Former Georgetown soccer player turned founder, Marina Paul, is rewriting the playbook for entrepreneurship in athletic apparel. Through her company Superhera, Marina is tackling one of the overlooked business challenges in women in sports, ill-fitting uniforms that undermine confidence and performance. Her startup journey is as much about innovation as it is about personal growth, feedback, and self-trust. Marina shares how she evolved from scrappy prototypes to a tech platform empowering female athletes, why female founders need to embrace both grit and fun, and how building with users at the center creates lasting impact.
Key Takeaways:
1️⃣ Build with users in the room
Entrepreneurship is about solving real problems, not assumed ones. Marina Paul’s startup journey shows how involving athletes directly in the design process changed the game in athletic apparel. For female founders, this is a reminder that empowerment and growth come from listening closely and co-creating with your end users.
2️⃣ Feedback is fuel, not failure
Every business challenge brings insight. Harsh criticism of Superhera’s products became the spark that transformed the company into a tech-driven empowerment brand for women in sports. Entrepreneurs who reframe feedback as data accelerate their personal growth and build stronger businesses rooted in self-trust.
3️⃣ Seasons and systems beat grind
The startup journey doesn’t have to be endless grind. Marina shares how energy-blocking, automation, and intentional rest allow female founders to protect their creativity while tackling business challenges. It’s a model of entrepreneurship that balances resilience with personal growth and empowers founders to stay in the game long term.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Hello Chaos
02:46 The Journey of SuperHero
07:53 Building a Brand: From Idea to Execution
10:41 Navigating Challenges in Entrepreneurship
16:09 Transforming the Apparel Industry for Women
22:37 Identifying Market Gaps for Women
23:01 The Importance of Curiosity and Validation
24:13 Navigating Personal and Professional Identity
32:03 The Power of Authenticity in Branding
34:15 Overcoming Fear of Public Exposure
41:04 Customer-Centric Business Strategies
44:08 Embracing Authenticity in Leadership
45:15 Debunking Myths of Entrepreneurship
48:33Designing a Productive Work Week
51:22 Lessons Learned from the Journey
52:35 Trusting Yourself as an Entrepreneur
54:19 Defining Grit and Fun in Business
56:10 The Mission Behind SuperHera Apparel
🔗 Learn more about Superhera and connect with Marina
Website: https://superhera.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superhera___/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marina-paul/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marinapaul/
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:01.676)
Well, welcome to Hello Chaos, the show where founders, innovators, and chaotic minds get real and unfiltered about the mess, the magic, and the mayhem of entrepreneurship. I'm Jennifer, or JJ, your host and fellow work in progress. And today we have Marina Paul. She is founder of Superhera, and that's a female athletic apparel company, and author of Becoming a Superhero. Been looking forward to this all week.
to talk to you, Marina. Welcome to the show. Welcome to our little chaos, as we call it.
Marina Paul (00:35.79)
Same, thank you so much for having me. It's nice to be in an environment that a lot of people understand what goes on in your day-to-day life, where in the outside world, not a lot of people understand what a founder's life is like.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:41.002)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (00:47.714)
That's That's right. It is chaos. But it's welcomed chaos. We said it's welcomed chaos. You know, I said this to another founder. They were like, I love the name. And I was like, but our team hesitated. When we brainstormed for the podcast and other things, chaos, when we polled founders, the word chaos kept coming up. But a lot of our team,
Marina Paul (00:55.532)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (01:09.646)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:17.354)
who, you know, they've been in corporate, you know, environment for years. were like, chaos feels, that's anxiety to me. That like gives me, and I said, but the difference is it's the mindset of the entrepreneur of we welcome it. Sometimes we thrive in it. We want to structure it and eventually, you know, organize it to get to be able to scale and accelerate. it is that, the world of chaos.
Marina Paul (01:33.902)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:46.306)
for us for the most part. And I'm so glad that you are now a fellow South Carolinian. Welcome to Charleston.
Marina Paul (01:46.432)
It is.
Marina Paul (01:53.058)
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. I know it's such an amazing town. The people here are amazing. I'm from the West Coast, lived in the Northeast, now live in the South. And I'm loving learning from like a cultural perspective, how things are different, how the pace is. And it is very different. It's nice though. A lot of Northeasterners are moving down South and the chiller lifestyle is...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:11.338)
Yeah, it is very different. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:21.378)
is calling them. Yeah, people are a little bit kinder here. But yeah, I came from the Midwest and the pace was something you had to really get used to. was, especially, and I came from big agency and corporate, it was hard. Because I was flying and people were like, you got done with everything in like a day. And I was like, bring it on, let's go.
Marina Paul (02:22.423)
It's nice. Yes.
Marina Paul (02:34.732)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (02:44.12)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (02:50.4)
I know. I know there's like an, there's an inner and outer conflict. You're like, I'm supposed to move so fast, but everything else is slower around me. But it's...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:51.586)
Let's move.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (02:56.65)
I'm I need to like pace myself, get used to it.
Marina Paul (03:01.356)
I know, just think that building a company in a little bit of a slower pace is actually kind of nice because you have to move so quickly as you know with a startup.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:10.154)
Yeah, yeah, startup, almost don't get a reprieve really, no matter where culturally.
Marina Paul (03:14.966)
You don't. You don't. But then you can step outside, go to the beach, and relax.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:22.793)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. And how long, when did you move to South Carolina? April. Also like a month. so you.
Marina Paul (03:28.46)
In April, April 2025. I've, yeah, I've been here, physically here for like three weeks, because I travel a lot for work. So yeah, and every moment, free moment I've spent at the beach, I'm like, I'm a mermaid. So, meaning I just love the water and the ocean. So.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:44.193)
Wow.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (03:49.826)
Well, welcome. I'm glad you're here. Well, to start us out, you know, how did Superhera come about? Why athletic apparel? I'm always fascinated. I love talking to founders and startups in the apparel and or CPG kind of packaging gear because it is so challenging with manufacturing, finding right partners, know, retailers. Do you go?
Marina Paul (04:01.634)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (04:08.622)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:19.66)
direct to consumer, know, how do you, know, it's packaging and the, you e-commerce side. It's so much more complex than I don't think a lot of people recognize. And being a female founder, we've heard, you know, it's, you guys are, it's a small audience, or not an audience, it's a small community of females in this space and trying to find footing.
Marina Paul (04:30.69)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (04:43.982)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (04:49.302)
So I love talking to you guys. just, you why? Why superhero?
Marina Paul (04:53.324)
Yeah, yeah. So I was a college soccer player at Georgetown University. Grew up in Southern California. Georgetown was my dream school. They also happen to be very good at soccer. So it was kind of a perfect situation for me. I went there. And it wasn't, I didn't experience uniforms not fitting there for the first time. Uniforms never fit me when I was a kid, whether I was the right size and then I
grew a ton in high school and all of a sudden everything was just like tremendously ill fitting on me. And psychologically it was weird because you you're you're getting stronger, faster, bigger, you are getting better at your sport because of all those things but yet the gear didn't fit me and then it started to fit me even worse. Whether I was volleyball, soccer,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:40.278)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (05:49.184)
Right. And then you can't feel comfortable. Like you can't, yeah.
