Jennifer Green wants to help YOU stand out. And she's got the talent and the know how to help you do just that!
Jennifer is a full service creative providing expertise in branding and web design from concept to production and is committed to helping socially responsible entrepreneurs, professionals and leaders, and progressive feminist political candidates stand out—online and in print.
What we hear about women-led start up ventures, far too often, are the dismal funding statistics - female founders got roughly 2% of venture capital in 2017.
What we don’t hear enough about is this - Despite these staggering funding gaps, or perhaps in spite of them, women led ventures continue to outperform their male counterparts in just about every metric.
Female owned firms generate higher revenues than their male counterparts and they create more jobs. Women executives significantly improve start-up company performance. Women are known to be more effective in senior leadership roles. Women have a higher appetite for growth.
Living in a such a dismal funding landscape women entrepreneurs have had to become fiercely savvy in creating and building businesses. Women have long understood that access to cash is a struggle, so those embarking on start-up journeys know from the get go that they have to build a healthy and sustainable foundation for their businesses if they are to survive. They have to be hungrier, smarter, streamlined, efficient, and practical.
After endless years of institutional bias, it’s generationally ingrained in women to do so.
Now this is not to suggest that the institution bias against women in entrepreneurship, or in any other financial or social realm, has in any way benefitted women. Let’s be clear. It has not. But it does seem, at a minimum, it’s about time we acknowledge, take note, and learn from these female founders.
And what they are doing with deft and acuity is collaborating.
You don’t need to look too far to see how women entrepreneurs are building, shaping and creating spaces and frameworks for community and collaboration. Women supporting women is the strength of women’s entrepreneurship and crux of keeping their operations lean and successful.
Take for example, the explosion of women’s co-working. Seattle-based The Riveter offers coworking ‘built for women’ and now has multiple locations in Seattle and in LA with plans to open in 6 other cities across the nation including Austin, Atlanta, Portland, Dallas, Denver, and Minneapolis. Similarly expanding, New York based The Wing provides a social club for women, including coworking, and states its mission as the advancement of women through community.
Online communities like THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ are focusing on the growing freelance economy and aggregating a too often fragmented group of women freelancers and consultants, into an online collective of independent professionals. THE JILLS, as their members are dubbed, provide diverse services to businesses of every scale from solos and start-ups to small businesses and corporate giants. They aim to create a ‘sisterhood for solos’ and tout the merits for women to work as independents and reinforce that this should not equate to working alone.
The newly founded, Madison based, DirectorHERy seeks to connect women-owned businesses with consumers who want to see them prosper through their online directory. And SheEO is tackling the female funding gap, by mobilizing women to build communities to support and fund women entrepreneurs through their model of ‘radical generosity’.
Women want to see women succeed. They know there are droves of amazingly talented women, like themselves, who are eager to work and create, having found very little of what they need or want in traditional workplace settings. They’re their friends, and neighbors, they meet at the gym, at playgroups and book clubs and more recently they’re finding each other through women based co-working spaces and digital community-based platforms.
They are building each other up and encouraging and designing a future of work that works for women. They know the critical importance of developing collaborative, reciprocal relationships within their communities to build their knowledge, their skills, and their teams. They are using collaboration to build businesses and build wealth. They are modeling and leading a new economy - the future of work.
For women led ventures, collaboration is winning over competition and building a strong ecosystem for women entrepreneurs to continue to grow and thrive.
If any of us is to find our path in the new economy, it’s about time we start to look at the women who are leading the way for us, and figure out how we might catch up.
Debbie White, Founder of the Seattle boutique advertising agency, Frank + Candor, knows a thing or two about staying agile in a changing workforce.
Debbie has long since recognized the effectiveness and the efficiency of hiring the right person for the right job at the exact right time and she teams up with a collection of on-demand creative professionals to ensure her project outcomes are always unique, targeted, and top notch. Debbie's work-style is smart and savvy giving her the flexibility to team up to scale up as she accesses the best of the best to fill each project niche as she encounters them. Debbie and Frank + Candor represent this new nimble future of work that THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ supports, encourages and knows that women can lead.
Debbie was one of the first JILLS Members and proudly touts the power of women to be an economic force in the future of work. Her Seattle based, ad agency, Frank + Candor, works with companies across the nation and is a female-centric marketing agency focused on "Peak Women", 45-70, who she says "represent the most powerful, yet misunderstood, buying segment of any demographic."
In an excerpt from the Frank + Candor blog, Debbie shares why she knows 'small is the new big'.
"In advertising, I think the future is going to be small. As in small advertising agencies, boutique firms, and virtual creative hubs. As I sit here in our downtown Seattle WeWork office looking out at a slew of plugged-in workers that must be doing very substantial and exciting things, I think to myself, “I’m a part of this,” the small business, start-up co-working thing.
