Work Besties Who Podcast
Building a bold community of work besties 💼👯♀️ to bond 🤝💞, banter 😂🎉, and bloom 🌸✨
🎙️ Listen to the Work Besties Who Podcast: where workplace friendships get real! From tea spills to relatable laughs, we’re unpacking everything about work life's ups, downs, and unforgettable moments.
✨ Join us for candid chats, relatable stories, and a sprinkle of chaos—because what’s work without a little drama and a lot of fun?
💼😄 Hit play, and let’s dive into the messy magic of workplace connections together!
Work Besties:-)
Work Besties Who Podcast
Creating Change: A Mother-Daughter Mission to Empower The Youth
What if your mother-daughter relationship could revolutionize the way young girls view themselves in the age of Instagram perfection? Meet Maria and Sienna, the duo redefining empowerment through their inspiring platform, Yooou
This episode takes you on a journey through their innovative approach to fostering confidence in tween and teen girls, as Maria leverages her marketing expertise while Sienna adds her authentic teen perspective, turning life's challenges into opportunities for growth.
Discover how their venture, born during Sienna's eighth-grade year, has evolved beyond blogging into a thriving subscription box business, capturing the essence of what it means to be a young girl today. Their unique mother-daughter dynamics embodies how the power of humor, communication, and mutual respect can assist in working together to craft a brand that resonates with young audiences, offering them a space to feel seen and heard amidst the social media noise.
Join us as we celebrate the laughter and resilience that come with supportive partnerships, both familial and professional.
Follow and subscribe to Yoou here; on IG and Facebook
You can watch the full episode on Youtube
Follow us on IG and TikTok
Please rate, comment and provide suggestions for upcoming episodes
Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband
Hi, I'm Claude and I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night and work besties for life.
Jess:Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos and thrive together in every industry. Hi y'all, what happens when a mother-daughter combo decides to go after a bold mission to empower the next generation of girls? Well, welcome to Work Besties. Who podcast. Today we're chatting with Maria and Sienna, the mother-daughter duo behind you, a platform empowering teen and tween girls From building a business rooted in entrepreneurs and teenpreneurs. These two prove that family and business can be the ultimate partnership. Get ready to hear an incredible story, learn what makes their bonds so special and discover what changing the game for the next generation of young women can be. So let's dive in. Welcome, maria and Sienna. Welcome.
Claude:Hi guys.
Jess:Hi in. Welcome Maria and Sienna, Welcome, Hi guys. Hi, Can you tell us a little bit about yourselves and how you came to life? Not you yourself, your company, you, for those that are questioning.
Maria:We always have trouble with the name. We always have to say you, I mean you. No, you am Maria, I'm the mom and my background is in marketing and a little bit of new business development. We decided to do you when Sienna was about in eighth grade.
Sienna:I'm Sienna. I'm the teenager and I don't have a background.
Maria:I'm the teenager and I don't have a background. She started when she was in about eighth grade and started using Instagram and social media and that started becoming a bigger part of the focus of 13 year old ish lifestyles. So it got us talking about rules and regulations and how to's and why not's and thinking about how teen girls when they looked on their Instagram it was a lot of perfect world scenarios, so-and-so's at a party and they're having the best time ever, but there's other girls that are not at that party and they're feeling terrible. We decided that we wanted to kind of populate the girls' Instagram feeds with something that's just real life, just easy, just to make them realize that life isn't just about people having the best time ever, because that's what it looks like on Instagram. And then we also decided to do a blog with that. As we talk about you a little bit more, you'll see that it's such an evolution. So this is how it started, but it's not exactly where it's going to end.
Sienna:Especially. Covid started like a few months after we started you and it kind of evolved as we tried to figure out what we would do through quarantine and we had more time to work on it.
Jess:So tell us about that process of you guys working together. Because as a mother and daughter duo, that's a little unique dynamic. Because as a mother, and daughter duo.
Sienna:that's a little unique dynamic. I mean a lot of. It was kind of just like you knew business stuff and I had no idea what was going on in the world. I was like 13. And so I was like no, we should do this, we should do this and like let's do this.
