How to Build a Community of 50,000 Women with Emily Dempsey of The Brickell Babes
Episode Description
What does it take to build a women’s community of 50,000 in just three years and why does Bitcoin belong in that story? Emily Dempsey, founder of The Brickell Babes, joins Emily Jean to share her journey from New York fashion buyer to Miami community builder to tech founder weaving Bitcoin into the future of female entrepreneurship. From her first happy hour meetup to launching a curated membership platform, Emily has redefined what it means to connect women in business and life.
Highlights
The origin story of The Brickell Babes and how it grew to 50,000 members in under three years
Why community-building is harder, and more strategic, than most people think
The misconceptions about women’s networks (and why it’s not just “happy hours and matching sets”)
How Emily is building a new platform blending Facebook groups, ClassPass, and Soho House
Why brand partnerships only work when values align and why she rejects 95% of offers
How Bitcoin fits into the future of female entrepreneurship
The resources every woman should start with if they’re curious about Bitcoin
Why sales skills are non-negotiable for founders (even if you’re not selling a product)
Emily’s non-negotiables in business: ethics, reputation, and integrity
Why this episode matters
Building The Brickell Babes wasn’t about creating another social club — it was about curating authentic, elevated connections for women looking to grow in every area of life. Emily’s story is proof that community is strategy, integrity is non-negotiable, and the future of money belongs to women who are ready to learn.
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If you loved today’s conversation, please rate, review, and subscribe to Founders in Jeans - the podcast celebrating women claiming their worth in business, leadership, and life.
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🎧 This episode is sponsored by KAIA
KAIA is democratizing women’s access to funding and fueling the multi-trillion dollar female economy. They’re building a new ecosystem where women can fund the founders they believe in, access curated experiences, and learn how to move like investors, together.
Join the waitlist at kaiawomen.net or send founder Hailey Handler a DM on LinkedIn to step into the future of funding women.
A huge thank you to KAIA for supporting this episode and empowering more women to own their financial future.
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Transcript:
Emily Jean (00:00)
working totally remote in a new city in the middle of a pandemic. I did a career change, decided I wanted to move to Miami. I kind of like needed all of the things that somebody needs when they move to a new city. So I like definitely needed friends. I was just not having a good laugh finding any of those things. I'm like, okay, I can either try to solve this problem for myself or I can sit here and complain. And I'm definitely not a person to sit still. In a city where no one slows down, Emily Dempsey landed in Miami with no
friends, no network and no plan. But what started as one woman trying to find her people would turn into a movement, a community of over 50,000 women. think Bitcoin will change the world more than the internet did, more than electricity did. What is the most underrated skill for building community? ⁓
Emily Jean (00:51)
welcome to or welcome back to Founders in Jeans. I'm your host, Emily Jean. And before we get into the episode, I just want to say a huge thank you so much for listening to my podcast. It means the world to me. It is a really special project to me. It's very close to my heart.
I just wanted to come on here and say thank you so much. I also wanted to say that if you enjoy the show, feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening to this, and also to follow us. You can follow us on Spotify, of course. You can follow us on Instagram at FoundersinJeans You can also find me on Instagram at Emily.Jeans.
or you can look me up on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect with people on there and I have a lot of good conversations from listeners. Also, you can always leave a bad review for us. I'm totally fine with that. And in fact, I think that's exciting. I would love to know what we can do to improve. So you can also leave comments below and let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy. I actually do read every single one.
We also have a newsletter that comes out once a week so you can get all the updates from us. also put in
some weekly business and marketing updates as well as some personal notes from me. You can subscribe to that on my LinkedIn, also through the Instagram and in the show notes below. Anyways, that is all from me. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. I hope it's a good one and I'll chat to you soon. Bye.
Emily Jean (02:29)
Emily Jean Dempsey of the Brickell Babes, welcome to Founders in Jeans. I'm so excited for this episode.
Emily Dempsey (02:32)
Okay.
I am so excited to be here and not just because we have like almost the same name. ⁓
Emily Jean (02:42)
Hi.
