Bringing back a great episode with France Simonwitz on building global ecosystems and partnerships. In this episode of TBNE Rob sits down with a friend and fellow entrepreneur and ally to entrepreneurs Frances Simowitz, CEO and Managing Director of NUMA New York. We talk about the entrepreneurial mindset and we share some big news about the growth of the business and France's entrepreneurial journey! Don't forget to subscribe and review.
Bringing back a great episode with France Simonwitz on building global ecosystems and partnerships.
In this episode of TBNE Rob sits down with a friend and fellow entrepreneur and ally to entrepreneurs Frances Simowitz, CEO and Managing Director of NUMA New York.
We talk about the entrepreneurial mindset and we share some big news about the growth of the business and France's entrepreneurial journey!
Don't forget to subscribe and review.
WEVE Acceleration is a startup accelerator that works with founders, entrepreneurs, organizations, and governments around the world to foster growth, acceleration, and innovation.
In this episode, we get deep into Frances' entrepreneurial journey and how falling out of love with her passion (singing) led her to grief, which led her down the path of entrepreneurship, education, and acceleration.
We talk about how they evaluate choosing an accelerator and what it takes to scale. As well as talking about the value of building a VALUE-ADDED, Intentional network and how Frances has leveraged that time and time again.
Tune in to this episode!!!
Connect with Frances on LinkedIn:
Connect with Rob:
Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creative Director: Maxim Sokolov, www.maximsokolov.com
Special offer for #BearNation listeners interested in trying Brilliantly Warm (https://www.brilliantly.co/), use this 10% off discount code WELCOME10.
The 8 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Choosing a Coach (and how to avoid them!) use this link to get your FREE download: https://www.thaxa.com/p/the-bear-necessities-of-entrepreneurship
We have teamed up with Phin, a social impact company, to give back for each episode to the communities that we serve. To learn more or get involved with Phin for your company, visit:
EP 16_Finished Assets_Repurpose_Frances Simowitz
00:00:00:03 - 00:00:28:03
Frances Simowitz
My favorite book on management and leadership is radical candor. And like I, they talk a lot about like feedback, culture, motivating your team. And that's like, it's how I operate. And so I also have all of my team typically read that book as well, because it's like my philosophy on management. And I think it's not surprising. I think relationships and people are the most important and my closest relationships are with my team.
00:00:28:03 - 00:00:44:11
Rob Napoli
So how we doing Bear Nation and we are back again for another episode of The Bare Necessities of Entrepreneurship Podcast. And I know I say this every episode, but I'm excited about our guest and I know it sounds a bit cheesy, but I get.
00:00:44:23 - 00:01:07:05
Rob Napoli
fucking excited talking to really cool people, so I am excited for today's guest. I have the CEO and managing director of Newman New York who also happens to be a good friend of mine, Francis Simowitz, and Francis is an expert at launching startups in New York City and as the managing director of Newman New York, she has worked with tons of startup over the years.
00:01:07:23 - 00:01:40:00
Rob Napoli
She's got over ten years experience in the startup ecosystem. She's helped establish and grow operations in multiple cities such as Boston, Chicago, D.C. and New York for startups like Center City Startup Institute. Now in Newman New York, she's worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs from the largest and greatest all communities in New York City through Hacker Nest and has also she also serves on the advisory board of Tech Day, which is a really cool event that goes on.
00:01:40:24 - 00:02:04:05
Rob Napoli
And she's also kind of a badass, is spoken on global stages at places like Web Summit, just to name a few, and private group events that I was not even invited to. So that's why I'm excited to bring Francis in. Not only is she an entrepreneur herself, she works with so many entrepreneurs and we've known each other for a while.
00:02:04:05 - 00:02:07:19
Rob Napoli
So. Francis say hi to Bear Nation. hi bear nation.
00:02:08:03 - 00:02:18:01
Frances Simowitz
So much for having me. Rob. I'm super excited to be here chatting with you. Obviously, I love you as a human being and so getting to talk about my favorite topic with you, what could be better?
00:02:18:13 - 00:02:30:17
Rob Napoli
Exactly. And you know, as as some may know, some may not. I've whenever I meet you and start working between 2018, 17-18.
00:02:30:24 - 00:02:32:23
Frances Simowitz
I think I was around 2018.
00:02:33:16 - 00:02:56:22
Rob Napoli
18 to 17 I was in I moved here in 18 is when I started getting the ecosystem really after going through the venture out program that I went through. So I've been coaching at Nova, came in, did a workshop, came back, did a couple more workshops, started doing more workshops, started coaching, more mentoring more. So I've been around the Numa family for a while.
00:02:56:22 - 00:03:20:03
Rob Napoli
I was and we had a blast, so I got to be chosen to go to Summit with NUMA and a partnership program, so to speak, while I was there. So thank you Numa. But Francis and I have plenty of stories from traveling abroad and going to an amazing conference that ended up in our final night where that little part.
00:03:20:04 - 00:03:20:15
Frances Simowitz
Oh my God.
00:03:20:15 - 00:03:21:23
Rob Napoli
I just started singing. I mean.
00:03:22:08 - 00:03:24:05
Frances Simowitz
It was it was awesome. Magical.
00:03:25:00 - 00:03:46:02
Rob Napoli
It was. Francis also loves to sing and she's an. She does improv, by the way, for us. Don't know her like she has, like some of the most amazing skills, singer improv acting. So we had this group, probably ten of us, from the ecosystem. So the first night there I was out by myself. Walking the streets is about to get some food and I heard this voice.
00:03:46:15 - 00:04:04:21
Rob Napoli
There's beautiful, strong male voice sing and some amazing music. Walked in, had an amazing meal, great wine, and knew I had to go back. So I brought everybody back. They close at one or two. We stayed like three or four. They let us pull the guitars off the wall we were singing dance and we we're having a great time.
00:04:04:23 - 00:04:14:15
Frances Simowitz
Making up songs, impromptu. That's good wine. That wine that was there, that was like in that cask that they made in the farm down the road was absolutely out of this world.
00:04:14:23 - 00:04:45:18
Rob Napoli
Yeah, it was just yeah, it was in Lisbon, it was just outside of the city, some farmer and it was literally and this like wooden barrel casting, it was like farm to table wine for and I mean we drank so much of it I, I can't imagine how many bottles that would have been if we actually pointed out it divide us because it was we were there all night so so you know I know we could talk about the stories, but we're here to talk about entrepreneurship, which is something we both love.
00:04:46:14 - 00:05:02:04
Rob Napoli
So let's talk about your journey. Where did your entrepreneurial journey start? So now that you've been working at this ecosystem for a long time. So let's start from like where did how did you get involved in this entrepreneurship ecosystem or even think about being an entrepreneur, Right?
00:05:03:05 - 00:05:37:11
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, I think so. I don't have a typical journey. I, I actually so I studied music education and opera in school, hence the singing and had never really expected to find my way into entrepreneurship. It wasn't something that like I grew up wanting. In fact, I have a vivid memory, Rob, of being in the fourth grade, and it was career day and they had a bunch of people coming in and talking about different careers, and I have a distinct visceral memory of them talking about entrepreneurship as a career path.
00:05:37:21 - 00:05:56:10
Frances Simowitz
And I remember thinking of myself as in fourth grade. I would never want to do that. Like, that sounds like so much responsibility and terrifying thing. And like, I never I never in my dreams that I think that I would have ended up here. I mean, I wanted to be a singer. I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
00:05:56:10 - 00:06:17:18
Frances Simowitz
And I, I after college, I kind of had fallen out of love with music because, you know, when you are young and you're doing choir, it's very community based, right? Like your making something beautiful with other people in a collaborative sort of way. And as you progress and a music career, really kind of where the dreams lie is in solo career is as an opera singer.
00:06:18:05 - 00:06:36:16
Frances Simowitz
And I hated it because I hated the mentality and the people. It was the idea that someone else's success means your failure and there was a lot of ego and just like stuff that I was like, I don't I don't like this. I don't connect to this. And so I fell out of love with like that aspect of music and spent a couple of years being lost.