Maria:And she was like OK, well, like, calm down a little bit. You brought the teen perspective and I brought the world perspective. Yeah, and we merged the two and I brought the world perspective yeah, and we merged the two. We decided it was important to work together just for our relationship, meaning we wanted something that we had a common ground with, because I think mothers and daughters start fighting over everything at that age and having this was a neutralizer. So we would sometimes fight about this, but it was something that we both came back to and we both had a common goal and something that we both wanted to work towards, versus me yelling at her that her skirt was too short or something that we could do together. We had a little philanthropic component to it so we could do it together as well as feeling good about what we were doing. It kind of brought us to a neutral ground, which was needed at the time.
Sienna:And I remember when we were first starting, we were arguing a lot. I was at that age like we just were in a part of our lives where, like we were constantly fighting with each other, we would always resolve it. Like we always were really good at like resolving our conflicts, and so we were like we should share what we're doing with other moms and daughters so that they can also work through their issues, and so that was also a component.
Claude:I remember being like to the blog, like, oh, we should teach them how to communicate which goes back to your life in Instagram is not always beautiful and fun, and so you're showing this part, but also teaching others that it's normal. That is life. And as parents. We all went through those difficult time.
Maria:One of our biggest challenges is time together to work on this, because our schedules were always evolving. As I said, we started sort of when Sienna was in eighth grade. Then COVID hit. There was a schedule, there was a lull, so we got to work on it a lot and then when she went back to school and things were opening back up, then schedules changed again and then she got older in junior and senior year high school. We're busy, so we've always tried to figure out when we can work on this together. That was the kind of the biggest challenge we used to.
Sienna:we used to go live on Instagram together and just like kind of have it out with each other.
Maria:So it was hard to schedule time together where we were had a lot of minutes in one location together, Like there's lots of texting about this and lots of emailing about that. But when we did have the time together, there was a period of time with you that we would get on Instagram live and the two of us would bring up a topic. And I remember did teenagers drink? Coffee was one of them. And she never let me drink coffee. I didn't think she should be drinking coffee.
Maria:I feel like this is still a little bit of a boat of contention here, and another time we got on and had a discussion around spring break and about bikinis Look how big or small these bikinis should be for teenage girls and so the girls would get on, our followers would get on with us and they would weigh in, and then Sienna and I would basically argue on live because I believed something and she believed something else, and so all of my friends would get on and they'd back me up, and then moms would get on and say no that's a good way of learning how to debate in a more healthy way but also with facts right, as opposed to just because I want to or because that's what every other one's doing.
Jess:Like it, I think, encourages kids of all age to understand parents have a perspective for a point of reasons, and then the kids really should be thinking about the multitude of reasons, as opposed to just what your main focus is. I like that idea.
Claude:And you have your you platform and this duo, but how are you able to separate your mom-daughter relationship to your working relationship?
Sienna:I kind of think, like what works for us is that we don't Like. It's just we work together as mom and daughter, and as a mom and daughter we are people that work together. There's no separation there's no separation you is just a part of our lives and a part of our relationship. There was never a distinct oh, this is work time, oh, this is us hanging out time. We would hang out and you would come up and we would discuss what we needed to discuss and we continued talking, talking.
Jess:Involved your relationship, in the fact that you now saw each other with a different perspective in mind, because you're both coming to the table with something unique and providing a different point of view or a different part of your life as you guys join in this business as you commented before, like the equalizer, the thing that brings you to feel like it's okay to still be mother and daughter working together, because now you have a little bit more respect, knowing what you both can bring to the table Is that maybe what is causing some of that Kind of what I was saying earlier, like scheduling was so hard to actually sit down and have a specific time to talk about this, so we would talk about it wherever and whenever we could.
Maria:And it kind of became like Sina said. It was just part of we talked about boys, we talked about friends, we talked about you, we talked about what was for dinner. It just sort of all became part of the conversation. And I think all mothers would agree there comes a time in a teenager's life where they don't want to talk to you anymore, or not as much as you want to talk to them, and so it was a good reason to make Sienna talk to me and have her answer my questions and yeah, she still does that, by the way.
Sienna:I'll be like doing work in at school and she'll be like it it's an emergency, like I need you stuff. I'll pick up the phone and she'll like make up a question, like, so, obviously, make up a question about you.
Jess:What's wrong with the subscription box?