Yeah. How are you doing today?
Emily Dempsey (02:47)
I am good. I'm like doing a million things at once, a little overwhelmed, but it's not a bad day when you have a lot on your plate. It's a good thing.
Emily Jean (02:58)
Yeah. And for people who don't know you and aren't familiar with the Brickle Babes, why don't you introduce yourself?
Emily Dempsey (03:05)
So I am Emily Dempsey. am the founder of the Prickle Babes. I am a social entrepreneur and a strategist working at the intersection of Bitcoin and commercial real estate.
Emily Jean (03:16)
And so I know you do a lot just having a lot of background on you. Can you explain to people, and you might have to stop me, but how do you explain what you do without sounding like you have three full-time jobs? Or do you have three full-time jobs?
Emily Dempsey (03:34)
So I like to say, you know, the, like to say that I, I am really a community builder and I'm building community powered ecosystems. So really the idea, kind of like the mission statement for me in my life today is connecting people and helping them become the best version of themselves. Whether that is through the Brickell Babes in-person events, membership platform, or
conversations around finance, Bitcoin. It's really about helping people and more specifically women become the best version of themselves. And I will explain to you how Bitcoin ties into that.
Emily Jean (04:15)
Okay, great.
Well, why don't we go back to the beginning a little bit and tell me how did the brickel babes start and you guys have had like crazy growth very quickly. So what do you think is the biggest factor in that?
Emily Dempsey (04:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Definitely a little bit of luck being in the right place at the right time. And then also honestly, a lot of hard work and tenacity and just pushing through. So to give you some backstory, I was in New York City for 11 years. I previously had a whole career working in fashion. I was a buyer at some of the biggest department stores in the world. And the pandemic happened. ended up, I did a career change.
decided I wanted to move to Miami. So I did this career change into commercial real estate. I'm working totally remote in a new city in the middle of a pandemic. And I kind of like needed all of the things that somebody needs when they move to a new city. So I like definitely needed manicure person. I needed the hair colorist. And then I also needed friends. And I was just not having good luck.
finding any of those things. I moved in January of 2022 and by March of 2022, I'm like, okay, I can either try to solve this problem for myself, or I can sit here and complain and go back to New York when my lease ends. And I'm definitely not a person to sit still. And at least like give it a shot. So I had been in these other Facebook groups that were very anti transplant, very anti New Yorker, which if you guys aren't familiar with Miami,
A ton of New Yorkers, a ton of people from LA all moved here during the pandemic because Miami was very open and these other cities were very closed. So it caused kind of like a rift between the people. Anyway, so I was in these other groups and they were just, they were not nice. They would like try to shame you to go back to New York or back to wherever you came from. So I'm like, you know what, that's it. I'm going to start a different group. It's going to be only women. I'm going to very proudly say in the subject and the description, like I'm a transplant.
I'm looking for friends, I'm looking for resources. If you're looking for the same stuff, you're in the right place. And then I kind of went like, hey, I'm and like DM'd a bunch of people that were commenting and I could tell they were also from, they were like the same as me. So I just DM'd them and like, hey, I made this other group, like come join it. And so from there, it just grew like wildfire. So we got, we had like a couple hundred people in the first week and
decided we need to meet in person because we can't just be internet friends. So I made a reservation for happy hour at like the bar restaurant across the street from my apartment building. I thought nobody was going to show up. Like worst case scenario, I have a drink at the bar. can sit, hang out for 30 minutes and I can leave. 20 people showed up. Everybody had a great time. They're like, this is awesome. Let's do it again next week. So that's kind of how our first like online community transitioned into.
an in-person community, was just really fast. And then we kept the momentum going. So I think that first year we hosted between 30 and 40 events. And we just, we kept going. had other people reach out. They wanted to host their own events kind of under the umbrella. And now fast forward to today, three and almost, three and a half years later, we've hosted over 125 events and we've grown the community to over 50,000 women.
Emily Jean (07:42)
amazing. Does that number still feel bit surreal to you? Because like hearing it, it just is like, that is amazing.