00:06:37:04 - 00:06:56:23
Frances Simowitz
Honestly, after college, I and then I had this moment where I was nannying on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and the kids were playing on the playground. And I had this moment where I was like, Wait a minute, I'm like limiting myself. I can do whatever I want. Like the world's a playground and I'm finally big enough to play on the big kid side and I can reinvent myself and my dreams.
00:06:56:23 - 00:07:21:03
Frances Simowitz
So my my ex-husband at the time was working for a startup. He was a software developer and he loved his job and he worked at a startup. And I loved like meeting them or going out for drinks with his colleagues and how passionate they were about the work, how collaborative it was, how much fun it was. And so I started to have this inkling that, like I would maybe want to work in startups.
00:07:21:15 - 00:07:44:01
Frances Simowitz
And I had started to network through his contacts to see if I could get a job. But my background was in. I was a music teacher and a nanny, like I was not qualified for anything related to business. I had this interview with this company called Storyboard, which I really wanted to work for. It was super cool. They just took it as a favor, the call with me as a favor to their investors.
00:07:44:01 - 00:08:08:04
Frances Simowitz
And I followed up with him like tenaciously for him to have this interview with me. He interviewed me and he was like, You're so tenacious. And he was like, I really like your energy, but I don't know if you can do the job. And so I found my way to thinking about reskilling myself and finding a new path for education that might be a bit more flexible and was looking at options for, you know, do I go back to grad school and pay a bunch of money?
00:08:08:04 - 00:08:24:19
Frances Simowitz
Which scared me because I was like, I just did that for my undergrad and I'm not using that degree. So what if I go back to school and I hate it and I discovered this boot camp or my ex-husband that he was at like a conference and saw Startup Institute, which I then later on went to work for.
00:08:24:19 - 00:08:50:22
Frances Simowitz
And I actually have their logo tattooed to my body. A little crazy person. I like all my logos tattooed to my body, like I literally my resume is on my left arm like a crazy person. And it and he was like, Maybe you'd want to do this one day. And I look through their their course materials and the idea is actually built on the same model of acceleration as Techstars, because it was founded by the managing directors of Techstars Boston.
00:08:50:22 - 00:09:07:18
Frances Simowitz
So that was like my first foray into the world of accelerators and of entrepreneurship. And I said to my my ex-husband, I was like, No, I want to do this right now. Like, let's figure out how I can quit my job so that I could go to this program, you know, which at the time, you know, the bootcamp at that point was only $4,000.
00:09:07:18 - 00:09:19:18
Frances Simowitz
And so, like, it felt, you know, an eight week long, so it felt much lower risk than going to school forever. So if I hated it, I would do something else. And it was one of the most important things I've ever done in my life, which is why it tattooed to my body.
00:09:21:04 - 00:09:46:16
Rob Napoli
I mean, you know, part of bear nation, we love non-linear career paths, right? Most people on the show, myself included, thought I was going to do something else and fell into entreprenurship. And honestly, I had I might if I had my first start. At the first step I heard about was Dwolla because I was like in Iowa, Ashton Kutcher, you know, invested in it.
00:09:46:17 - 00:10:19:14
Rob Napoli
It was the coolest thing to come out of startup from startup from Iowa as a startup that I could remember. And it's like the coolest thing since sliced bread. I was like the first like, Oh, startups, just whole world. And I was like, okay, cool, whatever. Like is interesting. But like, you know, I have my career career path and I went off Chase, you know, my wife Christine's Italy and got a master's degree and then got reached out to on Twitter by this weird like guy who's like, Hey, I have a company I apply for one of our competitor teams we should meet.
00:10:20:06 - 00:10:41:23
Rob Napoli
We met and I started working for him and as like, Oh shit, I'm working for a startup and I got to grow. And then I came through a program and, you know, went through an accelerator. So I get it. We love the non-linear career paths and, you know, you kind of made this point about I wanted to be a singer and and that really worked out because your success meant somebody else's value.
00:10:41:23 - 00:10:59:21
Rob Napoli
And I do love, you know, when when you have something that you're so passionate about, you spent so many years of your life growing up to love and be. I think that's what you want to do. What's that feeling like? What you thought of love with that? I mean, obviously that feeling I'm feeling out of love. I mean, what how did you process that?
00:10:59:21 - 00:11:11:24
Rob Napoli
You talked about like your husband excited about the time and the opportunity that kind of starts just the healing process. But like what? When you sat there and had to think about it, what was that processing like?
00:11:12:07 - 00:11:28:24
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, it was a it's a grieving process, honestly. Like, I remember growing up feeling like I was so lucky that because I knew what I wanted to do or I already had my path figure it out, and then suddenly I was lost like everybody else. And there is a lot of feelings that go into that. There was a lot of shame.
00:11:29:12 - 00:11:46:19
Frances Simowitz
Like, my grandparents really wanted to see me on Broadway and they supported my music career and they took me to piano lessons and they paid for my voice lessons and I felt like I was letting them down and disappointing them. Still, sometimes they're like, I don't know what you do. Why aren't you on Broadway? Like, But it was hard.
00:11:46:19 - 00:12:09:05
Frances Simowitz
It was it was sad. And like, it's an opportunity then to reinvent yourself and to, like, rethink through your life and what you want. But it was hard and feeling like I didn't have direction or path or like I wasn't good enough. Like I you know what? If I never amounted to anything or had an impact on the world, so there was a lot of like, hard feelings in that process of rediscovery.
00:12:09:15 - 00:12:11:11
Frances Simowitz
So like, what I would actually want to do, Yeah.
00:12:12:05 - 00:12:24:15
Rob Napoli
I think it's kind of important because as teens and 20 somethings, we're taught you go to school, you go to school for something, you pick a career, you get a degree, and then you go work in it and it's like you feel stuck, but you don't have to be fucking stuck.
00:12:24:22 - 00:12:25:05
Frances Simowitz
Now.
00:12:25:08 - 00:12:46:18
Rob Napoli
It's okay if you fall out of love or something, right? It is going be a grieving process, as Frances just said that first listening as you think about your career, it doesn't have to be what you expected it. It can be so much more, something so different. And I was just thinking like this because you grew up your grandparents in Buffalo, right, in New York City.
00:12:46:18 - 00:12:48:09
Rob Napoli
You know, I was in Long Island.
00:12:49:02 - 00:12:58:01
Frances Simowitz
But yeah, I grew up with my grandparents because, like, my mom had a baby at 18. And so I was with my grandparents. My mom lives about seven months.
00:12:58:11 - 00:13:02:08
Rob Napoli
Well, I can remember because the thing I saw is Daniel, that little family.
00:13:02:17 - 00:13:04:05
Frances Simowitz
He's in Buffalo. Yeah.
00:13:04:18 - 00:13:16:20
Rob Napoli
I know. Is what, one or two or Buffalo One or two. Our Long Island. Yeah, but what's funny is that Francis and I actually thought we had a lot more in common than we ever thought. In fact, that Francis originally family in Missouri as well.
00:13:16:21 - 00:13:17:06
Frances Simowitz
I have that.
00:13:17:07 - 00:13:43:14
Rob Napoli
I'm sorry. Francis and I share kind of a missouri connection. And, you know, when you hear her story and you hear about this passion and this growth and, you know, her grandparents taking out the lessons and this kind of pain and almost disappointment for everybody else but yourself. Right? Kind of you kind of start thinking about that. And a lot of us feel that way that we we stick to paths because we think it's what people want us to do, not what we want to do.
00:13:43:17 - 00:13:50:01
Rob Napoli
So getting back to your story, right, you went to start up the startup of camping and you're like, I want to do this.
00:13:50:13 - 00:13:50:22
Frances Simowitz
Yeah.
00:13:51:12 - 00:14:08:04
Rob Napoli
Tell me about that. How did you get into starting to like, how did you work your way into that too? Like, this is from I'm going to take this boot camp, low risk, high reward. I mean, I went got a master's in Italy because it's cool. Yeah, well, why? That was cool too. It's like one eighth the cost of getting it here.
