r/Femalefounders

***I want to HELP founders understand why their growth stalled.

Hello Friends,

I run a non-tradition diagnostic consultancy that help founders and business leaders understand why their growth isn't working.

So for example let's say you have built a tool, a product or a service that you have been actively marketing for a while.
Maybe you are noticing any of the following:

a. You know the work is good but there is no traction.
b. People are paying attention but no one is converting.
c. You feel like you've been riding gears and things aren't looking the way you planned.

I want to talk to you and hear your problems. What are your current pain points? I want to hear about your story and what you've been building.

I'll be here for the next few hours if you want to shoot DMs or talk in the comments.

Transparently, I am collecting information on how to make my services better but I figured I'd come hang out with the folks getting the real work done rather than LinkedIn.

So 10 days ago I posted here complaining about having to put myself out there, on social media, do promotion and so on and how I was a digital hermit with 2,5 photos online.

That thread accidentally led to a creation of a WhatsApp (support) group for female founders who need to start promoting their business. There's currently over a dozen of us, and I'm still getting DMs from women asking to join. So, I figured I'd post about this again.

If joining something like this interests you, send me a DM (and tell me a bit about yourself, I need to figure out if you're real and not 3 scammers in a trench coat 😂 )

If this post is not allowed I'll take it down, but I'm not really selling or promoting anything and honestly I never had any intention of creating a group, but here I am, and we're having our first Zoom meetup on Friday.

Maybe I should be building a community app, instead of a SaaS. 😂

Hi all!

I recently committed to taking all of my side hustles, projects, and brands more seriously to begin the transition into entrepreneurial life. I currently have a full-time job, recently got promoted, and have a couple of shekels to rub together to delegate to folks who may be able to help me in that vision!

I'm the type of person who can do everything herself, and often times that's where I get into trouble because there just aren't enough hours in the day. I have brought on a friend of mine as an assistant for a few hours a week, and it's been so amazing to have help that I'm wondering what else I could invest into!

What services were the most critical to you that opened you up to focus on building your business? Was it a virtual assistant? A marketing or social media manager? A person to clean your house?

I want to hear your stories!

Me and my boyfriend have been together for almost 5 years and I ended up going to my hometown for 2 weeks just to give myself space and my boyfriend stayed where he’s working at. When I came back to him I found out he texted a prostitutes she was charging 300 and I confronted him and he started crying to me and told me that he regrets it so much and he doesn’t have an excuse he was just horny but when the female texted him where he wanted to meet. he left her on open bc he couldn’t do it.He doesn’t want to lose me because he loves me that he was just horny. Some prostitutes FaceTime him igs she got his number because he has told off the one that had texted him and he answered only for 50 seconds bc he didn’t know who it was and he said I was on mute and wasn’t showing my face and the female kept saying hello(no one was showing there face or nothing that’s why he stayed in the call until she popped up saying hello and he just hangs up bc he said wtf who is this and how did this person get my number! (He only answered bc sometimes his coworkers will FaceTime him with different numbers) TL;DR;** : Is this going the right way?
I didn’t give him sex for 1-2 weeks before I had left to my hometown then 2 weeks over there & no sex as well Ik it’s still not an excuse for him to do that but I don’t know what to think..

If anyone has been thru this if you don’t mind sharing your experience and how you dealt with it !

Any advice!!

Hey everyone — things have been rough for me lately, but I’m working through it. I nanny to help pay for school and cover things like a car I needed for in-person clinical training, but between bills and other costs, it’s never quite enough. I’m also coming from some debt I took out along the way, so I’m trying to find a real way forward, not just get by month to month.

I have multiple years of experience in childcare, and I’m finishing a degree in the medical field, so I know I’ll be okay long-term. But right now I’m trying to build something on the side too ideally something that could eventually grow into more passive income, not just trading hours for money forever.

I’m really into health topics and have been thinking about starting a Substack around it. I’m also open to any other business ideas — I’m not afraid to hustle, I just want to be smart about where I put my time and energy.

A few things I’d genuinely love input on:

** **If you’ve built a Substack (health-related or otherwise), how long before it actually grew or made money?
• Free content first to build an audience, or paid from day one?
• Given my childcare background, is there a business idea you’d want to see someone actually build?
• Any business idea or gap in general that you wish someone would fill?

