do that. But we kind of naturally fell into our roles and realized very quickly after starting a business that we were very different and had complementary skill sets.

SPEAKER_01

So when you think about those complementary skill sets, and I think we've talked a little bit about this before, since I have had the pleasure of speaking with you guys in the past, you really do have incredibly complementary skill sets and different strengths. So, how does that sort of play out when it comes to how you divide and conquer in your world today?

SPEAKER_02

So, my background and expertise is really in sales and marketing, business development and building relationships. It just has always come so naturally to me, and that's what I focused on even before we started our first business, Socialfly. So we knew early on, I was like, I'm gonna go out and sell and bring in the business. And Courtney, her background was finance and operations. I'm like, you run the rest of it and we'll tag team and we'll figure this out. So that's really how it started, but it's really evolved over the years because as we've grown together as business partners and in business, as we've learned so much, we've also both acquired so many new skills. And we've also realized all of the things that neither of us are great at and where we actually need to hire to be able to bring in other incredible leaders on our team who can actually do a lot of the things that Courtney and I do not enjoy doing and absolutely are not great at.

SPEAKER_01

That's such a key part of scaling, right? Being able to identify those gaps and then fill them with the right talent. And that's obviously been a key to your success in both growing and exiting your first company and now taking on this incredible growth with entrepreneista. If you look back at everything you've experienced thus far together, what would you say are the three key things that really define a successful partnership?

SPEAKER_02

Those three things would be trust, communication, and vision. So for the two of us, we have complete trust in each other. We know and we've known since the beginning, and I think it started just with our friendship too, that we will always do the right thing by each other and the right thing for the business, and nothing can break that. Because I can tell you, we disagree about things all the time, but we don't disagree and then go say, oh, we should not run the business together anymore. We figure out how do we problem solve and how do we get to the solution. And we've learned to communicate with each other over the years. We both, I would say, also have different communication styles. And early on, we actually worked with an incredible business coach, Leslie Grossman. And Leslie really, you know, we said she was like our business therapist, right? She taught us how to best communicate, how to really divide and conquer, how to look at our roles and responsibilities together and really just how to communicate things that are difficult to talk about. And something we always recommend for founders when they're just starting out with a business partner is to have these conversations up front. Like we didn't have these conversations up front because we were in our early 20s and we had no idea what we were doing when we just started, but we invested in ourselves, we invested in our business, we hired coaches, we joined groups, we joined programs because we were both just so hungry to learn and want to build the best business possible. And the last thing is vision. You know, we are both so vision and mission aligned. We know where we want to go, and we might not always think it's the same path to get there, but ultimately we always figure it out together.

SPEAKER_01

And I would say that the vision piece of it is clear to all of us who are members of Entrepreneista because you can really feel it in every aspect of how you're building and growing and expanding that community. It's really interesting to see what makes for a successful partnership. So thank you so much for sharing those reflections. How did you come to create Entrepreneista? I mean, you went from building and running a social media agency, exiting that, and then investing all of this ideas, money, everything into creating this community. Tell us how you decided to go that route.

SPEAKER_02

It really initially started organically. So we decided actually to start our podcast, Entrepreneista, back in 2018. So many women were coming to myself and Courtney. They were reaching out by email and DM, wanting to go out to coffee, wanting to pick our brain, just wanting to really hear how we were able to grow our agency so quickly. And you know, the two of us, we literally like to help absolutely everyone. But we also quickly realized it was not scalable and it was physically impossible to go out to coffee all day, every day, and still run the agency because that was our full-time business. So we started thinking, again, this is going back to 2018, you know, we're like, how can we actually help as many women founders as possible, but do it at scale? So the first solve for this problem that we saw was, you know, oh, we'll start a podcast like this. We can share incredible stories of women like yourself who've been on our podcast. So when someone reaches out and says, you know, I want to start a healthcare marketing agency, we can say go listen to this episode with Andrea and hear how she grew, scaled, and sold her business. So that is initially how it started, super organically. Well, then 2020 happens and we all know the world changes. And at that point, we had already really started to grow this organic community on Instagram and our listeners and followers. And at that point, we started hearing messages. I lost my job. I want to start a business. Can you ladies help me? Or I need to pivot. Can you help us? And now here we were. We're, you know, in the middle of the pandemic trying to navigate how to manage our business at that point, but everyone else needed help too. And we realized, okay, this is the time we have to bring everyone together. And we had been in so many groups and organizations over the years. We knew what it actually takes to be able to, you know, bring people together. And we're like, we're the people to do this. We need to make this happen. At that point, we knew we were actually likely gonna sell our agency at that point. So Courtney and I, all Rosley, also really leaned back to an amazing business coach. We worked with our business coach at that time and said, we need to build entrepreneurs into a membership community. We already have the start of a media company with the podcast. We need to make a plan to do this. Courtney can focus on growing the agency. We knew we were gonna sell it. And we divided and conquered for a few years, followed our plan, basically exactly. And that's what led to building the membership community.