Maria:anyway. So what happened? It's funny because I would say you is sort of an outside reflection of our relationship because you has evolved in so many ways and it really is just basically a projection of what we have done together, going through these teenage years together. It's still evolving because we're still evolving. So this is Sienna's first year at college and our relationship had to evolve again, with her being away and out of the house and we don't see each other as much. Everything kind of just literally worked into our lives. But I think that's one of the reasons and we don't see each other as much Everything kind of just literally worked into our lives. But I think that's one of the reasons that we've kept it going for this long is because it is just part of us.
Sienna:Working together through these years, like I feel like eighth grade to freshman year of college, like that's definitely some transitional years, yeah, and so I know I've changed as a person so much. And so I've definitely changed as someone, as a colleague, as a co-owner, and so it's definitely helped the way that we see each other, because there's also this formal aspect of like, the way that we're viewing our relationship and our dynamic, and so it's definitely I've realized that she actually like, has thoughts and like is right. Sometimes. That's wild to me.
Jess:Good job yeah.
Maria:It's been funny to see Sienna's evolution and she's now old enough to go back and look at it as well. But when we first started the blog she wrote a lot on it. There's a tab and it says Sienna Says and her writing has changed so much her topics, her approach but it's fun to have those markers. She doesn't write for Sienna Says quite as much anymore due to time and she sort of moved into the subscription box part of the business. But she still will go back and actually some of the things that she wrote about were like an arm of things that were happening in our lives. She wrote about getting her ears double pierced at one point.
Jess:Did you find out about it on the blog or did you know beforehand? No, okay, this is a really funny story um now.
Sienna:Now I always I thoroughly enjoyed the story um. Anyways, one day I was bored, and so I double pierced my ears on my own, without telling her in my room, I know, after we told her not to do that by yourself.
Maria:Yeah, no, I like fully used like hydrogen peroxide. She did it and we were so mad that she did it. We made her take out the earrings and close up the holes.
Sienna:You can't just skip over this fact. My punishment for that was to get my door taken off of her room.
Maria:Well, because we didn't really trust her to be behind the closed door, because she did that when she was behind closed doors.
Sienna:So we took her door off for like a weekend to teach her a lesson way longer than that, so way people are so like do you have your door back yet?
Jess:no, five years later and I just got my door back but so she had to get her ears with the holes.
Maria:We made her close up the holes, which was probably not very nice looking back, but one of her blog posts is her going to get her ears double pierced because then we made her go to a doctor friend of ours and get them pierced.
Sienna:And then you let me do my triples on my own, like a few years later.
Claude:And what were the answers of that blog when you told about the response Because there must have been different response the parents' response that must have saying oh no, she's right, I would have done the same thing. But then the kids' response that say parents are terrible.
Sienna:Well, I don't think that I actually wrote about the first time. I'm not doing it on her own, because I think that at the time we were like we don't want to encourage other people to do so.
Maria:I don't think I wrote about the first time that I did it myself but we do talk about it among mothers and daughters a lot, just as we brought it up here. We do get absolutely mixed reviews.
Sienna:The girls are normally laughing at the fact that my door got taken away.
Maria:And the parents actually really like the punishment. She has really creative punishments.
Jess:Yeah, that is a creative one, I would never think to take the door off.
Maria:Well, I just had a friend of mine who has a daughter who's a little bit younger than Sienna. She did something kind of along the same lines. My friend called and she's like I mean, I just don't even know how to like get through to her and I was like, well, maybe you should take her door off. And she did.
Jess:And I'm sure that worked quick. You're so mean. I can't believe you. So one of the main elements of you is really about empowering women or girls right as they're coming into those critical ages, because teen tweens can be so jarring and you don't have the life experience you think this is like the only thing that exists. You're commenting on some of the challenges you two faced. What do you see that is the biggest challenge today for the teens and tweens, and how are you focusing on that within your you platform? How are you focusing?
Maria:on that. Within your you platform, We've sort of evolved our objective to be about creating a space for girls to gain information, inspiration and tools. What I see is a lack of confidence and a lack of self-esteem and a lack of pride in themselves. Because I think that there's social media, they're looking at it and everything's perfect on somebody else's end and they don't think that their life is quite as perfect.
Maria:And I don't think it's a lack of self-esteem, meaning they run around with their head down and don't like themselves. I just think there's this angst inside of them because it's just kind of eats a little bit every time you open that, that you know the Instagram and so.
