The 3 Biggest Mistakes I Made When Starting My Conscious Business (and the Crucial Things I Learned)

If I could go back and do it all over again, I would do these things differently from day one. Plus, the best thing I ever did as CEO.

When I started Conscious Company Media (CCM) in 2014, I was positive that I was going to nail it. I had my MBA, I was driven, I was smart, and I truly believed that we could make the world a better place if we could do what we set out to do. Holy moly, was I wrong. While we did get a product to market and go on to sell the company, we made massive missteps along the way that almost sank the business multiple times. So, in hopes that this might help someone dodge some of the bullets that I took, here are the three biggest mistakes I made when starting my conscious business. 

Mistake #1

We didn’t codify our purpose and values from day one.

When we set out to start CCM, we knew we wanted to help the world by telling the stories of companies that were actually making the world a better place ⁠— and, by doing so, we would be “doing good.” 

And while we made a few earnest attempts to name our purpose and our values by putting our leadership team in a room and talking it through for a few hours, all we ended up accomplishing was writing some words on a Google Doc and then diving right back into the daily grind of startup life. It wasn’t until a few years in that I realized the massive ramifications this was having on our company. Our leadership team (read: I was a huge part of this) was flailing. We had no reason behind why we were making decisions, beyond “we need more money.” Our culture was abysmal because our leadership team didn’t have consistent values that we were modeling or conveying to our team. And the worst part about all of it was that we were literally a magazine about conscious business — the authority in the space on how to run a business with purpose — and we weren’t walking the talk behind the scenes. 

So, after four years of running a company this way and suffering greatly as a result, we brought in an expert who helped our team articulate our purpose — to redefine success in business in service of all life — and our core values. I had everyone on our team in the room to do this exercise so that we created this work together and it wasn’t just me as the CEO dictating to my team what our new purpose and values were.

We also baked in weekly and monthly practices to check in on our purpose and values, and I did my best to model these values on a daily basis (and when I didn’t, I quickly owned up to it). The difference that this made for my company cannot be clearly articulated — it was night and day. It was the best thing I ever did as CEO. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would articulate the company’s purpose and values from day one and live those as though my company depended on it. 

Mistake #2

We hired people who were already in our network. 

Once we had raised our first seed round, of course we wanted to hire a team to help take the burden off of ourselves as co-founders. So we did what I see so many startup founders do — we hired people we already knew or who were in our network. And while these people were incredible humans, we ended up with a completely homogeneous team. At one point, our entire team was composed of six white women between the ages of 28 to 43. Our own subconscious bias led us to hiring people who were just like us because it felt “safe” to hire people we already knew who were “vetted.” When I realized what had happened, I was consumed with shame. By hiring people who had gone to the same grad schools as us or who were a friend of a friend, we closed the doors to better candidates who would have brought more innovation and diversity-of-thought to our team. 

Mistake #3

I sacrificed myself to the point of complete burnout and exhaustion.

I can honestly say that the lowest points of my entire life were while being at the helm of Conscious Company Media. As the leader, you take on all of the stress, all of the frustration from your team, and all of the expectations from your investors, and when you couple that with not taking care of yourself because you’re giving everything you have to your company, it’s a recipe for complete disaster. 

I can remember the moments where my husband asked me to turn my computer off to come to bed and I told myself the story that I couldn’t because I had to respond to more emails. I can remember the moments where I declined dinner invitations from friends because I was just “too swamped.” I can remember telling my husband that we needed to wait to try to get pregnant because I had to give everything to my business right now. And I can remember having chest pains and panic attacks as a result of all of this. 

As the leader goes, so goes the organization — and if you are burned out, stressed out, overworked, and not taking care of yourself, that shit will permeate your entire company. I’m on the other side of this and can honestly say, all of the stress, overwhelm, and overwork simply wasn’t worth it. I could have accomplished everything that I did while still taking care of myself, nurturing the relationships in my life, and finding some joy along the way. In fact, I probably would have been more successful had I done so.