Hi there! Welcome back to On Brand - your weekly dose of actionable strategies and insights to grow & monetize your personal brand.

It’s my last full month in LA (all the feels because it’s my favorite place in the world) before setting off on my travels for the next couple of months. I’ve been reflecting a lot on what kind of lifestyle I want to build for myself in the long run and how grateful I am for the freedom I’ve created in my life.

I’m very intentional about what I want to create in the world (while allowing myself to pivot, try new things, fail, and get back up again. Two things can co-exist at once.) and I wanted to share my why behind Girls Club, the steps I took to make it a reality, and what’s next.

I hope this will be helpful if you’re currently in a spot where you’re deciding what’s next for you. Let’s dig in!

If you’re interested in more strategic BTS behind how we grew Girls Club and our audience, come join us for the Stand-Out Brand Workshop tomorrow. I’ll be doing a deepdive into our brand & content strategy and giving you a lot of frameworks you can use in yours.

In this issue:

• 🍒 Free workshop alert

• 💻 ICYMI

• 💰 Cool jobs for cool gals

• 🪩 The story behind Girls Club

FREE WORKSHOP ALERT

HOW TO GROW YOUR BRAND ONLINE

We’re hosting a live workshop where we break down what it takes to build a popular brand online. We’ll look into the strategy we used for Girls Club to grow over 95,000 followers in less than a year.

Must-attend for all business owners, creators and brand builders.

Interesting things from last week

The best things we’ve read, watched and listened to + news from the internet.

• Loved this Substack from ScanClub on what audiences want online in 2025. This is from Jan 2025 but still very relevant!

• How to get instantly better at things 

• My new favorite focus playlist

Cool jobs for cool gals

Looking for a new gig?! We got you! Here are some coolest jobs in social media, creator economy & female-led brands.

• Head of Instructor Acquisition at Maven

• Senior Social Media Specialist at Zapier

• A variety of roles at TYB - Ty Haney’s (of Outdoor Voices’ new venture)

Why I decided to build Girls Club in the first place

You may or may not know that I was a content creator and brand strategist before starting Girls Club. I grew my personal brand as a wellness & lifestyle creator in 2023, but quickly realised that what I was really passionate about is helping women reach their full potential and the internet.

I live and breathe content, branding, and business, so creating a space where we can all geek out on these things together just made sense. I also wanted the brand to be bigger than me and knew that creating a separate business brand that we could scale was the right decision for me personally.

The steps I took to make it happen

Let’s rewind a little. Before choosing an opportunity to pursue, it’s important to ask yourself a couple of questions:

What are some things I genuinely can’t stop thinking about and could imagine myself talking about over and over again?

This was a 10000% yes for me. I’ve loved the internet and social media since I first logged in to Myspace when I was 16, all I ever think about is cool brands, business and how people create great things in the world.

And I’m always the person turning any conversation over a dinner into brainstorming next business venture or giving people pep talks to go after their dreams (sorry, friends!!). There isn’t much else I would want to be doing.

Am I good at these things? Do I have skills or experience that give me the authority to speak on this topic and help others?

Again, this was the most obvious choice for me. I’ve worked for big brands, built my own brand, created a successful business from nothing and have a natural talent for knowing what works on the internet, and even though I’m no Alex Hormozi, I can offer my perspective on things that will be helpful to the people I want to help.

Can I make money doing this thing? Is this something I can see myself growing for years to come?

THIS IS SO IMPORTANT and so many people skip this. Before you decide on the brand you want to build, be clear on how you’re going to monetize it and whether it matches your financial goals.

For Girls Club, I knew this would give us multiple options. We act as a media company and partner with brands to introduce to our audience. We also create educational products, tools & templates to help people grow their brands and businesses. We’re now turning this part of the business into more scalable product in the form of Self Made. And I also work as a consultant for businesses and do speaking engagements for brands on all things brand, content & creator economy.

I need variety in my life, and this works so well. You can totally pursue multiple opportunities (and I think you should), but they need to make sense together and create a cohesive brand.

Can I imagine doing this for a very long time? 10000%. In fact, I can’t really imagine doing anything else. I know the way we do things will evolve and hopefully grow much bigger, but I can’t see myself ever getting sick of doing this particular space.

Is this going to help me build the kind of lifestyle I want?

Also very important! Think beyond finances here. A lot of people grow their business, and then they end up hating it or burning it down because it hasn’t created the lifestyle they wanted in the first place. In fact, they created themselves a job they hate.

Get clear on what’s important for you and make decisions with that in mind. 

Let me show you what’s important for me and how I design my work around it:

Location freedom: I love living in different places, and for the foreseeable future, I don’t want to be tied down to one city. This is why I’ve created an online business with a remote team, versus, let’s say, running in-person events in LA.

Creating impact & recognizable brand: I’d probably work a lot less and make a lot more money if I worked with a handful of bigger brands as a consultant. But being able to impact a lot of people and building Girls Club into the go-to hub for all things content & business is so important to me, so I’m happy to make sacrifices here.

Things that are less important to me and how they affected my business:

Time freedom: I genuinely love to work, never aspired to work 2 hours a day, and as a single, childfree woman, I’m able to dedicate a lot of time to this. This meant I could pursue time-consuming projects (like building our own tech platform or having 1:1 clients) and do a lot of our content myself. I’d structure my business very differently if time freedom were more important for me.

Making bajillion dollars: While making money gives you a lot of freedom, I actually don’t care that much. As someone who grew up VERY working class and worked her way up from working in warehouses and bars, I’m happy with very little, and finances are not a motivation for me. It’s both good and bad, and definitely something I want to continue working on as we scale the business.

And also structuring your business for your strengths.

For example, I love writing, so the vast majority of our content is written. I’ll probably never be a podcast girlie, and that’s ok!

I also love variety, so rather than just working on one thing, I always have multiple projects on the go.

You do you, boo! Learn what works for you and then do more of it.

What’s next for Girls Club

Here are my big, blue-sky goals and things we’re doing to make it happen.

1. Make Girls Club the go-to media company for ambitious women. 

The first year of Girls Club was nothing short of extraordinary, but I really want to go 10x this year. This looks like growing our audience, making this newsletter the best it can be, growing our team & working on community initiatives.

2. Grow Self Made to 10,000 users.

If you’re new here, we’re building a tool to help you grow your brand and create great content. We’re currently beta-testing with our first round of users and working on new features based on the feedback. Once we get it 100% right, we’re off to the races in terms of growth!

We're currently not onboarding new users as our first 200 spots filled so quickly, but you can pop yourself on a waitlist here.

3. Work on my personal brand. 

This is something I currently struggle with and really need to get back to. I don't have much of a plan yet, but please hold me accountable, friends!

So there we go - my thinking behind creating and structuring Girls Club and my career. This was little more personal than what we usually do here. Was it helpful? Did you hate it? Let me know either way!

We’ve created free tools to help you level up your personal brand this year. Grab both of them below.

Obsession-Worthy Brand Guide

Your blueprint for a personal brand that connects and converts. Downloaded 3,000+ times and rated 5 stars, it helps you show up with clarity so your content actually lands.

On-Demand Personal Brand Strategist

Get a powerful ChatGPT prompt + five follow-ups to clarify your positioning, grow your audience, and create content that drives results. 

That’s it for this week.

As always, thanks for being here! See you tomorrow at our workshop!

The Girls Club Team 

Say hi on Instagram or Linkedin.