In her previous life as a corporate recruiter, Maisha Cannon put on what she describes as a kind of “mask.” She wasn’t fully herself. Often, she’d fade into the background to try and get ahead as a black woman in corporate America. But for Maisha, getting into entrepreneurship meant putting aside those incidents where she experienced bias. It meant stepping into herself and building the confidence she needed to start The Collab Lab, which helps Talent Acquisition professionals and Recruiters to grow their skills and careers. In this episode, Maisha talks about how to bring your full self to work. How did she respond to experiencing racial bias in the workplace? How did she develop the confidence to start The Collab Lab, especially as an introvert? And what’s the biggest trend affecting job recruitment right now?
In her previous life as a corporate recruiter, Maisha Cannon put on what she describes as a kind of “mask.”
She wasn’t fully herself. Often, she’d fade into the background to try and get ahead as a black woman in corporate America. But for Maisha, getting into entrepreneurship meant putting aside those incidents where she experienced bias. It meant stepping into herself and building the confidence she needed to start The Collab Lab, which helps Talent Acquisition professionals and Recruiters to grow their skills and careers.
In this episode, Maisha talks about how to bring your full self to work. How did she respond to experiencing racial bias in the workplace? How did she develop the confidence to start The Collab Lab, especially as an introvert? And what’s the biggest trend affecting job recruitment right now?
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Hosted by Katherin Vasilopoulos. Made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee.
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Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:00]:
Showing up for work means different things to different people. If you're lucky, you get to show up for work as yourself. But for many employees, going into the office means becoming someone different than who we are at home. In her previous life as a corporate recruiter, Maisha Cannon put on what she describes as kind of a mask. She wasn't fully herself. Often she'd fade into the background to try and get ahead as a black woman in corporate America. But for Maisha, getting into entrepreneurship meant putting aside those incidents where she experienced bias. It meant stepping into herself and building the confidence she needed to start The Collab Lab, which helps talent acquisition professionals and recruiters to grow their skills and careers.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:00:50]:
For Maisha, working in recruitment is at its core a way to connect with people. But to build relationships with others, she first needed to understand herself. And after 30 years working in the recruitment space, she's not only learned how to confidently show up as the person she really is, but picked up plenty of practical tips. Whether you're looking to build your confidence as an introverted entrepreneur or just hire more effectively, I think you'll get a lot out of this conversation. This week, I talked to Maisha about how to bring your full self to work. How did she respond to experiencing racial bias in the workplace? How did she develop the confidence to start The Collab Lab, especially as an introvert? And what's the biggest trend affecting job recruitment right now? I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and this is And So, She Left, the podcast about incredible women entrepreneurs and the wisdom they gained beyond the corporate world. Back in 1994, Maisha got her start in an LA inner city internship program.
Maisha Cannon [00:02:14]:
I was introduced to recruiting as a teenager in high school, believe it or not. It was an internship called Yes To Jobs, and they took people from the inner city of LA, where I'm from, over to Beverly Hills on the west side, and we worked in the entertainment industry. And so, that was my initial peek into HR and recruiting, and I loved it and made a career of it for 20 years. So that's who I am.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:02:38]:
For over a decade, Maisha continued to hop around the recruitment space, building a pretty impressive resume as she went. She's worked at SpaceX, LinkedIn, Google, and more. But before she could land those jobs, she had to survive one of the worst economic periods in American history.
Maisha Cannon [00:02:59]:
The great recession of 09 is definitely prominent for me because that was when I experienced, I believe that was my 3rd layoff at that time, and I've been working about 10 or 11 years, and I thought that it was over. Like, you know, I was going to have to lose my house, you know, because of the job loss, and it just felt so catastrophic. And I actually left The States and went to South Korea and taught English for about a year and a half. I just remember thinking, like, this is the end of my career, and sure enough, as life would have it, when I would return from South Korea, you know, my career picked up. I was at my dream companies. I was doing work that really energized me. So it's just a really interesting moment in time that you you know, you start with the great recession because it really changed my outlook on what my career could be.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:03:51]:
I agree. Whenever there is a catastrophic event, then you look for the opportunity, and you look for ways to pivot. And I think you did that beautifully because you used the next decade to start developing a whole bunch of skills and puzzle pieces that led you to where you are today. What are the dream companies that you worked at? Just so we can get an idea.