00:14:08:11 - 00:14:32:01
Rob Napoli
And three, I got to go coach American football. I live there. I get lower risk, high reward. Right. And if I didn't learn something, I should be looking. In contrast. And I learned so much. Yes, that's I love like, hey, this low risk, high reward opportunity, I want to do this now. So tell me about that process. Like, I need to understand what where this key turn for you that clicked into what will happen when we talk about Numa?
00:14:32:10 - 00:14:51:09
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, I wanted it so bad. I remember I applied and they scheduled they wanted to schedule my interview, but I worked like a 14 hour day napping because like I would take the hour, the train, 2 hours into the city every day to Nahanni on the upper West and 2 hours back to Long Island every night. And it was a long day.
00:14:51:09 - 00:15:07:18
Frances Simowitz
And so like, I was so happy when they had answered my application and they were willing to do like a very late like 8 p.m. interview with me. And I like ran home. I put on a blazer for my interview. I went through two rounds, I got accepted. It was like one of the happiest days of my life.
00:15:08:07 - 00:15:26:22
Frances Simowitz
I was so excited and I started this program and I met so many people because basically the idea like very similar to an accelerator, is that people that are teaching you in the curriculum, people that actually operate using those skills every day. So like I did the marketing track, I actually don't like marketing. I'm a sales person, but I didn't know that then.
00:15:27:15 - 00:15:49:09
Frances Simowitz
But you're learning people like the person that taught me how to do Google Analytics worked on the internal Google Analytics for Google. So like they're an expert in that skill set. So at the same time that you're learning skills, you're also and building network and building connections. And that was the most important part about it and learning how to leverage your network and make asks and go on coffee meeting so that you can find opportunities.
00:15:49:14 - 00:16:08:07
Frances Simowitz
I took two unpaid internships during that period of time as well to the work and start to actually build out and practice my skills. They had. They put this also in partner project groups and partnered us with other startups across skill sets because they had a development track design, marketing and sales, and we all collaborated together to make an impact on an actual business.
00:16:08:07 - 00:16:31:20
Frances Simowitz
And I just loved how creative it could be and collaborative, and it reminded me of the reasons I fell in love with music in the first place, even though it wasn't music. And so I. I graduated eight weeks long. I walked away with a ton of friends, many of which were still like my best friends and core people today that are still my network and are still supporting.
00:16:32:13 - 00:16:57:24
Frances Simowitz
And I then started the job hunt and it was brutal. I had probably about a hundred first round interviews like I got still so many no's along the way until I got my first job at Cedar City. So Cedar City had been actually when I was nannying babysitting, I got all my jobs off of their platform and they wanted to start a new on demand babysitting service.
00:16:57:24 - 00:17:23:15
Frances Simowitz
And it was sort of like the innovation inside of their startup. And so I opened up their New York office later launched their service in also Boston and DC, and it was a really great experience. I loved being able to work with the team and kind of get my hands dirty, and then I had the opportunity to join the team at Startup Institute and that was like, so amazing.
00:17:23:15 - 00:17:37:10
Frances Simowitz
That's actually where I met John Lin, one of your other previous guests, and I worked there together, but got to actually work with students and help other people change their lives and their career in the same way that I had the opportunity to do so.
00:17:38:00 - 00:18:04:19
Rob Napoli
I love that. And you know, it's interesting, right, Because we think about the job market today and especially now, and it was we're recording this and and in July, this will probably be out in August 2021. We're in one of the hottest jobs because we had a long time post pandemic. Things are opening back up at the future of work has changed and that all these opportunities rise to candidate driven market.
00:18:04:19 - 00:18:19:24
Rob Napoli
You know, you and I both worked in this recruitment and mission space. We understand these things. But even back then, you go through all these jobs because you're reinventing yourself, you know, what was it that kept you motivated to say, you know what, Because I could I could easily fall back and done something else that you knew how to do?
00:18:19:24 - 00:18:40:06
Rob Napoli
I mean, in my life, I've done this twice. I went chasing like, different then like it fell back into recruitment because I knew I could do well at it and make money and help get me fired because that's not what I was passionate about. So how did you stay driven to finding the right opportunity to following your heart into working in the startup space?
00:18:42:06 - 00:19:11:15
Frances Simowitz
Oh, probably not wanting to be a total, complete failure and disappointment. And I'm like, honestly, like, it's I don't know. I have I get like, doggedly passionate about stuff. I mean, I was like that with music and I remember when I lost music I like, really wanted something to sink in my teeth and do. I found a lot of value in meaning, in providing value and having something meaningful to work towards and to always have a goal post.
00:19:11:15 - 00:19:29:11
Frances Simowitz
I like to have something that I'm working towards and achieving. Otherwise I feel like I'm dying like a shark, like it doesn't keep swimming, it's dead. So like, I think that's kind of that. And like, I loved the space and I loved the community and I loved like a lot of startups have really cool missions and they're like, I want to curse.
00:19:29:11 - 00:19:48:00
Frances Simowitz
Like they're fucking doing cool shit. But our and they're innovating in so many spaces. There's like music tech, There are people that are doing like amazing things within sustainability. They're going to change the world. There's like space next to try to figure out how to get us to Mars when like the sun eats the earth one day and we can't live on the earth no more, or until we kill it first, which is probably what could happen.
00:19:48:00 - 00:19:54:07
Frances Simowitz
But, you know, like and I just like love the space so much and I just wanted to I was determined to be a part of it.
00:19:54:18 - 00:20:21:12
Rob Napoli
Yeah. So really interesting point here because we talk about, you know, startups and I think, you know, one of the things that I talk a lot about is how everyone has this view of startups, that there are Uber or Airbnb, that they're a great idea, they share it with somebody, they get Masa funding and they can go scale and that's not how any it's fucking works.
00:20:21:19 - 00:20:32:10
Rob Napoli
Okay. And and who better to talk about that. So as opposed to get that for a fee or you could as the associate director of mission, Numa came calling Right.
00:20:32:16 - 00:20:32:24
Frances Simowitz
Yeah.
00:20:33:23 - 00:20:50:19
Rob Napoli
So tell me a little about because I want to really get into like this entrepreneurship thing. So I remember that. But to do that, I need to, I need to tell need to help people understand what Numa is. So you got into Numa and it's really kind of cool because she kind of scaled really quickly at Numa. So tell me about how did Numa find you?
00:20:50:19 - 00:21:13:08
Rob Napoli
How did you find Numa? Yeah, and you had this quick transition. You were there for about 12 months, 18 months before you had the opportunity to step up and take over. So tell me a little about that. I mean, that was obviously like a really cool, quick thing that just popped for you. Yeah. Which has led this last two years of what we're going to talk about, entrepreneurship and acceleration.
00:21:13:08 - 00:21:15:03
Rob Napoli
So tell me your story here.
00:21:15:03 - 00:21:34:21
Frances Simowitz
It was quick growth. It's funny because I always tell people that they should focus on their strengths instead of their weaknesses. Like people always think that they should round out their weaknesses. But when you find something that you're good at and that you love and that pays you, you're like advancing it very fast. Like even when I was at Startup Institute, like a lot of my other other students when I was the student were much younger.
00:21:34:21 - 00:21:52:11
Frances Simowitz
They were in their early twenties and I was already in my my mid-to-late twenties at that point. And I felt like I was like, Oh my God, I can be so much more behind all of these people in terms of my career path and and I wasn't because I found the right fit for thing that I was good at and I was passionate about.
00:21:52:11 - 00:22:01:05
Frances Simowitz
And that allowed me to position myself for opportunities to grow really rapidly. And so like I always tell people to choose opportunity over money at first and position yourself for growth.
00:22:01:17 - 00:22:12:10
Rob Napoli
Like I heard that, quote, bad nation opportunity over money every day. I've been saying that for years, but I use that in almost every episode. So after that I'll give a little raise out for that.
00:22:12:20 - 00:22:27:09
Frances Simowitz
I love it. Yeah. No. And like, so actually at the time I had three job offers. I got like it was cool too, because I had gone from having to, like, struggle to get job opportunities too, because I built a network And this is like also really important to just like build relationships always be building network, always, always, always.