We’re all here, all of us independent business, co-working, kombucha-on-tap-drinking go-getters!
I see how well it works because this lean model is so adaptable to an ever-changing, project-based advertising business. From our standpoint, we have a small senior staff and our go-to specialists (that’d be super awesome freelancers in real-speak) that we partner with for particular projects. Those wonderful people are an integral part of our team, yet they are virtual—which makes everyone happy. And when we meet in Seattle, they get to have kombucha, too. Expanding and contracting with the needs of our ever-evolving clients, we work from home, co-sharing workspaces, or any wired place on earth. In fact, our most extensive account is 2,340 miles away.
This small but ever-connected ecosystem of seasoned creative thinkers is the new big advertising agency thing. And we’ll drink our rooibos kombucha to that!"
THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ Co-Founders, Megan Boswell and Corinne Neil recently joined James Kademan , host of the Authentic Business Adventures Podcast series for a rolicking and candid hour in the studio to share their start-up story, their decision to be female-focused despite lots of advice to do otherwise, and how a night out with the gals for a glass a wine can be rich ground to uncover your next business idea. READ MORE & LISTEN IN…
Forget the flexible desk… how about a flex apartment, co-working, and fitness membership in countries around the world AND a platform to promote your independent work style from wherever you are. THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ and Behere are making it possible to live + work in inspiring cites around the world one month at a time. Together, these two organizations are building community and empowering a dynamic freelance lifestyle.
THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ is a powerhouse talent collective of WOMEN CONSULTANTS who offer professional services to businesses. The platform offers a searchable online directory and targeted resources to help create an ecosystem and an infrastructure for the future of work. Behere is the platform for women to live in cities around the world, without long-term contracts or obligations. The members-only platform provides access to carefully curated furnished apartments, workspaces and fitness studios for the growing population of women seeking alternative frameworks to live, work and travel.
THE JILLS Co-founders, Megan AC Boswell and Corinne Neil, caught up with Behere Cofounder and CEO, Meesen Brown to chat about female forward businesses, flexible workstyles on an international scale, and the future of work, and some of the best countries for living and working. READ MORE…
The future of work is radically and rapidly changing. There will soon be more independent contractors and freelancers than employees in the workforce. Are you ready for the new normal? Are you aware of how to access the tools and resources that will set you up for success?
Recently, THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™ Cofounders, Megan A.C. Boswell and Corinne Neil, caught up with the folks at BUNKER to chat about insurance, the modern independent contractor, and changing workforce trends.
Read more…
Our JILLS have great things to say and we're so happy to share it!
In this post, Paloma Kenney, JILLS Member and Attorney and Principal at Kenney Law LLC discusses the explosion of the Freelance Economy and the legal and legislative conundrum this future of work is having in the U.S.
In May of 2017, an estimated 85% of workers had at least one side job, and, among them, 54% worked two. (1) A trend that's likely to continue; LinkedIn predicts that, by 2020, 43% of the U.S. workforce will be freelancers enabled in part by technology. (3) The desire to increase earnings or gain unique work experience helps drive the gig economy; and, for many young people, it's often a way to make ends meet. (4)
The sudden explosion of the "side hustle" has, in some ways, made the gig economy the wild west of flexible employment. States lack dedicated laws to help govern and protect freelance workers many of whom lack benefits and health insurance. In response, many workers' groups are beginning to lobby for new tax legislation. (5) Earlier this year Washington introduced a bill that would require employers to pay into a benefit fund for independent contractors. Similarly, New York is beginning to introduce a ride-transaction fee for the same purpose.
This new tax may be beneficial for gig workers "employed" by large umbrella corporations, such as Uber and Airbnb, who can afford to pay the tax and would be required by law to contribute to the fund; however, for those out on their own, there's only more uncertainty.
Will solo gig workers have the option or be forced to pay the tax/fee like a corporation in order to gain access to the larger benefit pool? Or will solo gig workers fall outside the tax/fee requirements leaving them to continue to fend for themselves as self-employed?
Even if legislation is successfully passed, the new tax/fee may cause a widespread shift among those corporations already dipping their toe into the gig economy. Corporations may decrease their use of gig workers in an effort to avoid paying a tax similar to worker's compensation for a group of transient and often rotational workers.
For example, if a corporation often hires giggers to write blog posts or modify their graphics, would that corporation simply begin to look internally for talented employees interested in garnering company-wide recognition for such a unique and visible project?
