She Got Adidas to Back an Idea on Paper | Female Founders and Bootstrapping with Odessa Jenkins

Speaker A: Welcome back to Dear Founder. I'm your host, Lindsay Pinchuk. And today's episode is one I've been excited to share with you since the

Speaker B: moment we recorded it.

Speaker A: If you're new to the show this whole month on Dear Found her. The theme is your story is your strategy. Last week we talked with Ruthie Ackerman about the craft of telling your story. Today's episode is about something different and harder. It's about, how do you tell a story about a business that doesn't exist yet? Today's guest is Odessa Jenkins. She goes by OJ and she's the founder and CEO of the Women's National Football Conference, the highest level, most prestigious women's tackle football league in the world. Sixteen teams, 900 athletes, year seven and national TV brand partnerships. And a championship weekend coming up, uh, at Dallas Cowboys Ford center this Saturday and Sunday with the tackle championships airing live on ESPN2. Here's what I want you to listen for in this conversation. OJ Told me in her words, I knew the league I wanted to play in even though it didn't exist. That sentence is the whole job description of an early stage founder. She had a vision, she socialized it. And she got 10 existing teams and two major brand partners, Adidas and Riddell, to back her before there was even a league for them to back. That is what story does at the beginning of a business. It builds the thing in the room before the thing exists. It's in the world. OJ Is also going to be honest with you about what it actually took. She did this while working a full time job. She talked her wife into quitting Schwab to come build it with her. They didn't break a profit until year three. None of that is on the highlight reel of a TV broadcast. And all of it is the actual story of what it takes to actually build something with that. Here's my conversation with Odessa Jenkins.

Speaker C: Welcome to Dear. Found her. Hi, I'm Lindsay Pinchuk, founder, acquired entrepreneur and part of the less than 1% of female founders who have led a company through acquisition. I built my first business from just $500 to seven figures without a marketing budget, simply using community smart publicity, partnerships and clear messaging. Now I host this show for women over 40 stepping into their next chapter, whether that's launching, pivoting, or scaling. Each week you'll hear real founder stories about growing an audience, getting press, leading teams, navigating, scaling challenges, and becoming more visible in the right ways. No fluff, no gatekeeping, just what works around here.

Speaker A: We build Businesses that actually work with

Speaker C: strategy, visibility, and each other.

Speaker B: Welcome back to another episode of Dear Founder. I'm very excited about today's guest because we're talking about sports, and that is actually not something we talk about nearly enough around here at Dear Found her as the mom of two girls who are both athletes. I am so excited to have today's guest here we have Odessa Jenkins. She goes by O.J. she told me I can call her either, so we're gonna say both. She is the founder and CEO of the Women's National Football Conference. And I'm so excited to hear your story. So welcome.

Speaker D: Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. So excited.

Speaker B: Thank you for being here. And I'd love for you to kick us off by telling us your story. Who are you? What do you do? How do you do it? And why?

Speaker D: Yeah, so my story. I'm Odessa Jenkins. I'm the founder and CEO of the Women's National Football Conference. What I do is I have the honor of leading a company, uh, a football league that's all about accelerating equity, financial equity for women through the power of football. And I get to run the highest level and the most prestigious women's tackle football league in the world. Why do I do it? I do it because I was a football player who always wanted to play football throughout my whole life, who became a football coach and then, uh, looked around me after being in women's, uh, football for a while and realized that there were no real commercial opportunities, uh, for women in the sport. And I wanted to solve problems for the people to the right and to the left of me. Um, and I started to get some really big opportunities for myself in coaching at the pro level and in the NFL. And when I got to those levels, I realized one, there were so many opportunities for men in professional football who could be the 1% and the 1%. And then when I thought about myself and my teammates, we just didn't have those opportunities. So that's why, uh, my. Why was. I started this business because I wanted to ensure that there wouldn't be a day, at least I was going to try, uh, for as long as I was alive, to never, uh, have another girl, uh, be born and think that professional football, playing the game is left, is not available to her. So that's what I do. We founded this league, uh, it's year seven now. We play, uh, tackle football. Sixteen teams from Seattle, Washington to Washington, D.C. 900 women with global brands and backers and national TV and streaming. And so it is this mass Magnificent movement, um, of a pioneer group of women who are working to professionalize this sport.

