Sienna Babbs helps professional women find trusted female attorneys
WMN Legal is a platform that helps professional women find and connect with trusted and supportive female attorneys. We have curated an invite-only network of highly recommended and vetted resources so that we can quickly match our users with the right professional for their specific needs. We believe there is a better way for professional women to find resources who care.
How did you come up with your business idea? What inspired you?
Before launching this business, I had spent a little over 12 years in corporate. At my last employer (a tech company), I went through a personal situation where I needed an attorney and was extremely frustrated by how difficult the process was to find someone who would help me (and I even have lawyers in my family!). I called all these attorneys and barely anyone called me back. When I finally did get in touch with someone, they didn’t want to work with me because I didn’t want to sue my company (so I wasn’t a big enough client for them). I really only wanted advice on my options and some support to navigate the situation, which big law firms don’t offer to individuals like me. I ended up finding this amazing and supportive employment attorney who is a sole practitioner through the woman who waxes both our eyebrows! After I got through my situation, I realized there has to be a better way for women to find trusted and supportive professional resources so I decided to leverage my background in business development to build this network and platform so other women don’t have to experience the pain and frustration I went through to find help.
Do you have a fixed work routine? Is it important to have one? Any tips for our readers?
Yes, when I transitioned from corporate to entrepreneurship, I knew I would need to establish a routine to stay productive. In corporate, your schedule is pretty much set for you whereas the fluidity and multitasking nature of a start-up can derail your day. To stay productive, I stack my days by type of work. Mondays and Thursday are days when I try to be focused and just heads-down working; I try to minimize my calls and meetings on those days so I can get stuff done. Tuesday and Wednesdays, I stack my out-of-office meetings, coffees and lunches. Fridays are my spillover day to catch up on new projects and emails that popped up during the week. Let’s be honest, we are all also working on weekends but I try to create balance as much as possible so I can recharge my brain (which ultimately benefits my business)!
What is your greatest fear. How do you manage it?
Imposter Syndrome. I constantly feel like I am a fraud. When I first founded WMN Legal, I felt like a fraud. I felt like the business wasn’t “real” yet and that made me feel like a total con artist when I would then have to pitch the vision and opportunity of what we were building to attorneys to convince them to join our network. It was very, very hard and I had several nervous breakdowns where I felt like a complete fraud and disaster. The only way I managed to get through this, which is advice I tell everyone who is just starting out, is to just show up every day and do something. Even if that something is small, just the act of showing up and putting in the work will generate momentum and things will start to come together. I also tell people to “show their human side”. When I added vulnerability to my pitch and went from saying “we are building this big thing so you should join us” to “we believe in the mission and opportunity we are building and we are looking for women to join our network who believe in us”, things really started to click. In short, push through it because everyone feels like a fraud and no one has it figured out but you can also be human and vulnerable as well because that resonates with people.
What is one thing you find to be true that most people would disagree with?
Spend the money. We’ve all probably read the book The Lean Start-up and I am a firm believer in the power of bootstrapping a business to get the concept and product out to market to start testing; however, you need to spend the money on resources like working with a brand strategist to define your mission and positioning, a lawyer, a bookkeeper, graphic designer and social media optimization. These are resources that you might think are “nice to have” but you can just hack it yourself – you can’t. Build your team of resources and spend the money because this is how you will elevate your brand, protect your business and outsource time-consuming tasks so you can focus on building and scaling your business.