Marina Paul (05:52.556)
Yeah, you're not comfortable. And I think that, you know, there's a huge athleisure market. When you actually look at the sports performance market, there's a few very big players and there hasn't been a ton of innovation in the space, particularly for women. So when I got to Georgetown, it was a phenomenal experience. I definitely struggled with
body dysmorphia, eating disorders and things like that. Sportswear didn't cause necessarily that thought. I had already had this perfectionist mindset of, know, we want to be the best soccer team in the country. I want to excel at a very challenging school where you're constantly competing with all your classmates to make a grade curve.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (06:36.236)
Right.
Marina Paul (06:46.25)
And the sports are reinforced and my body didn't, wasn't fit for the sport. And so the culmination of all of that led to me just really hating my body. And the one thing I could control was not eating or, reducing food intake. And it wasn't just me who was doing it. noticed it across a lot of my teammates. noted it, noticed it across a lot of other women's sports. You would just, you know, see women.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:01.847)
Rawr.
Marina Paul (07:15.252)
really struggle with it and more often than not a huge driver of that was the athletic apparel that just reinforced you didn't fit. And I think a lot of female athletes have this perception of like, if I describe my friend who's an athlete or if I describe another female athlete, I will describe her as strong and confident. But we recently conducted a survey with Notre Dame that really took a look at how female athletes
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (07:26.08)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (07:44.566)
actually describe themselves. And it wasn't those things. It was, I should look like this, but I restrict food intake because I want to, the perception of how a woman should be, female athlete should be, is very slim, is very feminine, is very beautiful, not super athletic, a national championship winner, and all of those things. And I just saw this like cultural clash of being in the locker room with all these
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:05.953)
Right.
Marina Paul (08:13.782)
very powerful, amazing women, women who were first team All-Americans in soccer, also studying organic chemistry to become doctors. Yet we were all struggling with this outside appearance. And it was, again, reinforced by our sports were not fitting. So I decided to start Superhera because I wanted to create better fitting uniforms for female athletes, whether that's...
the middle school athlete who starts sports for the first time, because we've noticed that uniforms are one of the biggest barriers to girls entering and playing sports, especially in marginalized communities where they don't have access to sports bra and things like that. But having to wear a guy's uniform when you first start sports, that doesn't feel good. And if you're not good and you don't have the sports infrastructure in your family, you're not going to stay in sports because that's going to be another reinforcer that you don't.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (08:49.878)
Yep.
Marina Paul (09:10.318)
fit the sport. And then to the high school athlete who makes varsity for the first time, to the division one college athlete who wants to be a professional athlete, and to the professional athlete. We noticed that fit was the biggest issue for all of these athletes. And if we could change the fit of sportswear, we could change the experience and love for the game and how women actually view themselves.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (09:39.552)
Yeah, more empowerment, right?
Marina Paul (09:42.07)
a lot more empowerment and I think it's putting it into the hands of the female athlete. I'm very obviously interested in the sports world and women's sports world. And I think the women's sports world is going through a categorical shift right now where for so long we can look at a men's sports system and say, yeah, that worked really well for men. Should we copy and paste that for women? And what we're seeing is no.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:10.338)
Right.
Marina Paul (10:10.424)
we need to invest in things that are natively and uniquely female athlete oriented, whether it's the design of the schedule, so it works best with women's health, or whether it's the fit of their clothing so that it actually fits them and it's not designed for a male body, then just shrunk down to fit women.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (10:31.766)
Right. So you have this idea going into apparel. Did you have the background? How did that, like, how did you start the design process? Did you have to find part? Like, talk to me about that. just to get, like, you have this, you find the gap, you see it, you're like, I have the solution, but now how do I?
Marina Paul (10:37.216)
Mm-hmm. Yes. My background? No.
Marina Paul (10:47.305)
Yes.
Marina Paul (10:52.088)
how to go about it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:01.206)
How do I create my product?
Marina Paul (11:02.882)
For sure, I will say I had an experience working for a consumer coffee beverage when I first graduated college. I was like the eighth higher, ran their marketing, and they were my best friends from college and I saw them start it in the dorm room. And so I'm like, I love them, but I'm like, these guys can do it. I can figure out a way to do it too. They're again, very, very smart, but I just saw what it took.
to create something. And the biggest thing that it takes is grit and perseverance and just keeping, continuous, yeah, and figuring things out. Trying things, failing at it a lot to help you figure it out. So I had that background and the confidence to do it. I moved home with my parents to save all my money. was during COVID. And then I got, I started to study the manufacturing industry.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (11:38.242)
Courage, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:00.45)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (12:01.006)
I started manufacturing in LA because I believe in production. I also wanted to be hands-on in learning. I think it's the athlete mentality of like, I need you to show me the drill and I need to practice it a million times to get it right. Right. I didn't feel comfortable going to, I'm not opposed to international manufacturing, but I didn't understand how manufacturing worked. So I wanted to exactly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:14.23)
Right, I need to see it. I need to see, yeah.
Marina Paul (12:26.178)
See, in my own eyes, people said it was gonna be the biggest barrier to my success. So was like, okay, well, I'm gonna make this my greatest asset. So I started studying that. I noticed there's a huge discrepancy between the customer and what the sewer is actually creating. A lot of companies, what they'll do is they'll take a short off the shelf and say, this is a really good Lululemon short. Go recreate this for me and brand my name on it. But there's in that,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:30.486)
Hit it. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:42.849)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (12:53.984)
Right.
Marina Paul (12:56.11)
entire process, the customer is like not involved. And I had known that female athletes have been so disconnected from being involved in the process. So I tried to integrate the female athlete and introduce them to the sewer saying directly like this is their feedback of what they need for a soccer short and give it to them. Right. And how I go about went about that. I mean,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (13:15.66)
Right. Help me design the template. Yeah.
Marina Paul (13:23.542)
What I learned from the original startup is like, you just have to be scrappy and ask questions and being like, okay, I need, what are the inputs to make a short? I need fabric, I need someone to sew it. I'm not gonna learn how to sew, because that would just take way too much time. So I need a factory and you just kind of go piece by piece and slowly figure things out and you're gonna pick the wrong factory for sure. You're gonna waste money on things like that. You're gonna waste money on marketing.
but you kind of keep iterating. I just, I just kept this mentality of like, I just want to keep iterating on this and build the best possible product for female athletes. I started selling it kind of direct to consumer, but I realized my space, I did not want to be like a Biori Lemon Athleisure company. I was like, this is for sports performance. So now I need to go sell this to schools. I need to go sell this to club teams. What we ended up, and I'm fast forwarding a little bit, what I ended up discovering was.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:06.39)
Right.