Emily Dempsey (07:50)
It's a lot of people and I will be honest, like, it's, I don't think I even have like a grasp of how many people that is. Sometimes I think about it. I'm like, are there even 50,000 people in Miami? Obviously there's like millions of people in the world, but you don't interact with that many people. So it's, it feels very strange to reach that many people in such a small city that it's such a niche community.
Emily Jean (08:03)
world.
Emily Dempsey (08:18)
⁓ so that it's definitely strange, this community, I've really focused on positioning it as community first and not having my face and my brand so attached to it. I mean, obviously I am like the founder at the end of the day and it is my brand and my baby, but I've really made a concerted effort to make the community it, it lead as a community first.
Emily Jean (08:45)
And I love this too because we met in a community group, not the Brickle Babes, but, ⁓ and they are, I think they are really hotspots right now. Like ⁓ I was telling somebody the other day, like if you can get in a community where you're surrounded by like-minded women and it is really the greatest blessing. Like it is such a cool situation to be in. I've had so many new friends, so many new connections from that. So I really.
Emily Dempsey (08:50)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Emily Jean (09:13)
Like I really have so much appreciation for it.
Emily Jean (09:16)
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Or send KAIA's founder, Hailey Handler, a cheeky DM on LinkedIn and step into the future of funding women. I just want to thank KAIA so much for sponsoring this episode. I'm so, so, so grateful to have them as our very first sponsor. They are very much a brand that is aligned with the podcast. And now back to the episode.
Emily Jean (10:20)
Was there a moment when you realized you had something much bigger than like just a local meetup on your hands?
Emily Dempsey (10:30)
I would say, so there is a couple of instances. So one was somebody had reached out to me to ask to feature me as one of Miami's most influential people. That was shocking to me, number one. Like I've only been here for three years, how could I possibly be so influential? And then I would say the second.
Emily Jean (10:44)
Yeah.
Emily Dempsey (10:52)
Second time is probably when, you know, like when our events started selling out and we had people showing up to our events day of like begging to be let in and we just literally didn't have space for them. That was a really, it was a really cool feeling. Of course I like felt bad and I wanted to include them. but that was, that was a really cool feeling.
Emily Jean (11:05)
Yeah.
So I guess I'm curious then, given that 50,000 women is no small feat, do you have kind of a secret sauce in growing a community?
Emily Dempsey (11:25)
would say we have always been very, very intentional with the programming that we do. We're definitely a curated community. Everything is really like a designed experience and that it's inclusive, it's elevated. We really vet the brands and the partners that we select to team up with. probably have.
40 to 60 local businesses reach out to me a week asking to host our community or partner with us. And I honestly, I say no to 95 % of them because they're not the right fit. And if we align with somebody, one, it's going to really help their business, but like I have to make sure it's a business we actually believe in.
Emily Jean (12:08)
Right, of course. what are the biggest misconceptions that people have about you running a women's community?
Emily Dempsey (12:15)
I'd say the biggest misconception is that we are like a sorority and it's all, you know, it's all happy hours and matching workout sets and, you know, people taking content for Instagram. And that's, it's definitely number one, it's definitely, there are some elements of that, but I think at the end of the day, the core theme is everybody that comes to our events, whether they're 25 years old or we even have women that are
Emily Jean (12:21)
No
Emily Dempsey (12:43)
in their 50s or 60s come to our events. They're all looking for a curated connection. They're looking to deepen relationships. There might be girls that have lived in Miami their whole life. There might be somebody fresh out of a divorce, somebody, you know, their husband just got a new job and they are super bored at home. And the husband actually found the Brickell Babes and signed them up and sent them to us. So I would say, you know,
The secret sauce is really just...
authenticity, or sorry, I'm answering the wrong question. The biggest misconception is that it's like all, you know, it's really like Instagram-y, like sorority style meetups, and it's really not. It's like all these women are looking for something deeper, something greater, whether it's to make a new connection or level up their lives.
