In this episode, I chat with Meg Wheeler, the co-founder of One For Women. One for women is all about using your spending power to support women. their gift sets and their market features awesome home goods, stationery, accessories and more. All of their products come from women makers and every purchase supports a non-profit organization that helps women and girls.
We chat about how she is using the power of small gestures to support women owners business, why she takes a nap every day to increase her productivity and tips on how to set boundaries for herself and prioritize self-care as an entrepreneur.
Katie: 00:01 Hi Everyone, and thank you for tuning into the Hustlenomics Podcast. I’m your host Katie, and today I am so excited to be talking with Meg Wheeler. She is the co-founder and CEO of One For Women, which is an online gift company that sources its products for women makers and gives back to nonprofits that support women. So Meg, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Meg: 00:21 Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Katie: 00:24 So I did a little intro for you, but I would love it if you could elaborate a little bit, tell us more about who you are and one for women.
Meg: 00:30 Absolutely. So my background is actually in finance, but I decided I wanted out of the corporate world and was not feeling like I was making a big enough impact. So I quit my job on a whim. I didn’t have a plan in place, but I quickly needed to get one. So I decided to start one for women, which as you pointed out, is an online gifts company. We do curated gift sets. All of the products in those gift sets do come from women makers, and you know, we really believe in supporting and promoting those makers. So in addition to stocking their products, we share their stories on our website, on our social media channels, we do events with them and we really just want to get the word out about the awesome products that they’re making and about their stories. We also do give a portion of our profits back to nonprofits that support women and girls, which is very important to me because we really are working to support and empower women all over the world.
Katie: 01:30 That is such a great mission. I’m so excited to have you on the show because this is exactly what we’re trying to promote with Hustlenomics as well. So I would love to kind of go back a little bit. You said that you originally started in finance and then decided that you wanted to get out of that corporate world. So what kind of prompted that?
Meg: 01:48 So yeah, it was a, it was not expected as I mentioned. So I was working in a job that I, you know, I liked the work. I was happy with that I did not have a boss that I connected with. So that was a bit of a challenge, and I was increasingly feeling like I could and should be doing more. You know, I was seeing women all over the country and all over the world you know, struggling to get ahead, to be paid fairly, to be promoted and to, you know, really go after their dreams. And I just, I felt like I could be doing more to help that cause. So I, you know, I returned to my job after my maternity leave and was pretty quickly found out that my role was actually going to be changing and it was going to focus on something that I was not interested in at all.
Meg: 02:34 So that really was the fire under my butt that I needed. And I said, thanks, but no thanks. I quit my job. I did not have a plan. I had a little bit of savings, but not much. And I just went home and said, I’ve got to figure this out. And that’s really, you know, how one for women came about because I, you know, I wanted to build something that had an impact, but I also to build something that helped women connect with each other. I have a really tight-knit group of friends, and you know, we’re busy, we’re busy, we constantly struggle to celebrate, you know, the special moments and to be there for each other in the tough ones. And you know, one of the ways we can do that is through gifts or small gestures as we call them. And so that’s, you know, a big part of what one One For Women is trying to promote is through these small gestures, we really can make a difference in the lives of the people we care about.
Katie: 03:28 I love it. And so you had no plan like you said, and I’ve heard all different stories that it took me two years to get to my business, I jumped it, and I had no plan. I’ve heard full spectrum, but I’m always so curious about the individual experiences because it really is different for everybody. So you had a little bit of savings, you had maybe this, did it, was this idea kind of brewing in your mind already or did you have a period of time where you were like, oh boy, what am I going to do?
Meg: 03:53 I definitely had the oh boy time. I really hadn’t had this idea. I, you know, for a few years I had thought, you know, about small ways that I could make gifting for my friends easier. But it was always in the context of how do I make it easier for, for me, you know, just in the way that I was doing it. I never saw it as a business that I was interested in running. But you know, when I was sort of put under the gun, I really, I had to come up with something that mattered to me. And I thought back a few years ago, you know, a good friend of mine had a really horrible week and I sent her flowers and they were beautiful and they did make a difference, but they were really expensive. And I knew that I couldn’t afford to do that every week for every friend. So I, I kept thinking about this idea of, you know, how can we support each other? How can we show each other that we care? How can we do things like that, that make a difference in our daily lives, but do it affordably? Thankfully the idea came from there, but no, it was not, it was not very much of a plan, which I would not recommend.
