Erica Vander Sande on starting Mina eight months pregnant, stepping away during burnout, and why the goal was never to be irreplaceable.
Episode Summary
Erica opens this episode with a belief she has held since day one of owning a business: she wants to build something that does not need her. Not a side hustle that depends on her showing up every day, but a company that can run and grow even when she steps back.
She walks through how The Mina Company actually started, freelancing while eight months pregnant, dealing with a complicated pregnancy, and caring for her mom through stage four cancer, all while her husband encouraged her to try working for herself. From there she traces the business through her mom's death, a period of deep burnout in 2022, and the decision to step away and take a full time role with a client rather than shut the business down.
Erica gets honest about the shame she felt at the time for stepping back, why that decision was actually the right one, and how she eventually returned to lead Mina into its current growth phase, now in the top 4 percent of women owned businesses by revenue. The episode closes with a practical challenge: stop treating your business like a child that needs you every day, and start using AI as a real operations partner to figure out how to need yourself less.
What We Cover
Try This Prompt
Erica shares the exact type of prompt she recommends running through Claude to start building a business that needs you less:
\"If you were an operations manager for my business, what areas do you see that I need growth in, in order to be as needed as little as possible? What would I need to do to get there, and how much annual revenue would I need to build to make that happen?\"
Connect with Erica
Show Notes Keywords
Conversations in the Dark podcast, Erica Vander Sande, building a business that runs without you, entrepreneur burnout, women in business, The Mina Company, business owner grief, using AI in business, small business growth, stepping back as a founder
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