Marina Paul (14:19.052)
It wasn't necessarily the apparel that we wanted to fix. Like if you think about the end product of apparel, producing apparel is somewhat commoditized. Like it's relatively easy to find a factory to make something, but understanding the fit and predicting the fit of female athletes, unique body shapes and their sport specific movements and needs was like transformational. So in the last couple of months, we've evolved from a company
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (14:39.692)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (14:48.236)
that was solely, you know, manufacturing the team uniforms to a company that can predict the best fitting sportswear for female athletes by body type, by sport. And then we work actually with the big apparel brands to license them our technology. So yeah, well, fast forward there.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:06.498)
Yeah, no, mean, no, no, that's I was gonna ask. Like, what was, how has the brand evolved? Yeah, I was wondering, like, gosh, Nike has this whole division of just like, I don't think people realize how much science they have within their team, and same with, you know, other brands like Nike, and they do, they want a license to, so don't know if that's one of your,
Marina Paul (15:13.197)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (15:34.818)
And then also working in the textile industry that, you know, the cut and sew is that, you know, critical. But also in just in textile, like the performance of what's the ingredient in the textile? What's, you know, with the, you know, the micro bands and the or the silver with the, you know, the no stink and the, you know, all of that and the wicking and I mean, there's a lot of technology and textile.
Marina Paul (15:43.042)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (16:04.728)
There's so much technology, there's like you said, there's so much more that goes into it. And I think the unique position of startups is that we have to realize what the big dogs do really well and where they need help. And I think of it as like, they're this massive battleship and for them to like make any sort of turn is like a monumental shift. And I saw that because I worked in consulting, consulting with
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:05.089)
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:15.415)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:27.639)
Right.
Marina Paul (16:32.312)
for these companies like automotive companies that were, they wanted to make a big amount of change. It takes an entire organizational shift and it's so much work. Exactly.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (16:39.202)
But they can outsource it and go, let's bring these partners in and we can be agile, we can be more nimble and meet their end user, their consumer need.
Marina Paul (16:53.454)
Exactly. So that's, that's the whole mentality I use. And I was like, why would I go try to recreate distribution that Nike and Adidas and Puma and New Balance already have? I'm just gonna... Exactly. And we have the voice that we have the female athlete network that not a lot of them have the personal relationships with. Like I can text any female athlete and we'll find someone in common where it's really hard for an executive.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:02.722)
They all have, but you have something that they need. Yeah.
Marina Paul (17:22.072)
to text them and form a very unique relationship with them.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (17:25.76)
Right, right. Well, what's been the most challenging, like when you're like, what have I done? Have you had, call them the shit moments. Like what has been the biggest barrier, challenge that you've had to face and have you, you know, how did you overcome it?
Marina Paul (17:32.27)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (17:42.902)
I think I'll explain two things. One, I think on a daily basis, it's the knowing that things are not always gonna be perfect. And when you get feedback, it's closer to where you need to go potentially to make your product better. I think I'm just a very competitive athlete type of
Personality, yes. And so I have that drive about everything and which is great, but I think it's a barrier in terms of when I get very positive feedback, you know, on a piece of shorts, because we do still sell apparel. And then someone gives me negative feedback. I'm like, my gosh, we need to change the entire short. And so obviously the technology helps us with that because it helps us understand from more of like a scientific level, but
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:12.844)
You're like, I'm gonna be the best.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:35.446)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (18:43.79)
I think with that it's, oh, well, why doesn't it work for you? Like, let me get feedback on how we can potentially improve it for you. But I had to realize that all the harsh feedback I got early on was actually the impetus for how I started to create this technology company. So I'm like, oh my gosh, women have so many different preferences on the fit that they like because we all have such different body types and none of us know what type of body type you truly have. We kind of like guess at it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (18:48.29)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:09.697)
Right.
Marina Paul (19:10.36)
but we don't know what fits us and nothing is geared towards fitting us. So this is all of this feedback I'm getting is actually the strongest asset I could have. But before, I mean, I wanted to quit some nights because you, you you go to dress a high school team and they're like, we hate the shorts. And you're just like, I just want to, you know, why am I doing this? but I had to like reframe that. So I think that's like a daily thing is just, I love getting feedback and I hate it because you're like, it's a, it's not.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:19.308)
Right?
Marina Paul (19:39.872)
If I tell myself it's something that I'm doing wrong when I get the feedback, then it's tough. But if I reframe it and I'm like, this is to make us better.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (19:50.816)
Yeah, I think that's a great lesson. you know, my other company, it's a marketing firm and we call ourselves a curiosity driven agency, not a data driven or an ROI driven because that'll come if we're hyper curious. Because we have found that not just, you know, founders, but CEOs, executive, you know, people in the corporate world, there is a fear of feedback.
Marina Paul (19:57.486)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (20:03.074)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:20.834)
A fear of, you know, looking, data is only as good if you understand the why behind it. So I think what you're going through is kind of like the lessons learned of feedback is good. It is, it's constructive and kind of learning around, yes, it might be critical or it might be negative, but it's just, it's a data set. It can be an insight that really breaks through.
Marina Paul (20:28.472)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (20:50.176)
Whether you're talking to your, you know, consumer, your employees, getting feedback there, how engaged are they? Like you said, like you're really hearing back from the end user, but also the manufacturers, the cut and sew, the retail, you know, your retail partners of, and it helps you validate where your lane is, where your value proposition is, and why you say like, this is what we own. This is the space that we're gonna,
Marina Paul (20:59.384)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (21:09.262)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:20.002)
You know, we're going to own, and it's going to be really, really hard for anybody to compete with us because we've created this little engine. And I think that is a lesson that I'm going to tell you. Like the fact that you're learning this now and you've kind of honed where Superhera is as a brand and where you fit. You've learned a lesson that when I work with CEOs of companies that have been around for 50 years, they're still struggling.
Marina Paul (21:28.908)
Yes, yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (21:50.314)
with having the humility, but also just the mindset of it's data, insights are good and you gotta get the data to then ask the why behind it. Like, you know, we tell people your website, says, know, or, you know, you're getting 60 % of your sales are coming from women. Why? Why? What about your brand? What about your product that, that,
Marina Paul (22:16.419)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (22:20.468)
engages women or you know your employees are saying you know you've got the reason I'm saying employees LinkedIn did a huge workplace confidence survey and it's like we're we're nationally employees are feeling worse in the tank than they did during the height of COVID so disconnected less engaged unsatisfied and you know well that's like well
who has surveyed their employees to find out what's going on.
Marina Paul (22:50.798)
Right, right. And yeah, and I think that, again, I really everything back to sports, but you have film session with your coach to show, you see all the ticks by your name and you're like, oh great, this is gonna be, you know, a day where I figure out how bad of a soccer player I am. But you have mostly bad, but a good amount of good moments. And I just think about those moments because they were so visual in my brain of like, oh.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:01.794)
I'll you.
Marina Paul (23:20.032)
if I can just translate this on the field, start getting better at it practice. I know that it makes me better and it's hard in the moment, but I also know that like the more I watched film, the less sensitive I got and emotional I got towards it. And I realized it just made me better and better and better and refining. And so I kind of became obsessed with it. So I think the same way about like about our business, it's it's not hard to hear. I mean, it's very hard to hear when you're
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:23.244)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (23:47.696)
it's so hard. Ugh, ugh.
Marina Paul (23:48.876)
Yeah, when it's your baby or if it's not and you're like putting so much of yourself into it and then something's going wrong. But I just look at it as like, hey, these people actually care to give me feedback. So how do I still put female athletes and women at the center to where it's like their voices actually matter and are heard and help to improve our fit? Because I think that in itself is transformational in the apparel industry. Because most of the designs
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:09.121)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:16.427)
I hope so.
