The Moment I Stopped Seeing Other Women as Competition

Nine years ago, I hired Darci Pratt as an account executive on my team at Salesforce.

She had no tech background. What she did have was grit, intelligence, and a drive that was impossible to ignore. I took a chance on her, and she became one of the top performers on my team. I never forgot that.

I think about that decision a lot. Not because it was particularly bold or risky, but because of what it taught me about what happens when you choose to believe in someone. When you see potential in a person and decide to back it, something shifts. For both of you.

That lesson has followed me through every chapter of my career since.

Full Circle

Fast forward to today. Darci is the founder of House of Henry, a children’s brand she built out of a frustration she couldn’t solve anywhere else. As a mom of three kids under six with a firefighter husband, she needed clothing that was soft, durable, and elevated enough to actually want to put on her kids every single day. She couldn’t find it, so she built it. Their signature bamboo fabric is custom-developed to be exceptionally soft and breathable while lasting up to three times longer than traditional cotton. Real hand-me-down quality in a category dominated by disposable fashion.

A few years in, House of Henry has built a loyal following through grassroots community, pop-up markets, and their first brick-and-mortar in Gilbert, Arizona, already tracking toward mid-six figures in sales.

When Darci reached out and asked if I could support her across go-to-market strategy, including press, wholesale, and retail partnerships, I didn’t hesitate. Not for a single second.

The Question I Keep Getting Asked

People sometimes ask me how I can support brands that operate in a similar space to Motette. How I can pour energy into another woman’s bamboo children’s brand when I have my own to grow.

My answer is always the same. I don’t see other women as competition. I never have.

I think we have been conditioned, especially in business, to treat other women in our space as threats. To guard our contacts, protect our relationships, and keep our strategies close. And I understand where that instinct comes from. Resources feel scarce. Attention feels scarce. Opportunity feels scarce.

But here is what I know to be true after building two companies from the ground up. Scarcity is a mindset, not a reality. And when women choose to operate from abundance instead, the whole game changes.

Just yesterday, an opportunity came across my desk that would have been a natural fit for Motette. I passed on it and put Darci’s brand forward instead, because it was simply the better fit for her. That decision felt better than anything I could have done for myself.

That is not sacrifice. That is strategy rooted in something bigger than any single brand.

Why This Is My Why

Lifting women up is not a side project for me. It is not a talking point or a brand value I put on a website. It is the thread that runs through everything I do, through Atlas Row, through Motette, through every conversation I have with a founder who is just trying to figure out how to build something real.

I have been that woman. Sitting across from someone deciding whether to take a chance on me. Wondering if I was enough. Hoping someone would see what I saw in myself.

I know what it means to have someone in your corner. And I know what it costs when you don’t.

So when I have the opportunity to be that person for another woman, I take it. Every single time. Not because it is the generous thing to do, but because it is the only thing that makes sense to me.

Darci, I am so proud of you. I cannot wait to watch what comes next.