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Meet Jill Koziol, Co-Founder and CEO of Motherly

July 14, 2022
5 mins read
Jill Koziol Co-Founder and CEO of Motherly
Jill Koziol Co-Founder and CEO of Motherly

Jill Koziol is the co-founder and the CEO of Motherly, a destination for wellbeing that helps mothers thrive through professional content, innovative product solutions, and a friendly community.

Motherly attracts 40 million readers and viewers each month through classes on-demand for parents and Webby award-winning videos, the Motherly podcast, essays and other articles, and an active social media community.

She is also a co-author of “The Motherly Guide to Becoming Mama: Redefining the Pregnancy, Birth, and Postpartum Journey” and “This Is Motherhood: A Motherly Collection of Reflections and Practices.”

Jill is committed to serving and supporting women and mothers since when mothers are successful and everyone benefits.

She is a champion for women’s families, female founders, and how to live a whole life in the face of multiple sclerosis. Jill resides in Park City, Utah, with her husband and two daughters.

The idea behind Motherly originate from?

The quick response is that I founded Motherly because it did not exist, and women were severely under-served through the parental resources available in 2015.

The idea came from my conversation with my co-founder Liz Tenety, an award-winning journalist and editor. Liz called me to discuss the seeds of an idea for a platform to address the needs of modern mothers.

The first time we spoke, we realized that we have the same goal of supporting women in their journey to becoming mothers.

We then decided to build a future brand that would redefine motherhood for today’s women, focusing on women empowered, expert-driven, and expert-driven.

What would your typical day take? How can you maximize your productivity?

I am a slave to my calendar, arranging every aspect from meetings at work to workouts to make sure I maximize every minute.

Here is an everyday routine, but I increasingly attend in-person meetings for coffee or lunch at least once weekly.

At 6:45 am, I begin my day with approximately 15 minutes to check my news, emails, and daily calendar.

7:20 am, I’m dressed for the day. I’m home in mom mode, getting my girls ready for school. I’m also getting them to school.

8 am: Call the Chief of Staff, my chief of staff, to discuss pressing questions and agree with my Chief of Staff on priority areas.

8:30 am Workout

9:15 Email check before going back to the office at home

9 – 3 pm Back-to-back external and internal video calls and meetings, with maybe a little break in between sessions to stay on top of emails

3 pm Pick my daughters up from school and bring them home to my husband or au pair to take care of the afternoon activities.

3.30 pm Email catch-up, strategy work, occasionally west coast calls

6:30pm – 8:30pm Family time!

8:30 pm Final email check

8:30 pm Shower and unwind with my husband

10:30 pm Bedtime, usually do a little reading before bed

How do you bring your ideas to the world?

I am a firm believer in sprints that time-box ideas, giving opportunities to try and refine the picture, making mistakes, or achieving success quickly before expanding the concept.

What’s one thing that you are excited about?

Remote-first work policies. Motherly has been a remote-first company since its inception in the year 2015.

What’s one thing you do that helps you be more efficient as a businessperson?

Timeboxing – I schedule time out for almost everything in my calendar and assign deadlines defined to achieve these tasks – this helps me focus and not multitask too often.

Do you have any advice you would impart to your future self?

I’d say to myself that I should be authentic and not try to appear to be a man or someone else than me in my heart and be my authentic self.

It took me a while in my 20s before I realized that people could sense authenticity and then adhere to the path it follows.

Let us know something you believe to be the truth that virtually no one is with you about.

More than 50% of our mothers are the primary household breadwinners, and many people are shocked to hear and cannot believe it.

This is why it’s an essential business requirement and competitive necessity that we figure out ways to assist working mothers at work, and our future economic prosperity depends on it.

Being an entrepreneur, what’s the one thing you’ve been doing every day and suggest everyone else do?

Meetings that are canceled – at the beginning of each week, I will cancel appointments as often as I can.

If it’s possible to accomplish by email, if the goals aren’t clear or the plan isn’t set, or if someone else can handle the task as well as or more efficiently than I can, the meeting will be canceled.

What strategy has helped you expand your company?

Finding great employees and removing them from their ways, seeing my job as helping them unblock their path to allow them to be successful.

What was the biggest mistake that you experienced as an entrepreneur? If so, how did you get over it?

While I have failed in miniature, and often large, ways every day, I consider this as a part of the process of learning versus falling.

I believe that the path to success comes when perseverance and passion are combined and that sometimes the secret is to be healthy enough to achieve success.

For instance, we started our first video-based class online for parents in 2016, but it didn’t go well because the market wasn’t yet ready, the audience wasn’t huge enough, and so on. We ended up putting it down.

In 2022, a lot has changed, and we are building the most professional-driven online parenting platform.

What’s your best business idea that you’d be willing to share with our readers?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while but haven’t come up with an answer yet. With the numerous streaming services offering original shows, it’s difficult to determine when an upcoming season of my favorite show will be released.

I’d like to see someone develop an app that lets me mark the shows I like throughout all the streaming services and will inform me whenever a brand new episode is launched.

It would be fantastic to see it make suggestions for similar shows. If such a series does be in existence, please forward me the details!

What was the most expensive $100 you’ve ever spent? Why?

I purchase fresh flowers every week in my office. While it can be excessive, it makes me happy and promotes daily mindfulness. Both are important for me to have each day to inspire me.

What is the one application or web service that can help you to be more productive?

Trello I use Trello to keep track of things to do and 1:1 subjects for direct reports and note-taking from meetings.

What is the most important book you think your community read, and why?

Reshma Saujani’s new book ” Pay Up” is a must-study on the future of women’s roles working in the workplace.

The strategies she proposes are ideas that Motherly has tried in the past seven years, and they have proven to be effective and are adaptable to other organizations.

What is your most cherished quote?

My favorite quote is, “there’s nothing like ten years of hard work to look like an overnight success.”

This is a crucial mantra for Motherly and me since I often look at our company and myself with other businesses that have been in business for quite an extended period.

What are the Key Learnings “Jill Koziol” could offer to Enterprenuer readers?

The path to success is when perseverance and passion are combined.

The time you spend with your family is one of the greatest assets and must be secured with utmost care.

The only person who can be entirely authentically you. Find out who you are rather than who you must be acting as.

Enterprenuer

Enterprenuer is a social interview and story publishing platform for entrepreneurs, founders, businessmen, businesswomen, startups, and anyone who inspires people globally.

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