Happy Tuesday, Reader!

Last week I shared two of the biggest unanswered questions driving The 6% Project. This week, I want to talk about two things we do know. I've lived them, and I've watched them make a difference for nearly every woman founder I know who has broken through the $250K ceiling.

Neither of them is a course. Neither of them is a funnel. And neither of them lives on the internet.

Unlock #1: IRL Community

According to Founderreports, only about 1 in 10 American women owns a business of any kind, and only 1 in 100 owns a company with employees. This means that funding, networks, and mentorship are genuinely harder to access for women founders. The people who have been where you're going are rare, and finding them takes real effort.

I've written before about what an early Facebook Page did for my business. The internet, and social media specifically, opened up access to networks and examples that fueled a real surge in women-led startups over the last two decades. But that golden window (roughly from the early aughts to around 2022) has fractured. The organic connection that once happened online is harder to find and harder to sustain.

In-person community is what actually moves the needle.

What I know for certain is that the most crucial community I ever participated in for my business wasn't online. It was a formalized, in-person group I met with every Thursday morning. That kind of IRL relationship, the kind where organic trust builds over time in physical space, is irreplaceable. With 90% of women-owned businesses operating as solo firms, we have to stop going it alone and get back into rooms with each other.

Unlock #2: Mentorship

Learning from someone else’s journey allows founders to experiment and plot their journey without taking the full risk profile on themselves. Researchers call this “The Vicarious Advantage,” and it’s a well-documented factor in successful entrepreneurship.

And, women founders are disproportionately lacking it.

The mentorship gap is worse for women building differently.

We need more women who have been there, mentoring women who are working to get there, especially those of us who have chosen a different way of leading our companies and our teams. When you're building on a different model, it can be extremely difficult to find a mentor who's actually been where you're going.

Most women microbusiness owners I've known either have no mentor at all, or they're paying for influencer-style coaching that feels like mentorship but isn't.

Real mentorship isn't transactional — and it shows.

Paid coaching has its place, but it is not the same as a mentor who is invested in your growth because they believe in your mission or in you. Those relationships (non-paid but deeply invested) have been the most important of my career—and of every woman I know who has broken through $250K.

Community and mentorship are why The $250K Club exists.

Each chapter in The $250K Club will have at least two mentors. Because we all need someone who has been there, done that, and is genuinely in it for helping the next crew do it too.

Are you the woman who needs this community, or the one who's ready to help build it for others?

Let us know that you’re interested in starting or participating in a chapter.

Until next time,

Renia C.

P.S. - Not sure if The $250K Club is the right fit for where you are right now? Next week I'm sharing a few other ways to be part of what we're building. Stay tuned!

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