Maria:I think we try to put things on our blog and Instagram that give girls little nuggets, something to make them feel good, or a little piece of information Somebody else might not know. Sometimes that can give a girl confidence. Sometimes just a little quote or just a little joke Even I've put up some like mom jokes and Sienna thinks that they're crazy but it's just a little something to make the girls have something positive to go on and feel good instead of going on and getting one more little nip of seeing perfection. So I think I think that's an overriding theme of teens today is just kind of the confidence and the feeling that everyone else has perfection except for them, and that is so wrong, so wrong.
Sienna:Yeah, that is something I 100% have noticed. A lot of teenagers, or at least teen girls, feel alone in, like they feel like they're the only one that feels this way and they feel like they're the only one that like looks at something a certain way and that's also something we want to work on with the blog is like showing them like you are not the only one going through this right now, like you are not alone in this and sharing stories of other people's conflicts and other people's struggles, and showing them look, there's so much going on. Like you are not on your own in this.
Maria:I. I think again, you has evolved so much and now the blog is written for girls by girls. Um, we don't write very much, we don't put very much up there at all. A lot of it now is becoming a platform for girls to tell their stories, whatever their stories look like. So sometimes it's a story about a pet pig and sometimes it's a story about an eating disorder, and it is just so that girls followers can go on and they can see that somebody has something funny going on in their life, like they have a pet pig, and then someone else has a really serious issue of some sort, whether it's depression or whether it's a divorce. So the blog is full of different perspectives and stories from the girls and that is also to Sienna's point to make girls feel like they are not alone in this. There are other girls feeling the feelings.
Claude:So are they going to answer, for example, this girl that has bulimia or anxiety or whatever? Would someone answer back to her and say yes, me too, and this is what I do. Or do you answer to them?
Maria:So that's the funny thing I've learned about the teen girls they don't want to answer back. I think if they had an anonymous Instagram site or some Instagram handle like they would, they would respond immediately because if, if we ask them directly, somehow we'll get feedback, but they will not put their name out there in response to an Instagram post or a blog post. So it makes it difficult at times to open that dialogue and get feedback from them. We have to literally go seek it out so that we know how to evolve the blog or the communication with them, whatever that communication looks like. Teen girls are closed and that's why we try to put up as many random things on that blog as girls want to write about, because you never know when that will affect or who it will affect. Be looking for something to wear for the 4th of July and they don't know what to do. It's almost one-sided in a way, even though we know it's touching their lives in multiple ways.
Sienna:If that makes sense, yeah, there's not a lot of dialogue that we see, but on our end can see how many people are reading it and how many people are viewing it, but there's no back and forth between the two.
Jess:It goes back to what you were saying before. This is the time of their life where they think they're the only ones going through it. You're providing them an avenue of a resource to look for. It feel comfortable and confident. They don't have to have their anonymity given away.
Sienna:A big reason a lot of the girls write for us is because it's all anonymous, which we started as a safety thing when girls write for us, we always identify the post with their initials and then their age.
Maria:But we've had girls say they don't even want their initials being put on there. So we'll make up an initial, we'll change one of their initials, we'll use their middle name. We've had a couple of completely anonymous that have come through like a friend of a friend and they've sent us a blog post.
Jess:We don't even know who it is. What is the vetting process? Then People can just write in to you all. Are you specifically asking questions and looking for people to reply?
Sienna:A little bit of both. People can just send in. If they have a cool story, they can like, DM us and be like hey, I have a pet pig.
Maria:This was one of the times one of the girls wanted to be anonymous. And I had a friend. I was just chatting with her. She was left-handed and somehow we started talking about how it's National Left-Handed Day. She is a psychologist and she was working with a girl who was left-handed and I don't know the back end of that story as much as I know. She said well, I'm going to ask if this girl wants to write about being left-handed. And she did, and my friend sent us the post that she wrote.
Maria:Her client wrote and sent it to us and so the vetting process is to come to us. It has to be trustworthy, a trustworthy source. We don't want to just throw something up there that doesn't make any sense. But the girl wrote this amazing post. We don't know who she is. We're not exactly sure why she wanted to be anonymous, because the story itself, the post itself, is benign. It's about being left-handed. We'll accept it because she had something to say and I'm sure there's another girl somewhere out there that saw the post about the troubles of being left-handed and she said yes.
Claude:I'm not the only one.
Sienna:And I know like even I kind of get it. I write still sometimes, like barely ever, maybe once a year For you, yeah, and like most of the time, like my face is out there, my name is out there on the website on like, instagram, all the platforms.