Marina Paul (24:18.199)
are driven by men.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:19.426)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't know if you've read the White Fragility book. Yeah, it's a fascinating book of white fragility, but also just how much science and products and stuff are designed around around men and women are like our medicine automotive, you know, car product like
Marina Paul (24:25.038)
I think I like read it during COVID. Yeah.
Marina Paul (24:41.464)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (24:48.264)
gear, everything, and it's not designed with, you know, for different genders.
Marina Paul (24:56.406)
Right, and I think that at first, you know, I was mad about that, but now I'm like, this gives me a business opportunity. Like, I get to create whatever I want now. And I'm seeing so many female founder friends who are starting these amazing companies. And now it's like the best shampoo that I could have gotten, the best makeup. And I'm like, thank you. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:01.932)
There's an opportunity. Absolutely.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:11.01)
That's right. Yes, and that's what we've seen the surgeons I think when that book came out, which I think it was around like 2019, 2020. Yeah, inserts of startups in shampoo, especially around like cancer after breast cancer treatment and like skincare for women coming out of those treatments were
Marina Paul (25:21.987)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (25:40.994)
There were a lot of stuff already designed for men, but not for women and their skin care. But yeah, we saw a flood of startups in the market. And yeah, it's opportunity. Because there's a gap and there's a need. And so yeah, fascinated by that. And I'm so glad that the mindset that you're talking about it, because it's so key.
Marina Paul (25:45.656)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (25:52.684)
Yeah.
There is.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:09.314)
to be curious, to ask the why, to validate, and balance out of like, hey, I'm not gonna make decisions based on assumptions, nor am I gonna make decisions based on feedback of like one or two, but how does that feed into the machine that we're trying to build, and just continually validating that. That is unbelievable. mean, that is so powerful, and it will,
Marina Paul (26:19.395)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (26:36.611)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:39.798)
completely accelerate you years, years ahead.
Marina Paul (26:42.946)
Thank you. Thank you. I will say there's one other thing too, the shit moment is like...
there's a lot of, I, I find myself comparing myself a lot, which is, you know, something I work on, on the side, personal life, right? Because what creating a business, it becomes personal. And though I try to separate my identity from it, I've poured my entire personal savings into it. It is what I do every day, all day, even on weekends. And.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (26:58.902)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (27:19.446)
Anyone who's close to me in my life knows intimately all the details of my business, which there is a separation, I think, when you're in the corporate world with that. I think there's a comparison part that I'm trying to learn. Again, I can be competitive with myself, but not comparing myself to other companies and female founders that are taking off. And...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:33.538)
Hmm.
Marina Paul (27:45.216)
more so having an abundance mindset of like, we can all, I think, exist, which is, again, not what I was taught in sports. So it's like a counterintuitive kind of feeling. And that's, and I think when I compare myself too much, or even my friends who are in corporate, who make a ton of money, whose couches I sleep on when I go travel, I'm like, it would be really nice to have this. And I think that I just,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:48.684)
That's right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (27:53.9)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:11.66)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (28:14.102)
I try to stay really focused on the mission that I'm solving, the impact that I'm having, and making sure that I'm living a fulfilling life for myself. And at the end of the day, I'm really proud of what I've created.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:25.954)
I think that's it's something that I think we all have to focus on that. I took me decades to learn that and I still struggle with that. I mean I caught when I turned 50 a few years ago. I'm 50 ish. I don't say my age but but when I turned like I feel like I was having my own coming of age story of because you're like I was doing the comparison. I really didn't know I was struggling with.
Marina Paul (28:34.258)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (28:40.586)
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (28:56.482)
defining myself outside of the business and really, and where's my voice? know, having the companies, but where do I sit? yeah, and getting used to, and I just want to go back to also something you said about like watching the films and it gets easier, that practice of being self-critical or you know, kind of overcoming those
Marina Paul (29:01.678)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:27.106)
I call them the ghosts of errs past. And I journal, and not like journal, I don't journal like journal journal. I write down three questions at the end of the night and I started doing this a couple years ago on advice from another founder. And then I, where did I find joy today?
Marina Paul (29:28.771)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (29:56.45)
my most, know, biggest joy moment. What did I feel most vulnerable? Like what was my crap, like shit moment? And then what am I most looking forward to tomorrow? And it's interesting, the things when I go back and flip through, the things that I was critiquing myself on or that I was beating myself up on were so stupid. now it's just, you know, you kind of.
Marina Paul (30:05.954)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:25.9)
have those, just writing them down and then self reflecting and then it's like when you write, when you acknowledge them just to like put it down and have that moment, then the next time it happens, it's like those things aren't even hitting the journal. Like the challenges are, they're not that big a deal and I struggle now with like filling out that number two, that second question. But it has, it's like that fuel,
Marina Paul (30:40.75)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (30:45.218)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (30:55.223)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (30:55.926)
to that place like getting practice and practice and where you're struggling, we hear a lot from founders, especially female founders who are in the startup, maybe they're in that, they're in the scale up phase and their whole brand is identified around the company.
And we've kind of worked, because I had to it through myself. I put myself, caught through the Joy Lab of finding my own, because we build brand guidelines and stuff for companies, personality, and what's the ethos, and here's the content strategy, and here's the themes of how this company is going to go forward. How does the company show up in all of its touch points? We recognize that founders needed that same.
Marina Paul (31:27.554)
Oop.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (31:50.686)
exercise. And so I kind of redesigned the workshop, the activities to be more personal, reflective, to help founders kind of rediscover who their voice is, what their style is, how do they show up differently as themselves as a founder, but also as a like I'm a mama for and you know, and I have other
Marina Paul (31:50.733)
Hmm.
Marina Paul (32:05.442)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:18.658)
things that I'm passionate about, how do I show up? And what are my themes and how do I articulate that? But I'm seeing that more and more, we're hearing not necessarily the struggle, but just more of the desire of recognizing of, I don't wanna be tied so much. I want the brand to breathe on its own and let it f***.
Marina Paul (32:21.384)
huh.
Marina Paul (32:43.734)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (32:47.234)
let it have its own freedom and not be like just tied, just directly tied to the success of that personal identifier. And especially when we, you know, I've worked with some other, you know, other, there's a CEO here in the upstate and, you know, he's a scale, but he is, the brand needs to go have its freedom because he is,
He's trying to build the category. The category doesn't exist and he has to say things that the brand can't, the company brand can't. So we needed to separate that. And so he has the freedom to kind of go, I call it go rogue and really be himself and push. But yet let the brand and its content and its value, everything stand alone.
Marina Paul (33:23.598)
Hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (33:43.628)
where sometimes it can lift, but sometimes he's gotta go and push that envelope. And I think that is something that we found is a gap and it's a need. But I think you're also, you're starting to feel it and go, how do I, where do I show up? You're starting to ask all those good questions. And it's a fun journey. It's been refreshing for me.
Marina Paul (33:54.658)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (34:04.44)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (34:08.194)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:11.732)
It's been a way for me to focus when I've done it for myself. So, but it looks like you're in that same, you're in that process.
Marina Paul (34:16.61)
I'm sure.
Yeah, and I think it's like you mentioned, a larger question of, you know, I hope to have kids someday. not getting an identity that's so caught up in being a mom either. Like being a mom, being the best I can be, but also not making that like my sole only purpose in life, which is the way I believe it. But some people, you know, disagree with that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:37.568)
Right, right.
