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As an entrepreneur, listening to your customers isn’t just important—it can be transformative for your sales, your product offerings, or even your business model. It’s not only about hearing what customers have to say but also about understanding their needs and taking intentional steps to meet those needs.
To see this practice in action, we spoke with 18 female founders who credit their growth and success to truly listening to their customers. From adjusting their messaging to better serve diverse communities to innovating how they connect with their audiences, these women show how actively listening can strengthen your business. Whether you’re navigating the early days of a startup or scaling an established brand, we hope their stories inspire you to lean into your own customers’ desires.
Addressing the root cause of our customers’ struggles created a safe space for growth
Elle Wilson, Founder & CEO of Met Through Friends, offering friends-of-friends singles events in NYC, giving people the opportunity to meet vetted singles in fun, social, in-real-life settings.
The insights I heard from friends (who became customers) prior to launching my business were that there were ‘no good people left’ to date, and that people regularly behaved badly: ghosting, poor communication, or downright manipulation were rampant. This told me that they were struggling to find a high enough concentration of like-minded individuals and that there was little accountability in an increasingly digital dating landscape.
Rather than trying to build a better app or technical solution to this problem, these challenges pointed to things we had lost as a society: shared physical spaces, social accountability, and face-to-face communication. The desires underneath the complaints became clear: people still really wanted to meet ‘through friends’ but were struggling to do so. That’s how the business was born. Less than six months after founding, we were regularly welcoming 300+ attendees per month and hosting multiple events per week across NYC.
Providing different options increased our reach and inclusion
Lauren Fleming, Founder of Hem Support Wear, a purpose-driven brand and wellness business dedicated to creating innovative pelvic floor support garments for women in all stages of life.
During user testing for our pelvic floor support garment, we heard from women that the fit wasn’t as comfortable for some body types. So, we created two styles—curvy and straight—to better suit different shapes. This change helped make the garment more inclusive, ensuring it worked for more women. It was a great reminder of how important it is to listen to real feedback and make adjustments that truly meet our customers’ needs.
Inclusive and community-oriented content amplified our reach
Catharine Montgomery, Founder & CEO of Better Together, a Black woman-founded, and purpose-driven communications agency.
During our initial partnership with a social impact organization focused on voting rights, we discovered we needed clearer, more culturally relevant messaging that would resonate with diverse communities. By truly listening to their concerns and understanding their target audience, we adjusted our approach to develop content that was more inclusive and community-oriented. This resulted in increased engagement and ultimately amplified their campaign’s reach, helping them achieve greater visibility and impact.
Adjusting our onboarding approach changed our services
Emma Tessler, Founder & CEO of Ninety Five Media, a woman-owned and operated digital marketing agency specializing in creating high-converting content that triples our clients’ growth.
Customers are the backbone of our business; their feedback has been an invaluable resource that has helped us grow over the years. For example, a few years back, we were onboarding a new brand, and our client asked us when we would be collecting certain information from her that would make our work more effective. While we already had a strategic onboarding process, we realized that collecting this specific information upfront from all clients would actually allow us to serve them all better. We quickly integrated this into our onboarding process, and it has been a game-changer for us to learn more about our clients upfront and serve them well!
Being genuinely curious enabled us to sign a dream client
Andrea Nguyen, Co-Founder & Design Director of Koi Studios, a modern product design studio that makes good design a competitive advantage for companies.
Early in our business, we had a discovery call with a prospect about a project she was working on. We approached it with genuine curiosity, asking thoughtful questions and really diving deep into her vision and needs. Even though we didn’t land that initial project, she was very impressed by how well we listened and understood her challenges. A few months later, she came back to us with an even bigger opportunity, and that led to us signing our first global conglomerate client—Mars Inc.—a milestone that changed everything for us.
Tailoring my offerings to current clients was a win for all
Kelly Hubbell, Founder & CEO of Sage Haus, a platform that helps busy moms reclaim their time by building a village and support system, delegating and outsourcing the mental load, while creating repeatable home systems to support a healthy division of labor.