Claude:And like I'll is out there, my name is out there on the website on the instagram, all the platforms and like, I'll write something and I'll use fake initials because I gotta like it's again is that authentic voice and the trust, especially the trust towards those teenagers that is so important?
Jess:for them and I'm sure it helps with them tackling those bigger issues, just to know that if they, if they were to write to you, you will keep them anonymous too.
Maria:Yes, I have to say, most of the most of the ones that are anonymous, we do know who they are. Okay, the world does not know who they are. Several girls have come to us and said we want to write about this, this and this, and whether they're embarrassed that they're writing or they're not sure that they are doing a good job I think there's a million or it's a topic they're not ready to share with the world?
Maria:Yeah, yeah, and they just want it for whatever reason. So we say okay, you pick the initials, or the. H's are always the H.
Jess:That's great. So we wanted to switch a little topics, because you guys mentioned it earlier on the subscription boxes. How does that come into play with this platform?
Sienna:we started the subscription boxes because it was covid and well, at the beginning of you, we were going to do events.
Maria:Philanthropy things for teenage girls to do together, to do instead of getting on their phones or going to the mall or something boring. So we had all these events planned out.
Jess:I don't know if they think that's boring, though, maria.
Maria:Maybe it's boring after a while, maybe, but we were doing these events and we did one and it was really fun and we loved it. We had the second one scheduled. We were going to do them every month or every other month or something. Then the world shut down so we canceled our second event and even when the world opened back up, it was a little bit weird to have events, because people were still a little standoffish about getting together.
Sienna:When the world shut down, we were kind of like, okay, well, now this whole aspect of our company, we can't do it right now. So, like, what should we do? And so we were thinking about what to do and I at the time was looking into subscription boxes.
Sienna:There was like makeup ones and there's like lifestyle ones, but like none of them really were just right, like none of them were market for that target age for the teen world it was either too young or too old or too specific, and so we were like it was just a completely separate thing that I was also looking for, just because I was bored. And then we were also looking for something to do with the company. And then we were like, wait, why don't we just combine this? Why don't we make our own subscription box for this exact thing that you're looking for?
Maria:Yeah, so, as you can see, you has evolved based on our lifestyles and it's a projection, as I was saying earlier. So the subscription box is a lifestyle and beauty box for tween and teen girls, but we've actually had subscribers that have gone up to like 24 years old. I could send it to you guys and you would like the things in it. It's, it is for tween and teens, but it's not one of the things we're putting in the products geared just for them.
Sienna:It's things, exactly, exactly, it's like a PG movie, like everyone watches it, but like that's a good analogy.
Maria:For that's right, that's exactly, that's a great analogy.
Jess:The Disney movies, but there's a little bit for everybody.
Maria:So we so we started doing that, and it started as a sidebar, but it is actually an extension of you. Well, first of all, just getting the box is something that makes the girls happy, and the most feedback we get is how excited they are to actually just see that on their front porch when they come home from school.
Maria:Like actually just see that on their front porch when they come home from school. So just the element of getting the box is a feel-good moment in their lives and then opening the things inside and talking about it with their mom or their sister or their friend.
Sienna:It all ties in with our entire message and our entire goal, and how often.
Claude:Do you have those? Do you send those boxes?
Maria:Every quarter, so four times a year, so they're every quarter and they're kind of seasonal, so spring, summer, winter, fall as the quarters go. Typically that's how things work, but the items in them are not just seasonal. So the items inside them are much more about, like the lifestyle of a teen or the lifestyle of a girl.
Maria:So, you know, maybe we'll have something that's a little summer related. Summer related, like, um, we put in straws for your stanley and the little lid that goes on top of them, like for the summer box, because that's just kind of you know, but it's not um, we'll throw in like mints for the christmas box, or not, your socks winter, yeah, yeah um, so there's. So there's some things, but it's not. You don't get a box that is all full of fall items, mattering of everything Okay.
Jess:Yeah, that makes sense.
Maria:Sienna sort of does more of the subscription box right now because she picks the items and we vet it through different girls.
Sienna:Yeah, I have like friends that will reach out to me and be like, oh my God, you should put this in, or they'll be like why are you putting like? I'll be like in our common room, like looking through some website trying to find stuff for the box, and I'll be like wait, do you guys think that they'll like this? Like should I put this in? And then I'll be like what even? Is that why?