Emily Jean (13:17)
No, you're you're good.
Emily Dempsey (13:37)
in some capacity. And then I would say the second piece is that it is a lot of work. People do not realize how much work goes into building a community, hosting these events, the social media that like we're active on eight different platforms. That's like eight different platforms that I'm managing plus the in-person plus the brand partnership. it's operations, it's legal, it's tech. We're building out a tech platform. had like
We'll get into that later, but it's, there are so many moving parts. and it's not just like, you know, fun, fun content days. And like most of the time I am in sweatpants on my couch, like nested up under a blanket, sending firing off emails and like, it is not glamorous.
Emily Jean (14:21)
Yeah.
Right, so I do wanna talk about your new platform. You described it as Facebook group meets ClassPass meets Soho House. Can you unpack that a little bit for me?
Emily Dempsey (14:35)
⁓ So as I mentioned, like we're super active on all of these different platforms. The place where the most active right now and we have been since day one is really Facebook groups. So that, but not everybody's on Facebook. So that's kind of like the heart and soul of the group. And I love to tell people that we have, we had to turn on post approval because the group was so active. And I just, we like make sure everything's like vetted and not curated. don't.
I don't delete controversial posts, actually leave them up because one, it's good for engagement and two, that's the purpose of the group. Anyway, so the Facebook group is like the heart and soul of the group, but how do you get people from the Facebook group to connect in real life? Well, we have these in-person events. A lot of the people that come to the in-person events aren't necessarily on Facebook or they're not part of a WhatsApp group or this or that. There's not really one central holding cell.
for the community to connect online and offline. And that's kind of where this Facebook group meets Soho house element comes in. instead of trying to push everybody on Facebook or X-Line, the other platforms, we're building our own platform. And then we're layering in more events and more programming to help give, to help bring the discovery element to the community. it.
I mentioned earlier, we have all these local businesses that reach out that want to partner with us, new restaurants, new fitness studios, existing restaurants, fitness studios, they want to bring the community in. And I currently don't have like the infrastructure in place to support us doing more events or more community activations. So what the new platform will do is we'll have like a discovery element where you can pick, you know, say you want to go to.
manifestation mood board crafting wine night, but then you also want to go to Pilates class and then you want to go to the talk on Bitcoin 101. So you have your three credits or you have your six credits or whatever number it is for the month, you get to kind of design your schedule and what you want to go to. And you could do all fitness, you could do dinner series with like really cool accident founders that are in our community. could do like you literally can do whatever you want.
⁓ so that's kind of how we're combining everything under one roof. then because we have this like highly, highly engaged, highly vocal community here in Miami, we're getting real time feedback on the product. Like, which the craziest thing is, that we have that. So like the hardest part when you build something like this is to build the community. I've had so many different like tech bro founders.
come to me with these really cool platforms they've designed and they want to get our community on it. And I say no, because I either don't like it, it doesn't make sense, or it's just like, it's not the right fit. And that's when I find like, just in talking to different people, they're like, why don't you build your own? Why don't you solve the problem? Why don't you solve the... So that is kind of, that is what we're doing.
Emily Jean (17:44)
Yeah, I love it. I think it sounds brilliant. I also feel like there's a lot of problems there you are solving that like current social media platforms haven't yet fixed basically. But so I want to ask, I know why you started in Miami, obviously, but how will you know slash are you looking to expand to other cities?
Emily Dempsey (18:10)
We've definitely already had people reach out to us and other cities asking to start chapters. I right now I'm very focused on like getting the tech stack right, getting the right infrastructure in place, knowing that the plan is to scale. So instead of just building this and kind of like ad hocing something together, that's only going to work for one small community, we're taking our
We're not taking our time. We're moving as quickly as possible, but we're really intentionally building this with the plan to kind of like copy paste in other cities. so we will, we'll definitely, we'll probably look to like where waitlist signups are coming in and then where we have people that are active in the community that, that would be interested in starting like something like this, and helping us out.