One of the largest legal issues pertaining to the gig economy is worker classification. Dan Eaton from the San Diego Tribune argues that regardless of whether legislative changes are made on a state or federal level (a separate topic up for debate) lawmakers should resist making a classification that falls between employee and independent contractor. (6) He believes this change could cause a cascade of legal claims since workers already litigate for employee re-classification. Unfortunately, re-classification may be the only way a line can be drawn for tax or fee purposes.
The inability to classify solopreneurs, giggers, and freelancers has implications beyond employment taxes or benefit fund fees. For instance, reporting employment history and making sense of wages is key when filing for unemployment, renting apartments, purchasing a home, and applying for loans and credit cards. While Eaton may have good reason to warn against a third classification, it may be a necessary evil to help alleviate the uncertainty and inability that gig workers have in legitimizing their work for important applications and governmental purposes.
Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO and co-founder, hopes that the company will one day have created millions of new entrepreneurs worldwide. While the gig economy may at times appear to be a disorganized conglomerate of individuals all seeking to provide a unique, on-demand service, it's thoughts like Chesky's that may eventually transform the traditional definition of entrepreneur. For many, entrepreneur still connotes an individual that raises money, headquarters in a physical location, and helps create jobs for the local economy.
Chesky's vision, along with the millions of individuals inventing their own positions, expands this definition to include those who have never sought funding, but rather built their business from savings or pure sweat equity. It includes individuals who will never have a brick and mortar location beyond their home office and those who will never hire additional employees. One day soon the majority of workers will have a string of roles, proficiencies, and skills that follow their name in place of the traditional one-profession title. For most states, the law cannot evolve quick enough to resolve the complexity of fluid, non-standard employment sweeping the nation.
Reposted with permission by Paloma Kenney. Original link found here.
Paloma Kennedy knows the value of interpersonal relationships and has built her law practice around relationships, transparency, and connections. Armed with not only her J.D., Paloma's undergraduate work focused on psychology and communications where she learned the power of truly listening and building connections with people.
Madison Startups article, by Audrey Meis
“Jills members recognize the power of aggregation to amplify the voice of women solo-entrepreneurs across the nation to lead the new project-based economy,” Neil said.
Working as an independent professional, Neil recognized that hunting for the next gig was a constant challenge.
Coming from the opposite side, Boswell realized how hard it was to find trusted, on-demand talent. During her corporate career, she ran into resource gaps that hindered team productivity when searching for freelancers.
Neil and Boswell, who met through their sons, shared the vision that there must be a solution to this two-sided issue, and from there, the Jills of All Trades was born.
Neil has a background in education and curriculum and content development, while Boswell has experience in marketing and design and launched her own consulting company three years ago. For the most part, company tasks are handled between the two of them, and they make sure to block days to work specifically on the Jills of All Trades.
”As we scale, the plan is to have a community manager as the ‘Jills Hub Leader’ in locations across the U.S.,” Neil said.
These Jills Hub Leaders will take on the “vetting” process of adding new members to the Jills website. Right now, becoming a Jill requires a check of references and portfolio. Men also have been featured on the site and are encouraged to join.
The Jills of All Trades website currently features just under 50 professionals. Their titles span from “Graphic Designer” to “Clinical Trial and Research Consultant.” Project seekers can browse profiles or create a posting for a job.
There is no middleman when potential customers reach out to contact a Jill. The company generates revenue through membership fees, and it also offers a fee-based service to help potential clients match directly with a specific Jill to meet the needs of the job.
With statistics on their side, Neil and Boswell see a bright future for the Jills of All Trades. Fifty-three million people in the United States are currently working as independent professionals, which is about 35 percent of the workforce. That number is expected to increase to 70 or 80 percent in the upcoming decades, according to Neil.
”Independent, project-based, contract-by-contract is the future of work,” Neil said. “And we think women are well poised to lead this new economy.”
ORIGINAL ARTICLE LINK:
http://www.madisonstartups.com/company-profile-the-jills-of-all-trades/
May 11, 2017
“We realized we were bolstering one another, and learning from one another,” said Neil, a freelance curriculum developer. “And slowly, we wanted to expand that to other people.”
Neil and Boswell, a brand strategist who spent 12 years working for American Girl, decided to form a company they say harnesses that energy: Jills of All Trades, an online network where women working as freelancers can connect and mutually reinforce each others’ careers.
The idea is that “solo-preneurs” of any stripe — from web developers to fashion designers — can enjoy a “watercooler effect,” and stay on top of trends and best practices for freelancers. It’s also a platform where the “Jills,” as Neil and Boswell call them, can find work. The hope is that they’ll recommend each other and promote each other in their own networks and perhaps collaborate on projects.
