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Serious Lady Business is the podcast where we dive into the serious—and sometimes not-so-serious—realities of being a female business owner. Host Leslie Youngblood keeps it real about entrepreneurship as we dive into the hard lessons no one warns you about to the surprising wins that make it all worth it. Tune in for honest conversations, unfiltered insights, and stories that prove you’re not in this alone.
Leslie Youngblood (00:01)
Welcome back to Serious Lady Business. I'm Leslie Youngblood. I am so excited to welcome Maya Holiday with us today. We are talking about the business case for doing good and how B Corps are redefining success. Now, Maya's business is a certified B Corp. We're going to be talking about what that really means, why more women led businesses should consider it.
Maiya Holliday (00:08)
Thank
Leslie Youngblood (00:27)
and not just for the impact, but for long-term sustainability and community. So welcome, Maya, to Serious Lady Business.
Maiya Holliday (00:35)
Hi, thanks so much for having me.
Leslie Youngblood (00:37)
Perfect. Now, Maya, let's start at the beginning. What came first, the business or the B Corp? Did you always know that you were going to pursue that B Corp certification? I'd love for us to start very way back.
Maiya Holliday (00:52)
Yeah, definitely. So ⁓ I got into website development by way of kind of ⁓ a curved path. And so I studied international development. I thought I was going to go into something in public policy or public health. I wasn't quite sure what that would look like. And then out of college, I ended up working for a nonprofit. ⁓
wore many different hats there, one which was like volunteer coordinator in Tanzania. ⁓ And I also ended up managing their website and working alongside someone who was managing their website. And so I really loved that part of it. I also in conjunction was witnessing this very well-intentioned volunteer vacation style program where the...
Impact and the effort and like what was really coming there like the heart of what was coming out of it just seemed a little bit misaligned and while I was there I ended up doing a ⁓ Kind of just a little side web page for this guy that was building a dam in the community and he was trying to get donations from people and a lot of volunteers were coming through and and we're like, yeah my
know, aunt will send you five bucks and this and that, but people go home and then kind of have no connection to him. So I just built a simple PayPal link, set that up. He ended up like funding his project by like $5 donations from a handful of people ⁓ really quickly. And that really sparked me to feel like, well, why don't I just use this like website component as something that's actually like really supporting impact in a more direct way. ⁓
Leslie Youngblood (02:42)
Hmm.
Maiya Holliday (02:42)
⁓
so that was kind of the heart of it. And I, just kind of learned, learned myself as I was going through it. I picked up a couple of side projects. I stayed up really late Googling things and figuring things out and kind of banging my head against the wall. And then, ⁓ just did small, small nonprofit projects that were, ⁓ just figuring out things as they went along. And so the B Corp aspect came later. So that was.
That was like 2006 that I started dabbling and then kind of fully worked in the website space as of 2007 with a small shop in Berkeley and then established Mangrove in 2009. And so I always had that really at the core of what we were doing. And then when I learned about B Corp, which was, I was working in a coworking space in San Francisco and I used to actually just walk by the B Lab.
Leslie Youngblood (03:29)
Yeah.
Maiya Holliday (03:38)
office that was part of this co-working space every day. And so I knew some of the people that worked there personally. And, ⁓ the more I learned about it, the more it was just very, it was like a container for what we were already doing. And it was a way to express like what our values were and, and grow in line with those values and have like suggested policy implementations and suggested pathways and ways to kind of further impact that I hadn't really even
Leslie Youngblood (03:50)
Thank
Maiya Holliday (04:07)
considered and so we ⁓ yeah, so I started looking into it and Just kind of it felt like a really natural progression. It was a lot of work to do it, but it was ⁓ Already really aligned with what I was doing with the business already. So it was a natural step into it
Leslie Youngblood (04:27)
Yeah. And for those unfamiliar, can you tell us a bit about like, is a B Corp? A B Corp and how is it different from a typical LLC or even an S Corp?