Cause really at end of the day, the most important part of the community for me is our ambassadors. Our ambassadors host their own events. They are posting on our social media. They are like, they are our evangelists. They're literally like the most important people to the community. have a meeting every week. Like they, they're awesome. We couldn't be doing this without them.
Emily Jean (19:17)
Yeah.
Okay. We'll call me next year when you guys actually go international and I will be the first ambassador in Australia.
Emily Dempsey (19:25)
My psychic actually told me she's like your business is going international later this year. We'll see if it becomes true.
Emily Jean (19:32)
Yes, yes, I believe that.
It already is, it already is. Yeah, this is the sign. Okay, so I want to talk about Bitcoin a little bit. I know that you are weaving Bitcoin into the future of your community. So where and how does that fit in?
Emily Dempsey (19:39)
We already are international, so maybe this is it.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so I guess let me start by giving you like a little backstory on what the heck am I doing? What am I doing in Bitcoin? Because that's for sure the first question I get asked all the time. ⁓
Emily Jean (20:01)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Dempsey (20:08)
when I moved to Miami in 2022, the big Bitcoin conference that they have was here. So I went and I like started, I'm like, all right, I'm going to learn more. This clearly isn't going anywhere.
And I'm in commercial real estate, my asset class is completely grinded to a halt, nothing is trading. So I'm like, you know what, I'm going to double down on the brickel babes, but I also really want to learn about Bitcoin. So we decided to set up a mining operation, which is like super niche, super nerdy. But I loved it because it allowed me to learn about money, finance, energy.
and technology, which to me, those are all things that are the most important things for the future energy, technology, and money. And as I start learning more and more about this, I'm like, my God, I now have become, I've been fully orange filled. I'm a complete Bitcoin maximalist. And I started sharing this journey on my social media.
Emily Jean (21:02)
I'm
Emily Dempsey (21:06)
The amount of questions and DMs that I get from other women asking, what are you doing? How can I learn? Can I give you money? Like I literally have people DMing me like asking, can I give you money so I can do what you're doing? Which the answer is no. The answer is let's go backwards and start learning about what is Bitcoin. Let's do Bitcoin 101. So we are weaving a lot of educational component into the Brickell Babes, but it's really important for me to
educate women on the future of finance, the future of energy. think Bitcoin will change the world more than the internet did, more than electricity did. The adoption rate we're at right now with Bitcoin worldwide is the same place we were with the internet in 1999. So if you think about how few people were using the internet in 1999, that's exactly where we are today with Bitcoin. So if you just imagine it,
exploding over the next couple of years, it's a great time to do so. So that is weaving us into
next project that we will be launching soon.
Emily Jean (22:11)
So I want them, for women who are listening and they're curious about Bitcoin, but are intimidated, and I totally relate to this feeling because I think a lot of the Bitcoin talk slash tech right now is kind of driven towards men. So for women that are more intimidated, where should they start?
Emily Dempsey (22:29)
Mm-hmm.
there's a couple books that I would recommend. I'm actually looking at a stack of books right now in my living room. So nerdy, but the Bitcoin standard is a great place to start. And then there's a podcast out there right now by Natalie, Natalie Brunel. She's like the Bitcoin podcaster, but she's very finance oriented. So I definitely would recommend starting
with either of those. The other secret project we're working on, it's not so secret, is I'm going to be launching a Bitcoin-focused podcast later this fall. And we're weaving into it. So there will be three pillars. The first pillar is going to be Bitcoin. We'll get all the heavy hitters on it to just explain Bitcoin instead of right now all the content that's out there. It's like subject matter expert to subject matter expert. everyday people can't understand it. They don't want to understand it. It's not relatable.
And my whole vision with our podcast is that it will be everyday person to subject matter expert. And we're talking about this in a context that's relatable. like, think for the girl who buys Bitcoin and Botox. And then we'll layer in, know, entrepreneurship founder stories, and then also, like wellness and longevity. So it's called Stacked.
