Katie Sullivan, Founder of Milestones Gifts
Name: Katie Sullivan
Founder: Milestones Gifts
Who is Katie Sullivan?
I took a traditional career path and worked over 15 years in a very diverse set of finance and HR related roles in public accounting, public companies, private companies, high growth tech start-ups, not-for-profits, and even bought a preschool, grew and sold it (small scale transaction but still a great experience), all while expanding my family with my high school sweetheart to include our four children, ages 4 to 11. Through all of those experiences, I realized the common need for a more supportive society for women and moms so they can navigate life with confidence, and joy, especially through difficult changes. I'm currently juggling a CFO role at a tech company, my family, and my burning desire to spend every free moment growing my company, Milestones Gifts, to serve women, and ideally be able to go all in on that as soon as possible!
In less than three sentences tell us about your company and what you do.
At Milestones Gifts, our thoughtfully curated, fun, informational, and comforting gifts support women as they navigate life's milestones, especially those that are often unspoken. Our first product focuses on caregivers and their girls ages 8-14 who are entering or experiencing puberty so they can feel confident, prepared and empowered to embrace the changes ahead together. I look forward to expanding the product line to include boxes and gifts that help women navigate many other major milestones in their lives.
What does BEING a FoundHer mean to you?
I have an immense appreciation for learning from those who have experienced what I am going through, and am extremely passionate about helping others be successful in their journey through life. It is what my company is based on. One of my taglines is "Give beyond the moment," because I love giving people something tangible to comfort them through periods of change, but the greatest gift of all is the empathy and support provided in the moments beyond. As a FoundHer, I want to be an open book for those who are a few steps behind me so they can avoid the pitfalls I have experienced, and I want to always be learning from those ahead of me.
How do you support other female founders and women in business?
One of my core values is living the Golden Rule so I always strive to treat other female founders the way I would want to be treated. I believe it is so important to boost them up whether it’s through a positive review, sharing their content, including their products in our gift boxes to support their sales and broaden their audience, or helping them with business operations questions. I serve or have served as a small business mentor for the University of Buffalo iCorps program, WEDI (a refugee business support system), the 43North start-up competition, and several other small business incubators. For example, Milestones Gifts is partnered with a minority, women owned business in Atlanta that creates the period essentials pack (pads, feminine wipes, period tracker, stickers) that we include in our Bloom Box, and I’d like to be able to purchase more of those packs to donate to girls in underprivileged schools in my area. Lastly, I’d like to grow Milestones Gifts to the point where I can hire employees, and support local high-school and college internship programs.
At what point did you make your company a full time gig? How did you know the time was right?
I am actually currently in this struggle. Over the years, my husband and I have traded who is working a corporate job vs pursuing entrepreneurial ventures to support our dreams of achieving financial freedom. I've walked away from a corporate job a couple times to pursue entrepreneurship (whether through acquisition of a business or through a start-up). Last fall I left a high profile, executive role at a high growth tech company to build my own company (Milestones Gifts) because I personally needed what I was creating. While building Milestones, I was approached by a friend who asked for accounting help for their software company and I agreed to help them while building Milestones on the side. I'm at the point where I know I could accelerate Milestones if I would focus on it full time, but sales aren't where I want them to be to leave a salaried job yet.
What lesson or skill did you take with you from a prior job to help you succeed in your role today?
I think living your values, and being truly authentic is so critical to success in business and life in general. It was an exhausting mental roller coaster working for a very challenging male CEO in my previous role. I operate with compassion, transparency, and honesty, all things I did not have supporting me in that role.
Let’s talk social media—who handles it for your company (you, an internal team member, an outsourced solution?) and what is the secret to making it successful? What is the biggest challenge?
I am admittedly a social media novice and I know it's holding me back. I currently manage my lack luster accounts on linked in, facebook, and instagram. As evidenced by my low quality video clip, tech tools are not my forte. The biggest challenge for me is knowing how to manage the algorithms by posting the right content at the right time and then actually finding the time to create all the content in the platforms. I do have Hootsuite to try to manage and schedule it all.
How did you land your first client?
I reached out to my network or family, friends and colleagues to explain my idea, I explained my idea and asked them to participate in a market research party at my house where I laid out all the products I thought would be great to include in our first gift box and had them select what resonated with them. I then used the feedback from over 60 participants to create my first version of the gift. Delivered it to them obtained their feedback and then created the go to market version of the box which is now available on our Shopify based website.
What is something you do differently from the industry standard?
I could not find gift boxes that married together the three things I was looking for when searching for the experience I wanted to provide my daughters as they enter puberty. 1. A cliff notes like guide for me to prepare myself to be a supportive resource for them 2. All of the self-care essentials and fun things they would need to feel confident and prepared 3. An age appropriate book for them to read through and feel empowered to ask me questions. I want my gift boxes to help givers develop empathy for those they are supporting (even if it is themselves). Our research-backed informational guides are the unique component that provide that.
Have you sold a business? If so, how did you know when it was time to sell? What were the steps you took to make it happen? What advice would you give to someone looking to sell?
I have! I purchased a small preschool in 2018, ran it for four years (through COVID which was insane) while working another full time role, and sold it to the woman who had been my director for several years. I knew it was time to leave when New York wage rates continued to rise, the labor market fell off the face of the earth, and childcare has an inherent revenue cap because it is highly regulated and you can only have so many children in a space at a time.
What would you do differently if you were starting your business today?
I would document the process more on social media so people could feel connected to the journey from the beginning. I can start doing it now for sure, but this is something small I would have done differently.
What are three strategies you use to market your business, grow brand awareness and generate bottom line growth?
Currently I am using local events, trying to get my email marketing going (using Klaviyo and Shopify), and I am working on getting backlinks through blogs and participating on podcasts.
What was an obstacle you overcame to get your business where it is today? Please share the story behind it.
Running a business requires sacrifices in the area of family time, personal fitness, sleep, time with friends, and/or even time doing "the right thing" to build my business because it's easy to gravitate to the easy things to feel good about checking things off the to-do list. For a period of time when I first started Milestones Gifts, I was reading the 5am Club and I religiously got up at 5am every day to do a 20 minute workout and then work for about 40-60 minutes before my kids woke up. I felt terrible for the first week, but then just started making it a priority and I was able to see significant progress in many aspects of my life. I always joke that I am not a morning person or a late night person because I just feel like I need a lot of sleep. These small intentional actions every day were integral to feeling more balanced overall.
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