Maiya Holliday (04:38)
Yeah, so B Corp is actually like we're actually legally an S Corp and B Corp is not a corporate entity status in itself, but it's kind of like a like piggybacks on top of your corporate status. And so ⁓ it is a certification instead of corporate status. And it's but it's ensuring that you're doing things with people, planet and profit at the heart. And ⁓ there's a pretty rigorous certification process that you go through that.
kind of surveys all different aspects of your business and ensures that you're doing, ⁓ that you're really, like it's only for for-profit businesses. So it's a way to ensure that you're really running a for-profit business with intentionality and ⁓ with, you know, people and planet at the heart of it.
Leslie Youngblood (05:28)
Yeah. And so anybody that has an LLC or an S-Corp can apply for B-Corp certification. That's what you're saying.
Maiya Holliday (05:33)
Yes. And then there's
also, it's a little bit confusing, there's also ⁓ a legal status that's a public benefit corp and it's only available in certain states. I don't know what they are. California is definitely one of them. So if you are a certified B Corp, you have to also adopt public benefit corp status within, ⁓ I don't know what the parameter is right now, but when we did it, was within a year or so of doing B Corp.
Leslie Youngblood (06:03)
Interesting.
Maiya Holliday (06:03)
certification
and so that actually puts into your bylaws sort of adherence to this mission-driven approach and just ensures that if there was like a sale of the business or change in stakeholders or ownership that those principles are upheld. It's not that hard to do once you've done the B Corp certification. You've pretty much already done everything you need to be a PVC. You just have to put it in writing. ⁓ But if some people do it the other way around.
Leslie Youngblood (06:12)
Mm-hmm.
Maiya Holliday (06:31)
Getting a being a public benefit corp is easier and less work than becoming a certified B Corp So that's often like the first step that people take as well
Leslie Youngblood (06:36)
Please.
Gotcha. You just said that like it can be a rigorous process to get that B Corp certification. What were the first steps that you took once you decided to pursue this, Maya?
Maiya Holliday (06:46)
Okay.
Yeah, so ⁓ once I started learning about it, someone gave me really great advice, which was there's a, the certification online is called the B Impact Assessment. So you can Google like BIA or ⁓ B Corp or B Corp Impact Assessment. And ⁓ you can log in, you can create an account, you can start going through the process and you don't have to submit. It's not, you know, it's free to make a user account and do all of that. And so the best way to...
Leslie Youngblood (07:16)
and done.
Maiya Holliday (07:20)
get into it is just start doing, just start doing the assessment and just kind of float through it, take some notes. There's ways to take notes in the system. And maybe, you know, I printed it out. It's like, never print anything, but printed it out and started marking it up and just see, see where you are ⁓ at the present moment. And then you can kind of take another,
Leslie Youngblood (07:35)
Is that allowed?
Maiya Holliday (07:49)
another pass at it and start sort of liberally saying yes to things that you know you can do in the near future. So we went, so at the first time we did it, I think we had like 40 points and you need that, they are just changing the standards now, but originally 80 points was the threshold to get certified. And there's items that are like 0.25 points and 0.5 points. you know, it's like they're hard one point. So I went through.
Leslie Youngblood (07:54)
you
Mm-hmm.
Maiya Holliday (08:16)
It was a little discouraging. That's a very common first step or first ⁓ reaction. Then I went through and I said yes to things that were policy driven where I knew I don't have a child labor policy or a breastfeeding policy or these guidelines in place, but I can surely create them and we're not going against them in any way. And they were completely in line with what we do and how we would run things. I was also doing this at a time when I was...
still the sole owner and sole proprietor of the business and we didn't have any other employees. So there were a lot of things where I could like kind of make it up as I went along, but obviously then have to adhere to that as we bring on employees. And you know, now we have a 15 person team and we've had anywhere between like five and 10, 15 employees over the years. so.
those things, it's like you can't just put them in place and call it good, obviously, then, like as you bring people on there, they're part of that system. so, ⁓ but as I was saying, that created a lot of suggestions of, hey, you can establish and solidify and further your impact by writing these things down, by moving your banking to a more, to a credit union or sort of a mission-driven bank. And that was something that didn't even occur to me. So that took a...