So you're stacking stats, which if you're in the Bitcoin space, that means you're like literally stacking like piles of Bitcoin, stacking stats. You're habit stacking and you're like stacking the deck in your favor so that you can live the most optimized, healthy version of your life, whether it's financial, wellness, or mentally fit. ⁓
Emily Jean (23:58)
you
And how do you see Bitcoin specifically shaping the future for female entrepreneurs?
Emily Dempsey (24:18)
So I think Bitcoin is a really interesting place right now because there are lot of low barriers to entry to get into the space. If you're somebody that was ever thinking about getting into finance or you wanted to make a pivot out of a CPG marketing role and you wanted to get into finance but you didn't know how, there's the level of experience that you need right now to pivot into an industry like
like Bitcoin is very low. And the pay, the salaries are in some instances higher than what you would make in a really good finance job. So if you can just educate yourself a little bit and just really become passionate about the space, there's a lot of opportunities in that realm. But then really fundamentally for me, Bitcoin is the future of money. And if you can understand it today, like you're so far ahead of the curve.
and really positioning yourself to achieve financial independence. And just, it's all about education and understanding, you know, the future of money and what's the relationship there.
Emily Jean (25:31)
Right. I love that. I think that's very good for people to hear, because I agree. So I want to shift gears a little bit. Obviously, you've worked in high fashion, you've built communities, you've launched tech, you've mined Bitcoin. How do you balance it all? That's what I want to know.
Emily Dempsey (25:49)
I definitely love to work out and you have to take breaks. Like you literally have to like turn your phone off and lock it in your apartment and or your home, whatever. And just you have to carve out time and take breaks and you have to have a really, really strong support system. I would say the best thing that I've done for myself is build relationships with other people that are in a similar place in life as me. So for me right now, it's,
building really strong relationships with other founders. And it's just, happens organically because we're all kind of in the same phase in our businesses, whether they've raised money for their company or their bootstrapping, we're all in the same place where we're like, Holy cow, I have way too much on my plate. How am I supposed to get all of this done? And those are actually some of the most important meetings that I take. And they end up being, they're not 30 minute meetings. They'll be like two hour long lunches and
part of it feels like goofing around with a friend. And then the other part of it is sharing like insane resources that allow you to just like skip literally 10 levels ahead because you're able to like, just help each other solve problems that maybe somebody solved a few months ago, or you're a few, a year ahead or behind or whatever it is. It's, it's honestly, it's relationships, which as cheesy as it sounds, like my whole ethos comes back to community and like, what is the community?
you're putting yourself in and the people that you're around. It's the most important thing in life.
Emily Jean (27:20)
Mm-hmm. I love that. I think that's brilliant. From your days in high fashion to now, what would you say still influences how you operate currently?
Emily Dempsey (27:31)
I would say definitely the power of storytelling and building a brand. think in luxury retail, brands are the most important thing and your relationships. As a buyer, it's all about your relationships with those brands and then how do you position and tell a story.
I make a deck for everything. I am obsessed with Canva. People make fun of me of the decks that I make, but it's like, it's what's the story? How are you visualizing it? And I think that all comes back really to just being in fashion, which is, it's all about merchandising and storytelling.
Emily Jean (28:10)
That's a great, I totally agree with that. think storytelling is such a fundamental part. Actually, even the other day, somebody was asking me, how do I approach my boss for a race in an interview? And I was like, you have to go into the interview and you have to get them invested in your story. How do we get from point A to point B? What can you do to help me get there? It's such an integral part of everything. I love it.
Emily Dempsey (28:37)
Thank
Emily Jean (28:39)
I have some more fun questions. My assistant actually wrote fun and offbeat for these questions. I'm excited to hear your answers. What is the most Miami thing that's ever happened at a Brickle Babes event?
Emily Dempsey (28:53)
The most Miami thing that's ever happened. I would say the most Miami thing that's ever happened is we had, so we had an event. This is kind of a funny one. So Miami is like notorious for really bad traffic, like really bad traffic. Like LA might have bad traffic. Miami is like 10 times worse. So we had a...
Emily Jean (29:11)
Okay.