During conversations with my customers, I learned that many already had household support, often in the form of a nanny or family member. However, what they truly needed help with was learning how to delegate effectively and create repeatable home systems to offload chores and streamline tasks. By actively listening, I shifted my focus to helping them transition their existing support into a more efficient role, such as a house manager. This change led to better time management for families and a more tailored service offering for my business.
Streamlining our client’s mobile experience increased conversion rates
Julie Zhu, Chief Marketing Strategist of Julie Zhu LLC, an award-winning marketing consultancy helping founders grow their business presence and impact.
While advising a global e-commerce client, I identified a disconnect between their high traffic and low conversion rates in the Asian market. By actively listening to the regional team and analyzing customer feedback, we uncovered that the mobile checkout process was poorly optimized for local users. After implementing a streamlined mobile experience, conversion rates increased by 28%, demonstrating how critical market-specific insights are in developing effective global strategies.
Viewing our initial customers as beta users gave us valuable insight
Catalina Parker, Co-Founder of Relatable Nonprofit, empowering growth-driven people with nonprofit hearts to succeed in consulting.
When we launched our latest product, we treated our initial customers as beta testers and prioritized active listening. By regularly soliciting their feedback and making concerted efforts to implement their suggestions, we not only enhanced customer satisfaction but also gained valuable insights into our target market. This approach directly contributed to more effective marketing strategies and a noticeable increase in sales, illustrating the profound impact of active listening on our business’s growth and development.
Leaning into what our clients were curious about led to incredible results
Vanessa Farino, Founder, CEO, & Business, Marketing & Events Strategist of Creative CEO, an empowering movement and community dedicated to supporting ambitious women of color and diverse female founders in redefining success on their own terms.
A major turning point for Creative CEO came when I realized that many of my clients were curious about how I used human design and astrology for personal development.
Listening to this feedback, I integrated human design and astrology into our events, offering workshops that taught clients how to align their business strategies with their unique strengths. The results were incredible—clients reported feeling more empowered, leading their teams with newfound clarity, and making business decisions that felt deeply aligned with who they were.
This transformation became the foundation for the PWR of WMN Summit, our flagship event. By actively listening to my clients, I’ve been able to create programs and events that meet their business and personal development needs, leading to long-lasting transformations and a community of empowered women ready to lead with purpose.
More frequent updates increased customer trust
Sydney Sherman, Co-Founder of Rocket Closet, storing and delivering your gear in ski towns across Colorado and Utah.
Based on customer feedback and our commitment to inspiring adventure, we now offer our customers the option to change their base once a year, free of charge. We also heard that they wanted more frequent updates, so we’ve added notifications to keep them informed every step of the way—from preparing their gear for delivery to delivering their ski gear. Initially, we didn’t have company cars, and some customers were hesitant to trust their valuable ski and mountain biking gear with us. Now, with a fleet of branded vehicles, not only have we built trust, but we’ve also caught the attention of new customers as we hit the road in style!
Getting in front of my customers shaped the direction of our company
Jenny Hanh Nguyen, CEO & Co-Founder of Y’OUR Personalized Skincare, using a unique algorithm that’s driven by powerful AI and human insights to create a personalized skincare system that changes with you.
Our customers encouraged me to go live on TikTok so they could hear directly from the founder. Being a camera-shy perfectionist, it was extremely challenging. But I pushed past my fears, and it turned out to be a huge success. It strengthened our bond with customers and helped shape the direction of the company. Many of our products are now community-created. And most are pre-sold, allowing us to launch more products faster.
Offering what our customers said they wanted increased our success
Amanda Hofman, Co-Founder & CEO of Go To Market – the Anti-Boring Branded Merchandise Company, changing the way the world handles swag.