Marina Paul (34:44.258)
But same as a founder, it's like, can I be a founder, build the best company, put all my passion towards it, but not have my identity tied to it?
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (34:48.994)
Right, right. So how do you encompass all of that, right? Under one platform, one voice, because we're all multifaceted as people and humans and we all show up differently. And I think there was an old school, I don't wanna say old school, it was 10, 15 years ago, I think there was a...
Marina Paul (34:54.296)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (35:04.824)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (35:17.962)
a lot of, and I saw it more from women that would go, have my personal LinkedIn, or Instagram, and I have my business Instagram, or I have my personal Facebook, and then they were struggling with keeping up with these two, like what are the voices? And I was like, and I never had that one, it was just like, look, I am what I am, I'm a mom, and at the time I was a.
I was still in a large agency and running, know, departments and people and just juggling, right? Like household, running six calendars and family. But I was like, I can't handle, I can barely handle my social platform. I can't even imagine having duplication.
Marina Paul (36:15.022)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:16.181)
But yeah, they were like, lot of these same women were like, need to, can't, you shouldn't be talking about like your children on this, like, and then the next post you talk about, you know, you're gonna go maybe a keynote somewhere. And I'm like, why? Why? Why can't I? And, and, but I'm seeing like the last five years, a lot of those same women that are all now deleting one of their, and they're folding them in and integrating them.
Marina Paul (36:30.178)
Yeah, wait, I feel like that's more powerful. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (36:45.282)
You know, it's just everyone has to go on that journey of we all can show up as one and talk about, and I think it is, I think it's more powerful. I think it's more empowering for others to see that. I want to see a CEO, how is he juggling kids and household and family and not just have this stale
Marina Paul (36:52.034)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (37:11.17)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:14.784)
you know, post on the business. I want to see, and especially startups and founders, I want to see how, what's the magic of their life? How are they doing it?
Marina Paul (37:16.984)
For sure.
Marina Paul (37:25.814)
Yeah, yeah.
And I think the place I'm coming out of now is...
been so my mindset in a way and showing up publicly was so caught in like, how are I I've evolved. how am I going to show that online because most of the people that follow me know me as like the person from high school, college, like right after and I've evolved so much in the last 10 years. But it's like, I'm fundamentally different. Yeah, and I think it's like
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:54.924)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (37:58.518)
Right? Let him see it. Let him see that evolution. Yeah.
Marina Paul (38:04.014)
It's like breaking up with your old self or having conversation with that and being like, I'm not this person anymore. And so I'm an evolved version and I want to go in this direction. But it is like a scary thing to be like, this is a new me. Like this is really me, but this is a new me. And like, how do I show up publicly, but be all of me? And I used to be very, very private. And you know.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:10.167)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:14.902)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:20.918)
Right. That's right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:27.478)
Yep. I'm same way. was one of reasons I started this podcast was to get me out of the comfort of I was a behind the scenes person. I didn't really post a lot like if I did it was very filtered, very curated and and after the advice of my team kind of going through like I said my my coming of age or whatever. And it was because we had to reflect on like the business was struggling coming out of.
Marina Paul (38:43.192)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (38:56.532)
Nobody wanted, know, marketing was horrible. And really trying to, how do we redefine the business and our brand and our value proposition? Well, part of that was I was getting pushed by the team to go, you need to put yourself out there. Your voice needs to be heard. I'm like, no, it doesn't. You need to get out there and network. No, I'm an introvert. I don't like to do it. I'm a, hold up the wall at the back of a room. I'm like, I don't.
Marina Paul (39:23.726)
Ha ha.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:25.324)
Jennifer, have like, have all this great, you know, content. You have content galore. could, you know, you need to put it out there. And it took, and Chandler's gonna laugh, because he's in here about a year. And it took me the entire year, first year he was here, me talking about it. And, right, it was like, I talked about it a lot. And I had it, I would write it. And I was like, I'm ready to, I'm like, I can't post this. I can't post this, this is, this is insane.
Marina Paul (39:54.338)
Like, this is cringey.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (39:55.394)
And I would do these photo shoots and nobody and people were like, where's the where the pictures you did this huge photo shoot? Like, oh, no, nobody needs to see that. And then I gave I gave myself a challenge because I do a six for one challenge. Another founder. I heard this from from them and I love it. This is I'm in my third year doing it. It's the six for one challenge of I don't know if you've heard this, but it's
Marina Paul (40:02.912)
I know,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:25.504)
Find six mini-adventures. So every other month, create a mini-adventure. Experience something new you've never done, whether with my kids or just with yourself or maybe with friends. Just do something new. Say yes to something that you would have never done. And do it about every other month. And so at the end of the year, you'll have six mini-adventures. And then once a quarter, adopt a habit.
Marina Paul (40:29.922)
Mmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (40:54.868)
adopt a discipline and stay true to it. And then at the end of the year, you'll have four new habits. And then the one thing is like, what's one, what's the one kind of defining thing of the year? Last year, we took a big trip as a family. This year, I'm writing a book. So I do want to hear more about your book. But but yeah, I'm working on. But one of the disciplines that I took was to start first quarter of this year was I'm going to post every day.
on LinkedIn. And it was like a stream of consciousness, whatever, just to do it. And then after about 30 days, I was like, I really like this. I have all this content. I've got I do have a lot to say. And then it was OK, well, I need now I need to kind of put myself out there. Now I need to like I need to tell people who I am because they don't know who I am. I need to show some of the photos that people are like, this photo is great.
Marina Paul (41:48.152)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (41:52.386)
When did you just do this? I was like, a year ago. I like, that photo shoot was last May. I'm just getting around to have encouraged to like post some stuff. And then yeah, second quarter was like, I needed to step it up and go, because somebody, another founder was like, I love your stuff. Like you're totally have inspired. I've stumbled upon your stuff. You've totally inspired me. But I feel like you're holding back.
I still feel like there's something you're trying to say and you're not being bold enough. So I gave myself a lint during lint, which almost hit like second quarter was I'm going to give a 40 day be bold challenge and I'm going to take off the filter. But I had to stay true to my style guide, that personal style guide of, you know, I'm only going to talk about these themes. This is how I, you know, this is.
Marina Paul (42:28.248)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (42:38.862)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (42:46.476)
how I want to show up, this is who I am, this is what I'm gonna write about. And it gives clarity around kind of, this is the stuff that someone's like, write about this. I'm like, no, I don't have interest in that. I could have a comment on that subject and I might do a comment, but I'm not gonna write an article about it. That's not my themes that I want to focus on. That's not what I want people to know about me. That's not how I want to inspire people.
Marina Paul (43:04.984)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:15.722)
and empower people. even having my style guy kind of gave me a little bit more focus to know how to be bolder in the areas that I feel really, really confident and comfortable and I can be consistent in doing that. So yeah, there you go. That's my.
Marina Paul (43:23.16)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (43:38.702)
Yeah, no, that's great. think it's... Yeah, I think I look at it at the end of the day. I'm gonna make a fool myself with some of these videos. They're gonna be so stupid and cringy. But at end of the day, I know that I can come home. I have someone who loves me. I have parents who love me. I have friends who love me who know me. And I have that inner circle and I'm good. I don't need anything else, so...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (43:53.41)
That's right. They love you for you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:01.078)
That's right.