Emily Dempsey (29:20)
event, like a really big event, like full day event. And we had like lined up speaker series. And the craziest thing that happened was somebody showed up. They completely missed their segment and we had to like rearrange the entire day around this one person. Just like, was like a, planned this for months and like the, the person, I don't want to give away who was, but the person like,
was two hours late for their panel topic. So that, don't know that that happens in other cities, but I'm gonna blame Miami traffic on that one.
Emily Jean (29:49)
guys.
Nightmare.
You
That's nice. It's very empathetic to blame the traffic.
Emily Dempsey (30:02)
Or they were taking too long getting ready. I don't know. They're both pretty Miami though.
Emily Jean (30:05)
never know.
Okay, well speaking of hosting events, if you could host a dream event anywhere in the world, where would it be?
Emily Dempsey (30:12)
Okay, dream event. I'm like dying to do a girls, a Brickell Babes girls trip to St. Parks.
Emily Jean (30:20)
one. my gosh. Love that. I want to go. I'm there. I'm Okay. So where do you want to see the new platform in the next two years? Where you're hoping it ends up?
Emily Dempsey (30:22)
You're coming. Yeah, you're coming if we do it.
Like which
cities or like number of users.
Emily Jean (30:35)
Yes, yes,
however you want to take it.
Emily Dempsey (30:38)
Okay, I would say, so right now I'm like, in the short term, I'm very focused on like how many members can we convert from our wait list to actually get them on the platform. And I have, you my goals like one month, three months, 12 months. I would say in two years, I would love for us to be...
in five cities and have
maybe like, I don't know. It would be pretty cool if we had a million users on our platform.
Emily Jean (31:10)
Mm-hmm. I love that. I think that's a great goal. Totally achievable. That'll be tomorrow. No, I love that. I love it. I think that's a great goal. ⁓ So what is your dream partnership or brand collaboration for the new platform, if you have one?
Emily Dempsey (31:13)
ambitious, ambitious.
We'll see.
Honestly, I would say in the last two weeks, like every single brand that I could have like manifested or like wishlisted as a partner has come to us or I've reached out to them and circled back with them and we are.
we're doing it. I can't, I can't say who these brands are yet, but like I am. I said, I have like a general counsel, I have an attorney and I text him every so many days. I'm like, da da da da these partnerships confirmed, confirmed, confirmed. And it's like, what is going on?
Emily Jean (31:40)
Wow.
Wow.
Yeah, that's crazy. It's such a manifestation moment, you know, being able to go, I love these people and now they actually want to work with me. Like, that is crazy.
Emily Dempsey (32:10)
But they're reaching out to me. It's the craziest thing.
Emily Jean (32:13)
Yeah,
that's amazing. Okay, wait. I know exactly. Yeah, I can't wait.
Emily Dempsey (32:15)
You'll have to tune in to see who.
I'll tell you like when we end the pod.
Emily Jean (32:21)
Yes, yes, please. I'm very curious. I also want to know who was late for their set. Okay. Okay, so I have some rapid fires for you because I don't want to take up too much more of your time. But so my first question is, what is the most underrated skill for building community?
Emily Dempsey (32:27)
my god, I will tell you that too.
Ummm... Tenacity.
Emily Jean (32:46)
my gosh, good answer. Yeah, tenacity. That's a really good answer. What's one thing you wish more women knew about Bitcoin?
Emily Dempsey (32:53)
that everyone can participate in Bitcoin and you do not have to buy a whole Bitcoin.
Emily Jean (32:59)
Okay, good. Okay, what's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten?
Emily Dempsey (33:01)
you
test your intuition.
Emily Jean (33:07)
⁓ I like that. I feel like I can sense that from you. Like I feel like you're very intuitive person. Like it just makes sense for me.
Emily Dempsey (33:16)
but I did not always trust it. And like only in the last two years have I like really leaned into it.
Emily Jean (33:24)
And look at where it got you.
Emily Dempsey (33:27)
Apparently I should have been doing this the rest of my life. Kicking myself now.