Maisha Cannon [00:04:09]:
Yeah. So definitely, the puzzle pieces definitely came together after that great recession. I got to work for Google, for LinkedIn, went to a company that I grew to love called GitHub in the Bay, and they're a developer tool that's been acquired since by Microsoft. But LinkedIn has, too. It's like Microsoft comes to acquire the companies after I go there, it seems.
Maisha Cannon [00:04:32]:
But, yeah, those are some of the great places that I got to work and just grow and learn, and I can't even believe that it was a decade ago, but I get a smile on my face when I think about those days.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:04:42]:
Well, that's it. And you you have accomplished so much, and all the acquired skills led to you being able to form your own company. It's a huge asset to be able to work for a corporation or a few corporations before starting your own business. You get an idea of what structures are out there and what processes are out there and how to deal with different situations, different departments, and so you were very lucky to have so much of that experience to then launch into Collab Lab. Tell us about that.
Maisha Cannon [00:05:10]:
Yes. You're so right. And I hadn't thought about it in that way, but it is a beautiful kinda mosaic because you see all of the good things that corporations do, and you see some that need, revising or that could be revamped. So, The Collab Lab is a learning and development solution firm for corporations. So it's an opportunity for recruiting teams to be trained much more intentionally than I experienced over my couple of decades working on corporate teams and also to take recruiters into the new wave of technology. Right? We're seeing artificial intelligence disrupt the work that recruiters are doing. And so it's really to empower recruiters and train them up on the skills that they'll need to stay relevant, much like I've been able to stay relevant from the 1900's, you know, to now.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:05:59]:
I'm very curious to know what you mean by that. How is AI impacting recruitment? Because I know that it's replacing certain jobs and creatives and stuff, but what role is it playing with
Maisha Cannon [00:06:16]:
So now, job seekers can use AI and automation to automatically apply, to automatically customize a cover letter, and we find and rewrite their resumes specifically to the job spec. So what we're seeing on the back end is recruiters overwhelmed with the number of applications that they're receiving now at scale because it's automated. I read something yesterday about a post, job posting that had been up 3 days and had received 1500 applications, which is just unheard of. It's just, you know, exponentially more than maybe the the 100 or the couple 100 that you would normally get. That overwhelm is now somewhat disrupting, to your point you mentioned, that process, you know, that companies were used to doing and probably have not iterated on since the late 90's when I started. You know, so many things are done exactly the same way that they were back then with you apply online, and then you do a phone screening. And, you know, so so many things have not been updated. So recruiters are now faced with, you know, either using AI on their own ends.
Maisha Cannon [00:07:19]:
Right? We have some enterprise players now in the space, like ChatGPT Enterprise to help process at scale. But since we're not there yet, there's so many cautionary, reasons that companies aren't ready to invest in AI quite yet with candidate privacy being number 1. You know? So now there's still the human aspect of managing this onslaught of automated applications has created the new conundrum.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:07:44]:
I didn't even think of that, the candidate privacy issue. Yes. Because once you start, feeding AI information, it uses it to train it. Exactly. And then that information ends up in whatever. We don't know where it goes someday, basically.
Maisha Cannon [00:07:57]:
We don't know. We don't know. Yeah.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:08:01]:
Yeah. Tell me more about the moment that you decided I need to start my own company. You know, you did so much previous to that. Tell me about your and so she left moment.
Maisha Cannon [00:08:13]:
Yes. There are some challenges I had since I entered corporate America as a young girl, 15 years old, very impressionable. And there were some ways of being, right, that I learned that I had to be as a black woman in corporate. I realized that over years, right, I just became that corporate version of myself, but I was masking that authentic self.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:08:43]:
What's your phone voice? Tell me about that.