Speaker B: Okay, how, how do you go about starting a football league? I mean, this is like what you just said just like rolled off your tongue. It was like, this is what I do and like blah, ah, blah, blah. And that's amazing. And I, and I know it's a very big fucking deal, but like, this, uh, is not a small feat. And so, you know, to start a league is one thing. To start A league with 16 teams and 900 athletes is another thing. What do you do first? Like you say, okay, I want to start a league so that no girl goes without playing football. Anyone can have that opportunity. Where do you even start? And how do you know where to start?

Speaker D: Yeah, so I think, you know, the good news is that I didn't start at the very beginning. Women have played organized 11 on 11 contact tackle football for decades. So there's been leagues, there's been things formed to make it, uh, available to women. So I knew that existed. I knew the ability to make a call to action to women who wanted to play and that there would be women who wanted to play. Even though you don't see it in school and I'd seen it, I'd played it, I've been a part of it. So I knew that was a thing. I knew the market was there, I knew the product was available. Um, what I had to go do was commercialize it and create a sports property, which is the thing that had never been done. And so for me it wasn't just about creating a space for women to play football. Cause anybody can. That might sound hard, but you can start a league with people doing anything really. That's not the complexity. Yeah, it's the professionalism of it and getting people to give you money to do it and selling tickets and getting TV contracts and having global brands back you. And when you say, how did I do that? I think for a decade I learned how to build tech companies. I was an executive in soft building software and selling software and scaling software companies. And through that work I kind of learned that there's really a structure to how you have an idea, fund an idea and then roll out an ideal on a go to market side of things. So I kind of became an expert at going to market with product. And so I thought if I bring my passion of sports and as a Division 1 athlete, so I saw, um, sports at the highest level. If I brought that together with my ability to scale a business, maybe I could do this my first thought was, I'm just going to do exactly what we did initially with building our tech firm. And that's one bring the smartest people that I knew together first and not try to solve the problem for myself. So the first thing I did was brought all the smartest people that I knew, told them about the idea, um, and showed them my plan and got as many of them to do it for free as possible.

Speaker B: But I'm guessing, though, that the buy in was obviously very strong and not just because it was a great idea, and I know it was a great idea, but also because my guess is that most of the people that you ask also wanted to provide this equal opportunity for women. And that that was probably a lot of the driving force behind getting people to be like, you know what, uh, whatever you need, I'm in.

Speaker D: Yeah. At the time I created this league, women have been playing for, like I said, 60 years. And then there were executives that I knew who were doing other things, who were all about creating opportunities. They knew that I played football, they knew my journey. Right. That I paid to play play. And there were no sponsorships and nobody even knew I played. So there was this opportunity. So, yes, the people that I brought together were people who were sick and tired of, um, not seeing this thing be commercialized and not having awareness and opportunity around the sport like they were done. So I think I came in at the right time to provide, like, another solution. Like, let's go at least try to make some money. Like, let's try to make this a global brand. Like, let's, let's go try. And I think people were really ready to try because nobody seemed to be wanting to try. Everybody was just good with amateur.

Speaker B: So when you were first starting this, did you go out and get sponsors first and say, this is what we're going to do, or did you start a couple of teams first and then take it out to the sponsors and say, this is what we're doing. Do you want to fund it? Like, how did this work?

Speaker D: Really good question. So I went initially to all the existing teams that I knew, team owners from other leagues who had the same mindset as me. And I went to them and I showed them my plan so that I already had existing franchises that were operating in other leagues who I knew could at least operate a team, form a business and knew about football. So there was a group of 10 teams that were already like, you started. We're coming because we wanted the same thing. So that was nice. The other thing is I just had an exit the year before in the tech firm that I was in. So I had a little bit of cash on my own that I could put into the business right away. Um, of course, I went and tried brand. I didn't have any brand relationships. I didn't have any investment relationships. Um, all I had was the. Were the relationships that I had around me and people that I was in business with. So right away, I just started socializing this idea, and two brands jumped in right away. Adidas and Riddell. So I had two founding brand partners, and then I had the 10 teams that had come from other leagues, and from there it was just sell, baby, sell. Like it was ground up, bootstrapped. You know, if we wanted to buy something, we had to go raise capital or sell something. So it was like that. That's how it was in this business for five years. And really, the smartest thing and the biggest sales job that I did was to talk my wife into quitting her job at Schwab and to coming on and helping me do this.