00:22:27:09 - 00:22:45:03
Frances Simowitz
Because that's where opportunities come from is from relationships. And so I no longer had to like, apply cold to things. People were pinging me because they knew I was on the search. And so Numa was opening up their New York office. And for me it was really exciting opportunity because it was to join like to get to build a program from scratch.
00:22:45:03 - 00:23:10:03
Frances Simowitz
Like I had been working for Startup Institute, which was an existing program, already had network. I got to see how it operated. I got to be a part of that work with the students, which were entrepreneurial. They weren't necessarily entrepreneurs. And the idea of being able to actually build a program from scratch and like figure out the value proposition and identify the right business model in relation to it and build the networking community around it was so exciting.
00:23:10:03 - 00:23:30:18
Frances Simowitz
And I actually I had three job offers and I picked the one that had the lowest title and the lowest pay at the time. Like I could have been making $40,000 more than what Nima started, but I started with that. Nima, because I was like, This is what where I get to grow. And I did, which was fortunate.
00:23:30:18 - 00:23:53:05
Frances Simowitz
And so within six months I went from program manager to program director where we were a team of three originally. And then right before about two years, I took over as the CEO and managing director of the office. When the previous one who I love, Aviva, went back to France. So and then I've gotten to run the activities and operations since then.
00:23:54:17 - 00:24:22:06
Rob Napoli
And so but I back up. There's three big lessons that you shared on that, that short string of this story that have been consistent, persistent messages of this podcast. One chase opportunity not money, we talk about it all the time, right? Especially millennials and Gen Z. When you think about entrepreneurship, follow your heart, take up or take the lead opportunity.
00:24:22:06 - 00:24:46:14
Rob Napoli
One of things that took me a long time to do that, to make that full job and it took me getting fire to be like, There's no other choice. Why are you hiding from it? And you know, I said this all time, and John said this on an episode earlier, which we talk about you as that leaning to lean into fear because there is fear that growth happens.
00:24:46:14 - 00:25:09:23
Rob Napoli
And, you know, you come to him early that had the hard conversations and the hard conversations that learning really happens, right? Yeah, in leadership and especially in entrepreneurship. So I was the first an opportunity that my second one and for those that are part of our nation now, I have a book coming out called ‘The Social Soul: How to Master Your Personal Professional Brand with Intentionality.
00:25:09:23 - 00:25:43:19
Rob Napoli
and Authenticity’, the key to that book and what that's all about is how you do and build intentionally authentic network. Have you heard anything that you just said? Always be building community, always building network. Let people know your fucking intentions because when they know your intentions, things come back to you and involved going from grinding out hundreds of nos to three job offers at the same time because people are wanting to talk to you because they know your intention, they know your skill, you authentically and intentionally brought people into your community, into your network.
00:25:43:19 - 00:25:57:24
Rob Napoli
That makes sense. So value added networks is point to and a point that seems counterintuitive to all the self-help books. Focus on strengths, not your weaknesses. There's a time and a place to focus on. We right. We have to upskill.
00:25:58:08 - 00:25:58:17
Frances Simowitz
Yeah.
00:25:58:22 - 00:26:23:05
Rob Napoli
When we think about business and think about growth, where we make the biggest impacts, right? How do we use that to grow and leverage? And then as you continue to grow, you work on your weaknesses, but you don't always have to, Right? And one of the books that has changed my life as an entrepreneur is who Not how , by Dan Sullivan in the format to achieve bigger goals through exciting teamwork, right?
00:26:23:07 - 00:26:43:23
Rob Napoli
This is a perfect transition to exoneration here. Yeah, but this is all about you don't need to teach yourself how to do everything. Bring the people in that know how to do it better than you. The strength of a leader is your ability to bring talent around you and create something bigger they can. The sum total should be bigger than the pieces, right?
00:26:43:23 - 00:26:57:06
Rob Napoli
It's a bigger calling. And if you can't do it all yourself, that's not You said, Hey, you went to do marketing, you would have talked. Marketing is not your strong suit. No, selling is not selling. It's training. It's recruiting. It's great talent and talent.
00:26:57:11 - 00:26:57:24
Frances Simowitz
Talent.
00:26:57:24 - 00:27:20:00
Rob Napoli
Right. And and those are things that I think so that so those are three big lessons that you shared in your story of Numa. And these are lessons that entrepreneurs need to know. And so to kind of loop this back all together as we think of entrepreneurship is like this big shining moment, but it's not. And there's then there's a million amazing companies that are going to innovate and change the world.
00:27:20:20 - 00:27:24:03
Rob Napoli
They're not going to be unicorns. They may be multi-million dollar companies.
00:27:24:09 - 00:27:25:02
Frances Simowitz
Now, but guess.
00:27:25:02 - 00:27:54:06
Rob Napoli
What? That's awesome. Not everyone has to be a unicorn. Yes, that's what we strive to be. But impact opportunity, creating something that helps others is so important. So I want to talk about acceleration, right? It's a word that we use a lot and those that haven't heard go back on. This is Jonathan's episode. We talk about acceleration in that episode, too, but talk to me about what do you do to accelerate that?
00:27:54:08 - 00:28:05:22
Rob Napoli
So Numa is an accelerator, emancipated countries from companies from all around the world to help accelerate growth in the US market. How? What does that mean? What does it mean to accelerate growth?
00:28:07:09 - 00:28:29:11
Frances Simowitz
And so there's actually a thing Jillian talks a lot about as well. And I don't know if you mentioned this on his talk, but like there there's a combination like accelerators have a start and end date. Typically they should be cohort based. So you should have other members and peers that are going through the same experience at the same time, because that breeds collaboration, it breeds finding other opportunities.
00:28:29:11 - 00:28:45:21
Frances Simowitz
It's another connecting point, like you were going through this period of time in this journey with others that are in the same position as you. There are aspects of curriculum, so there's educational components of things that you need to know or might not know about the business. And they're usually taught in an accelerator by people that are actual experts.
00:28:45:21 - 00:29:13:05
Frances Simowitz
So like Rob, you're one of our new IT for a long time. You're one of our best sales experts. You've also done some them recruitment and go to market strategy with our teams and like you know it's people that actually have this experience and knowledge that you might not have. And then the biggest and most important aspect of accelerator is, is the network in the community and the connections, because that as we mentioned before, like whether you're looking for a career or whether it's your business or whatever it is that you're trying to do, your network is one of your most important assets.
00:29:13:05 - 00:29:26:02
Frances Simowitz
And so giving them a network in the US to drive business opportunities forward and knowledge is so, so critical. And so those are like the key components of how accelerators work and how our model works as well. For entrepreneurs.
00:29:29:09 - 00:29:53:12
Rob Napoli
I love this network so much. And you know, one of the things that I found super fascinating about the Numa community, in fact, you know, Pat myself in the back, those that are listening, you can't see it. But in the latest cohort that that recently happened, I actually didn't do a single session. And what's cool is that three people I introduced to Numa did the sessions.
00:29:54:00 - 00:30:13:20
Rob Napoli
And what I love about that is that I am an expert so of things and I'm always upskilling. But there's also so many amazing people out there that startups, these executives need to hear from different perspectives and different places and different people doing different things because there are different stages, right? When you think of startups, but looking in zero and a half mil, right?
00:30:14:05 - 00:30:20:01
Rob Napoli
There are some now, you know, maybe some other companies you had maybe, you know, 2 to 10, you know, we've had a few of those.
00:30:20:02 - 00:30:22:16
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, we have some, we have some big ones. Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:22:16 - 00:30:40:23
Rob Napoli
But, but we, but majority of them in that like half mil to I'd say to those where a lot of those companies come in and there are different segments, different sectors or parts. And the cool thing about accelerators through the curriculum and through the network is that they have a chance to talk to a guy like Rob who has scaled a business from 0 to 1.
00:30:40:23 - 00:31:04:05
Rob Napoli
Or maybe you got to talk to a guy like David Weiss, who brings in a very structured approach with the metaphor to really help technical founders who need to do sales and really put process together. And that's what I love about this accelerator community. And so many people don't understand is that they think, Oh, I'm going to go next insider three months and go make $1,000,000 in business because it's the US market.
00:31:04:23 - 00:31:05:06
Frances Simowitz
The way.
