Tara Ghei is the founder of baby clothes subscription service Romp + Tumble. The following is in her own words...
Last June, I left my corporate career to focus full-time on my company, Romp + Tumble.
Romp + Tumble, launched last fall, curates and rents bundles of eco-friendly baby and toddler clothes.
Pre-pandemic, I was working on my startup along with my full-time career. However, the pandemic accelerated my call to action. I left my corporate role to focus solely on my new business, which helps busy parents no longer face the stress of storing, organizing or sustainably getting baby and toddler clothes out of their homes, providing them instead with more time and space to focus on their ambitions.
With this career change, I needed a program to help me in my new role as an entrepreneur and CEO.
LaunchPad2X’s Core Flight is a training program that helps women entrepreneurs scale their businesses. Unlike other accelerator programs, Core Flight is focused on creating a CEO mindset for entrepreneurs. The program covers some business and finance topics — notably creating an advisory board, reading a term sheet and understanding financing options beyond venture capital.
These topics were covered in a way to provide us with both expertise and skills as well as the confidence to walk into a room, take control and own it. Other memorable sessions included managing tough investor questions and storytelling to connect with customers. We had an opportunity to hear from experts and program alumni who were invested in the program and our growth.
You get from a program what you put into it, and my cohort was amazing. It was made up of high-caliber, competitive and community-minded women who were ready to learn, play and win together. I forged several connections, still utilized today. Whether supporting each other with business partnerships, sharing insights or managing the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, these relationships have great staying power.
Since graduating from Core Flight, I have created new local and national partnerships, grown my customer base and continue to test different channels.
As the world opens and we adjust to our “new normal,” the mindset lessons from Core Flight — particularly the bias towards action and results — stays with me daily. One of my key takeaways from the program was to stop the overthinking.
As I continue to grow, I remind myself what I learned from the workshops and conversations. I’ve done work, prepared and have a great product that provides value to my customers. Now it's time to get out there, drive change for busy parents and make money.
LaunchPad2X is a nonprofit that helps women make the leap from founder to CEO through education, access to capital and events. Applications are open until the end of July for its Core Flight Program, a seven-week training program for female entrepreneurs.
