This. Was. Not. Easy.

I realized the solution to this mess was never going to come from Washington, or Wall Street. I had invested so much precious time and resources into my dream of connecting women with capital—without a dollar in return—that I decided to go all in.

I was spreading my time between being a mom to my two boys, one autistic, and trying to run my own companies in a business environment in total meltdown. It would have probably driven anyone else to give up, and I asked myself frequently if I should. My boys always answered that question with a resounding ‘NO.”

But things were going to get much worse before they got better.

When the bottom fell out of Wall Street, it fell out of my business, and millions of other businesses across America. Every one of my national retail accounts went bankrupt and closed. The retail industry went into crisis and shut down, freezing new buying indefinitely. The credit markets disappeared overnight, making it impossible to carry 180 day manufacturing runs out of China like I had been. My father died. I decided it was time to start that media company everyone wanted, but this time without investors or loans.

It. Was. Not. Easy.