00:31:06:09 - 00:31:33:19
Rob Napoli
So it so what do entrepreneurs who are looking to grow in scale in the US market. Right. Whether they're from abroad, from the U.S. you're thinking about accelerating your thinking about growing business. What are some of the bare necessities that a company needs to think about before they can really look at this accelerator model to hit that like super Because accelerators can help a company do in three months what might take them on their own nine months to 18 months to learn, right?
00:31:33:19 - 00:31:38:20
Rob Napoli
Yeah. So what are the bare necessities to like now if you're ready for this acceleration space.
00:31:39:06 - 00:32:04:17
Frances Simowitz
Yeah I it's also different by accelerator, right. Because like there are early stage accelerators, there's early stage incubators that are ready for you to take you from, you know, idea stage into your MVP. And so I think, you know, do your research as an entrepreneur as well in terms of like what stage, right. So it's also like self-awareness of like where you are at so that you know, like, okay, what is actually going to be the right fit for me?
00:32:04:17 - 00:32:27:05
Frances Simowitz
What are actually my challenges right now, the best the entrepreneurs that I love working with the most, especially even in the interview processes, are the ones that even in the interview process, they're not trying to pitch their company. And what's great about them, they're coming to me being like, We know that we do things, these things well, we know that, but we know that we suck at marketing or we know that we need help with the go to market or like, you know, I don't know everything.
00:32:27:05 - 00:32:44:07
Frances Simowitz
We have a company with us right now in our current program, very successful like multi time female founder. She's exited other companies before and she's going through our program because they're on a rocket ship and she's like, We need help figuring out how to structure our team and our processes and all of that. And so they're really aware of where they need the support.
00:32:44:07 - 00:33:18:06
Frances Simowitz
So then you can tailor that, match that to the right accelerator program. Looking at what is their network like based off of my needs and challenges, can this specific program help me answer the specific goals that I have? And it's probably not going to be like I'm going to raise $10 million in ten weeks. That's not realistic. But like, you know, by the end of the program, it can be realistic to have your assets ready to have some introductory conversations already with some investors that could be in your right target for you to understand how to prospect for the right investors, how to approach them and have the right strategy to change the power dynamics.
00:33:18:06 - 00:33:45:00
Frances Simowitz
So those are the types of things that you will walk away with. And I think having realistic expectations and also an awareness and doing good research on what accelerator is the right fit for you is the most important thing because like we do the US market entry for companies that are, you know, around Series A sometimes PRE-SERIES B And so we work with specific niches that, you know, you might not be a fit for, but you might be fit for another program.
00:33:45:11 - 00:34:05:07
Rob Napoli
Yep, I love that. And that's the thing is there's a lot of programs out there and they're not a one size fits all. They're they're pretty tailored approach. You know, I love that self-awareness that most entrepreneurs that we talked a little bit earlier about. Ego. Yeah. Entrepreneurs say they're moving out the door like in the mirror. Right. And the second piece is that they're not trying to pitch us.
00:34:05:07 - 00:34:23:14
Rob Napoli
They're not what they're good at. They know what they're going out. They need support because guess what? We all fuckiing know the US markets huge and your market total addressable market is fucking 2 billion and our 4 billion or whatever. We know that you know the market investors know the market. Yeah. You're not going to get it there in two years to get 2%.
00:34:24:08 - 00:34:32:18
Rob Napoli
They don't want to see that. Oh we're going be there in four years now. How. Yeah. How are you going to go get 1% over the next two years? Because 1%, some of them are business.
00:34:33:02 - 00:34:33:11
Frances Simowitz
Yep.
00:34:33:15 - 00:34:54:07
Rob Napoli
Tell me how the fuck you're going to get to 1% in the next four years. Right? And that's one of things that I love about the companies that come through humor is they understand that and they work towards that. And there's been a lot of successes that at NUMA. I wanna change gears a little bit on. You hear the CEO and managing director of humor.
00:34:54:19 - 00:35:15:18
Rob Napoli
And I've seen and I've had the pleasure of watching you speak on different stages, seen the different panels and things that you get into. What's it like being a female managing director and CEO in the center space that is very male dominated? And how have you felt about the education piece? This is something that you I know you talk about and you look at when you're bringing in companies through your mind.
00:35:15:18 - 00:35:42:20
Rob Napoli
So tell me a little about your experience in this space and maybe some things that you think are going to really be changing as we look at 2021, in 2022 with entrepreneurship, because there's organizations out there, there's a stat that outs bad or if I don't get shit done. Yeah, right. Yeah. I think John introduced me to her and the question are, you know, we talk about 50% of entrepreneurs are women, 96% of investment goes to male entrepreneurs.
00:35:43:00 - 00:35:43:09
Frances Simowitz
Yeah.
00:35:43:10 - 00:35:58:04
Rob Napoli
So tell me I and you're in this space, but time much more than I am. And you see this and you're speaking of things like this and you're in these conferences. So tell me about what it's like in your journey and then what do you see are some things that are really changing in the space for the better?
00:35:58:16 - 00:36:31:13
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, I think so. As a female entrepreneur, it is definitely different. I don't think that there's a lot of managing directors or accelerators are male. That is a fact. Like it's it's more of a rarity to have females in leadership positions, which gets me some really great like token speaking opportunities sometimes. But it's also like I get to be and I have a strong philosophy of and I and I try to also create this culture in my team of I really want everyone to be able to be their full selves.
00:36:31:13 - 00:36:50:17
Frances Simowitz
So like, I don't really feel like I need to change how we operate or what I do or what I'm great at just because I'm a female. I am really short and I have short blond hair because the listeners can't see me and I'm like this little petite thing that whereas dresses everywhere and pre-pandemic like always, like six inch high heels.
00:36:50:23 - 00:37:08:23
Frances Simowitz
So like, I'm very I don't look like the person that should be in charge of the company. And I've even had times like we had one of our events one time it was one of our our network kick offs and there is a guy from another accelerator program that was trying to compete with the type of work that we do.
00:37:09:06 - 00:37:24:09
Frances Simowitz
And they like swarmed our event, which was very strange. And he was speaking to our at the time, our air and he was like, Oh, are you going to be speaking later, assuming that he was the one running it? And he was like, Oh no, she is. And I was like, Hi, I'm the managing director, nice to meet you.
00:37:24:15 - 00:37:48:04
Frances Simowitz
So I always like I mean, it's fun when people, you know, it's unassuming, you know, I'm unassuming, but I do I hire a lot of females and I tend to like we have all entire team is female leadership, you know, Julia and Chai and like, you know, I want to continue to promote and support. I don't only mean to hire females, but I like I think it's important to promote and support more female leadership.
00:37:48:04 - 00:38:07:14
Frances Simowitz
And I as a female leader, recognize that talent and and grow it. And, you know, in the future. Right. As of now, you know, we don't have an investment fund, so we don't directly invest in startups. But that is one of the goals of mine for the future, is to raise a fund for the company so that we can invest in entrepreneurs as well.
00:38:07:20 - 00:38:32:01
Frances Simowitz
And I think that that's honestly one of the things that needs to change as well, is there needs to be more females that are in venture capital and that are making in charge of those investment decisions because you all will have, you know, same thing is like I tend to hire a lot of female leadership on accident. I think that like, you know, they're there that will help break down some of those challenges in the space if we have more females in DC of that.
00:38:32:01 - 00:38:50:10
Rob Napoli
And you know appreciate you sharing the thoughts on that because that is something that, you know, you get to be in those conversations and you see this. And I know that's a big conversation in this space right now as we look at how do we how do we help drive talent and entrepreneurship across the board and how do we help drive?
00:38:50:16 - 00:39:10:04
Rob Napoli
And I think one of the key things that I always talk about when it comes to investment in entrepreneurship, right, entrepreneurs, and my opinion is don't take investment unless you need it. Yeah, right. And you know, I think there's a lot of companies that work hard just to get investment because I think that's can help them scale faster than working towards traction.
00:39:10:12 - 00:39:10:20
Frances Simowitz
Yep.
