For Women Who Refuse to Be Underestimated, Underpaid and Undervalued

I work with women who get rejected constantly. Fired. Passed over for the investment. Turned down for the job. Sounds depressing, right? It would be, if the system was built for us. Since it isn't, it's just a Tuesday at 9am. But yes, it fucking sucks. I feel for my clients when I get this call, every single time, because it was never once warranted. Very quickly, once the initial shock and upset passes, I get them to understand something: now we have our strategy. Because this is knowledge, and knowledge is power. We know exactly what we're dealing with, and that's power we didn't have five minutes ago. That's why I loved having Suneera Madhani on this week's episode of Takin' Care of Lady Business. She took rejection, total humiliation, really, her bosses laughing at her idea, and built a billion-dollar business. Who's laughing now?

With Love & Lady Business,
JJ 

In today’s edition:
1. How Suneera Madhani Turned a Rejected Pitch Into a Billion-Dollar Exit
2. The Ask Filter
3. TJD Power List
4. Lady Bits

1. How Suneera Madhani Turned a Rejected Pitch Into a Billion-Dollar Exit

Suneera Madhani co-founded Stax Payments, scaled it to $40 billion in payments processed, and exited for over a billion dollars, making her one of the only women to ever build and exit a billion-dollar company. She's now building Worth AI and running CEO School, teaching women the financial discipline most of us were never handed.

She pitched a better business model to her male bosses and twelve banks. All of them laughed her out of the room. So she built it herself. On this episode, she talks about why women need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable parts of building a business, starting with the finances, why women have to stop running from the numbers, and what changed when she stopped operating only as a founder and stepped fully into the CEO seat. She and I also get into venture capital, biased investor questions, and why warm relationships beat cold pitches. Because "that's not my zone of genius" is not a strategy. If the company is yours, the financials are yours too.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
— Why women can’t afford to treat financials like someone else's job.
— How to tell when you're asking the wrong people for permission.
— Why founder mode builds the company, but CEO mode is what scales it.
— Why relationships move money faster than cold pitches ever will.

🎧 Listen here:  Spotify | Apple | YouTube
Follow Suneera: Instagram | LinkedIn 
Explore Worth AI and CEO School

2. The Ask Filter

Once I started really getting a name for myself in the music industry, it started happening everywhere. Men I thought were my mentors would say things like, "Oh, I can take this meeting for you, it's with the CEO, I can hold my own in there. I'll let you know how it goes." As if I hadn't built my way into that room myself. Other times it wasn't even offered as help, it was just decided. Someone else took the call. Someone else handled the negotiation. Someone else spoke for me while I stood right there.

Every version of it taught me the same thing. The people doing it were never protecting me. They were protecting their own access. And the day I stopped calling it help and started calling it exactly what it was, someone taking my power and dressing it up as a favor, was the day I started getting that power back. That's truth to power. Not yelling. Just naming what's actually happening and refusing to let it keep happening. Fuck that shit.

That's the moment I built the filter I still use today. I call it the Ask Filter, three questions:

1. Name what you've handed off. The meeting. The investments. The books. The negotiation. Say it out loud, specifically, not "the money stuff" or "the relationship stuff," the actual thing.

2. Ask who benefits if I don't know this, if I'm not in that room. Not who's offering to help. Who benefits from you staying out. Those are not always the same person.

3. Take back the seat, even if you keep the help. You can bring people in. You cannot let them replace you.

Knowledge is power. But only if you're the one holding it.

REAL TALK
Every time you say "that's not my zone of genius," someone else cashes in on your absence. You don't have to love the numbers, or the room, or the meeting. You have to be in it. Because the moment you stop asking who benefits, you stop being the CEO of your own life.

3. TJD Power List: Beth Ferreira

Beth Ferreira has helped fund 85+ companies, 54% of them women-founded, at Serena Ventures, in an industry where women get roughly 2% of VC funding. Before she was writing checks, she was living the financials herself: the twelfth employee at Etsy, scaling the business 15x, then COO of Fab.com, scaling it to $600 million. She never handed off the seat. Now she decides who gets funded to build from theirs. That's exactly why Beth is this week's TJD Power Lister.

Follow Beth: LinkedIn | Serena Ventures

💋💋Lady Bits

💸 This year's pay gap report came out, and it's not the direction we hoped for. Progress isn't linear. It's optional, apparently, unless we make it mandatory.

🗣️ Being everywhere isn't the same as being heard, and this piece names exactly why. Visibility was never the finish line.

🎾 Two friends walked into a Grand Slam final. Only one walked out with the trophy. Czech excellence, no notes.

📎 She got fired for the thing sitting on her desk. Then it made her a fortune. Getting fired was the best career move she never asked for.

👠 A blonde just went back to high school, six years before we ever met her. Bend and snap, but make it Gen Z.

📖 They surveilled her. Gagged her. Threatened her for every book sold. She sued back. The silencing didn't work.

Hi, I’m JJ

Since starting the Justice Dept, we have increased women's wealth by over $100MM in just over 5 years. Want to know what inspires me to do this work, other than making women money? My clients' surprised reaction when we manage to get them much better terms for themselves and their companies, whether via talent agreements, employment, severance, partnerships, asset sales or investments. They often admit that they never thought they could get that result. Not even hoped. This blows my mind. As we know at The Justice Dept. you are all worth everything you ask for and more. Reach out and we’ll show you how!
x TJD