SPEAKER_01

Amazing. And congratulations. I mean, to have achieved an exit as you did with Socialfly, and then to be able to really execute on plan with entrepreneista. I mean, as a woman and as an entrepreneur, this is what we want to celebrate. Women achieving their vision and goal and then paying it forward for the next generation of women leaders. So I love everything about that. I also think it's really interesting how your deep expertise in social media and online marketing really established such a solid platform for you when building entrepreneista, because with COVID, it was so dependent on creating that sort of online deep connectivity, something that you could probably uniquely achieve because of that background. Doesn't mean it didn't take a lot of vision and effort, but yes, not easy.

SPEAKER_02

And Courtney can tell you how hard everything is behind the scenes. Right, Court?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, no, it's definitely, definitely challenging, but you're absolutely right. We definitely had an advantage having a marketing background, having built a network since really 20 before 2011, because Stephanie and I are always just natural networkers. One of the things that we wanted to do when we set out to turn entrepreneista into a membership community is really open up our network that we've cultivated over the years to other women entrepreneurs because they were so supportive to us. And we knew, and we know now, that in order to grow, you really need to surround yourself with the right people who you can ask for advice whenever you run into a challenge.

SPEAKER_01

You clearly have done that with the group within. I mean, I run into it every day in the community, and it's incredible the accomplishments, but also the drive and the vision that many of these women have and that they give so freely of their time and expertise. It's a really special place. So when you think about the community and how far it's come even over the last six years, I mean, what do you think about that growth? What are your sort of thoughts about the future for entrepreneista? Because I know you you probably have a lot of ideas.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, we have big, big visions, and we want to make entrepreneista as big as possible and build out a global network of women entrepreneurs. We're really proud of the growth that we've had so far. We're over 3,600 members all across the country and in Canada, and it's growing every single month, and it's it's just so so exciting to see all the collaborations that happen, all of the business growth that's taking place as a result of the connections and the visibility that women get. And we designed it so that we were creating a place for women at all levels. And really what unites everyone is that everyone shares the same values of giving first, growing together. And I think a common misconception of people that are not inside entrepreneurs, maybe they are on our newsletter or they listen to our podcast, but once you get inside, and I think you can share your experience too, Andrea, you really feel that those connections and that like-mindedness of the women that we bring together. And we have women at all levels, and everyone can get value from entrepreneurs, whether you're just starting out or whether you're on your second or third company and now you're an investor. There's so much to gain from all of the connections, despite where you're at in business, and we see it all the time. We have someone who's on her second company and she started her first company 16 years ago, but now she has to relearn everything again because the world has changed, and we have really great resources for those types of entrepreneurs. And then also through our media platforms, we're really proud of the fact that we can shine a spotlight on all of our members and give them visibility that they really can't get anywhere else.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, we're now reaching millions of women every single month through all of our content across our podcast, our newsletter, our awards program, our events. And we've experienced firsthand, you know, we're going back to 2011 and 2012 when we were first growing our business. And one of the keys for us was of course building relationships and building network, but it was visibility, right? Because if you are not visible either as a founder or as a business, no one's gonna know about you to buy from you, to do business with you. So we created a platform that we knew we would be able to give our members this exposure that, especially for women who are just starting out, you might not be able to invest to pay that kind of money to go, you know, buy, you know,$10,000 in Facebook ads, right? To try to reach people. But here you're getting that credibility, you're getting that visibility, and you're getting the community as part of it as well.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And I mean, you see that externally with all the media, but you also see it internally within the community. There's so many ways that you really support your members with visibility inside to other members, which I think is also very important because they're all building, scaling, looking for partners in marketing or coaching, and you've got all of these incredible resources for them. Another thing I know that we've talked about that has been such a big trend in 2025, and we're seeing it continue in 2026, and that's the whole back-to-being in-person phenomenon. And I know, Courtney, this is something that is near and dear to your heart. I think you're on a bit of a tour de force this year. I am. Can you talk about how Entrepronista is really thinking about that drive toward in-person?