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You're not behind. You're just building in the wrong order.
Real Talk with investor Rich Gersten on what early-stage founders get wrong, and what the ones who make it do differently. There's a specific kind of doubt that hits founders around month six or twelve. The brand exists. The product is real. You believe in it completely. And yet nothing is moving the way you thought it would. You're doing everything, the content, the outreach, the ops, the strategy, and it still feels like you're shouting into a room where no one can hear you

Paula Ironside
5 days ago8 min read


From hype to health: The real longevity playbook
The shift from aesthetic wellness to measurable health. A conversation with Lisa Tengbom by Paula Ironside. The wellness industry didn't just grow, it expanded into something ambient. It became part of how we signal identity, discipline, even taste. Green juices, cold plunges, infrared saunas, rituals that promise not just health, but a certain kind of life. But as the category scaled, so did a quiet fatigue. Not necessarily with the practices themselves, but with what they r

Paula Ironside
6 days ago9 min read


Real Talk: The business of keeping it hot.
Kateřina Rydlová on Body Moody, chaos, and showing up anyway Kateřina Rydlová, CEO of Body Moody The pills to survive the day Eight years ago, Kateřina Rydlová noticed something. Not something new, but something so normalised it had become invisible: every woman she knew carried pills in their bag. Pink pills. White pills. Paracetamol. Ibuprofen. The kind you pop between meetings, the kind that let you get through the day when your body is screaming at you to stop. "I neede

Paula Ironside
6 days ago6 min read


How to define white space through storytelling
Finding the one story only your brand can tell There is a moment every founder knows. You scroll through your feed, you look at the brands around you, and something feels off. Not wrong, exactly. Just… loud. Everything is competing for attention, and somewhere underneath all that noise, you sense there might be a quieter, more meaningful way to build. That feeling is worth paying attention to. Because it might be pointing you toward the most important strategic question you'l

Paula Ironside
6 days ago6 min read


You can't Canva your way into mattering
Why 2026 is the year wellness & beauty founders need to start building on culture, not aesthetics This week I'm writing about something I've been thinking about for months: why aesthetics alone won't differentiate you anymore, and what actually creates brands that feel inevitable. In this piece: 💛 Why everyone looking the same is costing you money 💛 What cultural intelligence actually means (with real examples) 💛 The three forces converging to make this urgent now 💛 How t

Paula Ironside
Mar 78 min read
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