Leslie Youngblood (09:37)
Bye!
Maiya Holliday (09:39)
you know, a bit of effort and time. It was totally doable. So I did that and that kind of moved us down the line. Started doing things like carbon offsets and like tracking our environmental footprint. And, you know, there's a lot of things that you probably could do that are kind of low hanging fruit. And so I went through and kind of said yes to a lot of those things, backtracked.
did those things and then came back and submitted. And by that point, the first time we certified that was in 2016. We had 80.5 points. It was just like squeaked by. then you certify every three years. It was two and then three. We have certified three times now and we're going into our fourth certification next year. And then each time we've just kind of...
Leslie Youngblood (10:14)
Mmm. Yes!
Maiya Holliday (10:34)
like there's a certain amount of work to uphold what you've already committed to and maintain that. And then there's other things you can kind of put on your list to improve over time. we now have about, I think we have 112 points right now. So we've kind of steadily increased. The whole certification process has changed and I'm not fully up to speed on the new requirements because...
Leslie Youngblood (10:47)
Nice.
Maiya Holliday (11:01)
I've kind of willfully ignored it until I really need to dig into it, which is soon. ⁓ But there are a lot of shifts that are being made. It's not on a point system anymore. There are certain things that need to be fully required instead of kind of optional gathering points from different buckets, kind of choose your own adventure. they're trying to, I think the new standards are trying to... ⁓
Leslie Youngblood (11:05)
you
Mmm.
Maiya Holliday (11:26)
account for a wider range of businesses that have become part of the B Corp certification process over time. There's a lot of small service-based remote businesses that are ⁓ kind of didn't have specific parameters and now have more ⁓ tracking that's relevant to them. And I think there's more like larger corporate entities now that have joined over the last couple of years especially. So there's more sort of rigorous adherence ⁓ for these types of organizations. So
Leslie Youngblood (11:49)
Thank
Maiya Holliday (11:55)
It's a big job to figure out how do we make these really ⁓ valuable and ⁓ rigorous and also achievable and meaningful and maintainable ⁓ for all these different sized businesses. Because it means a lot of different things for someone who has a tiny consulting firm versus a 500 person organization like Patagonia or
Leslie Youngblood (12:25)
Right, right, that's fascinating. I love what you said about.
Maiya Holliday (12:25)
Giovanni or something like that.
Leslie Youngblood (12:31)
how you didn't have guidelines for breastfeeding mothers. ⁓ And then even just switching to a local credit union, those were some things that were surprising to you. But those are also things that were like low hanging fruit. And so, and I think that that's really great because it's a rigorous process. It's changing. It's a lot to have to go through, right? It's not just like a fun thing to have. It's a serious thing. But I would love to know more about what are some of those other low hanging fruit options that somebody listening today
Maiya Holliday (12:45)
Okay.
job.
Leslie Youngblood (13:01)
can learn about and be like, ⁓ one day I do, I definitely do want to do that. I'm not there in my business yet. I want to be that. Or I'm thinking of starting a business and understanding some of the low hanging fruit. And even if you never pursue that, but to be a better steward ⁓ as a business owner, what are some of those other pieces,
Maiya Holliday (13:06)
you
Okay.
Yeah, that's a really good question. ⁓ One that comes to mind is sort of hiring practices and inclusive hiring practices. So ⁓ kind of appealing to a diverse pool of applicants, making sure that the language in your hiring ⁓ is sort of welcoming and open. There's also ⁓ not just welcoming and open, like clearly non-discriminatory, I guess is a better way to say it. ⁓
Leslie Youngblood (13:47)
Mm.