00:39:11:11 - 00:39:26:11
Rob Napoli
When there's a lot of value in if you can get the traction to get to a certain point, get a small investment, get more traction and you can go for a big raise later or you don't need it because you know when you get investment, you get a part of the company that own for full ownership of a company.
00:39:26:11 - 00:39:33:09
Rob Napoli
So you start reporting to others. And so I think it's really important to to helping companies understand what traction.
00:39:33:24 - 00:39:34:14
Frances Simowitz
Is.
00:39:34:16 - 00:39:53:22
Rob Napoli
What our goal is for a starter. Right? And so have studies goals like you talked earlier, you're smart, always needs a goal, right? Something to work towards. Yeah. And I'm sure you see this all the time at these houses. Like I said, I went to $5 million the next five years and you look at their business, I'm like, wait a second, that's that's unreasonable.
00:39:53:22 - 00:40:14:20
Rob Napoli
You might get to a million in four years, which is a good chunk or maybe even 3 million in 2 years. But how I think so many entrepreneurs out there and for those listening, when you think about acceleration, you think about growing your business, you think about what does it mean to be entrepreneur, How are you going to do it? What is your plan?
00:40:15:15 - 00:40:31:22
Rob Napoli
Do you need to have one not just to go in investment? I have a great idea. I want to invest it and it's going to work itself out. How are you going to scale? Who do you have? And it comes back to one of the key lessons that was that Francis I will always be building network. You're building a networking community.
00:40:32:16 - 00:40:54:00
Rob Napoli
He just provided yourself more access to resources, people to get conversations, to find your house. So as Numa continues to grow and we look at 2021, the second half and into 2022, you mentioned one of the things you want to do is invest. It's not fun. What can we expect from new members in Florida, new in New York?
00:40:54:00 - 00:41:03:03
Rob Napoli
What are some of the things on the horizon that you have cooking up as you continue to build and scale Newman, New York Yeah.
00:41:03:03 - 00:41:27:03
Frances Simowitz
So this is airing in August, right? Well, okay so then the papers will be signed by then, so I will share. So we're actually going to be going through a rebrand. I myself and who is now our program director who just got promoted to COO Julia, are actually purchasing and acquiring the subsidiary Numa New York from Numa Paris.
00:41:27:12 - 00:41:58:04
Frances Simowitz
So at this point, probably when you're airing this will have already been done and going to be able to continue to grow the business in the direction, to be able to continue to work with the international entrepreneurs from around the world, do more partnerships with governments, and ideally raise a fund to invest in these entrepreneurs that are ready to scale into the US that need that extra capital, either for bridge round or for their next series or series B, So very excited for the future because now not only the CEO, but I'm taking it to the next level.
00:41:58:04 - 00:42:01:13
Frances Simowitz
I thought I hit the ceiling, but now I get to continue to grow and build what I love.
00:42:02:10 - 00:42:19:14
Rob Napoli
That's so exciting. And you know, I've already got little, you know, goose bumps. I've I've luckily known a little bit about this ahead of time, which is why we're teasing. And lucky enough to be probably one of the first people know on the first audience to see here on a larger scale that this will all have been set in stone and released.
00:42:19:22 - 00:42:40:22
Rob Napoli
As this comes out. This episode will be out late August. We're shooting now and, you know, early July. But it's so awesome to look for, too, and think about what this opportunity provides. So we've been tracking Francis's journey. Entrepreneurship was never what she thought. In fact, she has a vivid memory of fourth grade of being afraid of entrepreneurship.
00:42:40:22 - 00:42:41:11
Frances Simowitz
Yeah.
00:42:42:05 - 00:43:26:16
Rob Napoli
Wanted to be on Broadway. A singer fell out of love with music. Fell in love with this. RC Worked your ass off to go, be a part of a startup institute, got our first job launching a new office and launching three different offices. So I'm putting all my did for another startup. So taking that on three job offers Chuck the lowest pay, lowest title, the biggest opportunity and I think two years CEO managing director and basically took something that was brand new and helping grow and scale it and now has the opportunity to buy it out own it all herself full on entrepreneurship minded to a T taking full control, live or die by this
00:43:27:01 - 00:43:54:09
Rob Napoli
because the opportunity to grow it and the things that new will be able to do is amazing. And that's not like just a fucking cool story because the entrepreneurial journey is ever changing and it's as much of a mindset as it is a career. Yeah, and entrepreneurship has impact. Yeah, I truly believe that. I mean, that's the thing that I believe.
00:43:54:12 - 00:44:17:12
Rob Napoli
Why the bare necessities of entrepreneurship. So thinking about the bare necessities we talk about from other entrepreneurs looking at our what are some of the bare necessities that you're excited about that you're preparing yourself for, for the next stage of the rebrand and taking on this business? What are some of the things that you know that are going to be challenges that you're preparing for today?
00:44:17:22 - 00:44:38:00
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, and so many. And so there is, you know, one of the things that I is really important to me is the team and continuing to build up the team we're actually hiring right now for a program manager is one of the things I think that's most important. Identifying really great talent to be always building with and to be working with the right people.
00:44:38:00 - 00:44:51:16
Frances Simowitz
As you mentioned before, you need to always have people that round out your skill sets. Like I know what I'm really good at and I know what you know. What's a tall tower? I'm going to continue to build on top of, but then having the other people on my team that round out that that are passionate, that are awesome.
00:44:51:16 - 00:45:11:19
Frances Simowitz
So I think that's super important in the coming months, the actual transition of the company and figuring out what is our new path forward, the direction, our managing, everything we get to do the fun stuff like new website, new logo, new name that will announce at some point probably in September. And so building towards all of that, we're also right now in a ton of programs.
00:45:11:19 - 00:45:27:03
Frances Simowitz
We're running four programs right now simultaneously. And so also right now getting through that period of intense execution so that we can be in build mode again. So it's always figuring out how to refocus, how to continue, move forward. Yeah, many, many challenges.
00:45:28:21 - 00:45:38:16
Rob Napoli
And looks like there's going to be a new tattoo in the near future. That left arm for a new brand, for a new company. So we can all expect to see that. And they're coming.
00:45:38:22 - 00:45:44:22
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, our designer, I told him I was like, This logo is going on my body, so it better be good.
00:45:45:09 - 00:46:02:11
Rob Napoli
Yeah. So I said, Yeah, you know, and I built the Rise Up brand logo that, you know, Francis and I were talking about this not too long ago. We had a chance to sit down and I never thought about the Bear logo was the logo i was going to go with. I wanted a black and yellow and a lion and I have gone with the bear and the light blue and the white.
00:46:02:11 - 00:46:27:23
Rob Napoli
And there's the whole story by my nickname of the Grizzly Bear. My twin brother got famous as the bearded bear being on the sidelines. And that's the kind of state my grandfather was nicknamed Big Bear as coach. And, you know, when you build that brand, that logo and that all that, you know, my biggest thing is, is put you in it like this is this is you know, this is the next stage and this is this is an all in moment.
00:46:28:17 - 00:46:43:17
Rob Napoli
So be all and put it all in. And so what that looks like and what that is and make it connect with you because it's going to make everyone connect with it. And I think there's so many people out there that are going to be excited to support this venture and and I love the idea of all the new things that new will get to do.
00:46:44:07 - 00:46:55:20
Rob Napoli
Yeah, Newman New York will get to do moving forward. But yeah, there's a lot of challenges. What scares you the most about this next step? What what is the fear that you're leaning into?
00:46:56:00 - 00:47:17:19
Frances Simowitz
Oh yeah, it's I always knew, like as I've gone on this journey that I was going to eventually graduate into full entrepreneurship. And I had always figured that like Numa was going to be my training wheels because I had a lot of accountability and responsibility. I'm not a big Counter-measures panel. I'm tired of hiring like I had a lot of the responsibility already.
00:47:19:04 - 00:47:38:22
Frances Simowitz
And so now it almost feels like the training wheels are coming off, you know, because at the end of the day, I could have still like put in two weeks notice and left if I really wanted to, where that was no longer an option. And so I think now that I don't have that safety net, there is a thing in the back of your brain that's like, I could totally fail and end up on the street in a box.
