Talia Goldfarb didn’t have an exit strategy in mind when she launched Myself Belts with her sister, Danielle Eason, in 2004.
“I hadn’t really thought through how it would end,” Goldfarb said.
That’s because the company’s creation wasn’t financially motivated. Goldfarb launched Myself Belts as an answer to her search for a better belt for her son to wear, with the company creating a belt it says is easier for children to fasten. Myself Belts garnered prominence after Goldfarb in 2014 appeared on ABC reality television show “Shark Tank," after which she inked an investment deal with Daymond John, one of the TV show’s investors and founder of apparel brand FUBU.
Goldfarb said she began to think about Myself Belts’ exit plan in recent years as she reflected on how long she has been operating the brand. That came as her oldest child, who was a toddler when Myself Belts launched, approached his college graduation. Goldfarb in May 2022 sold Myself Belts to Minnesota-based Lumieworld. Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed.
While no longer at the helm of Myself Belts, Goldfarb has remained active in St. Louis’ startup community. She’s launched Entrepreneurial Insight LLC, a consulting and coaching business that melds together Goldfarb’s experience operating Myself Belts and previous roles she held as a social worker and therapist. Goldfarb began consulting other business owners prior to selling Myself Belts, saying her enjoyment helping entrepreneurs had a part in her moving forward into a new chapter of her career.
“Perhaps when I started thinking about that, that helped me to realize I was ready to sell Myself Belts because the energy I was feeling toward helping other entrepreneurs was new and probably how I felt when I started Myself Belts,” she said.
Melding together two careers
Prior to launching Myself Belts, Goldfarb worked as a school social worker and as a therapist working with foster kids. She continued to maintain her social work license after launching Myself Belts. Goldfarb said that was because she “knew in some way I was going to use the license” in the future. The creation of Entrepreneurial Insight brings together Goldfarb’s two careers as a business owner and therapist, seeking to help entrepreneurs through the personal and professional challenges of owning and operating a business. She said she noticed the need locally for that type of business coaching.
“In this ecosystem, you’re reached out to so many times and I’m kind of the entrepreneur that loves to help people and I would have coffee with so many entrepreneurs and I started to see these common themes that people went through,” Goldfarb said.
Goldfarb said she works with business owners around business strategy and the struggles different business owners have in business operation and management, saying she hopes she provides them a space to be open and vulnerable about their experiences. She’s industry agnostic in the type of entrepreneurs she works with, given that the challenges faced by entrepreneurs are often the same across industries.
“You realize a lot of what people struggle with is communal. Everybody is struggling with the same things, but they think it’s just them or they are not good enough in their role in their startup and then they realize everyone is struggling in the same way,” she said.
Goldfarb works with St. Louis nonprofit Arch Grants, which provides equity-free grants to startups, as an expert in residence, providing her business coaching services. That includes doing a monthly mental health luncheon with Arch Grants-backed entrepreneurs. She also will meet with Arch Grants entrepreneurs individually.
“It’s something that often gets ignored or put to the side as these entrepreneurs are launching and growing their businesses, but Talia does a great job of explaining why and helping founders grow through the process of prioritizing their own needs and own mental health so they can be the best leader possible for their given industry or company,” said Gabe Angieri, executive director of Arch Grants.
A ‘full-circle moment’
With Myself Belts, Goldfarb reflects on her tenure with the company as having included two major chapters: Before and after Shark Tank. She said her appearance on the television show propelled “Myself Belts 2.0”
“It made something that old new again and fresh,” she said.
Goldfarb said she’s glad she decided to appear on the reality TV show, saying it helped provide a strategy that led Myself Belts to its acquisition in 2022.
“The reason I did it was to help my business and that’s what it did and I formed a great relationship with Daymond John,” she said.
Goldfarb continues to maintain a relationship with John, saying she spoke with him as she worked through the sale of Myself Belts.
Goldfarb is still determining how much time she wants to spend with Entrepreneurial Insight and how large of a client base she wants.
“I lived and breathed myself belts exhaustively for 20 years so it’s been nice to recalibrate and do this in my own way,” Goldfarb said,
She said her ability to coach business owners and remain in the St. Louis startup community, while bringing together her two passions of entrepreneurship and social work, has been a “full-circle moment.”
“I never expected his overlap,” Goldfarb said.
