Founders in Jeans

How to reduce screen time and stop scrolling, from someone who went from five hours a day on her phone to under one. This year my goal was to become a more interesting woman, and scrolling was getting in the way. In this episode I share what happened when my phone broke in half and I chose not to replace it right away. I also walk through the six habits that keep me off my phone now, from Do Not D...

What's wrong with me? It's a question so many women ask themselves and almost never say out loud. Rachel Tucker, founder of Smooch, built a business around answering it. Low libido in women is far more common than most of us are told, and it rarely feels normal when it's happening to you. Rachel decided to stop treating it as a secret. Smooch is an alcohol free functional drink made to...

How do you become a more interesting woman? This year I stopped trying to become prettier, fitter or more productive, and started with one question: who do I want to be mistaken for? In this solo episode, I share the trope method, the goal setting process I've used all year. I chose a woman whose life made me lean in, kept her skills, left the fantasy, and turned what she knows into small week...

I sat down with Sophie Auyeung, founder of Myrrar, to talk about what happens when a room decides not to take you seriously and you build the company anyway. Sophie is a female founder building a beauty tech app that recommends makeup products and techniques for your unique face. She is doing it in startup rooms that still skew male, as a woman of color, pitching a beauty product to people who don...

One son applied to 12 schools, got into 11, and walked out with a full ride to Harvard without his family paying a single dollar. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, Shellee Howard, founder and CEO of College Ready, breaks down how a business born 18 years ago when her son asked for help getting into college turned into a company that's helped thousands of students get into top schools debt-...

In this episode of Founders in Jeans, I sit with Noemi Ceapa, founder of The Consulting Studio and a branding expert who spent years working behind the scenes with brands like Coca-Cola and Colgate before helping women entrepreneurs build brands of their own. Noemi shares the moment that changed how she saw branding forever, watching a three-generation family business transform not by changing the...

A hula hoop, a slice of cheesecake, and 100% meeting acceptance rate, that's how one guest landed nearly every meeting she ever wanted, before ever pitching a thing. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, I sit down with April Palmer, founder of Rev Amp, an Agile professor at VCU, and self-proclaimed "Hot Mess Boss," who juggles sales consulting, teaching, mentoring startups, and life...

A group of 50 local creators in Des Moines, Iowa turned into a platform with 40,000 creators across 40 cities, and it all started because one marketer couldn't find an agency doing community-centric marketing the right way. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, host Emily Jean talks with Emily Steel, co-founder and CEO of Hummingbirds, a creator matching platform connecting everyday and nano c...

From a failed salon at 19, to a decade as a fractional CFO in corporate America, to coaching over 80 CEOs on her own podcast — Charity Brown's biggest lesson through it all? Trying to serve everyone is the fastest way to serve no one. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, host Emily Jean sits down with Charity Brown, founder of Create Clarity with Charity, the Four P's Method, and The Happy CEO, t...

She made $50 in 10 seconds. No followers, no face, no fame required. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, host Emily Jean talks with Meg Spencer (Meg the Creator), founder of The Anti-Influencer Method, about how she left a burnt-out freelance social media career to build a business helping over 2,000 introverts make money online through UGC, Amazon On-Site Commissions, and TikTok Shop, without e...

She spent 10+ years climbing the corporate ladder in management consulting — until motherhood made her stop and ask: who am I, really? In this episode of Founders in Jeans, host Emily Jean talks with Ralitsa Malcheva, a Bulgarian-born, UK-based consultant turned freelance coach, about identity, change, and the fear of letting go of who you used to be. Ralitsa opens up about growing up in a family...

She flipped ugly houses for fun. Staged them to sell fast. And accidentally built a luxury home staging franchise — with zero design degree and zero tech background. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, host Emily Jean sits down with Alisa Sparks, founder and CEO of Linden Creek, a home staging and interior design franchise that's grown to 20+ locations — plus the Linden Creek Shop (e-commerce) a...

What if your brand wasn't a logo or a color palette, but a living thing you could actually listen to? This episode is with Luna Battalia — brand strategist, leadership mentor, and founder of a full-spectrum brand studio — whose background spans design and depth psychology, including years in clinical settings before branding tripled her income during COVID. Luna walks us through "Animist...