00:47:38:22 - 00:47:57:11
Frances Simowitz
Like, I can totally like, fuck this up. So there is, you know, a new level of responsibility. And entrepreneurship is a lot of sleepless nights. It's a lot of like at night worrying about my team and their stress load and like the little, like spiking ball in the middle of my stomach, being afraid about like, why hasn't this client paid yet?
00:47:57:11 - 00:48:29:15
Frances Simowitz
And like, what happens if, you know, this project falls through or all of the things. So there is there's it's not easy and I think fourth grade me knew that she'd be falling off her chair right now she knew what was doing but like but it's it's scary and you have to do it so you have to lean into it and like like every day, you know, you're doing things that scare you, that make you uncomfortable, having hard conversations with with team or with investors or with people like it's or with clients like it's every day.
00:48:29:15 - 00:48:30:23
Frances Simowitz
There's something scary that I'm doing.
00:48:31:13 - 00:48:59:09
Rob Napoli
Yeah, But, you know, as we said earlier, it's leaning into that fear. That's where the growth happens. And yeah, you know, one of things I have noticed since I started my real journey with happier group and and rise up in launching both the businesses is as scary as it is and as nice that I haven't been able to sleep or nights that I just have anxiety each day to make the impact that you want.
00:48:59:09 - 00:49:19:02
Rob Napoli
And that's why I love entrepreneurship, and you build the Business And you know, all those entrepreneurs out there, you know, you've heard my story multiple times about waiting. You know, Frances just talked about her journey to this and that. Now, fourth grade, her would be far off her chair, but it took one fourth grade her today to get to where she is, to be able to say, you know what, training wheels are coming off.
00:49:19:20 - 00:49:38:09
Rob Napoli
We're jumping off this ladder and we're going all fucking in. Because if not now, than when, right? Like opportunities chase opportunity. That money opportunities like this don't happen. You have a chance to buy out and own something and take this out that you can grow it. It's not something you put time and energy and effort to take this to the next level.
00:49:38:20 - 00:50:11:03
Rob Napoli
And I think that's such a key, amazing lesson that everyone can take away and coming back to another. Q Hasn't that she said nothing is possible. All these steps in her journey has never passed without every step along the way, building a networking community. And one of the things I can tell you that Frances has done well and from Laura, I have met her and you know, I'm feeding in to this community and network to do things, to take over things that I used to do because it benefits everybody involved.
00:50:11:18 - 00:50:30:15
Rob Napoli
And Frances is one of one a few people that I know that makes a huge effort to always reach out to that network and just ask, Hey, how you doing? Hey, we're doing a 1:00. We're doing a virtual event. And it's not just a few people. It's to the whole network, you know, that seems overwhelming, that can seem expensive, etc..
00:50:30:15 - 00:50:53:19
Rob Napoli
But the community is so engaged, and I know I'm not the only one right now. I'm bringing people out. I see this all this sudden and as an entrepreneur, I don't have it now this down even harder. Don't stop being an authentically just fucking awesome human build community in that work because that takes you places like we haven't learned anything from.
00:50:53:19 - 00:51:15:14
Rob Napoli
Frances. Go back and listen to her story again. It's all about relationships. It's all about building network building, community building opportunity, chasing opportunity. And that's you have so many young entrepreneurs out there. Don't let that fall by. Don't do something because you think you have to or you're going to disappoint somebody else. Do what you want, follow that passion.
00:51:15:14 - 00:51:33:24
Rob Napoli
And it may come from a place of grief, a falling out of love of something and not knowing what the fuck it's next, and then finding that passion. And that's, you know, Francis share. That's deep pain that, you know, you don't always say that out loud. And then you think about it. It's kind of it's kind of like, damn, yeah.
00:51:34:23 - 00:51:39:11
Rob Napoli
It's I think I think, you know, I want to stop there because I think I'll go down a tangent of of emotion.
00:51:40:09 - 00:51:40:13
Frances Simowitz
And.
00:51:40:14 - 00:52:01:22
Rob Napoli
Deepness. But those are things that I took away from this episode. I hope others out there, you know. Frances’s one of the people that I myself have worked with hundreds and I mean hundreds of entrepreneurs, and I have seen businesses that have scale. They've seen businesses that we thought would fail, that thrive. We've seen business that we thought had it all and didn't.
00:52:02:13 - 00:52:26:16
Rob Napoli
We've been there in the trenches next to them. We've helped them, we've seen them, we've accelerated them, share them with, coach them. And so there's no one better to connect with and listen to about entrepreneurship and someone to pay attention to is as that as she going through this journey herself. But she's still taking on this mission to help hundreds of more entrepreneurs through partnerships, not only through accelerator but through government projects, through different things.
00:52:26:16 - 00:52:45:02
Rob Napoli
You know, I what I love about in Panama is I get I get to the assembly a lot of panels and people that know me now, I fucking love to talk. I talk, I love to talk, go to market, I love to talk sales. And it gives me a great place to do that. And so if you're interested about being part of the community, reach out to Francis.
00:52:45:02 - 00:53:07:12
Rob Napoli
Reach out to me how to get into the newma family. It's a great family community to be a part of. So as we close this out, I always like to ask a few key questions to everybody right inside out, giving back. And what should those that are national minded be thinking about? So an assessment of a different order than I normally do.
00:53:07:15 - 00:53:24:09
Rob Napoli
Then I gave it back to you. Because why not Friday? I feel on it. Oh, I love this. What is one book resource or piece of content that you would recommend? I it on minded folks out there to be reading consuming or listening to.
00:53:25:02 - 00:53:49:04
Frances Simowitz
So my favorite book on management and leadership is radical candor. And like I they talk a lot about like feedback culture motivating your team and that's like it's how I operate. And so I also have all of my team typically read that book as well because it's it's like my philosophy on management. And I think it's not surprising.
00:53:49:04 - 00:53:58:16
Frances Simowitz
I think relationships that people are the most important and like this is relationships are with my team. So those are the most important for for me to cultivate.
00:53:59:22 - 00:54:23:08
Rob Napoli
I absolutely love that. And that's a it's a great book. I recently I've learned about radical candor, but I never read it in totality until recently, partly because I doing work for Numa Paris, and that's a big piece of one of the training programs that I lead. So after reading that, it was amazing. And now I get a lot of value.
00:54:27:00 - 00:54:29:19
Rob Napoli
What advice would you give Gen Z entrepreneurs right now?
00:54:31:09 - 00:54:51:06
Frances Simowitz
And I would say to really, you know, going back to some of the lessons that I guess I've shared anecdotally through my story, like be uncomfortable, take the leap, don't be like do the things that make you afraid. Like you're always going to be scared. Like it's going to be always be scary like it is. Never moments where I'm not scared taking the next step.
00:54:51:06 - 00:55:16:23
Frances Simowitz
I'm scared Every time you have to do it anyway, You have to move through the fear. Just like take action, you know, build self-awareness, be aware of what your strengths and weaknesses are and try to build on those strengths, because there are things that you're going to be really great at in life. You build on the tallest tower, you're only going to retire heights and then build relationships like you really surround yourself with supporters, with network, always be networking.
00:55:16:23 - 00:55:24:05
Frances Simowitz
Relationships is the most important asset that you have in terms of filing future opportunities and collaborators. Everyone's a potential collaborator.
00:55:25:04 - 00:55:47:20
Rob Napoli
I love that. I mean, speak an ally, build an amazing intentional community. Speak your intentions. Let people know what you're doing. I mean, when you know I was out there. No, I run two businesses have to rise up, have to agree that we brought on an organization out of Mexico to help support a lot of it, which means I had more free time.
00:55:48:06 - 00:56:06:07
Rob Napoli
And I was thinking what I want to do more with the rise Up brand is in itself, and one of the first people I called was Frances and said, Hey, what kinds of things? I spoke to attention. Two weeks later, Frances emails me, Hey Rob, I'm making two interests. I think there's some opportunity here which led to two opportunities that I never thought possible, but I knew that there are things I love.
00:56:07:05 - 00:56:28:02
Rob Napoli
Timing is everything right? And it just so happens that, you know, one of the things I did is, is, hey, Frances, some of the things I want to be doing and I worked on Shiny Thing, I mean, I spoke at it to attention and I was even like two weeks is kind of funny because she she's gone on vacation and she's like, you know, to the excited Hey, Rob, totally random, but boom, boom, boom.