Speaker B: When you said this was how it was for five years, how long was it from the conceptualization of the idea to, like, the day that you played the first game?

Speaker D: Uh, ten months.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: I'm just.

Speaker B: I want to just kind of, like, build. And then when you first started, you had the 10 teams?

Speaker D: Yep.

Speaker B: Um, and then how long was it until you were actually making money?

Speaker D: We didn't break a profit until year three.

Speaker B: But you are profitable now?

Speaker D: Yes.

Speaker B: Okay. That's amazing. Congratulations. And I want to say that, like, most businesses are never profitable.

Speaker D: I mean, we probably, by choice, won't be next year.

Speaker B: Okay, we'll get into that in a second, because I do want to hear more about that. But, uh, so this actually was something that you turned on pretty quickly. Obviously it helped that the teams were in place, but something that you said that I think is really important to point out, and this is something that I tell people all the time, is to socialize the idea. Like, I always tell people, you need to talk about what you want to do, and you need to tell people, because that's how you're going to get buy in. That's how you're going to get both, uh, buy in from customers and buy in from potential investors and, or executives or even just people spreading the word. And if you keep it here because you're afraid someone's going to steal your idea or you're. You're just afraid of being judged or whatever it might be, nothing's ever going to happen. And I bring that up and I bring. And I want to tie it to the timeline because your timeline was pretty short for turning out a business. And, and it all came down to really you socializing the idea and getting people on board. Yeah.

Speaker D: And. And frankly, this plan, this vision I'd had for years, I'd had while I knew what I. Even when I was a player, I knew the league I wanted to play in even though it didn't exist. I knew the experience I wanted to have. I knew the experience that when I became a coach that the women that I was coaching deserved. So the world that what I was going to go create in the wnfc, I'd already envisioned it, I'd already seen it, I already knew where the gaps were. And so I think the other part about that socializing the plan is I was able to socialize something that was real. I didn't socialize something that no one could imagine. Right. It wasn't, it was like, yeah, well, of course it makes sense to commercialize and market and why aren't we trying to accelerate social. And of course, why aren't we trying to create more faces of the league and build brands out of the player? Like what? Of course, that makes all makes sense. Right. So, yeah, so that kind of was another part of it was just having a really clear vision that didn't really take a lot of selling. It made good sense.

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Speaker B: How was this received when you first went out into the world? You, 10 months in, you have your first game. How did the public receive it? And how did you communicate what you were doing with the public?

Speaker D: Yeah, the existing market hated it, right? The existing women's sports, football traditionalists, they hated it. They thought, you know, another league, this is, this isn't gonna work. You know, you're, you're, you're diluting the talent that was the original and then the rest of the world kind of didn't know it was Just the. It's a very. Sports and entertainment is. There's a new league coming every day and there's a new way to entertain people coming every day. So for the first couple of years, it was all about just being, uh, just having awareness. But when people found out about us, they loved it. So sports fans loved it, brands loved it once they realized what it was. Because the hardest thing for us was. Have you ever seen women play tackle football?

Speaker B: Not tackle, but I'm going to ask you about flag in a minute.

Speaker D: So, uh, that's my point. Most people you talk to in the world have never even conceptualized the. They see football every day. They see tackle football every day. The NFL's one of the biggest brands on the planet. They see men in helmets. It's not rare, but the idea that there could be a woman under that helmet is like, mind boggling. So that's the first thing that we have to do is go, no, no. Huh? I mean, like football. And so I think the reaction initially was shock and awe and a little bit of disbelief and then excitement, excitement for what's to come.

Speaker B: So what is your day to day look like now? I mean, you're seven years in, you have 16 teams, you run this whole league. What is your day to day life?

Speaker D: Um, well, I work with a really smart team. So my day to day is like mostly selling, educating and strategizing on how we're going to bring resources to our league and our players. So I am, uh, we're headed into our next round. We raised a seed in 2024, so we're about to raise capital. So I'm flying all over and socializing, looking for a lead investor. So that's. Most of my time is spent around telling people about the growth of the league and what we plan to do over the next three to five years in this women's sports boom. But my day to day is selling, socializing, marketing, the business itself.

