“Embrace the failures and the moments that you didn’t do so well and leverage that as a pivoting point to be better and grow bigger.
Every time I made a mistake or failed, I realized that the failures serve as a platform for a greater achievement in alignment to my business goals.”
by Chaya Weiner
As part of my series about “companies and organizations making an important social impact, I had the pleasure of interviewing Violette de Ayala, a Cuban-American serial and social Entrepreneur, Founder of FemCity®, and virtual mentor to over 20,000 women. Violette has been quoted in Success, Entrepreneur,CNBC, Yahoo Small Business, Business Insider News as a small business expert. Violette has also been seen in featured campaigns in People, InStyle, Real Simple magazines. She served as part of The White House: Women Environmental Leaders Program and was a commissioned Keynote speaker for Accenture’s International Women’s Month Event, the SBA Regional Women’s Conference, and Luxury Brand Partners. FemCity has been seen in Gilt, Vogue, AP, Mashable and Fast Company and has over 100 locations in the US, Canada and the Islands. Violette and Stephen and have three kids that span mid 20’s to tween age. Their gracefully aging rescue dog, Cosmo is a frequent pseudo star on her Instagram. We discussed everything from successes to failures.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to start on your career path?
I started FemCity in 2009 with the intention of just meeting other small business owners that were women in my community. My intention at the time was to meet with 15 friends a month to exchange ideas, business thoughts and roundtable tips to help one another. The monthly gathering captured the attention of more women in the community and then started to grow to other surrounding areas. Later that year, a few women requested a FemCity chapter in their backyard after seeing photos of our gatherings on our Facebook page. That led to our movement into other communities.
Did you set out to start a movement? If so, what was your vision? If not, what did you imagine would be the impact of your work?
I initially only intended the impact to serve a dozen women in Miami. I never envisioned FemCity chapters around the world. I recognized that we were doing good work with creating community that was connected to gratitude and positivity. But I did not envision it becoming a full time gig for me nor having thousands in our communities with requests from women to launch a chapter in their backyard.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The first time a woman requested a FemCity chapter in her neighborhood, my response was “Why?”. I honestly had no idea why she was requesting a chapter. At the time we were gathering for lunches and clearly anyone could do that coordination. I had no understanding of what the perceived value was at the time of a FemCity chapter.I found myself asking questions on how she saw my gathering to be revolutionary. It took someone else to share the value before I could see how it could serve others in a larger way.
…..Embrace the failures and the moments that you didn’t do so well and leverage that as a pivoting point to be better and grow bigger.