Katie: 04:58 Yeah, you just gotta jump in. I mean, everybody’s experiences are different, but I’m curious what made you want to go out on your own instead of just finding another job that maybe spoke to you a little bit better?
Meg: 05:08 Sure. You know, I, I’ll admit, I think it was a bit of a knee jerk reaction. I, you know, I was coming out of a job where I didn’t have a great relationship with my boss. You know, I had not felt valued in that role. I also was concerned that I would be constricted in another job, in a corporate environment that, you know, I, that what I wanted to do and the impact I wanted to have was big and I wasn’t sure that the best way to get there was to work for someone else and to build something for someone else.
Katie: 05:40 So when you decided like I’m going to go for it, I’m going to have my own business, my own company. Did you have anybody around you that you would like to go to, to ask questions? Any other business owners or entrepreneurs in your circle?
Meg: 05:50 So a little bit, you know, I’m, I’m lucky that I’m married to a corporate attorney, so he and he works with primarily startups. So, you know, I had a little bit of that background, which was, was helpful. You know, and I, I actually have an MBA myself, so I feel like I had the formal business training, if you will. But to be honest, I, I really didn’t know very many people who were entrepreneurs. I think in the way that, you know, we would define it today because it’s very different today than owning a business 30 or 40 years ago. So, I mean I had, I had some of the right tools, but it’s absolutely been a learning experience. You know, this past year, over a year, I’ve definitely, you know, made quite a few missteps as we all do.
Katie: 06:34 Yes. And those are always the most interesting things, and they teach you the most. So I would love to kind of dive into those a little bit later. But first, how did your mom get involved with one for women?
Meg: 06:43 Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, my mom and I are very close. You know, she was a single mom for many years, and so we really have a great relationship. And when I was doing all of this, you know, she was also expressing her desire to seek change in her life. So she’s an elementary school teacher, and she absolutely loves it. She still does that to this day. But as she’s looking towards retirement, she really wanted to be part of something that would help her fuel her passions once she left teaching. And you know, we, as we kept talking about this idea, we both really do believe in this idea of small gestures. You know she does this and practice, you know, with her colleagues and her friends. And it just was very important to both of us. So, you know, we, the more we talked, it just made sense. She’s a very creative person, and I felt like her skill sets could be very valuable to the company, whereas I’m a very analytical business strategy minded type. So it’s, it was just a good fit.
Katie: 07:44 That’s awesome. I am always so curious with people’s experiences working with friends and family because you know, you hear all at different ends of the spectrum.
Meg: 07:51 You know, I think with something like that, whether it’s friends or family, I think really the trick is just to lay the ground rules at the beginning. You know, my mom and I had some pretty hard conversations at the beginning about how we were going to handle, if we had differing opinions, who was ultimately going to make the decision how we were going to handle, you know, different scenarios that might come up. And it’s not to say that that’s prevented every issue. It certainly hasn’t, but I think if you do that upfront and you lay out some ground rules, and you get your legal documents in order and you really kind of talk about the what-ifs, you know, I think you’re setting yourself up for a better shot.
Katie: 08:26 Yeah, absolutely. I agree 100%, and that’s what anybody, I’d say even with the business partner, you’re not related to or that you’re not, you know, friends with, that’s always a good practice to put in place in the beginning to just kinda make expectations clear. Absolutely. So once you decided we’re going for it, we’re going to start this business, what was your first step? Did you go looking for vendors? Did you, you know, what was your first step to set this up as a business?
Meg: 08:52 Sure. So it’s, it’s funny, I, on my last day of work was a Friday. I took all of my friends, and I went out for drinks, and I told them, cause I hadn’t told them at that point what I was going to do. I wanted to make it kind of a big surprise. And then I went home. I spent Saturday sitting on the couch, doing nothing, and facing the reality of what I had done. And on, on Sunday I actually incorporated, you know, for me that was setting up the legal structure of the company was the first step because I knew that I needed to do that. So that I wouldn’t back out of it. You know, it was, it was going to feel real once it was a legal company. And so, you know, for me that was the first step. But pretty quickly after that, you know, it was a sort of a circus of things to do because we had to figure out, you know when we were going to launch and what were the gifts that it’s going to look like.