Maiya Holliday (13:49)
There's also ⁓ metrics for sort of diversity within your team that then drive practices behind it. So every time we hire, we're thinking about not just our hiring practice, but down the line, like there are questions about like our team structure, whether it's ⁓ gender, race, other kind of underserved groups. we, so we've like kind of shifted.
upstream of how we think about onboarding, not just team members, but vendors and suppliers and partners and also clients. So there's also questions about kind of how your sort of diversity and kind of mission alignment with all of those groups. And so we've, for instance, we do, you know, website ⁓
design and development and we have a lot of clients that are hosted with WP Engine and ⁓ as of the last time we surveyed them, they're women owned. That was something that we actually didn't seek out originally because we were choosing a host that was best for what we needed at the time, but that really like solidified our commitment to working with them. And then there's actually like kind of an effort in.
this green like sustainable web space. And ⁓ we noticed that, and I don't know exactly how this shows up on the BIA. It shows up somewhere in like our environmental footprint, but ⁓ you know, it's, it's tangentially related, or it's at least in our purview based on like being a B Corp. We noticed that ⁓ there's like a sustainability tracker for websites, which hooks into where they're hosted. And so we realized that
Leslie Youngblood (15:39)
Bye.
Maiya Holliday (15:43)
WP Engine wasn't actually certified as a green host because, ⁓ and we went back and forth with them for over a year. They were actually doing a lot of the work, they hadn't, were like, there were a lot of like wind powered ⁓ servers that they ran and they actually were doing things in a pretty green way, but they hadn't gone through the process of actually validating that and committing to it. And so we,
pushed them with a couple other B Corp ⁓ digital agency owners. ⁓ For over a year, we were back and forth with them asking them, we can't run client sites through here and give them any sort of decent metric if their hosting is not certified green because it's always going to come up as docking them a certain number of points. So ⁓ it's led to things like that. I'm not really answering your question about the low-hanging fruit, but I feel like there's...
Leslie Youngblood (16:20)
one.
Yeah.
Maiya Holliday (16:41)
I feel like
there's so many different, this is actually the school. Can I pick it up? I'm so sorry. I'm hoping my other kid isn't. Okay, just a second. Hello?
Leslie Youngblood (16:46)
Yes, of course. ahead. Go ahead. No problem.
Maiya Holliday (17:42)
Okay, sorry about that. I have to go pick up my other kiddo, but he's okay for the moment. ⁓ It's okay, he's like with the nurse and ⁓ he would be doing that here or there. So she said it's fine for another half hour or so. No, mean, yeah. Sorry, do you want me to backtrack a little bit and like say that again? to like cut you off right there.
Leslie Youngblood (17:48)
shoot.
no.
goodness, I'm so sorry. Kids.
Yeah, talk
about WP Engine and how you got them to make the change. And I think that's so interesting too, because you're not the only B Corp looking for that solution through a web provider for clients. And so there's that power in that collective advocating for change. And so you were getting them to act.
Maiya Holliday (18:09)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah
Yeah, yeah. And so what I was saying is, you know, well, what I was kind of pivoting into talking about wasn't exactly like the low hanging fruit you're asking about. ⁓ There are a number of things that are kind of in the like stratosphere of ⁓ purpose driven ⁓ behavior from like
Leslie Youngblood (18:49)
Mm.
Maiya Holliday (18:56)
vendors or partners or clients or teammates or whatever, and that kind of like ripples out, I think. And so we were able to collectively say, hey, there's a number of B-Corps and non-B-Corps who are looking for ⁓ validation that the host they're using is thinking about the environment and that you're actually just like signing off on it not just screen washing. And you guys actually are doing the reverse of green washing. Like you're not.
Leslie Youngblood (19:01)
Mmm.
Maiya Holliday (19:24)
you're not certifying or talking about it, but you actually are doing the thing. So ⁓ we did get them to eventually come around, which was helpful. I feel, you know, and it's funny, it's like going back to the BIA, it's like that maybe got us like one more point. ⁓ But it mattered to us in terms of, ⁓ you know, the actual impact and the actual like meaning behind it and kind of holding, holding
Leslie Youngblood (19:40)
Ha ha ha ha!