Jess:would you?
Sienna:put that in there and I'll be like you know what, you're right, you're right. So then I keep looking.
Jess:You do a little market research is what you're saying.
Sienna:I'm at the age I can communicate with the target audience more.
Jess:It sounds like you guys divide elements of your company. Sienna, you're doing more of the subscription box and Maria, you're more on the blog. You're old, so I know more about the teen tweens I like to call it not teen tweens, sienna's grounded after this, just so you guys know there goes that door.
Claude:I'm sorry guys, where's the door? Door. Yeah, it's like hearing my teenager talking to me. Actually you talk nicer and I mean it like sounds so rude.
Sienna:Yeah, my point was she's old and I'm more of a teenager and I know more about the teen tween life. I'm more in that area of the company. I don't have a background in anything and she has a business major. So yeah, we kind of divide and conquer.
Jess:Yes, you're leveraging your strengths, it's true, exactly. And how do you guys see that evolving? Because at some point, sienna I hate to tell this to you, but you're not going to be a teenager.
Maria:You're getting. You're almost not a teenager anymore. What do we do? You have to come do my job.
Sienna:We have to find somebody to do your job. That was what I was about to touch on is we actually are kind of starting to get younger input in the company.
Maria:We started an ambassador program where people Fantastic From freshmen, sophomores, juniors, yeah, so we have high school girls, high school right, okay, yeah, clarifying coming in and they're working on blogs we and when we realized, like skinna was leaving, when she figured out where she was going to college and she's, um, you know, out of state, and that things were going to change between us and she is getting older truly, and so we wanted to make sure we still touched on the younger audience as well. I mean some of the posts they skew to whether we should take the ACT or the SAT, but that's older high school, so an eighth grade girl or seventh grade girl could care less about the ACT right now.
Maria:Maybe her mom is interested in looking it up, but you know she wants to know more about what do I do about a girl who's picking a fight in my friend group. So we sat down with some girls that we know that have contributed often and are interested in you the business, and we sat down with them before Sina went to school and said what do you guys think? Which do we do? Where should we take this? And we all sort of came up with an ambassador program, which I personally don't like the word ambassador, um but the girls liked it and they wanted it.
Sienna:so ambassador for them is good. The title is good for resume reasons.
Jess:Yeah so that's why they want the.
Maria:It sounds empowering so I kind of would like it, yeah, especially if I was a teenager, yeah, and, and that's what they said and so they're using this as an internship or something to put on their college applications, because we know how hard it is to get into college now and how colleges are looking for different things than just your typical grade and ACT score. We started an ambassador program. We have girls that are young and all the way up the ladder and they write blog posts for us. They give feedback. We're going to be doing a big holiday philanthropy and they're going to be involved in that. It's a way to stay in touch.
Claude:You're still going to want to have your platform target towards teenagers, so it's not as you is going to grow up, as Sina Sina is growing up. Which was at the beginning was really about your relationship and so it's really going to stay with the teenagers.
Sienna:Yes, because that was like kind of the main point when we were starting. It is that there's no source for these girls, and so we still want to be the source, we still want to provide them that safe space.
Maria:And it took us a long time to get to where we are, because we've evolved this with each other and with growing up, and now we can see, now we understand the life of a teenager from 13 to 18, or I can see it differently now that I've gone through it. Sienna now understands that there's an end yes, there's an end to the angst and the craziness.
Jess:So not angsty, no, but I think that's a good terminology, because while you're going through that age, you really do not have that level of understanding of how much everyone else is going through Even if it's not the same thing, they're going through something else, and everyone has an angst or an anxiety, and I think you see also that you're not alone.
Claude:Like you always hear the teenager or you know so-and-so's parents don't do that. You see that community, that everybody's going through that and every parent, or most of the parents, are going to do the same thing.
Maria:So it shows also that you're not alone, that there is something behind and, to that point, we've noticed that we have a pop-up on our website so you can put your email address in and your subscriber, and so you get the blog sent to you instead of going to look for it, and we've noticed that we can tell that a lot of the subscribers are moms.
Jess:I was going to say are you ever going to have like a portion that's just dedicated to moms and navigating that landscape? Because I'm coming up on it and it's scary. It is scary and so a lot of moms.