To be clear — I’m not asking anyone for money, just genuinely looking for outside perspective and honest advice, good or bad. Hopefully this reaches people with real experience and not the wrong side of the internet. Thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to respond.

Hey all — doing some early-stage research and would love this community's honest take. I have a 16 month old and went back after mat leave and then decided I needed more time. Took 6 months off then going back part time. I feel like Ive learned so much and hoping to pass along some of my lessons learned.

I've noticed a lot of support exists for new moms broadly (postpartum groups, general "mom life" communities), and separately, support for women leaving corporate to stay home. But I haven't found much specifically for the other side: moms who are 1+ years in and are now navigating going back to work, downshifting, or building something of their own, and are looking for peer support from other moms who've actually walked that specific path, not just a general "mom friend."

A few questions if you have 2 minutes:

• Have you ever looked for this kind of support and come up empty?
• If something like this existed, would peer mentorship (paired with someone a bit further along) feel more valuable to you than a general group chat or forum?
• What would actually make you trust and want to join something like this?

TIA

Female founders are constantly told to network more. Join another community. Attend another event. Find a warm intro.

All of those things can help. But they still put most of the burden on the founder to somehow get in front of the right investor at exactly the right moment.

I’d love to hear from other founders: How much of fundraising feels like proving you’re investable — and how much feels like simply trying to get found in the first place?

The amount of male posters looking female cofounders is off the charts here.

People on X and on reddit often post saying they are looking to connect and network but it’s never really about that. I found its really a ploy for engagement for their influencer like business.

I respect the hustle but these kinds of things leave me with a sour taste in my mouth since i’m trying to build something on my own. I do not need other founders as my customers, I just want to build relationships for recommendations and feedback, FOR FREE. Why is that so hard to find? Why is my only choice YC? or something adjacent.

Idk if anyone else has felt this or experienced this, I see it as a huge problem that I’m about to build a solution for.

Hey Ladies!

I'm Victoria, the founder of Atunelle, a mobile app for women.

**The reason behind it...**

With all the crazy trends around us, the unrealistic body images, the stupid diets—and on the other hand, the urge and need to make better choices for our health and build a better lifestyle. But we have careers, families, kids.

Basically, with all that and all the options we have, commercial applications that we have to pay the pink tax for, or applications that treat us like small men. And don't let me start with the big gap in science—there are still things not studied well, but they don't care. We need to deal with ourselves, so we deal all our lives with whatever happens and the changes, and sometimes we don't know if this is normal or if we need to see a doctor.

And then there's this: Just when we think we finally understand our bodies, we enter a new phase. Pregnancy. Postpartum. Premenopause. Menopause. And with each one, everything changes. Your body reacts differently. What worked last year doesn't work now. And it's different from woman to woman. So how do we expect generic advice to work for us?

Did I implement all that? Fixed all the problems? No.

I'm a data scientist. I'm not specialized in fitness, but I believe in data. I believe in patterns. And seeing the patterns sometimes is part of the solution.

I don't think with all we do, we have time to collect information from multiple apps and work on it all. So I'm working on a way to make it easier for women to find their patterns and understand their bodies with love and appreciation for our miracles makers.

Until now I wasn't able to implement all of this because I'm working on this project solo beside my full-time job—it's all in my head.

This is why I want to connect with female founder friends to talk about and discuss what we're working on, get support, and give that support.

**Would you be interested in a WhatsApp group or Discord?**

I'm looking for someone starting a new business or project who wants to be WhatsApp (or something) accountability buddies.

We'd send each other little voice notes or messages, sharing what we're up to and keeping each other motivated and encouraged.

Encouragement, momentum, occasional sounding-board stuff.

Our own little cheer squad.

We don’t need to be in the same industry.

You do need roughly the same level of commitment and to be someone who actually follows through and really wants what they're working towards.

Hmu via DM if that's you! ✨️

*** Just to clarify: the group mentioned in the comments isn’t mine, so please message that person directly if you’re interested. 🙂

I'm looking for 1:1 accountability, or at most a tiny group of 2–3 people, with check-ins throughout the day and a real focus on keeping each other moving and celebrating progress.

Don’t get me wrong I truly believe in my product and I am grinding on GTM !

