Taryn Williams | WINK Models and TheRight.Fit
On making sure you aren’t slowing down growth:
“The biggest challenge for me is definitely being a control freak. In WINK, I wanted to own everything, touch everything, be involved in every single job, getting down to every single tiny detail. That definitely stopped the business from growing in the first few years. I had to take a step back and say, ‘I’m the bottleneck here’.”
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Arianna Huffington | Thrive
Source: EPA/IAN LANGSDON
On choosing one project to spend time on, instead of burning out:
“Running both companies [Thrive and Huffington Post] would have involved working around the clock, which would be a betrayal of the very principles of Thrive I’ve been writing and speaking about.
“To truly thrive means knowing when the time has come to close one chapter and start the next, and for me that time has arrived.”
Justin Butterworth | Snug
On the importance of taking a break between projects:
“[I’d] highly recommend a significant break, which is completely unstructured but which indulges in time, learning and connecting with the startup ecosystem.
“Starting a startup is such an intensive, emotional, financial journey that you almost need to recover, re-energise, and refocus.”
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Sarah Liu | The Dream Collective
On using your own time struggles for inspiration:
“In the early days of running the business alongside my corporate job, the biggest challenge for me was time management. The gig economy wasn’t truly on the rise yet, and flexible working was typically something reserved for the working mother.
“That was the biggest challenge I faced, as businesses were nervous about their employees having something on the side, and many didn’t think you needed flexibility.
“As a result, I actually started a second business, called Gemini3 — a job share platform that was born out of my desire to have flexibility in those early stages.”
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Jen Geale | Mountain Bikes Direct
On matching your hours to your lifestyle:
“We once did this thing when [my partner and I] worked nights. I think about that now and I think, “you’re an idiot”. But it worked, and well, hats off to shift workers.
“You couldn’t make that decision if you didn’t work with your partner. It enabled us to probably just make a real dent on a few things we needed to drive the business.”
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Mark Cuban | Entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks owner
Source: EPA/Nina Prommer
On not wasting time over mistakes:
“Everybody is a mess at times. You get scared, you think, ‘am I going to make it, am I smart enough’, whatever it may be.
“Shit happens, get over it and get back to the grind.
“Success isn’t a straight line, you’ve got to recognise you don’t have it figured out, but you can put in the effort to try and be prepared and know your shit better than anybody.”
If you are inspired and would like to join the revolutionary movement that Imalia is creating, you can request to join our Facebook group The Wolfpack, to share ideas and learn from other like-minded women.
This is an edited version of a story that first appeared on Smart Company.