She Built It® Podcast

Hosted by Melanie Barr

Business Careers

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Episodes

312

Latest episode

Nov 2026

Language

EN-US

About the show

Welcome to the She Built It® podcast. Join me as I talk to women who have successfully built it - a life and business that they love. We dive into the topic of “how” they built it and talk about everything from having the courage to make career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively, build teams, implement growth strategies, and infuse tech innovation. Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy so let’s dive in.

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60 recent

November 11, 2026Episode 31126 min

How to Build Trust Before You Launch: Proof, Community and Delegation

Most launches are spent on the party. Dr. Joyce Park, a dermatologist and founder of Kerativ, spent hers on a six-month clinical trial. She also explains how to check whether an online expert is credible, and how she hands off parts of a company she has never run. Key Takeaways: Test before you launch. Build trust over years, not weeks. Check credentials, then verify. Find owners for the parts you've never done. Check in on workload. Redesign around what customers need. Kerativ launched in April 2026 after about three years of development. Dr. Park runs it with no full-time employees: everyone is a part-time contractor, spread across the country. Connect with Dr. Joyce Park: Kerativ Website Kerativ Facebook Kerativ Instagram Kerativ TikTok Dr. Joyce Park LinkedIn Tea with MD Website Tea with MD Instagram Skin Refinery Virtual Teledermatology Clinic Website Connect with us: Work with She Built It® Media She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr Instagram Melanie Barr LinkedIn She Built It® LinkedIn

November 3, 2026Episode 31023 min

How to Grow a Trust-Based Business Without Investors

Clients are now arriving with AI-generated images of the piece they imagine. Ali Galgano, Founder & CEO of Serpentine Jewels, explains why that image is only a starting point and how she built a trust-based business she owns 100%. Key Takeaways: Use AI as a starting point and to give time back. Take yourself out of situations where you aren't needed. Add a systems consultant. Listen to how customers behave. Choose the structure that fits the business you want to run every day. Serpentine Jewels celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, after Ali built and sold Charm & Chain (acquired 2015). She says vintage growth "surprised even me." Connect with Ali: Serpentine Jewels Website Serpentine Jewels Instagram Ali Galgano LinkedIn Ali Galgano Instagram Connect with us: Work with She Built It® Media She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr Instagram Melanie Barr LinkedIn She Built It® LinkedIn

October 27, 2026Episode 30918 min

They Knew Construction. She Knew How to Lead.

A new hire shows you their best in the first month. Pamela Dicso, CEO of ZD Stucco Repair, waits until month three and looks at the work. She also explains how she earned a skeptical team's respect and how a simple onboarding standard keeps quality consistent. Key Takeaways: Judge a hire at month three, not month one. Evaluate the work, especially in areas where you aren't the expert. When authority isn't automatic, ask for help. Write the standard into onboarding. Communicate with clients before they have to ask, especially when weather changes the schedule. Growth shows up beyond revenue: with about 80 people on the payroll, the impact reaches that many families. Connect with Pamela: ZD Stucco Repair Website ZD Stucco Repair LinkedIn ZD Stucco Repair Instagram ZD Stucco Repair Facebook Pamela Dicso Instagram Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health Connect with us: Work with She Built It® Media She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr Instagram Melanie Barr LinkedIn She Built It® LinkedIn

October 20, 2026Episode 30820 min

AI Gives You Averages: How a Physician-Founder Gets A-Plus Work

AI will give you an answer in seconds, and most of the time it will be an average one. Dr. Jessica Wu , a Beverly Hills dermatologist building a physician-delivered women's health practice, calls that C-plus work. Here is how she uses AI for speed and research, and what she keeps for herself. Key Takeaways: Treat AI output as a rough draft Give AI the full story before you ask for an answer Use AI to compress research time Build around what customers keep asking for Make hospitality a leadership priority Hire by showing a different way to work Dr. Wu went from one doctor to four in three months and says finding doctors and support staff, not demand, is her biggest scaling friction. Her proof point is her own practice: 25 years, a long waiting list, and 3 doctors hired, with more to come. Connect with Dr. Jessica Wu: Dr. Jessica Wu Website Dr. Jessica Wu Instagram Dr. Jessica Wu TikTok Dr. Jessica Wu LinkedIn Feed Your Face: The 28-Day Plan for Younger, Smoother Skin and a Beautiful Body by Dr. Jessica Wu Connect with us: Work with She Built It® Media She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr Instagram Melanie Barr LinkedIn She Built It® LinkedIn

