Meet: Naj Austin
In 2019, Naj Austin and her team launched Ethel’s Club. It is the first social and wellness platform designed to celebrate people of color in both physical and digital spaces. We caught up with Austin and learned about why she founded Ethel’s club, how she stays inspired, and what feminism means to her... [read below]
“One of the tenets at our company is unlearning because we don’t have to do anything the way that anyone has ever done it.”
Q: Why did you found your own company?
NA: “My interest was sparked less by wanting to start a business and more by wanting to solve a problem. We’re in NYC which can be full of people, and I thought why isn’t there a place that puts your identity first, that also allows for the other things to occur: events, connections, all around the idea of wellness and all the things affecting the world, and eventually that is why we came up with “Ethels Club.”
Q: How do you stay inspired?
NA: “We’ve always been incredibly people focused, in terms of how we make outward facing and internal decisions of the company. When we started Ethel’s Club, before we opened the original clubhouse, in November of 2018, we only had instagram, I remember putting up stories and posts, and being like ‘should we have a podcast room or a photo studio?’ I did a poll and it said 80% podcast, and I’m like cool were gonna have a podcast studio. Then when we opened we had people from our instagram [community] join, and they were surprised to see we actually did everything that we said we were going to do. They gave me the go ahead, confidence, and conviction to do it.”
Q: Who do you look up to?
NA: “I love this question. I look up to other founders who are in my position. I think there is so much to learn from looking next to you vs up. Trying to copy the journey of Oprah, is one that I definitely try, but I don’t think I can easily contact her to get insight. Whereas so much of the growth that we had, has been supporting and connecting with other founders who are in sort of the same world that I’m in. I look up to a lot of them in terms of how they’ve been able to navigate the past couple months. Even before COVID, the things that they do within their companies I’m always inspired and trying to emulate the kinds of work that they are creating as well.”
Q: Three words to describe being a female founder...
NA: Daunting. Lonely. Empowering.–Daunting, there is a lot of pressure and a lot of people look up to you. I constantly get people being like ‘you changed my entire view of the world,’ and ‘I’m like really?!’ Especially as a Black women [entrepreneur], there’s not many of us, and its kind of lonely but also very empowering. I get to change the narrative of who gets to go to a social space, and what it means to be in that space outside of simply being representation and or reflection.
Q: What does being a feminist mean to you?
NA: “Feminism at the root of it means unlearning what I know to be true. “Most of the things I know to be true center white men, and the way that they view the world, the way that they talk about the world. [Feminism today means] Unlearning all of that knowledge and repopulating with knowledge that is intersectional.”
#WomenOwnedBusiness