00:56:30:06 - 00:56:34:14
Rob Napoli
Right. That's the power of network power, that network. So I love I have.
00:56:34:14 - 00:56:43:03
Frances Simowitz
Asks like you have to have asks Don't be afraid to ask for what you want like. And that's something I take my entrepreneurs when pitching. You have to have an ask. You have to tell people how to help you.
00:56:43:14 - 00:57:30:11
Rob Napoli
A No one knows what you need unless you ask for it. Why? And you know, there's this fear of asking for something, Oh, maybe will be who the fuck cares? Have you ask who can help me do this? Because guess what? That network will rally. The right people will rally and help. So I love that. And you know, there's a great lesson from an episode, an earlier episode where private citizen CEO Sammy Rufus used to work and blue chip companies and well, the other things the opportunity at an entrepreneur icons like Hey, I need somebody to run this company and one of his mentors told them, if you are comfortable in your life sitting on
00:57:30:11 - 00:57:50:20
Rob Napoli
a couch having your vacations, you're in the wrong place. Keeping an attachment until way later. He was like, I had that moment. I was comfortable with my life and I was missing something. I jumped into it. So I love that lesson leading to discomfort. It's a yeah, we have some really awesome common themes of entrepreneurship showing up here on Saturdays.
00:57:52:16 - 00:57:57:08
Rob Napoli
I think I know the answer to this. What is your superpower?
00:57:57:08 - 00:58:08:06
Frances Simowitz
Francis Yeah, I would say probably relationship building and identifying really great talent to do the things I'm terrible at. I'm terrible at a lot.
00:58:08:06 - 00:58:39:05
Rob Napoli
Rob I love that. I mean, I can't, I can't, you know, snap that up, rise that up, raise it up more and more than in more than enough because it it's something I live by too, right? Building great communities building that and networks and yeah, you know, we talk about that a lot so when we think about yeah, I shared a lot of these, you know, anecdotal key lessons here and there's a lot.
00:58:39:16 - 00:58:47:01
Rob Napoli
What is your lasting message that you want to leave our listeners with as we step out of this episode together?
00:58:47:09 - 00:59:07:20
Frances Simowitz
Yeah, I'd say having fear, as I mentioned before, is and part of the process, like, you know, as you were mentioning, like, you know, sitting on the couch being comfortable, that's when people are typically the most unhappy is if you're sitting in a place that's super comfortable, like challenge yourself on a friendship is super hard. It's not always easy.
00:59:07:20 - 00:59:34:23
Frances Simowitz
It's sometimes scary, it's not always glamorous, but like it can be incredibly rewarding. Like you get to build stuff that you want to build. You get to find meaning. You get to find opportunities to create value for people to potentially to potentially have the opportunity to change the world. And so if you focus on the relationships, the why of what you're building, you're going to find those opportunities and put yourself in those opportunities to be successful.
00:59:40:18 - 01:00:08:17
Rob Napoli
I can't I mean, I can't catch that better myself. I mean, after I was, you know, the whole I mean, this is the whole journey behind this podcast. Like you just get on. It is hard. It's not glamorous. It's a combination of a lot of things that to me, that's why I wanted to start, why I wanted to have these conversations and share these lessons and messages with people not so that you can hear how to be successful.
01:00:09:08 - 01:00:27:19
Rob Napoli
Yeah, you'll learn how to be successful. Listen to that. That because you I think you got to learn about what does it mean what are your bare necessities? Self-awareness, relationships, leaning into fear. Those things are what carry an entrepreneur through the hard and the good. Because when things are going.
01:00:27:19 - 01:00:29:07
Frances Simowitz
Entrepreneurship is a mindset.
01:00:29:14 - 01:00:37:06
Rob Napoli
It is because when everything's going good, everybody wants them to try to figure out how to eat off. You was just going bad. No one wants to be a part of it.
01:00:37:18 - 01:00:38:08
Frances Simowitz
You know.
01:00:39:00 - 01:00:58:20
Rob Napoli
Because they want to be a part of a sinking ship, or so they think. But when you have those bare necessities, you have those mindset. You know what you're trying to do. You lean into fear and you make every day count impact. That's where entrepreneurship happens. As impact happens, that's a winning happens. And winning isn't always being a unicorn.
01:00:58:20 - 01:01:23:20
Rob Napoli
Winning is. What did you learn? How did you grow? What can you take living for it? And that's that's what I find so, so important and really take away a lot from the conversation we had today because if you hadn't gone through that on grief and through your own formulations of wedding and finance, they knew you would never be at this point to be taking over your own business and scaling it to the moon and on a rocket ship.
01:01:23:20 - 01:01:35:16
Rob Napoli
So I love that. So what is your ask for my listeners, right? You said I just have an ask. You put that out. So what is your ask for it?
01:01:36:04 - 01:02:00:03
Frances Simowitz
Well, I mean, obviously we work with a lot of different entrepreneurs from around the world. And so if there are entrepreneurs that are looking to expand into the US that you know, or if you work for a company that does, that's great if you want to mentor is always so many ways to get involved with an accelerator. So like if you want to get involved with other entrepreneurs, like we have associate ships that are you work with our startups for one program we're hiring.
01:02:00:03 - 01:02:20:23
Frances Simowitz
If you know someone that is excited to work at an accelerator and you know someone that would love to dive into this, or maybe, you know, there's always ways to engage with us. So please reach out, figure out ways to get involved. Like we're we have an amazing community of people and supporters of mentors and just even being involved with accelerators as a mentor is also another great way to grow your network.
01:02:20:23 - 01:02:25:05
Frances Simowitz
So Connect with me is my answer to that.
01:02:25:05 - 01:02:28:12
Rob Napoli
So I'll make sure and how do they connect with you or how do they find you.
01:02:29:05 - 01:02:38:04
Frances Simowitz
Can find me on LinkedIn, they can send me an email. I'm at Frances, F R A N C E S. S @ Numa and N U M A. C O
01:02:38:04 - 01:03:03:21
Rob Napoli
So I will link your LinkedIn. I will also drop the email right into the show notes. I can easily click and make that happen again. Ask if you want to be a mentor, get involved and excite a community. Reach out. If you are an entrepreneur or a company that wants to get to the US market and go through an exciting program, reach out If you're looking to get involved and want to be an associate or a program manager and excite our community, you miss hiring.
01:03:04:05 - 01:03:28:11
Rob Napoli
Or if you just want to be a part of a great community of entrepreneurship, connect with Francis. Right. Those are the four ways I was before, asked Francis. Thank you so much for being a part of the business. Thank you for being part of bear nation and I enjoyed our conversation and I cannot wait to see the continued growth and success. And we're going to have to get for our listening audience.
01:03:28:17 - 01:03:35:01
Rob Napoli
The video will be on YouTube. once Francis gets the logo and gets the tattoo, I'll make sure to share.
01:03:35:15 - 01:03:36:16
Frances Simowitz
The new ink.
01:03:37:00 - 01:03:40:20
Rob Napoli
To Bear Nation. So, Francis, once again, thank you so much.
01:03:41:01 - 01:03:41:19
Frances Simowitz
Thank you, Rob.
01:03:43:20 - 01:04:06:01
Rob Napoli
All right. Until next time. Until next week, when I share another awesome episode with another great entrepreneur. Stay well. Bear Nation. Also, it's Daniel back that I know. Let's just get ahead. But Daniel is an amazing dude. Francis’s boyfriend. He’s got his headphones in. And for those that are watching the show, those that are listening,
01:04:06:01 - 01:04:18:23
Rob Napoli
He’s a beast. I love him. Frances and Daniel are fun, they’re a riot to hang out with. If you ever get a part of the new family and you're in New York, you'll know what I mean? You'll get to buy some of that. So thank you all. I'll talk to you in.
01:04:21:20 - 01:04:29:14
Rob Napoli
Bear Nation. Thanks for listening to the bare necessities of entrepreneurship. We enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe and leave us a review.