Maria:It's funny. A lot of grandmothers buy the subscription box because they know it's like a good thing. They know that we know what a teenager is doing and what they like and so they just trust the process that. We've already vetted the cool things or the not cool things. But we've noticed a lot of moms on our Instagram. We can see their faces and it's a mom, it's not a teenage daughter, but they go on because they just want to see and know and have some insight into the lives of these girls. So it's becoming not only a resource for the girls and that's who we target. We only communicate to the teen girls. Everything is speaking to them. It's not really speaking to the moms, but the moms like to come in and kind of see that it's actually. It actually is speaking to the moms because they want a little insight into yeah it's kind of teaching me to research for them.
Jess:It's also probably giving them tools or the ways to communicate it, because I think that's the biggest disconnect, at least even with my daughter. Like the word choice matters, and if I say a word that she does not think is cool anymore, the whole conversation is just over, regardless of answering answering the conversation. So I think it things like this can help just in. Why are you laughing? And it's true.
Claude:How many times have you done that to your mom she will say something she thinks is anyway, and you're like no, no one uses that word yeah, I really like also this part where it also talked to the moms, because they will understand from a teenager part what do they feel, what they like and what they don't like and how, and that will actually help them change their behavior because at the end of the day, we all grow together. Right, the teenager is growing, but the mom also is growing at the same time because we are all left on what's going on. You know, my little child that loved me so much is not there anymore. You know, I think that is is so good as well.
Maria:I think one of our biggest regrets with you, with actual business, is that we didn't stick with doing the lives longer than we did. We probably only did it for a few months and then schedules became too hard for us to coordinate finding a time to do it. It was growing relatively fast, because moms would tune in, girls would tune in Sina and I would full on bicker about an issue.
Maria:We were like streaming at each other on live Instagram, like we mentioned, we worked through it, but so people were watching that and moms could see how to deal with it. I'm sure moms were saying, oh, maria said the wrong thing.
Jess:That is not good, you know and I think some of the it's like live coaching on therapy, like how to better communicate, exactly, and so moms were able to see that it doesn't go on in only their house, that it also is across the board.
Maria:So that is probably something that we looking back, and I don't even know how we bring it back. You can. What if?
Claude:you did like an ambassador I was gonna say, do an ambassador program.
Jess:That's mom and daughters and they do it once a quarter and each one has to. Yeah, I'm sure you can bring other parents and daughters on there for sure. Yeah, I love that Probably, and then you get different perspectives, because it wouldn't be the same mother-daughter duo every time. It's a good point. We should think about that.
Maria:It is fun because you're getting you know, getting feedback on the screen.
Sienna:It's so interesting to have strangers comment on your relationship, On you.
Jess:I'm sure I couldn't even imagine. I think it would derail me from the conversation. I'd be like wait, what did they just say Exactly?
Maria:It was a fun thing to do.
Claude:Yeah, and what was the response of the people that you knew? You know, like even Sienna, about your friends right that saw you going at it with your mom, or even you, a lot of my friends thought it was really funny.
Sienna:Yeah, they thought it was so funny because my mom and I, the way we argue with each other, is kind of making fun of each other. A little bit of sarcasm, a lot of sarcasm. I feel like we bicker more like sisters and a mother and a daughter, like we kind of always have that mutual respect for each other. Yeah, so it wasn't, it oh it wasn't always her just like dominating me as a parent you know, yeah, it wasn't like, it wasn't like.
Jess:I said so because I'm your mom that time.
Sienna:I could say stuff back, and so, since I could say stuff back, it was just the mom.
Maria:feedback was great. They were like we love seeing this. So we know that we're not the only ones that are having these issues. They liked seeing Sienna's perspective. The moms that I know that were logged in, they would. Well, we would get comments afterwards and comments on the screen and then people would DM us and so they weren't you know afterwards and they would say that was so good. I'm having the same bathing suit issue with my daughter.
Sienna:People really they really loved it. There were times that we only knew this because we knew the people but, like both, the mother and the daughter would be on the live separately.
Maria:And they would be commenting.
Jess:Probably in the same house, but in different locations.
Sienna:Yes, and they'd be commenting like on separate sides of the argument.
Claude:On live like they could see each other's comments.
Jess:They were fighting online Online, as well as you two.
Claude:And then, I'm sure, once it was over.
Jess:They then had their fight, Exactly so yeah, it was fun.