Meg: 09:45 And, you know, as you said, you know, who are the vendors going to be and what does that relationship going to look like? So it was, you know, quite a few months. We didn’t launch till about four months later, quite a few months of really just digging through all of those little details. And I’ll be honest, we didn’t do it in a necessarily organized way. You know, we just kind of, you know, we’d be talking through something and go, oh, we probably should do that, or oh, we need that. And then we would pivot to that, figure out that issue. Which is not a good way to do it, but you know, we had never built a product based company before, so we didn’t know.
Katie: 10:21 Right. And I think like learning about product-based companies is totally out of my kind of like knowledge range. I’m completely online, so I would love to talk about the process of getting these products, getting them branded in a way that you can send them out to your customers. What were some unique challenges that you guys had working with actual physical products that somebody maybe, won’t have with just a completely digital business?
Meg: 10:45 Oh my goodness. There, there are a few. So, you know, I think the most obvious one is that you do have physical products. So we do purchase all of the items and our gift sets from the women makers. They’re not on consignment or anything like that. We have those products. So not only did we need to come up with the money to buy the products, but we also needed to store the product somewhere. So you know, that that was maybe, I mean, I think we, we knew that that was going to be the case, but when the boxes started showing up, it was a little intimidating. We definitely expanded our space beyond our initial one-room office. We, you know, we’ve now taken up two rooms in my house. And so that was, that was, you know, a surprise. To some extent.
Meg: 11:28 Yeah. But I also think just in general with products, you know, the timeline can be longer. Whether you’re buying them from a maker or you’re making them yourself. I mean, you, you have to find the products, you have to try them out, you have to order them, you know, then there is production and shipping, and if you know there’s something wrong with the product, you have to send it back. And I mean it really, I think that was coming from someone who orders a lot on Amazon prime. This was a learning experience, you know because some things we ordered and we might not get for a month or two months. So I had to retrain my mind to give myself that time to make sure we, you know, we got everything we needed it.
Katie: 13:42 One of the biggest parts of, you know, having a product-based business and all that and having a great customer experience is having a store online that works really well, that seamless, that, you know, doesn’t have any bugs. So how did you go about setting up a store? Did you hire a designer? Is that something you guys did yourself?
Meg: 13:59 Yeah. So, you know, we’re actually still working on that to this day. I mean it’s, it’s not as simple as getting a website and getting it all set up right away. You know, there are challenges you have to work through. And you know, so we actually started our store on Shopify, and that worked really well for a while. We did not have a developer. We purchased a theme which got us the design elements we wanted, and we just figured out how to set up the back end. We’ve recently moved to WordPress because, and woo-commerce because we needed a little bit more functionality and customization since we do give sets, you know, we wanted the ability to customize aspects of the gift set. But with that move came the need for a web developer who could really help us through that because it’s, you know, WordPress and woo-commerce are a little bit of a different beast. So it’s, it’s not that simple. So know if you’re running an online shop that involves products or involves any kind of customization or additional features, you know, you definitely want to build in the time. I don’t think you have to have a web developer, but it’s not a bad thing to try and get someone on your team who knows what they’re doing.
Katie: 15:08 Yeah, definitely. I’ve worked with woo-commerce before. I knew, right. You kind of have to have to know the ins and outs to make sure you’re using it all to its fullest power because they can do a lot. And I would love to kind of talk about, you mentioned your, your gift sets and so they’re so sweet and unique and really have some of the coolest products in them. So can you talk a little bit about some of your favorite guest sets? You have quite a few, so you don’t have to name all of them, but if you just have a few favorites that you don’t mind talking about, that’d be great.