The network is also a place where potential customers can look for a freelancer who meets their needs. In that regard, there is already some steep competition: The website Upwork is a well-established global platform for freelance gigs. But Neil and Boswell assert that Jills of All Trades puts the customer and the professional on a more even footing.
On Upwork, clients name the terms of what they’re looking for, and freelancers compete for jobs by outbidding one another. On Jills of All Trades, bidding is not part of the equation. The focus is on clients doing a bit more legwork to find the right person for the job.
People can search through the gallery of Jills, which currently features 37 entries, to find a freelancer.
“The talent shouldn’t be in the dark. The talent should be forward. They need to be in the spotlight,” said Boswell.
While the platform is designed with women in mind, men — “Jacks” — can also join.
Boswell and Neil say they want to keep expanding the network, and eventually bring on other people to serve as “gatekeepers” for Jills in hubs across the U.S. They’re also trying to build out features, like an option for paying clients through the website, and forums where members can chat.
The two pitched their company at the most recent 1 Million Cups presentation, a weekly event sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation that highlights young businesses in Madison.
ORIGNAL ARTICLE LINKS:
http://host.madison.com/ct/business/technology/startup-looks-to-put-women-solo-preneurs-in-spotlight/article_dea1a6fc-2d04-5e34-bd46-8d8910df2824.html
http://wisconsintechnologycouncil.com/2017/captimes-startup-looks-to-put-women-solo-preneurs-in-spotlight/
We're on a mission.
So last summer we headed to CHICAGO.
And what a day we had!
There's not much to not love about the Windy City, but on the particular day the sun was shining, Lake Michigan was glistening, and we had a schedule chalked full of dates, and coffees and 'lunch and learns' with some really incredible women.
First stop, Chicago's 1871, a hub of digital innovation and a buzzing hive of activity and energy, to connect with Nicole Yeary, founder of Ms. Tech, and join her community of tech savvy gals and wicked smart female founders to meet and greet and talk social media marketing tips at the Ms.Tech Mastermind event.
Later we would connect with Lakshmi Shenoy, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at 1871 and Co-facilitator of WiSTEM, a sixteen week curriculum-based program that connect women to capital, community, and technology based resources. We chatted about women in S.T.E.M. and about our powerhouse of postdoctoral JILLS, like Sarah Caudill, Clarissa Muere, Sushma Kommineni, who are leading and shaping a path for women in STEM both in academia and in industry. We were amazed and delighted by the work being done at WiSTEM and left energized to have connected with other women creating paths for a women's workforce revolution.
And we couldn't possible stop in Chicago without taking the time to meet up with our Chicago JILLS. Lisa Ghisolf fought the traffic to enjoy an afternoon tea with us at The Mart, where she shared her experiences being a veteran solopreneur for her company, Gizmo Creative Factory. We laughed until we cried with her talented storytelling that had us living and loving the travel blogs she writes.
WeWork Grant Park was the perfect ending to our day, where we relaxed, toured the amazing facility, had our first introduction to the WeWork community, and were completely smitten with the people, the architecture and the impeccable design of this gorgeous work space.
'On Wisconsin' as they say and we headed home to Madison.
But after our whirlwind day, we definitely left a part of our hearts in Chicago.
Ms. Tech founder, Nicole Yeary
Before we had a name, before we had a clear business model, before we had a logo, or a website, or a customer, we had an idea that we believed really mattered - women entrepreneurs needed to be lifted and linked to create a powerhouse workforce for the future.
We'd spent a summer out 'talking' to people; solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, business leaders and business owners to help us shape and validate some of our thinking. And in all of our chatting on phones and meeting in coffee shops, we learned about an opportunity - The Doyenne Group's 5X5X5 event - a pitch contest for women at the annual Madison ForwardFest. The Doyenne Group offered pre-pitch training to 5 women entrepreneurs and a chance to win a $5000 grant based on a 5 minute pitch at a breakfast event.
We scrambled to get our application in on a tight deadline, and did cartwheels (well... metaphoric cartwheels, we're too old for any of that carry-on) when we learned we were one of the five finalists. Our adventure had begun, and we bravely stepped in, created our first pitch, stood in front of a crowd and gave our first public presentation of THE JILLS OF ALL TRADES™.
And no, we didn't win the money. But we did win.
JILLS cofounders pitch finalists in Madison Forward Fest.
We learned invaluable information about giving a pitch. We meet incredible women entrepreneurs who were further along than us, who shared their stories, offered us encouragement, and gave us the gift of feedback. We got mentioned in local media. We were welcomed by a community of supporters and champions of women's entrepreneurship. And we met JILLS. Lots of them.
We learned that 5 minutes is a really short amount of time, but it's enough to put yourself out there and start to build the relationships you need to power a workforce revolution.