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, we so we turned Entrepronista into a membership during the pandemic where everyone was staying at home and and looking for places virtually to connect. And now, as you said, we're seeing it shift back to in-person. And one of my goals for this year is to be IRL in real life with all of our members. So I'm going to all the conferences, I'm doing as much as possible. Actually, in South Florida, my goal is to do one event per month to bring members together. And then our members are doing it too. So we have a whole initiative at Entrepreneista where members can lead local meetups, and we have a whole process to facilitate that and to get people there. And all members need to do is give us the idea of the type of event that they want to create, and then we'll essentially do the rest. And it's really taken off. We've had five to ten in-person events happening every single month all across the US and Canada, and it's so exciting to see. And then also our members get to benefit from us popping up at some, you know, large conferences. So as I go places, I want to make sure that I'm bringing the community with me and creating something special where wherever I go, uh, because it's it's really fulfilling for me.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. And I also love that this is yet another example of where your different strengths and abilities to focus in different areas really complement each other. Because, Steph, I think you are unparalleled in your ability to engage on social media in the community over text. I mean, you really are amazing at your ability to kind of keep up with everyone. So it sounds like you're sort of the one who is going to continue really driving home the connectivity from a digital perspective.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, you got it. Unless you're in uh Palm Beach, because I meet up with our members all the time in Palm Beach, literally every single week. But yes, I have just loved being able to build relationships, you know, on Zoom with our members. You know, as Courtney mentioned, we started this community when everyone was stuck at home. We couldn't connect. And I'm like, we have to find a way to connect. So there is so much opportunity virtually inside the community to connect. But as Courtney said, you know, there's something extra special when you're actually able to like give each other a hug and connect and have your relationship go from, you know, just a Zoom relationship to meeting in person. You can just accelerate those relationships. And building these relationships, it really is the key to success in life, in business. It's all about relationships and being able to help each other. And as Courtney mentioned before, you know, our whole philosophy at Entrepreneista is that we give first and then we're all able to grow together. Because as one of us rises and builds our business, we're always able to pay it forward. We have so many members now that are investing in each other's businesses. And that's how we're all going to be able to make so much more impact together. I just sometimes like close my eyes and try to imagine like, what is this impact going to be five years from now and 10 years from now? Like what is going to happen? And I just know, like, I get the chills even talking about it. Like, this is why we created this community.

SPEAKER_01

And it's so great because I see so many of the members really share that vision and that passion for connecting both on and offline and helping each other build and grow together. And it is really awesome to be in a space where women are supporting each other and all really seeing that it's a tide that raises all boats, that this isn't a competition, that we can all do this and actually benefit from working together and collaborating. So kudos to you guys for really bringing this to life. You mentioned your podcast earlier. I just don't want to miss this because I had the amazing opportunity to be on that with you. And it really tells such incredible stories.

SPEAKER_00

What is your plan for the podcast going forward? When we first started the Entrepreneista Podcast, we actually did it in person and we would do about three to four episodes every Friday. It quickly became our favorite thing that we do. And now we've evolved to two podcasts: the Entrepreneista Podcast and Startups and Stilettos, which is our podcast for members. So the goal with the podcast is to continue to evolve it. And we're really looking at how do we bring it back in person. So Stephanie and I are about an hour and a half away from each other. So stay tuned for how that will evolve. But our plans are to put out more podcast content and share more stories of the incredible women that Stephanie and I are fortunate enough to get to get to know and associate with.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and I think y'all could not be better located because everybody I talk to is relocating to South Florida these days, whether it's the Greater Miami area or West Palm Beach, Palm Beach area. I think that it would not be a problem to have plenty of in-person guests given the trends that seem to be shaping South Florida these days. Two final questions I'd love to cover. One is how has everything you've experienced thus far in your career journey, in your partnership, how have those life lessons really shaped how you lead in this chapter?