Maisha Cannon [00:08:45]:
Oh, you know, it has to be very professional. So it's like, thank you for calling Castle Rock. This is Maisha. How can I help you? Right?
Maisha Cannon [00:08:52]:
And then when I'm on the couch talking to my husband, he's like, what? What are you saying? You sound like a rapper. I can't even understand you. So around the time of the pandemic when, everyone became virtual and we were on Zoom a lot, I realized that I was so masked at that point that I couldn't unmask. Right? And so it was a survival situation now. And I say that I survived my last few years of corporate by keeping it cute and keeping it on mute. So I wasn't advocating for myself. I wasn't speaking up or pushing back when I should because there were so many messages I got when I entered corporate America. I didn't want to be the angry black woman.
Maisha Cannon [00:09:28]:
I didn't want to be too direct. You know, my voice is deep, so I didn't want to be too firm. And so it was kind of the amalgamation of all of these things, plus feeling that frustration, I think, that we all felt when our worlds changed in 2020. And I just said, I need a break. And I was hoping that the break would be restorative. But during that break, I realized I just need to do this on my own. Like, I just need to be able to hop on Zoom and show up authentically as me without wearing all these other masks.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:10:00]:
I find it interesting that you're talking about the mask because I think many of us and people I've talked to on this show had the same experience of having to change who they are because they were in a corporate environment. Mhmm. And then they realized I don't like this version of me or I don't have to keep doing this long term. Like how many more years of this do I have to put up with or have to do? Right. And then they realize that they find themselves when they become an entrepreneur. They're like, now I can finally be myself. I can finally be with the clients that I wanna be with, and I don't have to put on this fakeness.
Maisha Cannon [00:10:31]:
Absolutely. You know, it's funny because you even tell yourself when you're wearing the mask that you are being you. And maybe you are to a certain degree, but you're right. There's so many layers that you can now release when you go into business for yourself. And I'm grateful that I had a coach. I've had a coach for the past 2 years that's really helped me unlearn a lot of things. And so it wasn't a natural switch that just turned off like I thought it would be, like going from corporate to independent, and now I'm just fully Maisha. No.
Maisha Cannon [00:10:59]:
I was still restraining myself even in my own home office alone for a while. Right? So it still took and takes, coaching, and reframing.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:07]:
Yes. I admire that very much. You know, getting help, outside help is, you know, investing back into yourself as an entrepreneur and as a human, those are important steps because we don't know everything, especially not when we transition from a huge corporate structure to then starting our own thing. No one tells us how to do that. I mean, it's not intuitive to everybody. So having a business coach or even a personal coach or a therapist, those are all wonderful things to invest in at the beginning and even long term. You, once in a while, have to touch base with yourself to see how things are going, like a check-in almost.
Maisha Cannon [00:11:37]:
Yes. Agree 100%. Yeah.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:11:40]:
So on that, tell me about your challenges, switching over into a solopreneur and then starting a business. Tell me about your 3 C's.
Maisha Cannon [00:11:50]:
I think when I think back, and it's just been 1 year. Right? But, you know, so much happens in that 1st year of business. I think my biggest challenges were the confidence to launch, the client acquisition, and then creating a clear offer. So, when I think about the confidence to launch, you know, I think about those early career challenges I had as a young black woman in corporate spaces and just navigating biases and stereotypes. And then, this journey that we've been talking about of, masking to eventually embracing authenticity, and really just celebrating this personal resilience and the power of embracing oneself. Those were all of the kind of confidence points that I had to take and then to complicate things, I'm an introvert. Right? So even when I did launch last year, it was a silent launch. You know, like, I didn't really make a lot of buzz.