Maiya Holliday (19:53)
a vendor accountable. there's so many, like, you know, most of our vendors are service, like online service providers and SaaS companies. And there's only so much ⁓ impact we really have or sort of ability we have to sway them. But in that case, like we have, you know, 70 sites on WP Engine and we have been a client of theirs for long time. So we were able to do that. So. ⁓
You know, and then I'm trying to think of other kind of things that have come up along the way. We worked with another organization to do carbon offsets called Offset Alliance. They're a fellow B Corp. They do, they help you measure your carbon offsets. They also will help you kind of like survey the requirements as they pertain to your organization and see where you can like.
improve your score or create like different approaches that will be in line with the certification. so, especially as like a service based business, ⁓ not as a service based business. So we don't have like a lot of, you know, tangible product. And then also as a remote organization, there was a lot of gray area for me around like, I don't know, do we need a recycling policy if we all work from home and I'm just at my desk and I don't ever print anything, you know? So, ⁓
Leslie Youngblood (21:15)
Right.
Maiya Holliday (21:16)
But they helped us walk through and actually increase our environmental score without me feeling like we were saying yes to things that weren't true. Like they know the standards really well in conjunction with like their own ⁓ reporting around environmental impact. And so we were able to like increase our score a little bit there by way of like working with them not only to do the offsets, but then ⁓ to kind of survey what else we were doing. So.
Leslie Youngblood (21:43)
Mm-hmm.
Maiya Holliday (21:43)
Those kind
of things have been helpful. You kind of find pockets of places you can work through it ⁓ and the tracks are a little bit different for each size business. I would just, and the standards have changed a lot from when I've looked at them in like really nitty gritty detail. So I would just recommend going into the impact assessment and just cruise through it and make an account. You're not going to be forced to submit it or anything. can just kind of.
Leslie Youngblood (21:46)
Yeah.
me.
Maiya Holliday (22:09)
poke around in there and see what feels relevant and interesting. And you might see things in there that ⁓ inspire you to make change in your business, whether or not you're going to become a B Corp. And that's great. Do a couple of things. That's better than where you started.
Leslie Youngblood (22:25)
Yeah. And what I think is so interesting too about WP is that you chose them because they were female owned. so you and like, so you want to make the good choice, right? And you're like, we are great. Like we're supporting women. And it's like, ⁓ but they actually aren't as great as we thought they were. And like, like, and so it's like so frustrating because you can feel like you're making a good choice. But in the end, like there's still like a disconnect like there. Right. And so.
Maiya Holliday (22:41)
you
Yeah.
Leslie Youngblood (22:50)
important to note is that it's not just a set it and forget it or like a one and done like type of thing in order to be more sustainable in every facet of your business. It's a constant evolution and a checks of who you're working with and how you're working with them. So I think that's really interesting.
Maiya Holliday (23:07)
Yeah, and I
think also there's always gonna be a push and pull of what is like reasonable and feasible, especially as a small business, right? So we are in an industry that's rapidly changing. we're a small team, small kind of operating capacity in the grand scheme of things. so it's not, bigger organizations have someone who's...
typically who's dedicated, like they call it a beekeeper, who's dedicated to holding the whole organization accountable, doing the metrics tracking and actually doing the whole B Corp certification. In a small organization, it's usually the CEO and maybe a PM or something supporting with it. And so you also kind of have to pick your battles a little bit because we're, for example,
We have been talking back and forth about ⁓ AI and responsible use of AI. And there's a couple of different avenues to it. One is we want to make sure that people are using ⁓ our data and client data responsibly and that people in our, you know, there's an internal policy that also notes that like our teammates are responsible for their own work, whether or not AI was part of it. Like there always seems to be a human in the loop.
Leslie Youngblood (24:29)
Mm-hmm.