But what I want to unfold is the moment of truth , partly market fit but mostly unfold of humanity from my family and friends.

My anxiety came from fear of their judgements ! And their non supportive gestures, some of them won’t even bother to return a congratulations text. You throw a party but ur closest relatives never showed up, you probably find more joy from another person on Reddit.

I guess as a female founder i want to remind them I built most of my product on top of taking care of everyone else !!!! And nice Sunday roasts !

I’m sorry I m so salty atm , hooray ! 🥳 still celebrating internally about the launch. I guess I ll just have to keep grinding and prove them wrong once again 🤣

How do u guys get support besides therapy? I find entrepreneurship is very lonely what about u ?

I’m open to joining an early-stage startup as a co-founder/founding team member if the idea, people, and problem are a strong fit.

If you’re building something ambitious, DM me. Would love to hear what you’re working on.

Hello!

As a woman who runs a business, what kind of life do you really want to live?

I’ve been thinking about this question lately.

As founders, we spend so much time thinking about our businesses: revenue, growth, goals, clients, and what to build next.

But if we step outside of the business for a moment...

As a woman who also happens to run a business,
what kind of life do you really want to live?

Not just what you want to achieve professionally.

What do you want to experience?
What do you want more time for?
Who do you want to spend your life with?
Where do you want to be?
What would make you think, “This is a life I’m really glad I lived”?

I’m genuinely curious about how other women founders think about their lives beyond their businesses.

I've had plenty of ideas that sounded great in my head. The difficult part starts after that. You have to figure out whether anyone actually wants it.

Then you have to build something.

Then someone uses it and tells you what's wrong with it.

Then you fix it.

Then something else breaks.

Then you do it again.

That's probably my favorite part of building companies now. The idea gets you excited. The process forces you to become better.

I've learned more from shipping imperfect products and listening to people than I ever could from keeping an idea inside my head.

For the founders here, what part of building has taught you the most?

Hi Community!

We have created web app - A Financial tool, that helps women plan, invest and grow their money. It has a dashboard that connects all your accounts, gives you insights on your spending, investments, & debt. Then gives you life stage aware guidance on what comes next, as well as education on what to do based on your own profile. Bc someone coming out of grad school with a student loan needs very different advice to a midlife women wanting to get serious about saving for retirement.

We have a live beta waitlist, however this is world wide, and currently our app only works in the USA (we are German & South African founders). We don't have many USA people signed up.

So now we are trying to:

- Access communities that fit our user profile - Women that want to use their money better & put their money to work. Ideally having been through or planning a career break for maternity, further studies etc.

- Cohort them into 5 x 20 user beta cohorts, to use our app for 4 weeks & give us genuine feedback.

We have been offered to be a part of two newsletters going out in the US to women founder communities. And I need to make sure that the copy converts well, so that people actually sign up.

We are thinking they get: 5$/testing-month, the 10$ for the rest of the year (usually $20) as founding members.

This will give us both feedback, but also traction, showing willingness to pay. Which will get us investor ready to raise our round.

Has anyone ever gone through something like this and have tips on copy that converts? Also anyone with knowledge on how best to structure the beta so we get the most feedback and engagement?

Hi everyone,

I've a unified productivity solution that is built for overwhelmed, busy minds (think: too many tabs open in your head, not just your browser).

I lost my job two years ago, and instead of going back to a 9-to-5, I decided to build something of my own. It's been every single day - mornings starting with motivation, nights ending with a lot of self-doubt about how to actually grow this thing.

My app started for free, and I've grown to over 5,000 users organically, which still amazes me. I recently launched a Pro plan, but conversions have been slow, and honestly, I've hit a point where I need to step back and ask for help instead of guessing alone. I have tried everything to improve or optimize the experience and did it too but reaching to users and that too ICP is hard.

I know this space is crowded — there are a hundred productivity apps out there, and I'm not naive about that. But I'd genuinely love your support in any way you're able to give it:

• Try the app and tell me honestly what's working or not working — even harsh feedback is welcome
• If you know someone drowning in tasks and mental clutter, a share or recommendation would mean the world.

I'm not here to hard-sell anyone. I just needed to be honest somewhere, and this community felt like the right place to say it out loud.

Thank you for reading this far. Genuinely.

My app name is GoMindAI. It's available on app/play stores.