Maisha Cannon [00:12:43]:
Right? And that was intentional. I was kind of below the radar, but I'm much more willing now in year 2 to be more loud and bold and more confident in the offering that I have. So, that's been quite a journey.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:12:56]:
Absolutely. We have to. Even though we're introverts, we still have to advertise what we do. We have to tell people what we're about. Otherwise, we're working in a vacuum and, you know, you watch everybody else do it on social media and in advertising, etcetera, and you're like, oh, why is it so easy for them, and why can't I just, you know, do the same thing? But I get it, you know, with the years, maybe it's it gets easier.
Maisha Cannon [00:13:18]:
I agree. Yeah. It does get easier. And when you're bootstrapped, right, you gotta open...the saying in the hood is closed mouths don't get fed. Right? So, you have to open up and let them know what you need and what you're offering. Yes. Yeah. I think that client acquisition was the second C that I called out because in the work that I did in corporate spaces, the last 10 years, I was doing something called sourcing.
Maisha Cannon [00:13:42]:
And so that means that, for instance, Google, even though they receive 3,000,000 applications a year, there were 300 on my direct sourcing team, 300 people just on the software engineering track. And they hired us to go out and find Cannon, so identify and engage talent that had not applied for current and future roles. And so I was I wasn't new to this idea of prospecting or lead generation and reaching out, but whereas I thought that that skill would just be a natural fit as an entrepreneur, you know, there's a difference, right, from sourcing leads for a job and you're getting a steady paycheck whether or not the person takes the job, to now, you know, that hunting that you're doing for leads is directly related to your revenue generation. So that client acquisition strategy, I think I had to do a hard pivot on and really rethink my strategy of just cold emailing and reaching out. And I finally landed on leveraging my first degree Katherin connections, and that led to probably 75% of my clients from year 1 coming from just people that knew me, that already liked and trusted me.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:14:50]:
From all that, you obviously surmounted many obstacles. It sounds like you're feeling good about where you're at.
Maisha Cannon [00:14:57]:
Yes. Yes. I think part of it is having that clear offer. I think back to a year ago, and one of the big things I did when I launched The Collab lab was start posting more frequently on LinkedIn. But I wasn't posting necessarily about the services that I offered because I didn't really know what that service stack would look like. I was more just posting content around recruiting and sourcing and technology. So now, having a clear offer, understanding my value that I can bring to teams, I have 2 live cohorts that I teach on Maven. Now I feel more confident that I can start posting, right, about those things and going to pitch competitions.
Maisha Cannon [00:15:35]:
It might have been just the algorithm that proposed this, pitch competition from The Fund. They're based here in Canada. And we had 2 minutes to record a pitch, and they had thousands of entries, and I made it to the top 5. And then we then we did it live. And I think we got 30 extra seconds, 2 and a half minutes. So we had a pitch deck, and we did our pitch, and I didn't win that one. They gave it to the top 3.
Maisha Cannon [00:16:06]:
But I got so much feedback, good and bad, that how I could make it even better, that it gave me the confidence to start using that deck even in my outreach, which has really, you know, gone a long way beyond just sending someone my website and saying check it out. Right? It's showing, you know, pictures of the collaborators in a live session. And you see the smiles on our faces, and you see the quotes from, you know, recruiters and sources who have taken my courses. And so, yeah, that pitch deck kinda now brings to life something that I I wouldn't have been able to articulate in, you know, the early stages of year 1 because I hadn't done the thing yet.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:16:43]:
Absolutely. It's very exciting.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:16:46]:
I imagine there was quite something being in there with all the other finalists and going out.
Maisha Cannon [00:16:50]:
I know. It was. And being probably one of the only service based offerings. Right? Because everybody has a product or, you know?
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:16:58]:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, and service based is more difficult. It's more abstract sometimes. It's not like, here's a thing that I made. You should pay me for it.
Maisha Cannon [00:17:05]:
No. Right. No widgets to show off. Yes. This is a learning experience, but, it's good. And I like standing out, and I'm, you know, I'm used to being the only something. Right? I was the youngest on my team back in high school when I was working at Castle Rock Entertainment with all the adults. So it's okay being different.