Marina Paul (44:03.52)
If I make a fool of myself, they're the first ones to like it and make fun of me for it and it's great and like, and I move on. And I just, having that and you're like, when I have to get into it, it's like, okay, I'm still gonna have people that like me at the end of this, which is my inner circle, so it doesn't matter.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:05.13)
It's okay.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:17.538)
That's right. Have you started it? Because I think I might have to come up with my, I know my next challenge, because Chandler's also going to laugh at me. I have hesitated on doing videos. I have recorded videos, actually, and they've been silly.
Marina Paul (44:27.67)
I love videos. They're so much easier for me.
How do you, I was gonna say how do you not do videos? You're like on video.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (44:36.266)
I do the, I know, but there's a lot, little bit, like I have little scripts that I have around, you know, what we do, how we do it, you know, those kind of like the how-tos that are not necessarily what I write about in the articles and stuff around marketing and, or just like foundership and stuff. There's a lot of other little, and Taylor, because I have,
Marina Paul (44:48.782)
Mm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:04.49)
I just need to do it. And you're right, I know what's going to be foolish. I've even tried, like, I couldn't get my selfie stick, so I like recorded, what, four or five videos. And I was like, OK, I did it. Go. And then we recorded. like, it was the top of my head. I didn't get my full frame. I know. It was like, this is horrible. Delete, delete, delete. Taylor's like, just go out and do it. And I'm like, know. So yes.
Marina Paul (45:08.398)
you
Marina Paul (45:21.954)
You should, that should be your first video of being like, this is... Yeah.
Marina Paul (45:32.29)
to just screenshot that and then do like a green screen of it and being like, this is so funny. It's almost anxiety about recording my first video and I didn't even get my full head in the picture.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:36.386)
Please.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (45:41.248)
And I didn't even, I got the top of my head. So there you go. Can you hear me? I should have, but yeah, there's, gotta be, I gotta be bolder. So that's gonna be my next discipline of like, I'm gonna need to do video. I gotta, I have to create a challenge, because I'm, I come from, you know, competitive in sports and high school, and I didn't go as far as you did in college. I was at a walk-on of a decathlete for Indiana University.
Marina Paul (45:44.27)
People will love that. It's real.
Marina Paul (46:09.452)
Wow, that's tough.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:10.498)
It is and I don't even know how I didn't make it through. think I went through like indoor track that first never got in a competition because I am I was I'm five five and I was like a hundred and five pounds and if you ever saw any of the decathletes at any of the universities these women are six foot jacked you know hundred and you know sixty seventy just pure muscle.
Marina Paul (46:32.376)
Jacked.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (46:40.226)
And my thing was sprints and the hurdles and the high jumps. for a little person, I could do a lot of things, but I was very intimidated. And my coach, you're small but mighty. And I'm like, yeah, no. I am so out of place. So out of place.
Marina Paul (47:07.374)
but you hey, you tried it.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:08.034)
But I did it. I felt like I'd check that box. But I am super competitive when that, you you're right, it doesn't stop. Like you do look around the competition. Your business is that sport for you and you can't let it fail, right? Like you will, and so you have to surround yourself with people.
Marina Paul (47:14.658)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (47:33.25)
Yeah, can't, but I think too much.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:37.814)
Like good people, you have to have a good team.
Marina Paul (47:40.844)
Yeah, and I just think though that sometimes too much focus on the competition, you just lose sight of what you do, which is like, it's not really about the competition. It's like about your competitors. I mean, sorry, it's about your customers. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:48.631)
right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (47:53.408)
Yeah. Right. No, no, that is that is huge lesson because I see all this stuff and like marketing junk out there and there's just a lot of bad actors and bad advice that it gets floated out there. And we've always like if you put your customer, the end user in the center of your company, the focus and all your values, your value, your promise.
Everything is driven by their engagement, their satisfaction, the love, the perceptions and attitudes of those end users and design the company around that. Your goals, the objectives, your strategies all should be centered around their interactions with you, right?
as the brand and there's too much junk out there of people going, do you want to see what your competitors are doing? Because you need to copy them. And we have to come back and go, why? You don't even know what their strategy, like they could be working off, you know, junk data. They could be working off actual like how their customers interact with them, not how they interact with you, like your brand. So you've got to design
Marina Paul (49:00.28)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:21.462)
your go-to-market strategy around your data, your insights, the perceptions and attitudes around the customers you're trying to reach and engage with and build an experience around. And then how do you get the channel, know, however removed you are from that end user, how do you tell that story all the way through that channel? And every business is different.
Marina Paul (49:47.47)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (49:51.33)
And so yeah, get so, so those are my videos that you like I have hidden of like stop listening to this junk of copy your competitors, copy your competitors where they're spending in ads, copy your competitors of where they're spending, how they're doing SEO because it doesn't work. You're gonna waste time and money because you're focused on the wrong thing.
Marina Paul (49:51.331)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:19.402)
I mean, the only thing that you need to be worried about from your competitors is how does your brand, what are the perceptions and attitudes that they have with you in comparison to the competitors and let that drive maybe some business insight to go, now, what strategies and tactics do we have to do to shape and change those perceptions to get them to love us more?
Marina Paul (50:43.406)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (50:47.746)
And how do we build a company around the experience to get, whether it is the channel, whether it's our people, our employees, how do we get them to love, you know, our customers, do we get them to love our business more? And that's what it should be focused on. lots, those are my little videos. There you go. Marina, what's something that you wish
Marina Paul (51:05.474)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (51:11.63)
Be great.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (51:18.186)
you know, that you've kind of done, you really kind of get into that introspective of yourself and, but what's something that you really like about yourself that you wish other people recognized more?
Marina Paul (51:42.23)
I think.
I don't know if people recognize this, but I'm like, can be very intense and extremely goofy. And I'm like, don't always show that goofy side at work. A lot of my friends know this, but I guess what I love about myself is that I've learned to exist as both. And I wish people understood more that you can be like light.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:07.33)
Hmm.
Marina Paul (52:15.594)
goofy fun and also hard and driven at this and intense at the same time and like
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:17.014)
Yeah. Serious business. Yeah.
Marina Paul (52:25.078)
all of those are okay to show up, especially at work too. Cause I have to have like fun and goofiness in my day or it doesn't feel fulfilling.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:26.689)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:34.433)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:38.55)
How would you change that?
Marina Paul (52:41.378)
I just start showing up more like that. think, yeah, I just start showing up more as, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that, you know, as women, as, I don't even know if I want to generalize as women, but like as myself, it's like, people aren't going to take me seriously. I'm like, but I just think that people nowadays want just more authentic leadership.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (52:47.67)
Have some arena moments with your team. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:00.022)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:04.492)
They want humanity. mean, yeah, they want authenticity. okay, so you worked in corporate world before you did all this. Were there myths or perceptions you had about being a founder, starting a business that you, and after you're into it, or maybe you're still, you you're into it now and you're like, they lied, like, let me break these myths.