Maiya Holliday (24:29)
⁓
you can't just say, Hey, AI made a mistake and sorry, that's out there. and so there's, there's certain ways that we're kind of like. Creating policies that are in line with our values internally and being mindful about the way that AI is being used, what the impact is, ⁓ on our, our team, what the implications are in terms of like security and data sharing. but the other component is, you know, the AI is a huge.
takes a huge environmental footprint. And so I've listened to, I've tried to learn about this more. I've listened to a couple of different podcasts. There's an interesting interview with Reid Hoffman about it on pioneers and AI, I think it's called. And I've gone back and forth with my business partner about it and talked to other B Corps as well. And at the end of the day, what we decided about the environmental impact is that while we would like to
be intentional about the environmental impact of our work and think about it in the context of AI. We actually, A, can't really track it that well because it's kind of a black box of the actual usage ⁓ in a lot of different tools. B, AI is baked into so many tools you're already using, like you may or may not even know about it. And so that's impossible to track. And then C, ⁓
Leslie Youngblood (25:39)
and
Mm.
Maiya Holliday (25:56)
We kind of can't afford not to use AI and survive as a business. And so we have basically decided that it's not, ⁓ it's not something that we have a lot of control over. And it's not something that is aligned. the, the, you know, squeeze isn't worth the juice in terms of us trying to mitigate our environmental impact with AI, at least not at this point in time. And so we kind of have, have decided to intentionally.
Leslie Youngblood (26:02)
Mm.
Maiya Holliday (26:26)
let go of tracking that and focusing more on like what's the impact we can create for clients with our use of AI kind of augmenting the work that we're doing and increasing the efficiency of our internal operations and ⁓ our systems and how can we just like sort of leverage AI to make our work better, serve clients better, ⁓ have more impact and
Leslie Youngblood (26:28)
Hmm.
Maiya Holliday (26:55)
kind of let go of being like a perfect B Corp business in that space because it's just not, it's not ⁓ reasonable for us to manage at this time.
Leslie Youngblood (27:00)
Mmm.
Interesting, yeah, I feel like that's something that's almost like progress, not perfection. Like how can you be perfect? That is, like you said, and I had written down to ask about AI, because I think that's a really big thing that a lot of B Corp and, you know, sustainably minded businesses are thinking about right now, right?
Maiya Holliday (27:25)
Thank you.
Leslie Youngblood (27:27)
We've heard the ramifications and we know it's bad, but yet it's this tool that's in everything and it's still so prevalent in enabling us to work more efficiently and in driving us in these new directions. So where is that happy medium? And I think it will be really interesting to see how that evolves within the B Corp space moving forward because today we might not be able to track it in any type of way really, but maybe there will be in the future. And I think that's one of
the
key things too. It's like just because you can't track it or because it's not trackable now doesn't mean it's not worthy to still be, doesn't mean you're not a B Corp or that you're like not sustainable minded, right? Like it's not a one and done type of thing or all or nothing at all, right? And.
Maiya Holliday (28:08)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Leslie Youngblood (28:14)
How can you accommodate for those types of things? There could be something that's invented tomorrow that could change the world and be very harmful to the environment. And how do we, you know, react against that too? So I think that's a really unique insight. Maya, what's been, you talked about, you know, there's a lot of nitty gritty and process things that go into being a B Corp and you have to, you know, re-up every few years. But let's talk about like the benefits that...
Maiya Holliday (28:37)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Youngblood (28:40)
from that work? Like what do you think has been the biggest benefit of becoming a B Corp that people might not expect?