Maisha Cannon [00:17:21]:
I'm okay with that.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:17:24]:
I wanna go back to something you mentioned quickly when you were first starting your career, that you encountered some biases when you were in the workplace. Tell me more about that.
Maisha Cannon [00:17:32]:
One of my earliest memories, this was I think it was past my intern days, so this is probably my first recruiting full cycle job. This is maybe 2002, 3-ish. And, I remember having to tell a candidate no. And, you know, 90% of the candidates you interview tell no. But the one went to the CEO of the company and was just appalled and used some language that we would call microaggressions, but I don't know. There might be a better word for microaggression because that still diminishes it, but it had to do with how firm I was in my no or how assertive. And, he used a word I'll never forget. He said it was dehumanizing.
Maisha Cannon [00:18:13]:
I'm like, to say no for a job is dehumanizing. So that made me very cognizant that, okay, if you, you know, say something too strongly, the way that you present, as a black woman, you might need to just be a little bit more soft. You might need to be, you know, a little bit more palatable. So, it started that idea track running in my head that I couldn't be just me and direct, you know. I I needed to be something else. So, it was those small messages, you know, of disappointing candidates and then them going to the CEO, or I might have shared that on Zoom once. Someone was so concerned about my hair, right, that they couldn't get past starting the meeting. It was a new hairstyle, and they're like, wow, your hair is filling up the whole, you know, filling up the whole box, you know.
Maisha Cannon [00:18:58]:
And it's like, okay. Maybe I'll just wear my hair pulled back so it doesn't become a distraction. Just little things that you wouldn't think, you know, would be hang ups for people, but, you know, depending on the environment and the time, there were issues. And, you know, it's interesting too because the world has changed so much since then and so some of those things wouldn't fly anymore. I don't get those kind of comments much anymore. I think society has become more aware and more conscientious, what?
Maisha Cannon [00:19:36]:
Like, you ask people that? Yeah. So, you know, it's just one of those things. But Yes. Yeah, I think you compartmentalize it and you grin, and you bear it. Again, that angry black woman's stigma was so prominent in my mind. I never would even challenge it. You know, I just got to smile or laugh uncomfortably. I would never, you know, push back on those things.
Maisha Cannon [00:19:57]:
And those are some of the moments now that I think I would handle better. Maybe I have the language now to challenge some of those things lightly.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:20:04]:
I agree. Sometimes when it happens for the first time, you just you're taken aback, and you're like, I don't have the language to express, and then you go back later and say, oh, I should have said this, this, and this, but it's too late because the event is over. But what did you say anymore? Keep it cute? Keep it on mute? I think?
Maisha Cannon [00:20:18]:
Yeah. Keep it cute. Keep it on mute. That's how you get by.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:20:22]:
That's so well said. And I think a lot of us do that, when something happens in our lives and we're just like, okay, keep smiling and Mhmm. Just don't say anything and let let this blow over. It's not important, but it is important.
Maisha Cannon [00:20:35]:
That's right. That's right. It is. It is.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:20:38]:
I'm really enjoying talking to you and listening to all your your journey. And along the way, did you receive any advice that you've kept with you until now?
Maisha Cannon [00:20:47]:
You know, I have. And it feels so minor, but maybe it will help somebody who's listening. So very early in my career, someone told me that no matter how much you love your job, you should interview at least once or twice a year for another job. At the time, I was like, why would I do that? But they said, you know, it'll let you know where you place in the market in terms of your value, how competitive you are, and it will keep your interviewing skills sharp. And so I followed that advice for a couple of years. It served well and then, you know, like we often do, we just cast it to the side and we and we don't take that advice anymore. And sure enough, I went for a long spell, maybe 3 or 4 years not practicing, and the next time I needed to go interview, it felt so foreign. You know, I was rusty.
