015: Chic-CEO.com Founder Stephanie Burns Shares Her Insights On Empowering Women in Business

Summary: Chic CEO founder Stephanie Burns gives us an insightful interview pertaining to business, entrepreneurship, and male and female dynamics. Introductions and Updates In-Person Interview – Stephanie Burns from Chic-CEO.com Outro Song – "Too Darn Hot" - Mel Tourme (1948) Send questions, comments, suggestions or love to podcast@owningyourown.com Episode 015 Nugs of Knowledge First wine episode in the studio (wine is chic)! (4:20) Stephanie is from Nebraska, went to college in South Dakota because she was awarded a music scholarship...she wanted to be an opera singer. (5:40) Obtained 2 bachelor's degrees (7:40) Randomly, a friend went with her to Chicago but took spring break in San Diego.  Been there ever since. (7:45) Worked with Valley View Casino (7:55) Realized a lot of her friends were asking similar questions so she put 15 of her friends in a room together and asked their needs and the "why" and discovered there was a necessity for a market that was not being served. (8:20) Chic-CEO was a grad school project and the only project that the dean said they would invest in. (10:50) Stephanie is a regular contributor to Forbes.  (12:00) Business women are stereo-typed; being risk adverse, emulating qualities of men or being more fashion or craft oriented (14:40) All questions are answered by Chic-CEO to lower the risk when starting a business. (15:00) 4 Ways of staring a business are on her website.  Some were a SEO decision. (16:20) Although female focused, the site can be used by men. (18:40) There is a tone of the website that makes one feel like they are talking to their best girlfriend. (22:ish) Woman called from Dubai and stated she found in 20 minutes what took 8 months. (25:30) Women can be multi-national corporate CEO's but still be feminine.(26:00) Target demographic is 30-35 yrs female. (26:30) 50,000 in chic-ceo's network!  (27:30) One stop free resource and in layman's terms.  (27:40) Cheryl Edison and chic-ceo (Stephanie) will be launching online courses on the site. (28:10) Chic-CEO will be going through a re-design in tandem with the online courses. Also took about a year to conceptualize and place the website.  (30:00) Attention span is hard after 3 minutes. (32:00) Things essential before going "live" - follow your passion isn't the main focus.  SOLVE A PROBLEM is the first and foremost when starting a business. (35:00) Understand what you are really good at.  (35:56) How Stephanie met Cheryl. (37:00) Not opposed to men, work with men to forward the women. (39:00) All men military - needed women to change the energy (42:30) Approximately 5% of all VC companies are male dominated. (44:00) Bootscrapping (45:00) It's possible to guest write for large scale websites if you just ask and provide great content. (50:00) Last year's South by Southwest Stephanie had a fan that recognized her. (51:00) Life Automation by Entrepreneurs Stephanie is moderating the panel. (51:30) Automate - do not waste decision making capabilities on small things. (52:00) Dave Asprey - Butter Coffee! (52:30) Manesh Sethi - Hack The System (53:00) Event created XX for the women of South By Southwest (54:ish) 3 Day Start - Right place to get started (55:00) Andrew likes entrepreneurial women (especially on Tinder) (57:ish) The official woman of OYO is Sacagawea! (1:00:00)