What does it take to disrupt a category that's been around for millennia? In this episode of Founders in Jeans, I sit down with Clara Veniard, founder and CEO of Coro Foods, the company reinventing salami and pepperoni with bold flavors, all-natural ingredients, and humanely raised pork — all made 100% in-house at their own facility in Washington state. Clara shares the unexpected origin story...

Most founders believe that if the work is good enough, the right people will eventually find it. Publicist KJ Blattenbauer is here to gently end that myth. In this episode, I sit down with KJ, founder of Hearsay PR and a publicist with nearly 30 years of experience, to talk about why brilliant founders stay invisible, and what to do about it. KJ makes the case that you don't have to be big, fa...

Fertility advice is broken, and most of what you've been told about periods, trackers, and "regulating your cycle" is flat-out wrong. In this episode, I sit down with Kirsten Karchmer, North America's first reproductive acupuncturist and founder of Conceivable, who treated 10,000+ women before building an AI that got her fertility outcomes without her in the room. We get into the...

Can you really build a personal brand on LinkedIn while working a full-time 9-to-5? Raina Das did exactly that, quietly building her personal brand after work until it turned into 150+ brand deals, 25,000 LinkedIn followers, and three sponsorship deals in a single week. No hustle-porn, no chasing followers, no quitting her day job. In this episode of Founders in Jeans, Raina shares her honest play...

What if the safest path to entrepreneurship isn't quitting your job, it's staying in it a little longer? Ksenia Votinova-Arnaud is the co-founder of LeVPN, a profitable SaaS business she's been building for 15 years without a single outside investment. She's also the founder of the Weatherproof Business Launchpad, where she coaches women in tech to leave corporate life on their own terms, with a v...

I sat down with Yvette Boateng, creative strategist, UGC creator, and founder of The Good Yap, and she said something that stopped me mid sentence: You don't really know what your story was until you talk about it. Yvette has spent nearly a decade in marketing. She started out chasing the influencer dream, pivoted into UGC, built a career around brand storytelling, and eventually realized the...

I sat down with Eraj Lodhi, founder of Plot Out Loud, a cheeky marketing agency and podcast based in the UK, and she said something that stopped me mid-conversation. "Audacity is my business plan." Eraj left the traditional route, the safe job, the visa sponsorship, the box, and built something entirely her own. She's grown a marketing agency, launched a podcast in her first year, tr...

I had a blast with Palak Agarwal, London-based marketer and personal brand builder, and she said something that made me rethink everything I thought I knew about showing up online. Palak moved from Nepal to London with limited resources, navigated rejection after rejection, and built a LinkedIn community of 10,000+ followers, not by going viral, not by gaming the algorithm, but by simply being rea...

I sat down with Mafalda Johannsen, sales expert, author, and she said something that stopped me mid-conversation. Mafalda has spent 15 years in sales, starting at 22 on 100% commission selling timeshares in Florida with no safety net and no plan. Since then she's built a career in B2B prospecting, written a book on sales and AI, recorded masterclasses for the DACH region's top sales platfo...

I sat down with Viktoria Jancurova, LinkedIn personal brand strategist and founder of VJ Personal Branding, and she said something that made me stop and look at my own profile differently. Viktoria has published over 1,000 posts, generated millions of views across client profiles, built six-figure pipelines, spoken at South Summit in Madrid, and landed paid brand collaborations, all from one platf...

I sat down with Lauren Gibson, founder of Letter Launched and newsletter strategist to coaches, founders, and agency owners, and this one genuinely stopped me in my tracks! Lauren has lived in 44 countries, worked for the co-founder of Ethereum, taught English in Tunisia, got her MBA at Georgetown, and battled depression through 15 years of journaling, and somehow, every single one of those seemin...

What happens when the life that looks good on paper feels completely wrong in your body? In this episode of Founders in Jeans , Emily Jean sits down with Adele Kamel Whitley, founder of Buy Yourself, to talk about people pleasing, self-trust, and building a life that actually feels like yours. Adele shares how she moved from checking boxes, chasing approval, and cycling in and out of corporate lif...