Isabel Hoppmann, is a 17-year-old living in San Francisco, California.
When adults asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she responded with “an entrepreneur” (even though she says she couldn’t spell it at the time).
When she started dreaming up new ideas for products and services, the reality of her young age set in, and she lost the confidence to pursue them. This inspired her to create a platform to help other girls who felt a little stuck. The result was SWEET – Successful Women Entrepreneurs Everywhere Today.
I had the opportunity to interview Isabel recently. Here are some of the highlights of that interview:
Jill Griffin: What is SWEET? What is the premise of your company?
Isabel Hoppmann: It’s to inspire teenage girls to start their own companies and become entrepreneurs. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur when I was younger, but I never felt like I knew how or that I even could at my age. I want girls to know that they can and give them the resources to do so.
Griffin: If I can be really blunt, how do you make money doing that?
Hoppmann: Right now, I haven’t made money yet because I’ve just been launching the platform and videos. Soon I want to offer courses and one-on-one interaction time with the women. I’m figuring out how to set them up because I think they would be great opportunities for the girls.
Griffin: That’d be fabulous. How long have you had this company?
Hoppmann: I started over the summer, towards the end of June.
Griffin: How did you come up with SWEET? That is such a great acronym.
Hoppmann: I came up with the idea when I was applying to a summer program at Barnard College, and they asked one of those questions like, “What’s a big problem that society faces?” or, “How would you change the world?” I knew I wanted to emphasize success, and women, and entrepreneurs, so SWEET came together.
Griffin: It’s very memorable. Before you started, who was your biggest role model?
Hoppmann: I don’t know that I had any specific entrepreneurial role models besides my dad; he’s a serial entrepreneur. But we watch Shark Tank – that’s my family’s show.
I obviously look up to all the women I’ve interviewed, but I’ve also come to know other entrepreneurs as I’ve built SWEET.
Griffin: What are the top three skills that you think a young entrepreneur, between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, for example, would need?
Hoppmann: One, I would definitely say to expect the unexpected. I know that’s quite cliché, but it’s what I’ve found to be the hardest part for me starting SWEET because I’m a little bit of a perfectionist. I learned there are so many ups and downs; you can’t get caught up on the lows or you’ll never get to the highs. It’s also so important to learn from your mistakes – I know I would never make the same mistakes I have moving forward.
The second one would be to be kind. A lot of the women I’ve interviewed have told me that it’s important to be kind to the people you’re working with, to your team, and also to your customers. But also be kind to yourself and know that it’s all a learning experience.
The third one I would say is to go for it because you can’t do anything until you take that first step. I always wanted to start a company, but I couldn’t call myself an entrepreneur until I finally took that leap of faith. It’s been a million times more fun than I even imagined.
Griffin: Tell me about the top platforms that you would recommend that these young women think about as they launch their companies.
Hoppmann: In COVID, Zoom has been the most helpful platform. The pandemic normalized Zoom before I started SWEET which let me talk to women from around the country that I wouldn’t have even thought of necessarily interviewing before. Email and LinkedIn are also really great ways to connect with people. I think it’s important to make a LinkedIn profile as young as you can to start building those connections.
Griffin: I totally agree. I wrote a book several years ago and at LinkedIn, they were so kind in sharing their stories with me, so I’m a big LinkedIn fan. And of course, I use email. What about Facebook? Do you recommend Facebook?
Hoppmann: Honestly, for girls my age and younger, I don’t think it’s that useful for connecting with people. It’s helpful to join entrepreneurial groups and bounce ideas off each other – I’ve definitely joined those. But for actually reaching out to people or posting content, if you want people our age to respond, I would lean more towards Instagram. That’s where I’ve posted all of our interviews and other videos, and even connected with women entrepreneurs on there.
Griffin: Please share with me a funny story about starting your business.
Hoppmann: I was trying to reach this one woman who has a very common name. I was looking at different entrepreneurs on Forbes 30 Under 30 list and contacting them through LinkedIn to interview them for SWEET. I ended up connecting with the wrong woman because she had the same name as the woman I was initially trying to reach. I didn’t realize this until I started to interview her, and she wasn’t quite an entrepreneur in the classic sense, but it was still very interesting to talk with her, and she had some good insights, no matter what. The truth is, you can really learn from anyone.
Griffin: That’s fabulous. Sometimes an “accident” like that has a silver lining.
Hoppmann: Definitely.
Griffin: Can you tell me about a setback that you have had?
Hoppmann: Building SWEET’s website was really challenging – I’m not a very technological person, and I’d never built a website before. It had lots of reiterations that I wasn’t expecting, and it took a lot longer than I thought. A lot of components of the platform as a whole were dependent on the website, so that long process held up some parts of SWEET’s timeline, but once it was up and running, it was great.
Griffin: What have I not asked you, Isabel, that you’d like to share as we close?
Hoppmann: I always ask the women I interview how they celebrate when they accomplish a goal. A lot of them said that they don’t really take time to celebrate – they kind of forget about it. I think when we were talking, some of them realized that they need to spend more time acknowledging how much they’ve accomplished. I want to remind everyone to take time to celebrate all your wins, so you know what you did well and how you can use that going forward, but also just to celebrate.
Griffin: I totally agree. I’m very guilty of that. A lot of my colleagues are very guilty of that too. That’s a great closing tip, to just celebrate. Celebrate life too. We’re alive, we live in this great country where young entrepreneurs can be successful. I wish you the best of luck, and I bet you will be a Forbes 30 Under 30 before this is all over. That’s my wish for you.
"sweet" - Google News
March 30, 2021 at 04:48AM
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Success Can Be Sweet At Any Age - Forbes
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