Speaker B: And what does the whole organization look like? What does the company look like? Like, how many people are there? How is it divided? Who are the players? Yep, not the pun intended.

Speaker D: Okay, so at the league level, um, we have a general manager and commissioner that runs day to day with the teams. We have our president and CEO, Elizabeth, who is also my wife, was another one of the founding, uh, members of the leagues. She, she runs operations. Our commissioners and GM also runs day to day and any game day stuff. We have, uh, the, our lead investor and a board member, Don Sherman, who also is the team owner who helps operate the board we have a cfo, Kristen Davis, who manages all of our finances. And then on the football side of things, we have a head of officiating, we have a group that handles marketing and socials. So all of us are about nine people that uh, operate the league, but in terms of full time, there's four of us.

Speaker B: And then each team is owned individually, correct?

Speaker D: Okay. Sixteen team owners, general managers, coaches, staffs of uh, each of the 16 teams.

Speaker B: Okay. And you just talked about, I was going to ask you, but you mentioned it about raising capital because you obviously alluded to the fact that you were like, next year I don't know that we'll be profitable, which means you're growing and which means you're likely going to take on capital. What is your goal with raising that capital?

Speaker D: Yeah, so my goal is to be the first ever legitimate women's tackle football league to compensate players. And doing that, we're going to invest in our teams, our operation, our sales and marketing function, build out the operational league. I mean, uh, it's a great business, but poor people can't scale. So getting that part of it done right, focusing in on some of our production and scale because we've got this great product, um, it needs to be produced better, it needs more awareness. So in order to do that we need more cameras and more scale. And then the third part of that is absolutely focusing on our athletes and helping them continue to accelerate their brands, um, so that we can scale up their revenue generating opportunities.

Speaker B: So right now the athletes do not get paid?

Speaker D: No, no, they, they, we compensate them in, you know, weekly player of the week awards, all pro awards and those kind of things, but we do not pay them.

Speaker B: Do the players have endorsements? Do they get like, do and are they compensated in other ways, like kind of as, as an athlete? Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker D: Yeah. So, uh, through, like obviously through, through our, through our brand partners, we extend discount equipment, cover a lot of their things. We have some great partners in Adidas and Rodell that make sure our athletes are outfitted so our athletes don't have to worry about buying uniforms and that kind of stuff. So our sponsors come through to help alleviate some of that cost. And then for those athletes that end up achieving all, uh, pro status and those kind of things, we do things like provide housing and uh, ensure that they have stipends for end of the year.

Speaker E: Hi, I'm Leah Sullivan. Before TaskRabbit, before Venture Capital, before breaking precedent, I was a person learning how to perform under pressure. I recorded an Episode with Lindsay Pinchuk for Her Dear Found her podcast all about my journey. We talk about the early days, scale, lessons learned and what I think the industry gets wrong. Stay here in the Dear Found her feed to hear my upcoming episode with Lindsay and listen to Breaking precedent.

Speaker B: Wherever you listen to podcasts, where do you find the athletes? I mean like what is this process and is it that the league that finds the athletes or is it the teams that find the athletes? See, I'm really asking basic questions cause I know nothing about this.

Speaker D: Yeah, no, the teams all have recruiting functions and the teams find their athletes. The coolest thing about this league is that so many athletes are finding us. We are a social first business and so people are finding us everywhere. Normally we run a, um, national tryout day where all 16 of our teams, um, in November host a tryout in their local cities where hundreds and hundreds of women come out. We also have a one time combine that we do in Miami. Shout out to Devonte Freeman, former NFL guy, uh, and a great, great friend of the program. He's also on the board of our foundation. We in collaboration with him run a combine that's open to any woman in the world who wants to try out for the WNFC. All 16 teams bring their coaches and GMs to that event and they recruit free agencies at that event. So there's, there's two different ways to get on a roster. One, you can go to the, to the national combine. Or two, you can go to a local team's national trial.

Speaker B: And uh, you're in the league itself is making revenue through sponsorships, through ticket sales. Is the ticket sales a rev share with the team?