Marina Paul (53:11.575)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (53:41.602)
I did, so I, it was my first paid job, my first salary job was with a startup. So I kinda already knew. So that's like the perception I had going into it. I feel like I went to corporate and I was like, this is not what I expected. And then I went back to founder world because I felt more comfortable here.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (53:57.634)
More at ease.
Marina Paul (54:01.71)
I think there is a myth around grind culture. I think like you need to work unbelievably hard, but unlike corporate, where corporate you already have the security of a salary, have the security of like, for the most part, other people on your team as a founder starting something from zero and you don't have a team, you don't have revenue and you have to create all of that and you just sort of living off your own salary, or sorry, your own savings. I think there is, I think,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:12.971)
Right.
Marina Paul (54:31.566)
I think grind culture is a myth because if you, especially as a female and like female energy and hormones and all that, if you grind yourself into the ground, you have nothing left. You don't have a team, you don't have anything left. So I think there's, it's not a balance to me. It's just like, right now I'm in season and then I'm like not in season. And it's not necessarily structured like a sports schedule, but I think that.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:41.58)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (54:54.38)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (54:58.774)
so much where it's like you have your practice days, you have your rest day, you have your game days. And that's how I structure my weeks. So I'm still trying to prove out that myth to myself because I was a part of so many grind cultures and like, but I just don't think it's, I don't produce the best quality product when I'm stuck in that grind.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:02.54)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:20.918)
Right, well you gotta do what's like, somebody told me this, this was, Chandler, who, cause we talk, at our company we do time blocking, like the strategy of blocking your schedule based on, you know, this is my content day of the month, I just, you know, I write content, I post content, this is like my content, you know, content creation, or like my video day or whatever, and.
Marina Paul (55:35.041)
Hmm.
Marina Paul (55:45.325)
Yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (55:50.498)
These days are my, I keep these as like office days for clients that can just open calendar. So everybody kind of has these strategic, and we talk with companies who have employed, implemented that across their entire team. So everybody kind of knows yellow for them means that like this is an, I can schedule time with them around these color codes.
Marina Paul (55:58.348)
Yeah.
Great.
Marina Paul (56:17.07)
you
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:19.862)
But someone was like, Jennifer, they're like, but that's just based on what you do and what maybe is comfortable. took it one, another company took it one step further and said they do it time block, not just on like how they design where those blocks go. It's energy blocking to go as a founder. I hate the numbers. get, you know, I have to do it in during times where
Marina Paul (56:40.098)
Mmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (56:49.088)
and I have to block it around things that I have to be immediately picked up. So, you know, if I have to spend three hours with, you know, my numbers, I got a schedule like a block my calendar to go work out or, you know, go go to lunch or, you know, whatever. I got to do something that lifts me up immediately after that. So and I was like, I never thought about that, how we design kind of our schedule.
Marina Paul (56:53.016)
Mmm.
Marina Paul (57:04.428)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (57:19.042)
So I even took like a relook at that to go am I am I looking at it not just what's the best Day of the week and hours of the day to do things but yeah like What am I doing? And is it is it bringing me energy and then how do I feed off that energy? to do other things And then what drains me and what are things that I need to do around that to like lift me up so
Marina Paul (57:39.789)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (57:47.052)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (57:47.682)
And that's what you're doing that. like how do I design my week around making sure that I don't fall into that mental, yeah, I mean we're all a work in progress girl. Fascinated by this. Okay, I give you a magic wand today and you want to change two things about your business.
Marina Paul (57:57.024)
Yeah, can always be better, but I'm trying to.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (58:17.996)
What would you change?
Marina Paul (58:27.148)
I would have...
Marina Paul (58:32.3)
very solid full-time people. Right now I just work with contractors. It's obviously less expensive business to some degree, but I think just like having a small dedicated team, I miss having like a team like in sports. And then the second thing is that,
Marina Paul (58:57.624)
Yeah, I guess we automated as much as possible. So we get to focus on the things that we love doing or the big problems that we want to solve and that we use AI automation, whatever we can to automate things as much as possible. So we're making everything extremely efficient. just, I love doing not even the work I love, but like solving problems. And I don't want to what drains my energy is,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:01.537)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:15.671)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:23.424)
Right.
Marina Paul (59:27.33)
the minuscule tasks and being unorganized and things. so I can't wait to get to the stage where everything is pretty automated and, you know, which is great. Yeah, the systems.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (59:36.866)
Great, build those systems, yeah, automate what you can. Systems and processes, that's the secret, that's the magic. Okay, so next year we meet, I'm gonna come down to Charleston, or you're gonna come up to Greenville. Next summer, what are we celebrating?
Marina Paul (59:43.97)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (59:51.533)
Yes.
Marina Paul (59:56.59)
We will have integrated with two big time apparel companies and female soccer players will be wearing uniforms uniquely custom fitted for their bodies designed by us.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:00:12.514)
Nice. Do you get a tag on your, if you work with them, is it licensed like, know, through, is that part of the process of?
Marina Paul (01:00:17.912)
You know what?
Marina Paul (01:00:24.75)
You know, this is why I have good lawyers. So I hope so.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:00:27.618)
Let's keep that. Yeah, you're the Intel inside. Let's keep that tag on there. Yeah. If you hit rewind on anything, would you do anything different? like things that you know now, if you would have like, what things do you wish you would have done different?
Marina Paul (01:00:33.454)
Exactly, exactly.
Marina Paul (01:00:51.618)
Yeah, the only thing I would have changed is I spent a lot of money on trying to get people to help with social media and take it over and create the brand for me and I knew what it was the whole time. And not that people can't help with that, but I just think I would have built my personal brand immediately. Like started putting myself out there immediately. my gosh, and I would have just saved my own dollars.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:01:07.319)
Right.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:01:11.68)
Right.
The clarity of that, yeah. Yeah.
Marina Paul (01:01:19.758)
I would have saved myself so much money. It would have helped the business so much. So I'm making sure that's not a thing anymore. know, hindsight is 20-20, but...
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:01:30.038)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:01:33.312)
I know, but that's good. That's good advice. Okay, so what's the best piece of advice that you have received as a founder, either from another business owner, another founder that you really take to heart and practice?
Marina Paul (01:01:36.152)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (01:01:53.004)
I think it's the reality. It comes from my friend. She's Norwegian. She started a waffle company in the States. She didn't speak any English. She started making out of church. Then she started making money. So the church kicked her out and she had to figure out like how to, it's great. These crazy stories. I've also seen her with like negative dollars in her bank account to growing, you know, a very profitable six figure business. And what I learned from her on protein waffles. Yeah, it's awesome. Hey, they're so good. What I've learned from her is like,
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:02:14.324)
On waffles. On waffles.
Marina Paul (01:02:22.488)
There's just highs and lows and like, that's what it is. Like that's the journey. And, I think it's when I understand the process more in the same way I understand a soccer game, in the process of getting good. I just like, I just chose like, can either fall in love with this journey or figure out, pick a new one. And I just love, I love the journey of it. The successes obviously are great, but I just like love.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:02:35.574)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (01:02:53.684)
learning things. Like I love failing at them and I'm yeah, it's such a game and I just love figuring out the game. honestly that would that's like the best advice. It's nothing science like crazy scientific or whatever. It's just like, there's just highs and lows and it's a game and just stay in the game. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:02:56.758)
The game, you love the game. Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:03:15.306)
Yeah, well, that's good advice. What's your advice that you give to others when they go, Marina, should I do this?
