Build Your Own Boat

What if the thing holding accomplished women back isn't a lack of skills or experience — but the pressure to start from scratch every time they want something new?

In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, host Janine Vanderburg talks with Donna Cravotta — founder of Cravotta Media Group, creator of the Intentional Visibility Project on Substack, and host of the Real 50 Over 50, a weekly livestream series now in its third year featuring nearly 200 women redefining leadership and visibility after 50.

Donna's path includes 25 years in law firms, a first business launched at 42 as a virtual assistant (before that was a real category), and a deliberate pause at 58 to ask — for the first time — what she actually wanted. What emerged from that pause is her methodology: Tried & New, a framework that helps accomplished women stop starting over and start building from what they already have.

This conversation covers all of it: the career pivot that started at a diner at nine o'clock at night, the hand cream client who generated $100,000 in sales in eight months with no budget, what 200 interviews with women over 50 actually revealed (hint: it wasn't "reinvention"), and the wisdom bomb every woman sitting on the edge of something new needs to hear.

Where to find Donna Cravotta
Substack — Intentional Visibility Project: @DonnaCravotta
LinkedIn: Donna Cravotta
Website: Cravotta Media Group


What is Build Your Own Boat?

An entrepreneurship podcast for women in midlife and beyond.

What if the most powerful thing you could do right now — for your finances, your freedom, and your future — was to stop waiting for someone else to hand you an opportunity and start building your own?

Build Your Own Boat is the podcast for women in midlife and beyond who are done playing by rules that were never written with them in mind. Hosted by award-winning 3x entrepreneur Janine Vanderburg, each episode features real conversations with women in midlife and beyond who made the bold decision to bet on themselves — launching businesses and creative ventures, building wealth, and rewriting what entrepreneurship looks like in the second half of life.

This isn't a podcast about hustle culture or overnight success stories. It's a roadmap — built from lived experience, hard-won wisdom, and the kind of honest conversation you rarely hear anywhere else. Guests include founders, consultants, creatives, coaches, media makers, and civic leaders who are proving every week that midlife isn't a ceiling. It's a launchpad.

Whether you're just beginning to wonder if entrepreneurship is for you, actively building your business, or simply looking for proof that it's not too late — you'll find it here.

Every episode, you'll discover:
1. How real women in midlife launched and grew successful ventures — and what they wish they'd known sooner
2. Practical strategies for building financial independence and freedom on your own terms
3. Honest conversations about the challenges of midlife entrepreneurship, and how to navigate them
4. Inspiration that's grounded in reality, not motivational posters

The Encore Economy is booming — and women in midlife are driving it. Build Your Own Boat is where their stories live.

Subscribe now and join a growing community of women who are building something that's entirely, unapologetically theirs.

And do SUBSCRIBE to Build Your Own Boat on Substack as well, to read the full stories of our guests, and their best tips and resources. https://buildyourownboat.substack.com/