Speaker D: Yeah. So the at the league team owns all local revenue so they get their own tickets. But any national events that we do, like our national championships, any live events that we do at the league level, those are all league revenue. We do rev share on apparel with our teams. So we have a giant apparel and merch business and we do rev share with our teams on that. Any of our media. Right, any of our national media deals, we do rev shares with the team on that and then national sponsorships. So that's how.

Speaker B: What is the fan base look like? I mean this is a new, this is new, this is new. So like what does the fan base look like? Are people coming to the games? Are. What does this look like?

Speaker D: Yeah, it's great. So, um, I'm super, super excited. It's one of my, you know, one of the biggest things that we are looking to continue to Invest in is attendance, uh, because it's the thing that we're seeing growing. So we're adding, we want to add some more fuel to the fire with our next round with this because we've seen teams like our team in Oakland. We just have uh, we have an expansion team called the Golden State Storm who had their first season and they're getting anywhere from 22 to 2500 people out to their games. They're selling out their small stadiums. We're seeing teams with anywhere from 1500 to 2500, which is, which is massive for women's football. Like it's, it's budgeting and then we're about 45% increase on our streaming. So year over year we have a streaming deal with Victory plus, um, which is a streaming partner. We can go and watch the games for free. You download the app. They have everyone, they have the nwsl, they just signed some NBA, WNBA teams, they have the NHL, mlb and um, they have all of our games and we stream all of our games live on Saturday nights on Victory Plus. And that viewership is up 45%. Uh, had our first national linear TV game on ESPN2 last year and 125,000 people tuned in. So in terms of viewership, our viewership is massive and growing, which is nice up into the Right. And then where we see the most engagement is through socials. Our social media channels has grown by 300%. Uh, I think we're going to engage as a league and our athletes and our teams. About a half a billion people this year, which.

Speaker B: That's amazing.

Speaker A: We know.

Speaker B: So this is like kind of not an odd question, I guess, but it's obviously. I know that flag football is different than tackle football. I know this. Okay, but I. Not but, but. And black football is having a very big moment. And I mean it really is. And I mean um, it's now a varsity sport. At my kids high school. It's. I have friends whose kids are like going to like national championships for flag football. This was not a thing when we were growing up. This was just not. How is this impacting you guys in your league? Because I would venture to say that as this continues to grow, this is only going to have a positive effect halo effect on your league.

Speaker D: Yeah, it already has. And Flag is actually a part of us. I wouldn't even say it impacts us. Uh, Flag is a part of the football ecosystem and a part of the WNFC business. For the last four years we've been running flag in tandem with the Tackle because You know, when we say the WNFC is the top place in the world to play football for women, we don't just mean tackle. We run one of the top flag adult tournaments in the world. We're going to do it again at our championship weekend. But we also are very serious about the elite athlete pipeline, and we run a tournament in combination with Adidas every year where the top 100 varsity girls come and play flag football on our championship weekend. What's interesting, to your point, that group of girls want to play tackle too, and a lot of them have transitioned to now playing for some of our teams. Some of the, some of our top rookies of the year this year are former flag college players who are now playing tackle football. Um, I, I say this, and I've said it before, and I'm just going to keep saying it, but we've been doing like running numbers, doing data, and because of flag football, by 2030, there'll be more girls and women playing football than there are men and boys. And so you'd be, you'd be nuts to not think that this is going to grow. Every, every level of football is. Grow more girls and women get in.

Speaker B: Well, and I think, I mean, not. I think, I mean, I know also this is girl. Girls sports in general are having not just a moment. It's not like it's not. This isn't a moment. It's not a flash in the pan. It is been a revolution really, with the change of girls in sports and not just them playing, because I think girls have always played sports. Like I grew up playing sports, but I didn't become an athlete. But like, we all grew up playing sports, but now it is definitely more a part of socialization. It's kind of expected. I mean, I think girls are expected to kind of play a sport at some point and do so in high school and just, even just to be a part of a team. And there are so many benefits to our, uh, young girls playing and then continuing to play as women. I actually still play softball. I'm not very good anymore, but I do still play on a league. It's not fast pitch or anything like that. We are all 40, in our mid-40s or older, and there have been injuries. We are. It's like the mob league. But we do play. And you know, a big piece of this has been. I have played with the same team for 10 years and we're really good friends and we look forward to it every summer and we support each other on and off the field and Those benefits really translate to all aspects of life. And so, you know, my question really is, how do you feel that this moment in time has really lent itself to your business? Because, you know, this probably wouldn't have happened the way it's happening now 20 years ago.