Marina Paul (01:03:24.608)
Yeah, and, no, totally. Cause everyone has an idea. Like I think that so many people have an idea.
Marina Paul (01:03:35.646)
My advice always, because I never really like trusted my own self, is like just figure out how to like trust yourself and when you start, when you know how to trust yourself, it'll give you the answers. And it's not necessarily, I always was looking for like external advice, like this really successful entrepreneur, person with a lot of money is gonna tell me what I need to know or this coach is going to and like, I never got the answers from those people and I couldn't understand why.
It's because it's just not, nobody can tell you. You have to go figure it out.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:04:08.254)
You have it. Yeah, I had a business coach last year and she was a friend. She's been a CEO four times over and always kind of brought our agency, you know, wherever she went. And she's entering her second act, getting her coach's license. She's like, I need a guinea pig. And I was like, good, I'm struggling. Like, you know, I need a coach. And I was expecting her to like, I like, I need advice.
Marina Paul (01:04:31.374)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:04:34.85)
And that was kind of my, that was an aha for me. And she was like, you know, I'm not gonna tell you anything. It's like, what do you mean? It's like, you've been there. You need to tell them. She's like, no, no, you have all the answers inside. And I would, she would ask me these questions and I would have to sit for days and sometimes a week to go, have no idea how to answer this. And then she gave me some exercises to get me unstuck.
Marina Paul (01:04:41.101)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:05:04.994)
to make me think differently. But yeah, the whole experience was like, these things were all inside of me for years. Why didn't I do, didn't I engage with this sooner?
Marina Paul (01:05:15.054)
Yeah, we don't know how to, we're not taught in school how to listen to ourselves. It's all external validation. So I just thought when I got really silent and learned how to listen to myself, then I know the answer. But when I ask way too many people and I get way too many people involved, I get just a ton of anxiety. I'm not a naturally anxious person. So yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:05:25.274)
that's so good.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:05:38.402)
Well, it's like, where's the filter? Then it makes you stronger and go, I gotta get my filter. Like the discernment.
Marina Paul (01:05:42.348)
Yes, Blinders and just like create your own, yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:05:47.466)
Yeah, that's good. That's good. Okay, my last two questions. Your journey, the entrepreneur, what word sums that up?
Marina Paul (01:05:53.091)
Mm-hmm.
Marina Paul (01:05:59.31)
I just don't quit whether it was like an athlete. I like to think I'm gritty. Like I like to think that I pick, I have a lot of like ideas and you know, but I just try to stay very focused on like what I'm figuring it out. And like, for me, a lot of times came back from it, took our team really far, was also battling my own eating disorder. It's like, I just like, I just keep going and I just like don't stop.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:06:27.968)
It is grit. Yeah.
Marina Paul (01:06:28.942)
Yeah, and I'm reading that book right now actually, which I don't know why it took me so long to read it, but it's like, it's amazing. Oh my god, this is so rewarding to read. Yeah, I would say great.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:06:40.578)
And next chapter, what's the word that's gonna define that next chapter in your journey?
Marina Paul (01:06:50.126)
I think fun. think along with that grit, made things feel so hard and like I have, it has to be so hard and like, ugh, like, yeah. Like we, yeah, and Sarah Blakely is like my favorite founder of the Founders Spanx. She has so much fun. I'm like, I want to fun. So yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:06:51.808)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:07:02.466)
Bring that goofy, that levity back to the Marina.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:07:10.272)
I know. Yeah, I mean, and she talks about the grit and the hard like I love watching her. She's been posting a lot more of the shit she did in her and I'm so they're going good Lord. Like I some of things she came up, I would have never even thought to do. And I feel like I'm pretty, you know, gritty too. But man, she.
Marina Paul (01:07:22.861)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:07:37.57)
I just, I love that. I think it's so inspiring and motivating to a whole other generation of founders and entrepreneurs. Okay, we didn't get to talk about, I wanna know about the author, you know, your superhero book.
Marina Paul (01:07:43.768)
Yeah, she's amazing.
Marina Paul (01:07:52.171)
Yes.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:07:54.22)
So what got you to write that?
Marina Paul (01:07:56.238)
I wanted to change the direction of my life. I was working consulting and I didn't see that as my path. And I had gone through a lot of things in college and just with like body confidence and how I thought about myself. And so I just wanted to change the trajectory of my life.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:19.51)
Did you come up with the book before Super Hero? So you write the book before, okay. And so that led to the, was that part of the name, okay.
Marina Paul (01:08:23.348)
Hmm. Yep. Yeah, and so...
The name, yeah. In the book I discovered that females, women, they just want the freedom to perform. So it became the mission for what our clothes would do, which is give female athletes the freedom to perform. However, whatever that means to them.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:43.382)
Hello.
Right.
Marina Paul (01:08:47.853)
Yeah.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:08:48.332)
I love it. my gosh, thank you for hanging out and chatting with me today and give me all your scoop. You gave such good advice and insights.
Marina Paul (01:08:52.386)
Yes, of course.
Marina Paul (01:08:57.154)
gosh, I will caveat to say like, this is my learned experience. Nobody's is going to be the same as mine. So whatever I say, don't copy it because it's not necessarily right for you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:09:04.05)
Everybody's.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:09:11.362)
Well, Marina, to give you a little secret. We've done close to what? Two, three hundred interviews. This is our 150th podcast, but we've pulled over 2000 founders. The reason I ask about the word is everyone talks about like similar advice, similar mindset, personality, like the grit, the grump gumption, the drive, the challenges around like finding, you know.
the joy, the purpose, the impact, but everybody's word is different, which I love. We have very little. We've had maybe duplication of words maybe a handful of times. It is a unique word because everybody's journey is different, but we're so similar in terms of not necessarily how we got there, but what we're struggling with.
Marina Paul (01:09:46.51)
you
Marina Paul (01:10:02.958)
Yeah.
Marina Paul (01:10:08.62)
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:10:09.836)
how we're overcoming things, how we're self-learning and continuously learning as we get to the different levels, right? Someone said on the show, was like, was it new level, new devil? As you scale, the challenges just become, they're just different, but they're still challenges. So I love it. So you are not alone, Marina. You are not alone.
Marina Paul (01:10:31.522)
Yeah. Yeah.
Marina Paul (01:10:37.102)
Thank you.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:10:38.37)
Where can people get a hold of you, connect with you, help support you, learn more about where can they find Superhera as a product?
Marina Paul (01:10:46.602)
Yes, yes. So my personal LinkedIn, which is at marina paul and then same with my Instagram and then superhera is just how it sounds like superhero, but with an a on Instagram.
Jennifer "JJ" Sutton (01:11:01.822)
I love it. Well, that's a wrap on today's chaos, but the journey doesn't stop here. If you found yourself nodding along, laughing, or maybe even yelling, same, same, Marina, we're not alone. Make sure to subscribe, share, and leave us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple. You can dig deeper into founder resources or more episodes, and we've got a lot of tools over at OrangeWIP. dot com that it's Orange w i p dot com until next time stay curious stay scrappy and remember we are all a work in progress we are all a w i p whip the whippers i'll see you again next week