October 13, 2026Episode 30731 min

The Human Middle: What AI Can't Solve in Your Workplace

Most employers want to be good bosses, and most employees want to do good work. Most of them still walk into the next relationship carrying the last bad one. For Alex Tieu, CEO of JLG Lawyers, that gap is the part of business AI can't solve, and closing it is a leadership decision. Key Takeaways: Name the baggage you bring to every hire. Keep seeing possibility in people after being burned. Start before you have all the answers on AI. Treat AI as an affirmation machine and build safe space for dissent. Design the architecture of your AI workflow. Build career paths around where people are in life. Alex grew JLG from 15 cases and six employees to more than 2,000 cases and 80 people in five years. She credits designing different roles (support attorneys, trial attorneys, lead attorneys who build mini firms) and a paid apprenticeship around where people are in their lives. Connect with Alex: JLG Lawyers Website JLG Lawyers LinkedIn JLG Lawyers Instagram Alex Tieu LinkedIn Alex Tieu Instagram humanmiddle.ai Work with She Built It® Media: She Built It® Media Website She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr Instagram Melanie Barr LinkedIn She Built It® LinkedIn

October 6, 2026Episode 30625 min

What a Dermatologist and a Mayor Didn't Know About Running a Business

Dr. Whitney Hovenic removes skin cancer for a living. She still didn't know what ROAS meant when she co-founded a sunscreen brand with Reno mayor Hillary Schieve. Two years in, she says she's basically earned an unofficial MBA the hard way. Key Takeaways: Know that expertise builds the product, not the customer base. Budget for the real runway to cash positive. Protect your brand voice from AI, even while using it elsewhere. Build products from what you personally notice, not a spreadsheet. Skip the viral-moment chase and go where your customer already is. Lead with flexibility, not a rigid system, when your team is small. Whitney had assumed that selling inventory would immediately fund more inventory. The real education came in learning how much a new brand has to invest upfront in PR, marketing, and free product before it becomes cash positive, a gap that turned out to be the steepest part of the founders' learning curve. Connect with Spooge: Spooge Website Spooge LinkedIn Spooge Instagram Dr. Whitney Hovenic LinkedIn Dr. Whitney Hovenic Instagram Hillary Schieve LinkedIn Hillary Schieve Instagram Work with She Built It® Media: She Built It® Media Website She Built It® Instagram She Built It® CEO, Melanie Barr Instagram Melanie Barr LinkedIn She Built It® LinkedIn

September 29, 2026Episode 30517 min

She Had to Fight to Say the Word "Period" on Every Platform

Lauren Schulte Wang has had to fight every major ad platform, Meta, Instagram, YouTube, Google, Amazon, just to say the word "period" in an ad, while men's sexual health brands face no such resistance. She's built the #1 selling menstrual discs and cups anyway. Key Takeaways: Knowing the platforms won't give you clear rules. Recognize the double standard, and keep building anyway. Don't chase retail before your flywheel is ready. Build AI adoption around personal benefit, not company mandate. Learn to trust your own instinct, not just your team's. The Flex Co. grew tens of millions of dollars in revenue through DTC alone before entering retail, a deliberate sequencing that let the brand build a cost-effective marketing flywheel and the supply chain and finance infrastructure retail requires, rather than rushing into big-box shelf space it wasn't ready to defend.

September 22, 2026Episode 30422 min

They Tried Letting AI Do Their Books. Here's What Happened.

Business owners keep telling Melissa Broughton the same thing: they tried letting AI fully handle their bookkeeping, and a few months later they were back, books wrong, no one to call, and no idea why. Key Takeaways: Reconcile your books at least quarterly. Overstated income costs you at tax time. Never give an outside bookkeeper signing permissions on your accounts. Document anything you do more than once. AI removed the worst part of bookkeeping, not the need for it. The founders who try to fully replace their bookkeeper with AI tend to return within three to four months, at which point they've often already filed inaccurate numbers or missed a fraud pattern a human would have caught, making the "savings" from skipping a bookkeeper a false economy.

September 15, 2026Episode 30319 min

You're Not Growing a Business. You're Growing a Bottleneck.

Revenue climbs. So do the hours, the stress, and the number of decisions only you can make. Allison Maslan has built 10 companies and mentored over 150,000 founders, and she says the growth ceiling almost everyone hits isn't a revenue problem. It's them. Key Takeaways: Recognize the bottleneck pattern early. Watch for delegation guilt, especially as a woman founder. Shift from giving answers to asking questions. Pick one scalable model and build the foundation first. Name what AI could make irrelevant in your business within a year. Allison has personally experienced the cost of not fixing this: she says she "nearly imploded personally, emotionally, and financially" from staying the bottleneck in an earlier business, before building the team-managed, scalable model that became her signature SCALEit Method and the foundation of Pinnacle Global Network.

September 8, 2026Episode 30228 min

The Two Numbers This Founder Watches Above Everything Else?

Lillian Rafson got caught up in the press, the awards, and the pressure of "what's next," and grew her team faster than her demand could support. When growth plateaued, she had to lay people off to save the company, and then had to learn the hardest lesson of her career: she is not her business. Key Takeaways: Watch for validation-driven growth. Track two KPIs, not one. Separate yourself from your business's hard decisions. Make financial transparency a habit, not a crisis response. Build the business so it survives without you. Pack Up + Go's decision to stay fully bootstrapped, funded entirely by customer prepayments rather than outside capital, forced Lillian to keep profitability and client satisfaction in constant balance instead of chasing growth for its own sake, a discipline that ultimately saved the company when demand plateaued after the pandemic travel boom.