Speaker D: I, um, 100% agree. I think the timing of, of what we're doing in the WNFC is absolutely right. And it's right because of what's happening in the world of women, women's sports in general. But how do I feel about it? I feel excited. I feel excited and angry, anxious and impatient. Because I think when, when the market starts to realize value, that's what this is. Like you talked about it normalizing. It's. It's about value. It's now valuable for a girl to be. Be an athlete. Like, it's a valuable thing. And when the family thinks it's valuable, then the rest of the world sees the value in it. And that's what's happening. That's the revolution that I think is happening right now for girls and women. You know, a lot of people have a hard time with the physicality and the violence and the contact of football. But there is a reason. There is a reason why contact sports and team sports result in more leaders in corporate America than any other aspect of organized connectedness. And I think the reason because for that is there's something special that happens with a group of people in a locker room, in a huddle, when the stakes are always high. And we absolutely should be putting our girls in those situations because we are, uh, we need our girls to lead. We need our women to lead. Uh, and I think the world has, has figured out that value in that. There's also this thing about, like, I think there's a revolution happening that has nothing to do with anybody except for women. Like, more women are telling more girls, you know, what you be what you want to be. Like, who am I to stop you? And I think when that happens, you see, you see some amazing things happen.

Speaker B: You know, it's interesting that you just brought up the physicality because, yes, it's. Football is obvious. Tackle football is obviously physical, but so too is hockey. And there are many girls hockey leagues. There are many women playing hockey.

Speaker D: Hockey, rugby, soccer, lacrosse.

Speaker B: Lacrosse is the most violent thing I've ever seen. And, and it is also having a moment.

Speaker D: Like, listen, you talk about sports. I got kicked in the face one time at flag football. Like, don't sleep on the, on, um, on the physicality of flag football.

Speaker B: Like, it is Legit, I mean, but I. But the girls are embracing these sports more than ever before. And I would say, you know, when I was growing up, it was more of a thing to, you know, be a cheerleader or be like, on the pom pom squad. And like, yes, I think those are still things. But like, I have a freshman in high school. My daughter is a freshman in high school, and none of her, uh, one of her friends is on the dance team. And that's still a sport, that's still physical. But all of her friends are on team sports. Many of them are on two and three seasons of team sports. And again, it's a thing. It is like girls, it's not just the expectation. They want to do it. And I think it's so cool that you are giving women the opportunity to do it in a professional way and that your goal is to make sure that they get paid.

Speaker D: Girls have always wanted to play football. Girls have always wanted to play tackle football. The want has always been there.

Speaker B: Girls want what they can't have.

Speaker D: It's the access right now. If you give them access, then you'll see what happens.

Speaker A: It's amazing.

Speaker B: I want you to tell us about the big championship weekend event, because I know it's coming up and we're going to make sure to air this before then, but it seems like a huge event.

Speaker D: Yes, yes, yes. Several thousand people. We're trying to pack the house at Ford center at the Star and Friscos Dallas Cowboys headquarters. It's an amazing location. June 20th and the 21st, we're going to have a flag football championship day where we do in our adult women, all 20. Our 16 of our teams are coming together, having their flag teams have a national tournament on Saturday. And then we're going to watch the varsity girls, the top 100 varsity girls in the world have their tournament on Saturday as well. And then on Sunday live on ESPN2 and at Ford center, our tackle championships are going to happen. We have something for everybody that weekend. Fan fest. There's championship breakfast and award shows. We got parties and, uh, we have our All Pro game. It's going to be really the biggest weekend in the history of women's tackle football. And I'm super excited.

Speaker B: You can feel your excitement. I just want you to know, like. And I. I want to say, like, something that I think is so admirable about what you do is you love this. Clearly, you clearly have always loved this. And you found a way to take what you love and turn it into a business and. And that is something very unique and it is something very special and it is something that most people don't ever have that opportunity to do.

