We spoke to later-in-life women entrepreneurs who bet big, and are thriving.
If you’re the type of person who has lots of hobbies, or even just one hobby you’re particularly passionate about, we have a question for you: How many hours have you spent fantasizing about turning that true passion into your full-time job?
Perhaps you’ve thought about how you can put your stellar baking skills to better use, or share your fashion design talents with the masses. Maybe it’s time to give that fantasy a whirl in the real world. We’re not suggesting you just up and quit your job right now; many people start businesses in their free hours, gradually building a brand in small steps. (And given today’s economic climate, we wouldn’t blame you for going that route before giving up your steady income.)
However you do it, starting a business can feel like a daunting task: Zooming in on just the right product or service to sell, finding the courage to get started, finding the money to get started (and then managing it), learning how to properly market your brand, dealing with clients, ensuring product quality… We’re already breaking a sweat just thinking about it. But while it’s certainly not easy, it’s also not impossible.
If you think it’s too late for you to start a business, you’re wrong — and we have proof. We spoke to women who launched their own companies later in life, after moving on from their previous careers, and women who nurtured a passion project in their spare time. What do they have in common? They all now have burgeoning brands that started as side hustles.
After surviving leukemia, Lynne Fletcher O’Brien started Line in the Sand — a protective and active water-wear line — at age 57, so that people like her who are concerned about sun exposure could have protective and comfortable swimwear. Meanwhile, sisters Hala Yassine and Farrah Haidar, who immigrated to the United States as young girls, tapped into their ability to bake delectable sweet treats to open Seven Sisters Scones. When they started, Yassine was 50 and Haidar was 40, and they were both juggling full-time jobs. Beauty experts Lorrie King and Celeste Lee decided they would focus their energy on finding skincare solutions for older women based on hormonal changes in the body, setting up Caire Beauty. Back then, they were in their late 40s and well-versed in the challenges facing women in their pre- and post-menopausal years.
We talked to these indomitable doers, and they have advice on what to keep in mind if you want to turn a hobby into a side hustle:
Get ready for a serious commitment
“Get ready to put your heart and soul into something,” says Yassine. “Because if you’re not willing to do that, it’s not worth it — you’re going to be idea-poor, money-poor, and time-poor. But anything you put love into will grow.”
When Yassine started Seven Sisters, she was working from home on program management for a company, meeting clients as a therapist (yup, she also has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology), and taking care of her two children. It was never going to be easy to start her scone company, but she was committed. In the beginning of the business, she worked 17-18 hour days, compromised many nights of sleep, and turned her home kitchen into a busy baking headquarters.
And while building Line in the Sand, O’Brien spent many long nights with her new best friend, Google, researching the right material for her swimwear brand, learning new skills, and developing the connections she needed to start her business.
Anticipate evolution
Yassine says building a business is “kind of like having a baby — you have all these hopes and dreams and then the baby grows up, and you realize it’s not what you had imagined.” She believes that much like a child, any business eventually evolves and takes on a life of its own. “If you’re open to understanding the business and loving it for what it is, it’ll be fantastic,” she says.
In other words, once you pour your attention into a new venture, you have to be open to learning, growing, and iterating. You can’t be overly attached to your idea of what the business was supposed to be at its start — instead, accept it for what it becomes.
Seek out mentors and connections
We know it can be hard to approach strangers, especially in a post-pandemic world. But that one meeting with a promising contact or cold email to a stranger can be a game-changer for your business. And you might be underestimating how willing those contacts are to jump in and offer assistance. O’Brien says that as she was starting her swimwear line, she was thrilled to realize that “people just want to help.”
She recommends using LinkedIn to reach out to anyone who can possibly guide and help you in your journey. Look for like-minded individuals who are further into the enterprise-building process, whether they launched a small business successfully or work in a major corporation in the same industry. Or just reach out to people you look up to — the worst that can happen is that you don’t get a response. And don’t wait for a mentor to fall into your lap — as O’Brien puts it, you have to “create mentors” for yourself.
Know your resources
Caire Beauty founders King and Lee relied on outside resources to learn how to start and grow a business. Many of these resources are free, such as Y Combinator’s Startup School, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t use them, too.
