Are you caught between the crossfires of mamahood and entrepreneurship?
Being a mom is hard, and being an entrepreneur is also hard. So we believe that women who do both deserve a high five. It is with great pleasure to have Crystalee Beck, the founder of The Mama Ladder, a company whose mission is to help women around the world thrive at the intersection of mamahood and entrepreneurship. The Mama Ladder is building a community of mamas helping mamas succeed.
“I believe in having giving back built into my business, but it also just like you said, it's this great community builder and it does bring women into our world that that we can serve at The Mama Ladder who want to come join us at our mamas spring break, retreat and be part of our programs. And, and we find these really are ideal clients, because they're women who are at the intersection of motherhood and entrepreneurship. And those are the women that we serve.” – Crstalee
Crystalee Beck is the founder of The Mama Ladder, a company that focuses in providing guidance and assistance to mothers who are caught between entrepreneurship and mamahood.
Learn more about how The Mama Ladder can help you go through mamahood and entrepreneurship by listening to this episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur above and don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – Spotify –Google Play –Castbox – TuneIn – RSS.
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0:01
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur show, I'm Josh Elledge, founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com, where we turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. So we believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world, even you stick around to the end of this show, where I'll share info on how you could be our next guest, three times a week, five to 15 minutes each learn from successful business owners and professionals. It's time to get inspired. Let's go.
Crystal Beck, you are the founder at The Mama Ladder. And very specifically, you have a program that I'm going to be honest, I want the world to know about because I love what you've done. And it's a program for mom printers to take advantage of something called a high five grant for moms. Can you tell us about it?
1:11
Absolutely. So Josh, being a mom is hard. And being an entrepreneur is hard. And so we believe that women do both, they deserve a high five. And so for us that looks like a $5,000 grant that can be used any way that a promising mom entrepreneur needs it for her business, and never has to be paid back. And we offer this we partnered The Mama Ladder partnered with belly bandit and belly band, it supports women during and after pregnancy. And we're so proud to offer this because we've seen it really changes lives for these mom entrepreneurs. And they, they can apply it high five grants. com.
1:52
Wow. Okay, so can I ask you from a business owner standpoint, talk to me about offering a grant like this, I mean, it's a great program for the recipient, but it's probably not bad marketing for you. Right?
2:09
Right. And, and really, it kind of works in two ways. Because I believe in having giving back built into my business, but it also just like you said, it's this great community builder and it does bring women into our world that that we can serve at The Mama Ladder who want to come join us at our mamas spring break, retreat and be part of our programs. And, and we find these really are ideal clients, because they're women who are at the intersection of motherhood and entrepreneurship. And those are the women that we serve.
2:42
And so let me ask you a silly question here. Which would you rather do spend $5,000 in Facebook ads, or be able to offer a $5,000 grant to a mom, entrepreneur? And in terms of speaking terms of number one, your mission? Number two, it just makes better business sense.
3:03
Ding, ding, ding, like, exact question I asked myself, I'm like, What is it creative way. And honestly, the beauty of this grant is that we've partnered and found different sponsors, and that help us at least subsidize part of it, we have helped pay for a big chunk of it the first two rounds. And hopefully we can have it be self-sustaining with sponsors as we move forward. But we really want this to be the prominent grant program for moms who own businesses. And there frankly, there aren't enough grant opportunities for women out there in business. And that was a real need that we find is everyone we talk women we talked to, they need more capital. And so instead of another thing, just interesting fact, Fortune magazine found in 2016, only 2.3% of venture capital went to women, less than 3%. So the odds are kind of stacked against women and, and moms even more. So.
4:02
Yeah, that's, that's really a shame. And so thank you for doing this. I think it's I think it's brilliant business. What do the moms have to do in order to apply for the grant? And then is it like a reality show? Like what happens next?
4:18
Oh, great question. So we tried to keep this as simple and clear as possible. So there are two steps to take go to high five grant.com. And it's all spelled out the word High Five Grant. And there we have an online application it most women take an hour and a half to fill it out. You really want to think about it. So we asked, we asked questions that help you think through where you've been in your business, where you are now and where you want to go. And this helps our judging panel, we have seasoned executive, mom entrepreneurs on the judging panel. And so they review those and then the second thing you need to do is share your high five with the world. So we have women right there why on their hands, the why behind their business. And if you look on Instagram with the hashtag High Five grant, you can see there's more than 600 of these out there. And they're so inspiring because these women share the story behind their business and it helps them get more clarity but also get the word out to their community about why they're doing what they're doing.
5:22
I'm giggling because I love what you're doing. Like I love it, because it's a good thing to do. And I am so inspired right now I just think that this is great. How did you come up with this idea?
5:35
It honestly I've said this on several different podcasts interviews, I can't even take credit for it. It really was inspired. And it was it was an idea that kind of flashed to me I had been thinking about and I am a prayerful person I've been really thinking about how can we really help moms and I had this idea come to me like the idea of a high five, like how that's so uplifting and gives confidence in just this lift up for women. And so just that that idea came to me and I just couldn't really get it out of my head. And so it took several months. But that turned into the high five grant
6:12
was the first time you did it. Did you actually come up with $5,000? yourself done?
6:19
No know we did get sponsors, but we only had about half of it covered by sponsors. And then we do we do charge a nominal application fee. So the application fees went straight to paying it too. But we still ended up paying about $2,000 a bit ourselves at the monitor. What, again, for me as I got it's basically my advertising budget for
6:43
sure.
6:44
So we definitely have put money into it directly. But it's also a lot of time behind the scenes too. So we put a lot into it. But we it like you said it's a feel good thing to do. It feels good. And it and it does. I mean karma, like it brings women into our world that we can serve at The Mama Ladder which I love to.
7:05
Yeah, I love it. Well, Crystalee you back. You're doing good stuff out in the world. Again, your website is The Mama Ladder, that's themamaladder.com. And then if they can actually get to the high five grant by just going to highfivegrants.com. And that's all spelled out. Thank you so much for doing this. I think it's brilliant. And I love it. And I love the work that you're doing to help mom entrepreneurs.
7:34
Well, thank you and all you moms out there. Please apply. It's open June 14 through 28 to apply this summer. Right.
7:42
Thanks, Crystalee. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur. If you are a thoughtful entrepreneur or business professional who would like to be a media celebrity and be on our show. Please visit up my influence. com slash guest and you're added take our free quiz and learn your authority score that's available for you right now at up my influence comm slash quiz. And please do us a favor. If you liked the guests that was just interviewed. Would you share this episode on social media. Also in your podcast player right now, please give us a thumbs up or a rating and review we promise to read it all and take action. See we believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. Your feedback helps us fulfill our mission to help create more media celebrities. Make sure to hit subscribe, binge listen to our previous episodes. And we'll send you the next episode three times a week automatically five to 15 minutes exactly what you need to inspire yourself just a little bit more, learn from others and grow. With that. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the thoughtful entrepreneur revolution.
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