Speaker D: Yeah. Thank you. And I think that it wasn't easy. Right. I had to work a full time job and sell this league. I think a lot of people think you have to do either or, or, uh, that you have to sacrifice your whole life to be able to go work your passion. And I just think it's more about having a plan and having some guts and being able to realize to get what you want, you have to do what you. And for me and my family, once, you know, once my wife was on board and said, okay, we're going to go build a business together, then it was about doing whatever it took to get to that point and however long it took and whatever it took, then we were willing to go do it as a family. And I think if a lot more people knew that they had the power to do that, then they would.

Speaker A: Hi guys, it's Lindsay Pinchuk, uh, host of Dear Found Her. As entrepreneurs, you wear so many hats, don't you? Sometimes it's hard to know how and when and who to hire for help. But I want to say finding Hivecast to produce my podcast has been a godsend. They've been producing Dear Found her since season one, and honestly, I'm not sure what I'd do without them. Each week I give them everything that they need to create the episodes that you hear. And not only do they produce and put out the episode, but they create all the awesome marketing materials that you see to promote it. They save me so much time and honestly, their rates don't break the bank. What I love about them is that they make podcasting accessible to any small business owner who wants to create a podcast. I know that many of you have reached out to them already, but I just want to say, if you're thinking about a podcast of your own, reach out to the hivecast team. I promise they will make it seamless from the start. You can find them through the link in the show notes. And now back to the episode.

Speaker B: So tell me, O.J. before I let you go, what are three actionable things that you would tell a woman who's just getting started in business?

Speaker D: 1. Remember who you are and actively Never lose sight of yourself. Actively work to build confidence daily. You're going to need it. Step one, two. Don't wait to do it when you're ready, do it now. And, uh, because ready isn't a real thing in the life of Entrepreneurship. And three, don't think that you have to do it without resources and that it always has to be hard. Women are willing all the time to do things the hardest ways. Go find a way to make it easy for yourself. Get some capital. Ask the question. Get what you need first. Because I think people, us, uh, as women in a lot of ways, are willing to just sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. And it doesn't always have to be that hard if you're willing to open your mouth and ask for what you want.

Speaker B: I couldn't agree more with all of that. Thank you for saying it. Odessa Jenkins, founder and CEO of the Women's National Football Conference. Thank you so much for being here,

Speaker A: for sharing your story.

Speaker B: I'm so excited to share your story with our community. I can't wait for everyone to hear it. And I can't wait to see where this goes.

Speaker D: Let's do it. Let's go and go to the moon.

Speaker A: O.J. what a conversation. I want you to take three things from this episode this week. Number one, the line I keep coming back to. I knew the league I wanted to play in even though it didn't exist. If you're building something new right now, your job is not to wait for permission. Your job is to describe it so clearly that the right people can see it before it's built. That is what OJ did with Adidas and Riddell. That is what story is for. Number two, Ready isn't a real thing in the life of entrepreneurship. Write that down. Take it to your monitor. Stop waiting for the vision of yourself. Who feels ready? She is not coming. Number three. OJ Said something near the end. I want every woman listening to this show to hear we are willing to do things the hardest possible way. Go find a way to make it easier. Ask. Open your mouth. Get the capital, get the help, get the resources. The hardness isn't the qualification. Now, a few things I need you to know about this week. The championship weekend again Odessa just told you about is this Saturday and Sunday, June 20th and 21st, at Ford center at the Star in Frisco, Texas. The Tackle championships are live on ESPN2 on Sunday. If you have a daughter, a sister, a niece, a friend who plays sports, turn it on, Share it, watch it. Visibility is how the next league gets built. And the most important thing for you right here, right now is this Thursday's edition of the Found Her Files. On subsequent deck is a Q and A just for our premium subscribers. You bring me your questions about telling your story, building a paid audience. Any of the things that are keeping you stuck right now, and I will answer them in our edition on Thursday. You can click the link in the in the Show Notes to submit your question and make sure you subscribe to our Premium edition to get your answers. The link is in the Show Notes next Thursday. Sadie Lincoln, founder of Bar3 this is the conversation I've been waiting all year to share with you and you are not going to want to miss it. Make sure you subscribe to Dear Founder wherever you podcast and tune in for this incredible episode. Have a great week.