But those resources might look different for everyone — you don’t have to get involved with a fancy accelerator or startup school. For O’Brien, one surprising resource was a children’s book, What Do You Do With an Idea?, which she says gave her motivation and energy right from the start.
You can also get tips from successful entrepreneurs at Mixergy or join the conversation in a forum like Quora’s page for Startup Founders and Entrepreneurs. So pound the digital pavement and find the resource that works for you.
Decide how to fund your venture
Putting down money on a new project can be scary — all those up-front expenses, raw material costs, and staff salaries. (That alone sounds like a big pile of frightening numbers, and it’s just the beginning.)
Hold on though — this process doesn’t have to be frightening, especially when you consider what success might look like, and that you can adjust your budget as time goes on. And it’s important to realize that everyone has a different path when it comes to funding their venture — O’Brien, for one, was fortunate enough to be able to use her personal savings to kickstart Line in the Sand.
Yassine and Haidar did the same: “We invested in ourselves,” Yassine says. The sisters decided how much they were willing to part with, and invested exactly that amount. With that initial investment, they gave themselves a chance to make Seven Sisters Scones work. (They also took a loan as a precaution to help with expansion, but never ended up using it.) The sisters spent years reinvesting what they were earning, to continually expand and get the equipment they needed. In four years, the business started funding itself and turned profitable.
But dipping into your savings isn’t the only way to come up with initial cash: Lee and King entered a series of start-up funding and pitch competitions to fundraise for their venture — they won some, and (yes) lost some. Eventually, they were able to take Caire into the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, which changed everything.
In the end, there isn’t one journey that’s right for everyone — different founders find different ways to kickstart their initiatives. Start by identifying what’s right for you; that could mean venture competitions, loans, crowdfunding, or any combination of these and other options.
Be prepared to do it all
As a small business owner, Yassine does everything — you can find her baking, cleaning, sweeping, answering phones, managing clients, or preparing orders for shipping. Even a few years in, with a team to support her, she stays grounded in what it means to run a business: You have to be ready to do it all.
So when you start something, be ready to take on whatever tasks the work demands. In fact, according to Yassine, doing it all gives her an opportunity to figure out the different aspects of the business.
King and Lee agree that it’s important to “get in the weeds yourself.” In this very digital world, it’s easy to hire consultants to manage and help you grow your business. But a great deal of learning comes from jumping headfirst into the waters of entrepreneurship.
Reach out for support when you need it
Yassine and Haidar will never forget the time they were featured on QVC — it was a huge deal. They knew the placement meant they’d quickly see orders skyrocket, and they would need all the help they could get to keep up. As Yassine put it, “We were small potatoes at the time: In any given week, we were baking and selling about 2000 scones. Then QVC hit, and we went from selling from 2,000 scones weekly to 25,000 in four days.”
They had to rework everything, and figure out a new order of operations, to make this possible. The sisters turned to family and friends for help, who even pitched in to deliver thousands of scones themselves. Sometimes you’ve got to lean on the pillars you have at your disposal: Simply put, don’t be afraid to reach out to your network for the support you need.
Remember why you’re doing this
Starting a business is hard, especially when you have so much going on, including kids, work, life… (Is there any time to sleep in there?) O’Brien faced countless hiccups when launching her brand: The pandemic led to shipping issues, one of her factories was looted, her thread was stuck in Japan, and her fabric was stuck in Italy.
Despite those obstacles, focusing on the small victories keep O’Brien going. For her, that means emails from women who tell her they haven’t been to the beach for 10 years, but are now able to, because they feel comfortable in her swimwear. Most importantly, she’s moved by the messages from cancer survivors who can now enjoy the water without worrying about soaking up excess sun. “I get a few emails at least every week that really rock me to the core and remind me why I’m doing this,” she says.
Similarly, what propels King and Lee forward is their mission. That meant building a “pro-aging” skincare company that focuses on giving women effective products, with benefits backed by scientific research. For them, it always comes back to their purpose — it’s what keeps them going.
So when the going gets tough, remember why you started this journey — and think about each person you’re impacting along the way.