Meg: 15:34 Yeah. You know, I, it’s funny, I mean every single one of them, you know, we obviously designed personally and, and they’re all, they all speak to something that I love, but one of my favorites is actually one of our small gestures. So all of our small gestures, gift sets are $35 or under, and this one is called spread good vibes. And it’s actually got in it some smudge sticks, which I think are great if you’re trying to kind of cleanse a space. And it has this fabulous smudge spray by a company called from Molly with love out in California, and it smells so amazing. I actually take it with me when I travel because it’s so refreshing that if I’ve got a train or a plane all day and I’m just kinda feeling gross, I’ll, I’ll spray it on myself. You can use it as body spray even though it a spray.
Meg: 16:25 And I just really like it. It kind of just makes me feel refreshed. So that’s one of my favorites. That’s actually one of our most popular ones as well. We’re almost sold out of it. But that’s one of my favorites. And you know, I love the girl boss that’s one of our specialty gift sets. So it’s a little bit bigger. It’s got a fabulous makeup bag in there that says, you know, be the girl who decided to go for it. It’s got some really snarky girl boss pencils, which I love. And you know, it’s just, it’s a fun set that I think, you know, kind of spreads our mission of wanting, wanting girls and women to go out there and go after their dreams.
Katie: 17:02 Yes, I love that. That like that would be such a perfect gift to send to somebody who is starting their own business. I mean, I just love that idea. And your products obviously are highly curated and chosen very carefully. So how have you gone about choosing your vendors and certain products and do you have kind of like criteria, they’re women, which is pretty obvious, but do you have any other criteria that you kind of look for when choosing your vendors?
Meg: 17:25 We definitely do. So I’m, as you mentioned, we obviously do look for women. We are, our official rule is that if the company has to be at least 50% women-owned or woman run. So we do have a few husband, wife teams, which is fabulous. You know, other criteria that we consider. We want to work with companies and makers that are kind of at a sweet spot. So they aren’t necessarily just starting out, but they’re not so big that they’re in all of the big stores because we really want to be able to have an impact and play an important role in each maker’s journey. And you know, so that’s kind of that sweet spot for us. We definitely look for women who want to grow and scale their companies. You know, we want to know that as we grow, they’ll grow because even though we do change out our makers regularly, we do go back to makers that we’ve really loved and we want to continue to work with them over the years.
Meg: 18:23 You know, in terms of finding our makers, it’s, we find them everywhere. We do a lot of Instagram stocking. I will admit a lot of makers come to us, you know, you can go on our website, there’s a form, and you know, we get to see a lot of really cool products, but we also go just to a lot of markets and fairs and pick up the products and smell them and try them out. You know, we try every product that we buy. So it’s, you know, for us it’s just really important to you connect with the product. And I think the last thing I would say that we look for, and this is probably the most important, is that there’s a good story there. You know, if, if I go to your website and I don’t know who you are, then we’re probably not going to work with you. You know, we want to know that you are as much, you know, putting yourself out there as you are putting your product out there. And that for us, this is, you know, almost more about you than it is about the product.
Katie: 19:14 Yes, that’s amazing. And I totally agree. If you go to somebody’s website and you’re like, well what do you do? It kind of is. It’s a turn off a little bit. So do you guys run specific marketing campaigns around the holidays? You know like mother’s Day be Christmas, things like that. Do you guys run specific marketing strategies to really target people who are looking for unique gifts?
Meg: 19:34 We absolutely do. So we actually launched with mother’s Day and we, we started with pre-orders. We had three gift sets, pre-orders for Mother’s Day. And so that was a pretty big campaign for us. We didn’t have any other gift sets available at the time. You know, we will continue to do things like that around some of the bigger holidays. We’ve done father’s day where we certainly have our holiday boxes right now. So, you know, for us, I think that is a piece of it. But honestly, we’re really trying to sort of start this habit of sending these small gestures at the times when people aren’t expecting gifts. A good friend of mine always says she likes to surprise and delight. And I think that’s really what we’re going for. So while we will obviously happily send you your gifts you know, around the holidays, you know, we’d love it if you’d show up for, you know, job promotions and breakups and bad days and you know, when your friend gets pregnant and is not feeling awesome, you know, it’s, those are the things that we really want to be there for.