As a business owner, I actively seek feedback, especially negative feedback, from my clients so I can consistently strive to improve my business. When my company was first expanding its offerings, the first thing I did was create a focus group of my favorite clients to ask them to tell me everything they liked and especially did not like about my idea for the expansion. As a result of their feedback, I shaped our offering to be exactly what our clients needed, not just what we thought they would want. The new offerings have been tremendously successful, and our clients—especially the ones who weighed in—are happy with the changes.”
Customized one-on-one consultations helped our clients succeed
Melinda Wang, Founder of Ninth Street Collective, a platform for professional development services for artists.
We offered many types of resources for artists in multiple formats after launching our business in 2019. We actively sought feedback from our artist clients about what would be most effective to help them succeed in their careers. It was clear that they preferred one-on-one sessions with our team members that were tailored to their individual needs and where they could ask absolutely anything. With this learning, Ninth Street Collective changed its business model to focus on two things: first, free online resources available to all artists as background materials, and second, affordable one-on-one consultations customized for each artist. We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from artists and believe we have helped our clients succeed with grants, residencies, exhibition opportunities, and gallery representation.
Catering to convenience opened up a new category within our business
Anouck Gotlib, CEO of Belgian Boys, creating whole ingredient breakfast options that allow families to prep less, smile more, and indulge better.
Our customers are busy parents who, over and over again, have told us that convenience was key. Our heat-and-eat line of refrigerated breakfasts was getting food to the table in a few minutes, but especially for weekday mornings, some parents needed on-the-go options that were even easier! Earlier this year, we launched new products that provide both convenient and portable options. The Breakfast All Day box has mini waffles, dried fruit, and either cheese or syrup for a perfect little breakfast on the go. The Pancakes & Go option is packed with flavored butters so kids can just heat, shake, and eat! These launched with much fanfare in 1,800 Walmart stores and opened up a new breakfast convenience category for our business.
Investing in customer mapping was one of the most important business decisions we’ve made
Meredith Noble, Chief Grant Writing Unicorn of Learn Grant Writing, helping you learn to write grants and make money doing it.
Conducting a robust customer journey map process saved my business. We had lost $20,000 in the month of December 2020 alone. After overhauling our business from the insights gained in listening to our ideal customer, we became a $1 M+ company in two years. Now, customer journey mapping is an annual process as we continue to evolve. It’s the single most important activity a business or aspiring business can do!
Pivoting based on customer requests made us a go-to brand
Grace Nguyen, Founder & CEO of LOUPN, an inclusive jewelry brand with a mission to brighten our communities and help people be seen.
The inception of our brand started with listening to our customers. As I was preparing to launch a business, a stylist friend let me know that he could never find good jewelry brands for men. So we decided to provide a way for men to better express themselves. After we launched as jewelry for men, when we went out to pop-up markets, our female customers asked for smaller sizes. So we added smaller sizes and more feminine styles to fit their needs. As we grew, more customers asked us to expand on pieces that are inspired by/represent our Korean/Asian culture. So we provided that. Now, we are seen as the ‘it’ jewelry brand, especially among Asian and minority customers.
Leveraging social media during live events improved engagement and lasting impact
Marissa Pick, Founder of Marissa Pick Consulting LLC, providing strategic consulting focused on digital transformation, content marketing, social media strategy, personal branding, and more.
In my past work, I’ve seen how leveraging social media during live events can drive positive outcomes for businesses. Whether it’s addressing concerns, optimizing online engagement, or running campaigns to extend reach, we must prioritize enhancing the customer experience across all touchpoints. That integration can really elevate a business for a long-standing impact.
Offering unique recommendations boosted our online traffic
Yulia Saf, CEO & Founder of Miss Tourist, a travel site helping people plan their vacations all over the world, offering guides on things to do, accommodation, local smart tips, and much more.
I used to write blog posts covering all the typical things to do in a destination. But after receiving a comment requesting a list of lesser-known, unusual activities, I realized the value in offering more unique recommendations. This feedback inspired me to create posts focusing on hidden gems, which have since become popular with readers. Not only have I received positive comments about how useful these posts are, but the change has also significantly boosted traffic, bringing in many new readers to my blog.”
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