Fundraising as a Female Founder with Emily McDonald of The Stylist LA

Episode 40 – Pitchin’ and Sippin’ – Fundraising as a Female Founder with Emily McDonald of The Stylist LA

Emily McDonald, Founder of The Stylist LA is an Entrepreneur, Consultant, Business Coach. As a female founder, Emily has faced many unique challenges and successes throughout her journey from growing and running a team of over 15 employees, to launching retail stores across California, bringing in over 7 figures in revenue, and fundraising over a million dollars in Venture Capital. Her companies have been seen in outlets such as Entertainment Tonight, US Weekly, Glamour…and many more. She has also been featured on many celebrities and influencers social media,  including pretty much every bachelorette or contestant from The Bachelor franchise.

In today’s episode we dive into how Emily first successfully bootstrapped The Stylist LA before later diving into the world of VC fundraising as a female founder. We chat through how she shifted her company in lieu of the pandemic, her best tips on crisis communication management, and what she’s currently up to do. She offers some incredible opportunities to you guys – and is a girl after my own heart in the beverage department.

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Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How Emily came up with the idea of her initial business model for The Stylist LA
• The importance of knowing where to look for fundraising opportunities
• She tells us one avenue that was especially successful for her in raising funds
• The difference between Angel Investors and Venture Capital fundsHow to approach fundraising and making sure your business model is the right fit for the right type of investor
• The importance of brand messaging during times of crisis and tips on how to sound as authentic as possible
• How to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable and her best fundraising tips for female founders
• How she got her business the traction it needed to be seen as scalable to investors
• The importance of sending multiple pitches – both for press and investors
• How Emily has pivoted the model of Stylist LA since the pandemic 
• The launch of her upcoming mastermind (and who’s a fit!)
• And so much more!