Katie: 20:38 Yes, absolutely. I’d love to kind of talk a little bit about you as a business owner and your kind of journey in your life right now. So since you, you are kind of working in your home and maybe you might have another space that you’re working out of now, but how do you kind of structure your day since you are your own boss, and you have your business so close to your home and so intertwined with your life, how do you structure your day to make it all work?
Meg: 21:03 So I, I’m very disciplined. I’m not normally as a personality, but I’ve, I’ve had to be to make it work. You know, I, when I first quit my job, I actually read a book called the power of Wen by Dr. Michael Bruce, I want to say. And he talks all about figuring out the times of day that are best for certain things. So when is it best to work? When is it best to take a nap or have lunch or go to bed or whatnot. And once I had that knowledge, I sat down, and I laid out what, you know, what I was, what I should do at each point in the day so that I could really maximize my productivity. And so, you know, every week I will sit down, and I will actually schedule out my entire day. I’ll do it on my calendar with what I’m going to work on, you know, every moment of the day.
Meg: 21:54 And I’ll build in a few breaks. But I do that so that I don’t get distracted and say, oh, I’ll just sit on the couch and watch TV. You know, I don’t give myself room to do that because it would be too tempting, you know? And I also to go along with that, I, I set out some pretty strict boundaries, you know, every day at five 30 I will stop working, and I go get my son, and I spend time with him and then I allow myself, you know, working time from seven 30 to nine and that’s it. And I think you have to do that when you work from home because otherwise, you know, you would pick up that computer or go down to your office all of the time or anytime an idea strikes and that’s just not a healthy relationship.
Katie: 22:36 Yes, I agree. I’ve struggled with that, and I just started working from home. I’m trying to kind of find that sweet spot of when should I stop working, when’s it okay to pick up the computer? Cause I mean it’s, it’s a fine balance. And you mentioned you have your office and your home. Have you had to like physically separate this as a workspace? This is not workspace?
Meg: 22:54 Absolutely. I really have. My office is my true office. It’s, you know, it’s for my company. It is not a space that gets used otherwise by the family. You know, what I have learned and I, and this is advice for you too since you’re new to this, is you know, figure out what you need to make it work. So for me, I realized that even though it’s really good that I am very strict about my schedule, I did realize that I would hit a point in the week and it was usually about Thursday when I would need a little bit of kind of relaxing time. And so I actually now allow myself that I can work sitting on the couch with my laptop one day a week and usually that ends up being Thursday. And doing that allows me to really stick to my schedule, you know, all of the other days. And so you just have to figure out what room you need to give yourself so that you can be really good the rest of the time.
Katie: 23:52 Yeah, I like that. I appreciate that flexibility 100% in. Since you are so busy and especially this time of year, do you have any like self-care tips or relaxation techniques or anything that really helps you kind of take yourself out of the work mode and relax a little bit?
Meg: 24:08 I absolutely do. So I’m huge on self-care. I will you know, fully admit that even when things get super crazy, I will still spend time on self-care because I just think it’s so important. I do schedule a massage for myself every month, no matter how busy I get. That’s kind of my time. But I also just within the day I try to be really good about, you know, I said earlier, I scheduled breaks. I try to be really good about taking just a few minutes to either meditate or just even sit quietly. I’ll often read a book. I always have a book with me, and I just think taking those moments to slow down is really important. The other thing that I do, and again, this goes back to what I learned when I read the power of when is that? Apparently, because of my chronotype, I should take a nap every afternoon. So most days we’ll actually take a 20-minute nap around two 30. And that’s been huge for me. It’s, it’s completely changed my productivity because I tend to get into a slump around two or three o’clock every day. And so taking that 20 minutes to rejuvenate and refresh gives me three hours in a day, you know, afterward that I wouldn’t have had otherwise and I actually get quality work done.
Katie: 25:22 Yeah, that’s awesome. That sounds pretty darn good to me. And so like for other people who are kind of struggling with how to implement that self care, or maybe they’re feeling guilty, like they don’t feel like they should be allowed to take a nap if the during the day, you know how can they get over that hump of actually making themselves a priority just as much as they’re making their business?
