How cool to wake up to the news that our founder Mallory has been named to @incmagazine ’s 2025 Female Founders 500.
The list captures the top-performing women in business, based on a lookback of growth and innovation. Under Mallory’s leadership, we brought some of our wilder ideas to life this year—from inventing the world’s first ‘pre-puptual agreements’ for @roverdotcom 🐾 to Halloween ghost hunting with @ring during the busiest doorbell season of the year 👻 to redefining the “on-air segment” (when a pitch we left on Travis Kelce’s voicemail turned into a segment he played aloud on his podcast).
We even seized each of the global cultural moments that defined the year. Rankings proved we made @Olay the #1 talked about beauty brand during Olympics🏅and @Instacart one of the buzziest ads at Super Bowl 🏈. Garnering a shoutout from the former-VP’s team for our vegan @violifeus Election Day stunt was just the (dairy-free) cream on top. ✨
Throughout it all, we found time to be acquired by the amazing team at @orchestraco , making Mallory the youngest founder to ever lead a bootstrapped agency through an eight-figure acquisition. In marketing and PR, we’re always looking ahead—so we’re grateful for the opportunity this week to look back on just some of our big Small wins with this honor. 🥂
#FemaleFounders500
Showed my gratitude for the @prweek award by moving my body extremely elegantly like this across the stage. Honored to get to solo mosh in front of my industry peers!!!!!!!!!
In a high/low culture plot twist no one saw coming, pulled @kfc up to The Mark Hotel, ground zero for Met Gala attendees, serving chicken tenders, caviar, and brand-new sauces like it was couture. 🍗
The night had everything: Ciara receiving curbside delivery, Cardi B lighting up when she got her KFC (“wow! It’s even hot!”), Ejae yoinking a box mid-delivery, Hudson Williams’ team calling a redo so cameras could roll...and that’s just the highlight reel. ✨
Calvin Klein struck gold with ‘Love Story’—but didn’t cash it in. 📰 @NYPost Page Six spotlights four moves our CEO @yourpalmal would’ve made to turn buzz into business.
Traded tips and friendship bracelets on stage with Poppi Soda’s @allisonellsworth , Flodesk’s @rebecca.shostak , and Naturium’s @susanyara for The Modern Founder’s Playbook. Our group represents lessons from starting and selling businesses, marketing for billion-dollar brands, bootstrapping $50M+ in recurring revenue, and VC’ing a path to $500M+ in ARR.
It was an honor for Small Girls to be in conversation with these leaders and worth every hour spent in the airport afterwards trying to get home. ;)
📸 🎉@createcultivate
This afternoon at SXSW I’ll be on stage at @createcultivate Future Summit, joining founders from Poppi Soda, Flodesk, and Naturium Beauty —talking about what it really takes to build, scale, and sell on one’s own terms. Collectively, this group has built companies that reached $50+ million in ARR without venture capital, generated more than $500 million in annual revenue, and led to acquisitions worth hundreds of millions. Proof there’s no one right way to build something great. 🎯 3:45pm @ Assembly Hall 👋 See you there.
I’ve been made aware of reports that I committed a major art heist at LACMA x Gucci last night. These are baseless rumors.
I did not “replace the original with a near duplicate made on MS Paint” nor did I “distract the guard with discourse on Grecian statue influence on Bratz dolls.” I was, however, briefly in possession of a canapé tray, which has since been returned. Statement continues in slides 2-6.
Exactly one year ago, I sold the company I’ve been growing since I was a senior in college.
The above photo was taken our first year when Bianca & I realized all of the other businesses who shared our ‘coworking space’ (a single room with no phone booths) were going on team retreats. We could barely afford dinner, let alone a retreat.
So, we brought a tent to the office to do an overnight after everyone had gone home for the day.
This moment is representative of what it felt like to grow a business, without funding, in an industry I’d never worked in before: absurd and missing an instruction manual.
Later on, we were able to convince other people to help us build tents (our first hire Annie just celebrated her 13th anniversary). And eventually we upgraded to take our whole staff on retreats—even overseas sometimes. Along the way, instructions were written for how to do what we do, and we scaled capabilities and a culture.
Today, that business is the wildest it has ever been thanks to the 75, admittedly taller and more talented, people under our tent.
Grateful for anyone who helped turn that overnight camping “trip” into something very weird and real over these past 15 years, and grateful to get to keep building with our new partners at Orchestra (from actual offices this time).
