"Small businesses are the heartbeat of your neighborhood, the spine of your local economy, and the spirit of your town."

Crowdfunding during Coronavirus
 

*Campaign Update* Sohuis is committed to supporting female-owned businesses affected by the Coronavirus. For every reward purchased, Sohuis will provide a free marketing class to you (our backer!), or an entrepreneur of your choice.  We'll send you a link to nominate yourself, or a fellow female founder, when we thank you for your contribution!

The Coronavirus has thrown many businesses, including mine, into a tailspin. This is an unprecedented time for many, and we will be talking about the impacts of this season for years to come. Now, more than ever, it's important to support small businesses to ensure they have a meaningful place in the economy once this time of uncertainty is over.

I never imagined I would launch this crowdfunding campaign in the midst of a global pandemic - yet, here we are. I thought about packing up and going home. What if nobody funds us? What if we don't make it? What if we don't hit our goal?

So many questions. But then... I had a virtual workshop with our members, and I was reminded why our education changes lives.

For the single mom who's building her business on the side because she wants to create a life she loves for herself and her family - she matters. For the retired executive who's ready to finally launch that idea she's been dreaming about for years - she is in our community - and she matters. And for the countless emails and DM's I receive on a daily basis from women who are scared to market themselves and tell their unique stories - who then take one of my classes or attend a virtual workshop leaving inspired and ready to take on the world - they matter.

I decided to continue with our crowdfunding campaign because, honestly, what better time than right now? Now - when everyone is reconsidering what their new normals might look like when we reach the other side of this, and when small businesses need our education, mentorship and resources more than ever before. 

So here we go...uncertain, unfamiliar, but still going. If you believe in our mission and share our vision, support our campaign in any and all ways that you can to help us reach our goal!

SOHUIS (sō-house) is an educational platform and membership community founded by Jessica Korthuis that provides branding and marketing resources to help female founders grow their businesses. 

After 10 years of launching successful marketing strategies and working with entrepreneurs all over the globe through startup incubators and accelerator programs, Jessica saw a significant need to address the unique challenges that female entrepreneurs face when growing and marketing their companies. 

The Problem

The marketing landscape continues to evolve at such an exponential pace - with new platforms, marketing trends, methodologies and content popping up daily, platform expectations are becoming increasingly more difficult - and it's almost impossible for small business owners to keep up.

As a result, women are left constantly feeling overwhelmed and intimidated when it comes to marketing their business. 

After launching a successful beta program in 2018 with over 100 female founders, Jessica saw that an overwhelming majority of the womenpreneurs simply took NO ACTION when it came to marketing themselves or their business because they didn't know where to start.  They weren't sure what marketing strategy they needed to implement first, so more often than not, they didn't market their business at all. The primary drivers for fear of marketing and launching was a false narrative that their brand needed to be "Instagram-worthy" or perfect to be successful.  Branding is personal, and women are naturally inclined to put their whole-selves into their businesses . So unless it was "just right" - it wan't being talked about. This was having a crippling effect on their business.

Jessica (a lover of food analogies) refers to this as the "Marketing Salad Phenomenon:"

• "Should I build my website first?"
• "Should I create a social media presence? And if so, how do I do that, and which platform should I use?"
• "What about my logo - I've spent countless hours on it and I actually hate it, what do I do?"
• "How do you build a 'brand,' and what does that even mean, anyway?"
• "What type of content should I create? And how often should I post?"
• "Who's my customer?"

These are all different ingredients to the marketing salad, and the order of the ingredients is crucial to building an authentic brand message and implementing a successful marketing strategy that a solopreneur or a small team can manage.

Our Solution, How We Empower Female Founders with Education Through Membership & Community

Sohuis has a unique opportunity to meet our founders where they are in their journey and provide them with access to the tools, resources, education and support they need to grow their businesses. 

Gift a Membership

Whether you want to join as a Sohuis Insider yourself, or you're thinking of a woman in your life that could benefit from our educational programs, the All-Access Sohuis Membership is a great gift! Providing women access to our community is an opportunity for them to learn real-world marketing and branding applications, get direct feedback about their ideas and strategy, and connect with other like-minded women. 

So give the gift of Sohuis! You're able to put any of our rewards in another person's name. 

Press

Featured Courses, Workshops & Resources

 Some of our fan favorites are:

• The Sohuis StartupBlueprint - a virtual accelerator program guaranteed to help women define, distinguish and differentiate their brand in 30-days or less
• Color Psychology for Marketing - a course that shows the role color psychology plays in marketing persuasion. 
• Marketing Tools & Tech - a digital workshop that shows the best marketing tools and technology needed to set your marketing strategy up for success
• Marketing Fundamentals for Small Businesses - a course that dives straight into the heart of what marketing really is, stripping away all of the “extras” that are common and confusing within the marketing-sphere. 
• The Insider Guide to Agency-Level Branding - a course that teaches founders the formula branding agencies use to create timeless, gorgeous brand assets.
• The 3 Most Effective Marketing Channels for Entrepreneurs - an ultimate marketing guide that breaks down the best 3 channels, how to use them, and how to implement them.  

Giving Back

The Sohuis logo is an elephant, and her name is Lucy! An elephant is the brand iconography for Sohuis because Elephants represent our core brand values. Compassion, Strength, Leadership, Education, Mentorship & Community.

10% of our educational and membership revenue gets put into our "Lucy Fund", which is then donated to organizations that rehabilitate and rescue endangered African Elephants.

Why Crowdfunding

Sohuis' growth lies with our Members and our community, and we want our members to feel as much a part of building the success of Sohuis are we do. We’ve partnered with iFundWomen, a female-only crowdfunding platform, to help secure the capital we need to grow our team, expand our educational programs and grow our community.

Funds secured through our crowdfunding campaign will be used to further accelerate the development of our needed programs and go towards scaling our digital marketing strategy so that we can expand, grow, and continue to empower female founders to tell their unique brand stories across the globe!