Meg: 25:42 Well, absolutely. So here’s the thing. I mean, if you feel guilty, you know, I can say you shouldn’t, but I know that’s not going to change it. But think about it this way. You are your business’s biggest asset. So if you’re not taking care of yourself, then you’re doing your business a disservice. So, in my opinion, taking a nap or taking the massage or whatever it is that you need really your way of investing in your businesses biggest asset. So I think if you reframe your, your mindset that way, it maybe makes it a little bit easier. But if you’re just generally struggling to find the time, and I know, especially people who are running side Hustles, I know that that’s such a big part of it. You know, start with something super small. It can just be a few minutes of meditation or sitting quietly or listening to music, you know, or maybe a podcast that has nothing to do with business, you know, just something to kind of help your mind slow down a little bit. Whatever it is that works for you. But if you can just do five minutes a day and I think you’ll start to build there. As you see, you’ll get more productive, you’ll be better rested by just having those five minutes, and you’ll start finding that you have more time to do those things.
Katie: 26:53 I wouldn’t 100% agree. That’s what I started doing. I was working full time when I started my side hustle, and I was just like, I don’t have a darn second in the day to actually do this. And so I got up, started getting up half an hour earlier in the day. Instead of eating my breakfast at my desk at work, I would take half an hour at home to eat my breakfast. It’d be a not a rush and just to relax, and just, it was super small, but it made a huge difference in how I approached the day, you know? So I liked that advice. Speaking of advice, do you have any kind of books or podcasts or courses or anything helpful to you along your business journey that you would recommend to the listeners?
Meg: 27:33 Oh my goodness, I have so many. But you know, I’m a huge podcast fan, so I’m, I definitely think there are some great podcasts out there. I think it obviously depends on, you know, what you’re looking for, but I like to have a, a balance in my podcast of some that are, you know, motivational and sort of community-based and feel good and others that are very specific and tactical. So, you know, I’ll listen to the Goal Digger, you know, Jenna Kutcher, his podcasts. I’ll listen to you. I listened to a lot of Amy Porterfield’s podcast because I think she’s very tactical and get, you know, really kind of gives you the tools you need to implement in your business. I’m a huge reader, so I’m always reading at least four books at a time. I’m trying to think if I’ve had any risks. I had, I’ve had good ones recently, but actually a book I really love, it’s a little bit off-topic, but it’s called pivot and it’s by Jenny Blake and I think it’s actually a book regardless of what you do professionally because it teaches you to kind of evaluate the scene and know when and how to pivot.
Meg: 28:40 And I think if you’re a business owner, even if you’re not necessarily making a huge pivot and you know, completely changing your business, I think we constantly have to make mini pivots as we figure out what works and what doesn’t. So I think that’s one of my favorites for just kind of getting that mindset.
Katie: 28:56 Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of great things about that book. A lot of people have mentioned it recently, so I’m definitely going to have to check it out. And is there anything coming up in your business or in life or just in general that you’re really looking forward to and that you’re excited about?
Meg: 29:09 Oh Wow. We have so much coming up in 2019 we were just doing our strategic planning this week for it. So we are launching a podcast of our own, which we’re so excited about. It’s going to be really focusing on, you know, how women can support each other and how we can be better friends and mentors and peers so that, you know, women together really can rise up and go after all of our big dreams. So that’s coming. We are also in 2019, an online marketplace. So this will be a venue where you can go and buy products from women makers that don’t necessarily fit in our gift sets. So they may be home goods or clothing or whatnot. It’s going to be very curated, and so we’re really going to put the same level of care into choosing those products that we do into the products for our gift sets. But we’re just really excited to bring another way that our community can support women makers beyond just the gift sets.
Katie: 30:12 That’s awesome. Well, once you get all that going, I would love to have links so I can link to it in the show notes. Everybody who listens to this can find it and check it out cause that sounds amazing. And can you tell listeners how they can find you and follow everything that you’re doing?
Meg: 30:25 Absolutely. So you can find us on our website at www.oneforwomen.com. We’re also on Instagram at one for women. We’re on Facebook as well. We’re pretty active on both of those platforms. We do a weekly Facebook live where we just kind of check-in on the state of gifting and being a great friend and show you some of our cool products. And we’re always on Instagram and Instagram stories. I’m usually on there without any makeups. So have some, some patients for me. But yeah, that’s where we are.
