Next Tribe: Offering Midlife Opportunities to Start Your Business, Travel and Create Community

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/gacfqh/Jeannie_Ralston_1_-_5_14_21_1117_AMa1kd0.mp3

EPISODE SUMMARY:

With an extensive career in writing and journalism, Jeannie Ralston is a midlife woman who is using her craft to help women worldwide pursue their passions and find a sense of community. Through her online magazine, NextTribe, Jeannie gives women the opportunity to receive career advice and build connections with industry professionals, and in today’s episode, we spoke with Jeannie about her magazine and its impact. First, we asked Jeannie to tell us in her own words what NextTribe is. She briefly explained that NextTribe is an online magazine that informs and promotes women in midlife through articles, live and virtual events, workshops and more. Women are able to work with professionals in the arts and business and are given the tools to pursue their passions. For the inspiration behind the creation of NextTribe, Jeannie attributes her background in journalism for giving her the confidence and connections to start her own online magazine. There was a recent writing contest on NextTribe and Jeannie told us that it was a writing contest for a short fiction story. She looks forward to offering a similar one soon.

Along with contests, NextTribe also offers numerous workshops, and one of Jeannie’s favorite ones so far has been a workshop in collaboration with Marta Kauffman, co-creator of the television series Friends and creator of Grace and Frankie. Twelve women were chosen to work with Marta to receive career advice, and in the end, these women were able to pitch their ideas to Marta and receive feedback. NextTribe also takes its readers and members on trips, and when asked about them, Jeannie said she loves that the trips create a beautiful bonding experience between the women. The first trip NextTribe ever took was to Mexico, and more trips have since been added to Santa Fe, Texas, and a beach retreat. A sense of community is important for everyone, and for midlife women, having that community is not always easy. Midlife women often struggle maintaining and finding friendships due to all the changes they may be facing, and as a way to combat this, Jeannie uses NextTribe to offer midlife women a place to meet each other and create connections. Jeannie has set up happy hour and book events as ways to help midlife women meet and even wants to start membership groups in various cities where NextTribe members can meet one another in person. Finally, we asked Jeannie what the easiest way to get in touch with her and learn more about NextTribe was. She said to go on NextTribe’s website, where readers can look at articles, events and more to learn about NextTribe.

Jeannie Ralston

Jeannie Ralston has long followed the maxim, “Write what you know.” Soon after she graduated from college, newly out of her teens herself, she became editor-in-chief of TeenAge magazine in New York. Later, after a stretch spent freelance writing for Time and Life magazines, she became a contributing editor of Allure, a beauty magazine—which conveniently coincided with her 20s and early 30s in glamorous Manhattan.

Marriage and a move to Texas came next and soon after the birth of her second child, she took on a new more appropriate position—contributing editor of Parenting magazine. During this time, she and her husband began the first commercial lavender farm in Texas and eventually wrote a memoir—The Unlikely Lavender Queen, published by Broadway Books—about her transformation from a Manhattan journalist to a lavender-farming mom in the rural reaches of the Lone Star State.

Once they built the business into a profitable enterprise and sold it, Jeannie and her husband moved to Mexico so that their sons could become bilingual. Four years later, they took off for a stint of homeschooling and traveling that landed them in 16 countries around the globe and resulted in an e-book, The Mother of All Field Trips. Jeannie and her husband now live outside of Austin, Texas.

NextTribe’s Start Your Business Boot Camp

Over the past several years, one of the fastest growing segments of entrepreneurs are women over 50. And that was even before the pandemic changed the nature of work and left women more likely to be unemployed. NextTribe has long had an interest in promoting and supporting women entrepreneurs in our age group. At the 2019 SXSW, NextTribe co-founder Jeannie Ralston pulled together a panel entitled, “How Midlife Women Work Their Entrepreneurial Mojo.”

This summer, NextTribe is continuing this effort by hosting an entrepreneur’s boot camp, with a custom curriculum specifically for the life and career experience of women in this “older” age group. The mentors and advisers who will be guiding participants are recognized experts in various realms of entrepreneurship and are women of the same age who are eager to support others.

A novel part of the boot camp is that those who complete it will have the chance to pitch their ideas to women investors (again of the same age) who have access to funds and a real desire to help. Among the potential investors on the panel are Susan Lyne of BBG Ventures, Kara Weber of Brilliant Ventures, and Fran Hauser—all of whom make supporting women-owned businesses a priority.

“Starting your own business is such a logical response to a corporate culture that tends to undervalue the contribution of women of a certain age,” says Ralston. “This workshop feels like a really important step for us, one that I hope will help lots of women get their footing again after a very hard 15—or is it 16?—months.”

Over the past year, NextTribe has had great success with its workshops that put readers in front of decision makers. In the fall, Marta Kauffman, the co-creator of Friends and Grace and Frankie, conducted a TV Pitch Workshop, where she helped 12 carefully selected women develop their ideas for the screen then listened to their pitches. This winter, Sara Nelson, VP of Harper Collins, worked with women to develop book ideas, which she then considered for publication.

“It has occurred to me that an important part of NextTribe’s mission needs to be opening doors and providing access for women in this age group,” says Ralston. “We’ve gotten women who are interested in developing ideas for television and those who have book projects in front of women their age in each industry who can make their dreams a reality. I want to do that same thing for women entrepreneurs.”

The business boot camp launches on Thursday, June 8th. The pitch session to a panel of investors will take place in September.