Emily Jean (33:32)
Is there any books or resources or anything like that you can recommend for female entrepreneurs who are just starting out?
Emily Dempsey (33:41)
I would honestly, I would listen to anything you can get your hands on in sales. So I think actually my time in commercial real estate, which is literally all cold calling, first of all, you're like a contractor, you don't get a salary, you are cold calling. Like you have to hit your numbers or you're not making money, you're not making sales. And I think the biggest skill that gets me anywhere I need to be right now is
Emily Jean (33:46)
Okay.
Emily Dempsey (34:07)
So there's a couple of books. There's one called Never Split the Difference. That's a phenomenal book. And then Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Everybody should read that or listen to it. sales, focus in on sales, even if you aren't planning to sell anything. It's relationship building.
Emily Jean (34:13)
Love that.
It's funny bringing up cold calling because I saw something the other day that said that people who have a background in cold calling of some form or sales are much more likely to be successful in the long term because they literally have built, going back to that tenacity where they built up the ability to be rejected and to hear no's and to keep going. They have one goal and they're just going keep going for it.
Emily Dempsey (34:34)
you
I used to have to make like 200 cold calls a week. I would get hung up on all the time. I would get cursed out. And you have people in the office listening to you. You have to keep going. You can't let them hang up the phone. That teaches you learn a lot from doing that.
Emily Jean (35:00)
That's crazy.
Yeah. Right.
I'm sure. Okay, so those are great recommendations. That's why I love both those books. Last question. What is one thing you'll never compromise on in business?
Emily Dempsey (35:24)
I would say...
ethics, I think your reputation is the hands down most important thing you have for your entire life. So not compromising like on your value system. And if you say you're going to do something, you do it, you have to like have that integrity and just follow through. And I see it all the time. Like I, I mean, I had a brand
partnership blow up this week and had a signed contract with somebody and they completely backtracked on the contract. And I ended up doing some deep diving research on this person and found out a lot of not good stuff. And it's like, your integrity is everything. And I think just it's the most important thing.
And once you, once you ruin that with one person, it's very, very hard to come back from.
Emily Jean (36:27)
Right, absolutely. Well, I think that's a good note to wrap up on. Where can people find you? Where can they connect with you? And where can they find the Prickle Babes?
Emily Dempsey (36:38)
You can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Emily Dempsey, working on building my Twitter. I'm not really a tweeter, but it's big in Bitcoin. And then you can find the Brickell Babes at our website, www.thebrickellbabes.com on Instagram, Facebook, Facebook groups, and coming soon, our new platform.
Emily Jean (37:00)
Yay. Well, and everything will be linked in the show notes as well. But Emily, thank you so much for joining me. This has been such a good conversation. And you're such like a bright bubbly person. You are the perfect person for your job, like truly.
Emily Dempsey (37:16)
Thank you! This was so fun! my god, wait, we forgot to tell everybody that we like have... did we tell everybody that we have like the same name? We co... we completely forgot!
Emily Jean (37:23)
my gosh, no, we have this, sorry, I do. Sorry.
Yeah, for everyone listening, you have to know, I just learned Emily Dempsey is also Emily Jean. Emily Jean Dempsey. So we are basically twins.
Emily Dempsey (37:36)
Yes! Crazy! We're basically
twins. We like our twins.
Emily Jean (37:44)
Stars Aligned, Stars Crossed, and we both have roommates in college that, well my roommate was named Kayla Jean and your roommate was named Jean. Yeah, that is so weird, like that's such a funny...
Emily Dempsey (37:44)
The stars line.
Gene, yeah. And now here we are. And then my
psychic told me I'm going international by the end of the year and like we're literally going international.
Emily Jean (38:02)
Here we go. Here we go.
See, if we talked much longer, I'd like, and my psychic's name is your sister's name, and you know, we'll just go on forever.
Emily Dempsey (38:10)
We'll
have to end the podcast and like, offline this. Sidebar.
Emily Jean (38:13)
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you. And that's a wrap.
