My mom encouraged me to put my $50,000 savings on the line. It turned into a company I sold for $22 million.

"I was raised by entrepreneurs, but I never wanted to be one. Instead, I saw myself in a big corner office in the city. I started climbing the corporate ladder, but being laid off twice showed me that a corporate career wasn't as secure as I thought. I started freelancing, and soon opened a marketing agency called No Subject. We focused on events and influencers, back when we were still calling them bloggers."

"I ran that company for four years and scaled it into a multimillion-dollar business. Those years were my MBA: I learned everything about how to run a business. Now that I was living in their world, I wanted to speak with other female founders and entrepreneurs. In 2011, I hosted a small retreat called Create & Cultivate for about 25 people in Palm Springs. It was a way to get offline and connect in person with like-minded women."

Jaclyn Johnson transitioned from a corporate career to freelancing after being laid off twice, then built a marketing agency called No Subject and scaled it into a multimillion-dollar business. In 2011 she launched a small retreat, Create & Cultivate, to connect female founders in person; the event grew rapidly, attracting hundreds of attendees and brand partners by 2014. She invested almost all her savings to expand the platform and received mentorship urging further investment in 2016. Create & Cultivate was acquired for $22 million; despite planning to exit, she repurchased the company two years later because of a deep kinship with its community.

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