Maria:I think my biggest piece of advice and Sienna touched on it, when, as a mom, when you argue with your daughter, is you do have to show them respect. They are people and they don't need to be dominated. I don't think that goes anywhere fast except downhill. And they do have ideas and there is a reason that they want to do what they're doing. So Sina wanted to wear a bathing suit that was too small and I didn't like it. But come to find out that's what every single girl was wearing, that's what the girls were posting. Well, that's where we shopped. I went on all of the websites that all the girls in this one live mentioned and, sure enough, I mean, that's what is out there. So I could yell at her and say no, you're not wearing that, but I don't know that that's really helping.
Maria:It's the market, it's not me. Yeah, you've got to just see the whole thing before you, facts matter, right.
Maria:I think what you're doing is you're giving both of you tools to understand each other and negotiation tactics right, actually had said no you can do it after your birthday which was in just a couple of weeks, and she didn't listen, and we said you can do it, but not until and there was a reason and there is a whole why around it, and she completely disobeyed it. So then, so then, then, yes, then you then there's a she's not holding any sort of angst about it at all.
Jess:It's a good tool to remember is what she's saying.
Maria:I'm still the mom at the end of the day, and if you, there are consequences and and that's life and so you do. As a mom, I still have to teach that I can't just be like, oh yeah, sure, okay, everyone's wearing a string bikini, so you should too.
Jess:I mean there is still.
Maria:My point in the bathing suit was at least I could see everyone's perspective and then I can make my decision instead of just making it in a silo, and that's sort of what you the whole business is about is just empowering girls. They're not alone. Moms are not alone if they want to log in and see any of this going on. We are all doing the same thing. We are all in the same spot.
Sienna:Looking at the demographic as a whole is also important Just everything.
Maria:And making decisions based on that and making decisions based on that. But you know, being hardcore and drawing strict lines, some things absolutely, but you know, these little things that we fight about all the time. I think the reason you fight is moms are like absolutely not, but there's no real reason behind it. And so dig in and find out.
Jess:So what's your big dream for you? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind for all these girls and the families as this continues?
Sienna:Well, I know that I just want to be able to reach all of these people.
Maria:I just hope that every girl out there knows that this is a resource, that they have just awareness that this is out there for them and a platform that they can use if they have something to say that might help another girl. Whenever a girl asks about what they should write about or what angle they should take about the topic that they're writing about, our comment back is always how will this help another girl, and in what way will this help? Don't just tell a story about yourself, but put something in there that will help another girl. And how, in what way will this help? Don't just tell a story about yourself, but put something in there that will help another girl, a nugget of information or inspiration or you know something that if a girl reads it, they'll get something out of it, and we would just love for it to grow, you know, so that girls know it's there and they can either use it in a passive format or they can use it in a proactive format.
Claude:And where should they send the stories you know, for the audience that have teenagers or twins, where should they, where would they follow and how can they subscribe to you?
Maria:Our Instagram handle is how most of the girls come to us, because that's what girls are doing they're on Instagram. Our Instagram handle is you, three O's.
Sienna:Three O-O-O-U dot life and that's how most people. They just DM us, let us know they have a story or give us feedback on a story they read.
Maria:We've had a lot of girls say oh well, my friend wants to write about such and such, Can she do that? And I say yeah, of course. And then let us have their Instagram and we'll reach out to them. So a lot of it's done over Instagram, Awesome.
Jess:So our last question that we'd love to ask everybody if you could give one final piece of advice and in your case it would be to your girls that are on your platform or listening today. What would it be?
Sienna:I would probably say just remember, you're not alone.
Maria:I think I would too, and you're going to get through this. Take the good and the bad, it's going to be fine in a couple of years. So true, I love it. So true, it's going to be fine in a couple of years.
Jess:So true, I love it, so true I'm going to have chills. Well, thank you so much, maria and Sienna. This was definitely a very educational and very fun podcast where we got to learn a lot about your platform, you with three O's. It's such an inspiring mission and we appreciate you guys taking the time to not only do this platform but also share with all of us. So, for all of our listeners out there, if you love this episode, please don't forget to subscribe to our Work Besties who podcast and give us a like and a review and leave those comments so that we can come up with other fun topics to bring to you.
Jess:Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you all soon Thank you Remember, whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.
Claude:So keep lifting each other, laughing through the chaos and, of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties.
