Meet Courtney: Going ALL In!
As a female entrepreneur, Courtney is the example of what it looks like to go all in for your business! She also demonstrates how time works in your favor when forming a biz- be patient, and you’ll know exactly what is supposed to happen when. Courtney is all about giving back to women through both of her businesses: Socialfly and Entreprenistas- her drive to truly give back to and empower women is written all over her brands! You can check out their podcast each week! Read on to discover the moments in her story that have shaped her and her business into who she is today!
1. Tell us about who you are and your journey to where you are now!
Hello! My name is Courtney Spritzer and I am a born and raised New Yorker! My parents have always been so encouraging and taught me from a young age to go after what I want and make it happen. My dad was born in South Korea and was multi-racial (half Korean and half Hungarian Jewish). My mom is Puerto Rican and raised me as a single mother after my dad passed away when I was 10 years old. I grew up surrounded by different cultures and learned so much from my multi-racial family and strong mother. The hardships we faced after my dad passed away certainly shaped the woman I am today. I learned at a young age how short life can be and how important it is to live in the moment and appreciate what you have.
After graduating from NYU with a degree in Economics and business, I worked in corporate America for several years at publicly traded companies. I graduated with over $100K in student loans and I knew I would need to work hard to pay them off. I chose to have a career in finance for the sole purpose of the fact that I had big bills to pay. While I was working at American Express as a financial analyst, I learned how social media can be used for marketing purposes and discovered that I had a huge passion and curiosity for social media platforms. Amex was very early to embrace social media in 2011 and when I saw how they were using social media to engage their current and prospective cardmembers, I knew that I had to learn more. Since I was not in a marketing position at Amex, I needed to find a way to transition into the industry. Coincidently, I had met my business partner, Stephanie Cartin, in early 2010 and in 2011, she was looking for a business partner to start a social media agency with. We had opposite skill sets and social media was so new at the time, but we were able to teach each other and learn by doing. We worked nights and weekends on side of our full-time jobs to try to build the business. After 10 months, we said to each other “if this is ever going to be a real business, we just have to go all-in and do it.” I carefully planned how much money we needed to generate in order to pay our bills and keep the company going. We gave our 2 weeks notice on the same day and on May 4, 2012, we spent our last day in corporate america. I was 24 years old at the time.
Flash forward 8 years later, we have grown our team to 30 people, published a book, worked with hundreds of brands, and launched a podcast. I am so grateful for everything I have learned over the years. There were many many lessons and curveballs along the way. For instance, never in a million years did I think I would be running a company during a national pandemic.
2. What is the mission of your brand? How does it empower women?
I am the co-founder of two businesses, Socialfly and Entreprenistas. Socialfly is a women owned social first digital agency. Our mission at Socialfly is to work with forward thinking partners and deliver trend-setting solutions. Our company is 85% women and most of our management team is women.
Entreprenistas is a media company that is on a mission to inspire as many women as possible and help them learn how to create the life that they want through entrepreneurship. We release a podcast interview with a women entrepreneur or business leader every Monday.
3. How do you collaborate with women working towards a better world?
We collaborate with women-owned businesses through our work at Socialfly and help them amplify their messages using social media.
We collaborate with women founders and business leaders at Entreprenistas through our podcast. We are also planning on evolving the Entreprenistas platform to find new ways to help and highlight positive women.
4. What is the biggest challenge you’ve had to press through as a female entrepreneur and what are the steps you’ve taken to overcome it?
I started the business when I was very young so the major challenge I had at the time and still have from time to time is to be taken seriously. Speaking with confidence and authority is very important when you want to be taken seriously and it is something that not everyone does naturally. I had to overcome extreme shyness to become comfortable speaking publicly and in meetings. Over time through a lot of practice it becomes more comfortable. I also have learned to let the results speak for themselves. We share case studies with clients. We have won awards for our client work, leadership, and business performance.
5. What advice would you give to a female entrepreneur in the beginning stages of launching her brand or business?
Just start and learn as you go. Sometimes people get caught up on making everything so perfect before launching and it prevents them from ever launching.
It is also important in the beginning to create a strategy for your business and outline who your target customer is, what your goals are, and brand vision / mission. Branding is very important.
6. What sets your brand apart from others?
Spreading kindness and positivity has been a core pillar for both Socialfly and Entreprenistas. With both companies, the relationships that we build with our guests or customers is very important, and we treat their businesses as we would our own. We know what it is like to be in an entrepreneur’s shoes and will always give our clients / guests the advice we would give to ourselves. We always practice what we preach.