The Reasons People Start Businesses Are Surprising and Sometimes Heartbreaking

Kate Mereand founded and ran the Office of Innovation and Equitable Development within Washington, DC’s local government. Over 10 years, she estimates her team worked with 20,000 current and would-be entrepreneurs–people who pursued business ownership to provide a service for their community, because they faced limited employment opportunities, and also because they had an idea they just had to see all the way through.

But many of these brave, determined people–even when they grew sizable enterprises–kept hitting emotional and psychological walls that Kate came to realize had to do with trauma–trauma around money.

Episode Guide

2:40 Kate’s money origin story growing up on a dairy farm

10:53 Founding the Office of Innovation and Equitable Development. Some entrepreneurs were focused on the dream, not the money-management necessary to facilitate it.

15:20 Creating a training around money and trauma

25:52 What do you tell a devoted entrepreneur whose idea you think might not stand a chance?

27:26 Kate confronts her own money trauma

32:27 Kate and Lionel talk about what they like spending money on

37:40 Detangling money and worth