Maisha Cannon [00:21:34]:
It's like I didn't have answers to simple questions, and so I reflected on that advice. That is right. You should just continue to interview. It's a great way to network. And, you know, even if you have no intention of leaving your job, you should still continue to see what's out there and keep your skills sharp.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:21:49]:
Sort of like a a benchmark to know where what's out there, what are they paying for? And, you know, I've met so many people in the beginning phases of their careers where they used to jump every 2 to 5 years.
Maisha Cannon [00:21:59]:
Uh-huh.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:22:00]:
And I'm like, why are they doing this? Why are they not loyal to the company? But it was their way of figuring out a way to get a quick price or, like, a salary increase, and going from one corporation because you you will never get that increase if you stay in your current job or your current corporation because that increase is gonna take forever to get to that place. But if you switch companies, that next company Cannon give you a $10,000 or $20,000 salary boost, and you can get to that place faster. And I never understood that when I was younger. I just thought people were being disloyal.
Maisha Cannon [00:22:29]:
But, you know, is that even a thing anymore, loyalty? You know, I think back to how I was raised and people would stay with their employer for 30 years and then have a great retirement. And I've, you know, traversed during a period where it seems like companies and employees aren't as loyal. And so the things in my early college days that would have been seen as job hopping, you know, to your point every 1 or 2 years, 5 years. Now, it seems like it's just par for the course. Like people-
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:22:57]:
Right.
Maisha Cannon [00:22:56]:
-Are going to move for that exact reason that you mentioned. It's just a strategic move every 18 months to 24 months so they can keep growing their salary. So yeah, it's a really interesting change or shift that we're seeing.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:23:09]:
And it's salary, but it's also experience. Like, to build a CV, you need to have a variety of different jobs and different companies so that you can look relevant and say, look look what I've done. So eventually when you get to that dream job or whatever, you can show I've got, you know, all the experience and this is the salary that I want. I think that was the strategy. But now people are in the gig economy too. I find that there's this thing where people have multiple side hustles that they do, and so they never have to do that.
Maisha Cannon [00:23:35]:
That's right. That's right. That's right.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:23:37]:
They just earn income passively or whatever actively, and there's different sources of income now that never existed back when we started in the nineties and the 2000's. There's no way people would have made, we didn't make money off the Internet. There was no way of doing that.
Maisha Cannon [00:23:50]:
We were on dial up for goodness' sake. Like, what was we gonna do? It was an AOL chat room, if your mom picked up the phone, your internet's off. Like, what is happening? And nowadays, my nieces, I have 4 nieces, and I tease my brother that he has made the next R&B girl group trying to have a son and ended up with 4 daughters. -Oh, my God. -And they talk about being influencers. And I'm like, is that a job? But I guess it is.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:24:19]:
So tell me more about your experience with the client offering. Why was that such a challenge?
Maisha Cannon [00:24:25]:
You know, it's funny because I think in my mind, I was going to offer with The Collab lab what I had offered on the side the past 10 years. So going back to my days at around think around the Verizon time in the Bay, I started doing keynotes at different conferences. And sure enough, 1 or 2 people from the audience would reach out and ask if I could chain their teams. And so I had been doing that maybe 8 or 9 years on the side anyway. So I thought, okay, I'll go full speed ahead and I'll be B2B service offering this training for teams. But as life would have it, when I started in 2023, we were seeing the beginning of what became 200,000 layoffs in tech based on just maybe the overhiring that had happened during the pandemic.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:25:12]:
Okay.
Maisha Cannon [00:25:12]:
Yes. So most of my network that I was deeply embedded in for the past decade, they were in between jobs. I had initially thought it was B2B, and I realized that I might need to pivot when the first couple of clients had reached out to me and just said, hey, do you do 1 on 1 sourcing coaching? Like, I just wanna brush up on my skills. So that was my first indicator, the, okay, it may not be as easy peasy as I thought it would be with just teams, you know, coming to me for training. So I did. You know, I took a couple of coaching, kind of month long coaching assignments, and then still pushed on that B2B offering, but was fortunate to find Maven in the interim. And Maven came from one of the founders of Udemy. I'm sure you've heard of Udemy and Coursera.