SPEAKER_00

We are, what, 15, 16 years uh as entrepreneurs. So in this next chapter with growing and scaling entrepreneurs, I'm taking all of the learnings from the first company and applying them to entrepreneista. And really it's about scaling, firing myself from certain roles as fast as the company can afford it, and hiring people better than us to do certain roles and just building the best team. I actually have spent most of my time in the past year at Entrepreneista on hiring and really thinking through what the right structure is for the team to support the growth that we want to have. And how do I build the team in a way where we have the capacity to grow? And that has come from all the learnings I had with growing and scaling Socialfly. And for me, I'm really excited to build a rock star team that can really help create an entrepreneista as a lasting company for forever.

SPEAKER_01

I'm so glad you mentioned that because I'm a big fan of the phrase teamwork makes the dream work. And I find a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with scaling, and in particular, when to hire and who to hire. But I think you nailed it. You can't be afraid to hire people that are smarter than you or more capable than you in a variety of areas. In my experience, and it sounds like very much in yours as well, it's really those people that make such a difference in your ability to grow and be as effective as you want to be. So I'm so glad to hear you say that. And I hope all of the entrepreneurs listening will really take that advice to heart because I think it's incredibly important. We have a lot of women listeners who are entrepreneurs. Or who are thinking about making that leap into starting their own business, why should they join Entrepreneista? I mean, I try to post about it all the time on LinkedIn, but you two are the co-founders, you have the vision for the future. Why should they join and why now?

SPEAKER_02

Building a business is very hard. And building a business on your own is even harder. And you do not have to navigate business alone. Entrepreneista really is this secret place to be, but not so secret, of where you can be to actually build your business, have the right resources, build those relationships, and actually have fun building your business because you're gonna go through really hard times. You're gonna go through amazing times, and it's not gonna be fun to do it by yourself behind your computer without anyone by your side. When you have those resources and support and you build these amazing business friendships that like turn into real actual friendships, like that's where the fun actually happens. And you can build your business so much faster as well when you have that support. So definitely invite everyone, whether you're just starting your business, you're thinking about starting your business, you're already scaling to six, seven, eight figures, you've sold your first business, come join us inside the Entrepreneista League. There is definitely a beautiful space for you. And I personally can't wait to get to know you. I'll meet you online first. Courtney will meet you in person, and we'll all be together at Founders Weekend.

SPEAKER_01

So come join us. I love that. And you have a special experience happening, right? Where if people are interested in joining, they actually can experience the community a little bit before they jump all in.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So every month we have one to two virtual info sessions where you can come for an hour. I will give a whole overview of what you can expect to experience inside the community, all the resources you get access to. So that's every month. You can learn more about the different dates because it changes every month at entrepreneista.com forward slash info session. And then every few months, we also do an experience week where we do a full week of virtual events where you can experience what those uh virtual events are like and also get a sneak peek inside the community as well. So we can definitely share those links with you, Andrew, to link out to in the show notes as well. Absolutely. We would love that. Well, I can't thank you both enough. Follow us, connect with us, feel free personally, send me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn. As you can tell, there's nothing I love more than connecting with everyone and building relationships and uh always reach out. We are here. That's we're here to serve you.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you guys are the best. Thank you for everything you have done to really lift up women and give them the resources and the support that they need to build successful businesses. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with Entrepreneista and am so excited about all the things that I have to look forward to as part of the community. And I really appreciate everything you do to support us as members and as women. So, everyone, please go to the show notes, link to entrepreneista.com, learn more about the community, and follow Courtney and Steph on LinkedIn. You will learn a lot about what's happening, and you might even see a pop-up event with Courtney in your local community. Thank you for being here today and sharing in this inspiring story from Women I Want You To Know. Please leave a review and share this episode with another woman in your life. And please join the conversation and connect with us on LinkedIn and Instagram and keep fueling the future for female founders and leaders.