2019-03-01 Money

MARCH 2019 MONEY.COM (^39)
Amoruso’s then-three-year-old book and
were still passing their crumpled, annotated
copies through their inner circles. They were
still launching side hustles and leaving their
desk jobs to start their own businesses. And
they were still reaching out to Amoruso—
their imperfect heroine—to tell her how
#Girlboss had inspired them.
The public undoing of Nasty Gal didn’t
make these women change their minds—
it galvanized them. And as Amoruso rebuilt
her life post–Nasty Gal, a new community
took shape.
In 2017 she launched Girlboss Media, a
digital company that now has a podcast
network with six different shows; an online,
career-centered women’s magazine; and a
biweekly newsletter.
Later this year, she’ll unveil a paid social
networking site for female entrepreneurs.
It’ll look a bit like LinkedIn—with a fresh,
millennial-pink sheen—plus Q&A threads
and videos from past Girlboss Rallies. The
site will target young, bootstrapping women
working outside the confines of a desk job,
Amoruso says. Women on their own
imperfect career path.
“I don’t want to be the poster child for
failure, but a lot of people want to know how I got back up,” she
says. “Because regardless of the scale of what you’re doing or
how public you are, you need to know that it’s an incredibly
normal thing. It doesn’t mean that you need to go hide; it means
that you learn and do better.”
V
alerie Lollett, a 37-year-old who traveled to the
Girlboss Rally from Miami, has weathered plenty
of her own storms.
Born in Venezuela, Lollett moved to the U.S. four
years ago amid an economic crisis that continues to rattle the
country today. She’s run her own creative agency since 2011 and
was able to relocate her business successfully—in 2018, she sold
a female-focused cannabis brand to a big international holding
company. As Lollett carves out a life for herself 1,600 miles from
her home country, there’s little certainty about what will happen
next. But she says Amoruso’s own storied, uncertain career path
is helping her tackle those unknowns.
“Sophia is pushing one of the most positive and productive
movements of today,” Lollett says. “She’s showing us how to get
up and be better each time you fall. I think the Girlboss Rally is
the most amazing thing in the world right now.”
A quick word on that hashtag. As of this writing, #Girlboss
has been used 14 million times on Instagram alone. It is
ubiquitous. Every wannabe Instagram model proclaims she’s a
#Girlboss. So do “influencers,” that catchall term for people who
get paid to hawk products on their social media accounts. Ditto
IN every woman who sells LuLaRoe or Rodan + Fields or any of the
VI
SI
ON
/A
P/
SH
UT
TE
RS
TO
CK