I launched She is Fierce back in 2016 with an aim to challenge the mainstream media (mainly magazines!) portrayal of young women. The magazine has a focus on the creative industries, because y’know being creative is nice, and I thought it would be cool to zone in on the women who are carving out livelihoods for themselves and hustling hard creating a career that you’d never knew existed when you were at school. I didn’t ever consider being a magazine editor when I was in fifth year, I was too busy trying to negotiate my way into the Spice Girls.

At school creativity often gets shoved to the side in favour of a more ‘stable career’ that will give you all the cash you need to become a proper functioning grown up. But in reality, that doesn’t often happen. If you’re a creative and put those needs in the bottom drawer of your filing cabinet in order to collect a wage at the end of the month, you can pretty much rely on your creativity coming back for revenge.

Anyway, that’s what happened to me. And in fact has been a bit of a recurring theme when it comes to interviewing features for the mag; turns out MANY folks have given up on the yawnfest of the day job in order to follow the ‘what if’ of those untapped possibilities of their imagination.

I’m all about the side hustle, I’ve been juggling a pretty lovely, yet busy job in events with the running of the magazine for a few years now (not to mention bringing up my own lovely little human single handedly!), so my days are more than a bit hectic. The magazine has been orchestrated on my daily commute, in the car outside Blue’s dance classes and after she goes to bed. It’s pretty hard to make this project turn a buck when you’re working such unsociable hours. I mean, nobody seems to answer their phones after 5pm. WTF?

The magazine has survived this far on a pretty back-to-front business model with readers paying up-front for the magazine pre-print. I’m forever thankful that the community around the magazine is just the loveliest and that everyone who’s following, appreciates the struggle but more than that, loves the magazine and finds real inspiration in the stories.

Anyway, in an effort to shake things up a little and get some cash to secure the future of the magazine, I’ve launched a (pretty cool, even if I do say so myself) subscription option. Our ‘Class of 2018/19’ will begin in October and run for 12 months. I’ll be welcoming a limited (introvert y’all!) amount of women who are keen to level up their side-hustle and creative careers through a series of zero bullshit online workshops and tutorials delivered by the talented women who have been there and done it. Please note: I’m delighted to say that I’ll be taking NO part in the workshops as I know nada about business. I’ll be sitting at my mac with a notepad ready to learn alongside everyone else.

The Founding Babes Collective will also offer incredible mentorships. Most of my past feature girls have put themselves forward to become mentors which is a real high for me, the fact that they’re willing to take time to help another women screams SISTERHOOD! There will also be a beautiful members' directory (think yellow pages but with sass and a more appealing palette) which as well as the members’ bios, will also have a valuable list of suppliers to help get a side hustle started. The group itself will also offer direct support not to mention the feeling of being part of a community of women who actually ‘get’ what it’s like to work on your dreams 24/7. Oh and the magazine of course, that’s the best bit – you’ll get the next three of those too.

Anyway, because of my situation I have to be crafty when it comes to making the dolla. I can’t just go giving up my day job because I’ve got a tiny little mouth to feed and many women are in the same boat. So what better way to learn how to improve my own side-hustle than facilitating a group to help all the other babes that are doing exactly the same.

More information on (and to join!) The Founding Babes Collective here

Deadline for enrolment 30.09.2018

For more info contact Hannah hello@sheisfiercemag.co.uk

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