How Women Founders Are Navigating Growth Without The DEI Safety Net
Over the years, DEI has become a helpful tool for women entrepreneurs. It allowed for branded issued statements, launched initiatives, and promised more opportunities for founders who had long been overlooked. Last year’s pull of DEI programs under Trump’s leadership made the commitments expected, adding another layer to an already difficult task for women business owners.
For Be Rooted Founder Jasmin Foster, navigating the retail space started way long before this “safety net.” She’s intentionally made choices from the beginning that honor growth without compromise. Through Jasmin’s lens, she shares how community, values, and smarter growth allow for great adaptation, especially as traditional retail pathways become more restrictive.
Her Agenda: With DEI commitments quietly disappearing across retail, what’s the biggest shift you had to make as a founder once you realized the “safety net” was gone?
Jasmin Foster: I don’t know if we really ever had a safety net. I think that while DEI programs were incredibly important, and are incredibly important for brands to be discovered, and for them to have a strategic position within retailers across the board. It never was a guarantee that we were going to have shelf space, it was never a guarantee that once we got shelf space, that we were going to keep shelf space.
As a business owner [I] double down on all of the things that continue to matter to our customers, which is providing products that make them feel seen, help them go after their goals and increase their productivity. And how do we continue to do an even better job at communicating how we do that every day to them. Yes, it’s very disappointing to see the country kind of take a shift in their stance around DEI, [but] it’s never been a guarantee for our people.
Her Agenda: Instead of chasing scale at all costs, you leaned harder into community and DTC. What did that look like in practice, and why did that approach feel more sustainable right now?
Jasmin Foster: I know that particularly for products like these, whether they’re going to be someone’s school supplies [or] someone’s monthly journal, it needed to be affordable. I never wanted to build a brand that was aspirational luxury. I wanted to build a brand that was attainable and relatable to my customer and meet them where they’re at, and so that requires me to be at a price point that is attainable for as many people as possible.
Now, when you talk about scalability, there is a lot of room for us to continue to scale. As a small brand, while it may feel big because we are in retail, there’s still so many people that do not know us yet, and so I love going to trade shows and to events because I get to connect with my customer base there. But I also get to meet so many new people that we’re introducing Be Rooted to for the first time. So from a scaling standpoint, there’s so much opportunity for us to continue to penetrate the household of the multicultural consumer within the United States and even abroad. [With] the choices that we have made from a design perspective, it’s been incredibly important for me to stay true to our mission.
In the beginning, I’ve always wanted to make a brand that reflected the community that I lived in and reflect the young girls that I know like myself growing up who didn’t see imagery that looked like me. black art is something that is often seen as not mainstream enough or too niche, so it was important for me to be able to put black art forward, and while that may feel like it is limiting to some, to me, it’s just being really clear about who we serve and continuing to double down on our mission.
Her Agenda: I love that. I have a piggyback question off that because you’re learning a lot of stuff along your journey. Is there any belief or strategy that you had to unlearn in order to grow smarter within your journey so far?
Jasmin Foster: On a monthly [and] weekly basis, I’m learning and unlearning something. But over the last year or two, [it] has really been clear to me about defining what does success mean? on my own terms. I think that you oftentimes see people post about what feels like their overnight success, or people chasing kind of like unicorn acquisitions, and those are amazing, and wonderful goals for those who have them.
Her Agenda: During a year when many brands pulled back, Be Rooted still grew DTC by over 30%. What did customers respond to emotionally that numbers alone can’t explain?
Jasmin Foster: We [were] dealing with a macroeconomic climate that was putting a lot of economic pressure on our customers’ wallet. So us as business owners are not just navigating one thing. And so for me, there were a couple of things I think allowed my customers to continue to connect with us. one, maintaining an affordable price point, even while dealing with economic pressure with the tariffs happening, which meant relooking financially at how we structured the company to be able to absorb that cost.
Secondly, it was giving them something new and exciting to come back to the website for. Normally during the holiday time, we do a completely new collection. But because of all that was going on, we actually decided to delay that collection. Instead of doing this huge drop, what we did was collaborate with other Black-owned businesses and create small batch newness that got our customers excited. like our collaboration with Pretty Honest Shop on a candle collection specifically for holiday and our collaboration with the Joran Tea House with our first Be Rooted relaxing tea, which was an item that ended up taking off last year. But giving them something fun to talk about.
The last thing that I would say is really doubling down on acquiring new customers. there were so many people that were in discovery mode last year. And there were also so many people that were looking to shift their dollars to e-commerce. And so we needed to meet people where they were and ensure that from our marketing efforts, it was a lot about new customer acquisition more than probably any other year.
Her Agenda: For founders who don’t have corporate retail experience like you did, what’s one mindset shift they need to make as traditional retail becomes more restrictive?
Jasmin Foster: I don’t know if it’s a mindset shift, but I think my piece of advice would be that we should all be building businesses that can be retail ready and e-commerce friendly. There are still partners out there that you can align with. And like always, we should be courting and dating our partners. With any retail partnership every year, you should be evaluating their messaging, their core values, their beliefs, how they’re treating you, and decide whether or not you want to do business with them. And I think that that message hasn’t changed.
Truthfully, the metrics that you need for e-commerce and for retail are often different. So that can be hard. But I think with any brand that is either trying to get their foot off the ground, it’s making sure that you also focus just as much time on e-commerce as you are doing your retail objectives.
It’s really interesting, because maybe about a decade ago, everyone was looking for only e-commerce first businesses, like those were the shiny stars, and the big kind of VC checks were the people that were winning on DTC, [thinking they] may be able to translate into retail. Then about five years, the shift went from brands that were retail friendly. And it didn’t really matter if you had a DTC. And so I think now, it’s important to just make sure that you have your foot on the gas on both of them, because the ties turn really quickly, and you want to be able to move with them based off of how things are changing.
