When you are an Entrepreneur you work four times as hard for 10 or 15 years so that you don’t have to work for the rest of your life.
A self-made Femigrant from Germany who sold her business to Bill Gates in a multimillion dollar deal.
Consummate entrepreneur and an author of #1 Amazon best-selling book Happy Woman Happy World.
An incredible story of immigrant single mother who was $135000 in DEBT and forced to leave her home ... BUT only 18 months later she sold her image licensing company to Bill Gates in a MULTIMILLION dollar deal.
Beate Chelette had escaped Germany’s ultra-structured life in 1989 and came to US to pursue her dreams and find the truest and highest expression of herself. Today, she runs The Women’s Code, a training program for businesses to promote diversity and grow women into leadership positions. By now, she also has an incredible entrepreneurial highlight of her career of selling a business to Bill Gates for several millions. It all started when upon arriving to US Beate found herself immediately infatuated by opportunistic, entrepreneurial spirit of America. Determined and inspired, she decided to pour her passion and talent as the youngest photo editor of Elle Germany into building her own company in US.
Very quickly, a gig that started as a photographer representation, turned into production company, then the stock photography syndication product. And finally after her trials and tribulations during what she calls ‘her decade of bad luck’ she managed to exit with a successful sale of her business.
But the road to success, as with any femigrant, hasn’t been easy.
In Beate’s photography business, she faced several major obstacles all at once. First, she struggled with the growing pains of a startup and people-related organizational challenges that she was not at all prepared for. It even involved a lawsuit. For young Beate who was just dipping her toes into the world of business, dealing with a lawsuit was both a big distraction and a huge blow emotionally. While that was going on, 9/11 happened, decimating the remainder of her business. But she persevered and kept marching on. Beate decided to tap into the small business community for help and worked hard to collaborate with SBA, putting together a business plan, projections, and anything else she could provide to demonstrate her savvy and the value of her business. That eventually led to the SBA finding a bank that restructured Beate’s debt of $135,000, which freed up her line of , and made cash available to make it to profitability three months later.
Even moving on emerging opportunities, Beate saw the harsh realities of being an entrepreneur. She saw a lot of failures and turned them into key learnings to light her path forward. “There are so many failures that it would take a whole book to fill them. I literally failed my way to success”, says Beate. “There was this time when I thought I should be in the app business only to realize that I understood nothing about technology and was clueless about tech teams in India. Or that time I became the co-owner of an ebook publishing company only to realize that a $0.99 product requires the same marketing effort as a $10,000 product.” Beate believes that failures are road signs that simply say: not this. That makes enduring a fail exponentially easier.
Beate Chelette also saw struggles in her short stint in the corporate world. After her stock photography syndication business deal closed, Beate was brought on as a Sr. Director and learned just how difficult life in corporations can be for women. That is what has served as the inspiration for The Women’s Code. When she returned to her roots of entrepreneurship, she combined her love for business and her desire to support women with a balanced leadership training to fuel their growth fast.
Of course, so typical for a woman and plus for an immigrant, success came with a big price as well. Beate became a single parent tremendously affected by the tall orders of her entrepreneurial life. There are only so many hours in the day and they have to be used for really important things – like making money, and putting food on the table. Her personal relationships suffered as a result. “When you are an Entrepreneur you work four times as hard for 10 or 15 years so that you don’t have to work for the rest of your life. That comes with serious consequences throughout all areas of one’s life. Entrepreneurship IS sacrifice.”
Get clear what success is, then go for it and fail fast. Don’t take it personal.
Nevertheless, Beate is very motivated at resting-level, always working on something. She also is a firm believer in a healthy work-life balance. She works with a Shaman and spiritual advisors to stay aligned and engages with professional and life coaches, and connects with other successful women entrepreneurs.
“To me, success is very personal. The definition of success can only be made after we spend enough time evaluating what success means for us. For me, it’s being in a loving relationship, having the ability to do what I want, and being able to impact women to lead in their own lives and careers. If at the end of it all my tombstone says: she was instrumental in defining women leadership – I will consider my life a full success.”
After a long, rich entrepreneurial path full of learnings that has led her to a this highly-balanced spiritual state in her life, Beate, has the following key learnings to share with femigrants:
First, get clear what success is for you so that you know when you reached it. Then, go for it and fail fast, and don’t take it personal. And last, remember that it gets darkest before dawn, you never know – the light of the tunnel may just be around the next bend. Don’t give up. Ever.
And finally, there are a million ways to be successful and you only need to find one, yours.
NOTE: We are going to have Live Interview with Beat on Femigrants’ Facebook Group on Friday, July 28, 2017. Please join our group to be notified about the live interview.