Big tings a gwan!!
I’m a whole business owner, y’all!! So happy and excited to launch The Great Exhale™ with my sister-friend and business partner Liz Leiba!!
What is The Great Exhale, you ask?
It is a soft, nurturing online space for Black women to:
❤️ Be in community with a supportive sisterhood
❤️ Divest from the tyranny of overwork
❤️ Be free from having to constantly code switch
❤️ Be as excellent or as average as they choose
❤️ Openly share lived experiences and have them validated by folks who understand…
❤️ Enjoy a softer, friendlier, more fulfilling life
We are centering Black women like ourselves because we know all too well that we are usually overlooked, micro-aggressed, underpaid, and forced to exist in the margins of life.
Cool Name, Right?!
We decided to start how we plan to continue, so we asked our LinkedIn community for name suggestions. More than 400 entries later, The Great Exhale emerged as the winner. Since Liz and I have a combined following of about 250K on LinkedIn, we made an event of it and announced the name live!! Take a look at the replay and catch the vibes!! Within 24 hours of launching our company page on LinkedIn it amassed more than 1,000 followers and is currently north of 3,000!
Where The Money Reside
Building our own table is a big lift, so we launched a GoFundMe fundraiser!! We did a LinkedIn Live show on Wednesday 04/26 to announce it, and people immediately started donating!! We’re so grateful, and VERY EXCITED, because as of this writing (04/29) we’re at $17,191 of $50K!!! Thanks so much to everyone who has donated thus far!! If you’d like to help us reach our goal, you can DONATE HERE.
But Wait…What’s The Money For?
At the moment we’re a small but mighty team. We are all wearing several hats, and building our vision with ingenuity and sweat equity. Clearly, that is not sustainable. Though we are starting small, our goals are big, so we’ll need people to help us.
Both Liz and I strongly believe that Black people deserve to be paid, and paid well, so we plan to practice what we preach. The funds will be spent on:
- Team – contracting professionals as needed, including publicity, design, admin and social media support
- Tech – building out the platform and expanding functionality
- Company – setting up legal, finance/accounting, operations, licensing, insurance, and other areas as needed
- Branding – logo & brand identity
- Publicity – retainers/contingency fees
- Miscellaneous – unexpected costs as needed
Transparency is one of our fundamental tenets, so as the campaign evolves, we will keep everyone updated with how the donations are spent.
Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
We’re currently a team of three, and we each bring unique strengths to the table. OUR table. That said, Liz and I want to give a HUGE shoutout to our Business Consultant extraordinaire, Latrice Torres, aka The Voice of Reason! We would definitely not be at this stage without her sage advice. If anyone is looking for a career coach, all I have to say is look at the results. I ended last year depressed and hopeless, and not even halfway into this year, I’m the Co-Founder of a brand and Co-Owner of a company. And that’s on LLC. Hire her immediately.
What’s Next?
I’ll probably not be posting on my blog monthly anymore. I’ll do my quarterly updates, and that’s that. All my focus has to go toward bringing The Great Exhale to life, and hitting our launch date of Juneteenth.
Here’s how you can stay up to date with everything:
Thanks for supporting, and I’ll be back with an update at the end of the quarter!