Maisha Cannon [00:26:00]:
Mhmm. Some of the learning on demand video kind of, course offering.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:26:04]:
Right.
Maisha Cannon [00:26:05]:
And Maven is more about live learning cohort based. So it's getting 8 to 10 professionals in a room from different companies and, you know, sharing your skills with them. And so I thought, okay, this really sounds like the right kind of wave that I want to be on. And so that's how that client offering probably the 1st 6 months, it kind of a little bit between the independent offering and trying to round up cohorts, you know, that weren't direct at the company, but just a mix of individuals, yeah, who wanted to learn. Yep. So not exactly what I planned, but I'd watched enough, what is it, Y Combinator videos where they say, you know, you're definitely gonna pivot a couple times, so don't be surprised. So right. I was kinda ready to be agile around that offering.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:26:50]:
Oh, I see. I see. And, what kind of advice would you give people who are thinking of jumping ship or starting their own thing? I feel so young as an entrepreneur that I don't
Maisha Cannon [00:27:00]:
know that I would package it as advice, but I would say if something in my story resonates with you, I wanna encourage you to embrace imperfection and launch early. It's okay to launch before the website is built and before the offering is determined. Like, go for it. Right? Just go and start your journey even when things aren't perfect. I would also encourage them to look for support and resources, maybe in places you wouldn't expect it. Right? Because we often think our friends and our family will be the users and advocates and ambassadors for our brands, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. So there's so many resources for women, business owners, for people of color, for whatever your demographic may be. Right? Business owners over 40, business owners under 35.
Maisha Cannon [00:27:57]:
Right? There's so many different segments, and so explore that support, those communities, and those resources as early as you can. Those things have been so helpful. So I would encourage people to embrace imperfection, launch early, and then find your community, find your tribe.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:28:13]:
Tell me why it's so important though to launch early or right away.
Maisha Cannon [00:28:17]:
Yeah. I think, you know, for perfectionists especially like me, who tend to want everything to be just right, I think you can delay your own progress by being in this infinite loop of revision. You know, I was an English major, and so I'm used to writing 8 or 9 drafts of a paper before I turned it in. And being an entrepreneur has taught me, okay, you need to go on draft 2, girl. Like, you can put it out there and you can edit it later. Like, you need to really go because you need the other eyeballs on it. You need feedback on it. You need, response to it. You need to know how it resonates with your target audience, and then you can iterate.
Maisha Cannon [00:28:57]:
Right? You don't need to be in The self editing mode or, you know, kind of spinning your wheels too long. So, it takes a little courage. The the little teacher pets in us, we don't wanna be wrong. We don't wanna get the answer wrong. But, you know, it's a new world. And people who wanna support you, they'll give you good insight, and it'll make the product or the offering even better. So, yeah, you gotta go for it. If not now, when?
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:29:22]:
Thank you so much to Maisha Cannon. You can learn more about The Collab Lab through the links in the episode description. If you like the show, please rate, review, and subscribe to And So, She Left wherever you listen. Your feedback helps us to better serve current listeners and reach new ones. We also have a new website. Head over to andsosheleft.com for full episodes, transcripts, an application form to be on the show, a list of upcoming guests, and more. And so she left is made by Cansulta and Ethan Lee. Cansulta connects entrepreneurs and leaders with a global roster of over 150 pre vetted consultants and experts like Ethan and I who can help organizations in any business area from HR to finance to sales and marketing and even customer service.
Katherin Vasilopoulos [00:30:07]:
We'll be back next Wednesday with a new episode. Our music is by Correspondence and Chris Zabriskie, edited for your enjoyment. You can find a list of all the songs you heard here in the episode notes. I'm Katherin Vasilopoulos, and thanks for listening.