Maiya Holliday (28:49)
I think for us, it's definitely been like the community and partnership and sort of shared resources. ⁓ It's funny, it's like on LinkedIn, I get all these, all this outreach about, hey, do you wanna join this CEO community for blah, blah, blah? know being a CEO can be lonely and this, that, but ⁓ we've had such a deep network of...
like-minded, purpose-driven business owners through the B Corp community since, you know, since the early days. And I was like kind of somewhat connected to that space even before just from working out of this impact hub in San Francisco that kind of bred a lot of B Corp organizations and had some B Lab folks in it as well. And so I feel like there's, and there's a lot of like trust built within the community. Like if you're,
I don't have any problem reaching out to someone who's, who I don't know who's a fellow B Corp and say, Hey, can we like talk shop about this? Or can I ⁓ pick your brain a little bit about like your AI policy? Or, you know, I, I met, met a business owner recently at sort of a non B Corp event. And there was like an immediate connection of like, Hey, we speak the same dialect. We're we.
Leslie Youngblood (29:59)
and
Maiya Holliday (30:12)
are here for the same reasons. there's just a lot of like synergy and trust built into that. And that's been really ⁓ fruitful. There's been like, you know, there's like a women CEO, women B Corp CEO group called We The Change. I've been part of that for a long while and gone to quite a few ⁓ meetups. The like the nature, it's funny. It's like I went to that meetup that was in Denver this past year. It was about
I think it was about 50 people maybe. There was like really rich content there. It was very, really nice balance of like sort of real life and heart centered, ⁓ real talk about what it means to be like a woman running a business, to be caring for a family and other people, be going to be under funded or overlooked in the world in certain ways, like all these things. Also.
balanced with very business minded, very tactical, smart, tangible ⁓ presentations and workshops. But there's just this rawness there that's really, ⁓ everybody comes in with a certain layer of understanding each other through the B Corp kind of context. And then two weeks later, I think, I went to the We Bank Conference that was in New Orleans and...
Leslie Youngblood (31:26)
Great.
Maiya Holliday (31:35)
man, that's a different environment. I haven't actually been to a non B Corp event or something that's like kind of a larger conference in a while. And it was just so much less ⁓ oriented around like community. was like no avenue for interaction between the participants. It was all really geared towards like connecting with corporate sponsors and how to become a vendor in their database. And ⁓
You know, just the vibe of it was very, very different. And ⁓ it's not to say that it's a very different event and it's a much larger crowd of people and ⁓ there's a lot of different nuances to it, but it really became apparent to me, what I've kind of taken for granted or became second nature within ⁓ the B Corp circles where there's just a different...
Leslie Youngblood (32:28)
Yeah.
Maiya Holliday (32:33)
way of interacting with people and a different like real sort of level and also kind of like, okay, we're in this together. We're a bunch of businesses that are kind of going up against these giants and trying to do business in a better, different way. ⁓ we're not really, there's no reason for, like we are competitors with a lot of other B Corps in this space, but we also like very readily.
share things with each other and are kind of going at it together. So ⁓ that's what's the biggest thing. And then the last thing I'll say is that I think at one point in time, like there's certainly a selling point to being a B Corp, but that's kind of diminished over time, partly because a lot of other ⁓ organizations have become B Corps. There's a lot, at least in the digital agency space, there's at least like,
Leslie Youngblood (33:22)
Hmm.
No.
Maiya Holliday (33:27)
more than twice as many B Corps now as, you know, five years ago. And when we first certified, are one of 2000, there's one of over 2000 B Corps. Now there's well over 6,000. And so it's really like grown rapidly, which is amazing. However, we used to stand out a lot for being like a B Corp women owned agency.
Now there are many, many other B Corp agencies that kind of come up in similar circles or that are going after the same RFPs or, ⁓ and so it's not as much of a differentiator. However, if it's really aligned with what you truly believe in and how you run your business, and it's just kind of like an anchor point of solidifying the way you do business and it's, ⁓
Leslie Youngblood (33:54)
Hmm.
Maiya Holliday (34:20)
you know, if it's not going against the grain and it's really meaningful and you're not doing it just for kind of like B Corp washing or ⁓ marketing purposes, then you can find a lot of value in it because it's just a way to ⁓ connect to clients who understand like that as a shorthand of what's important to you, or it's a way to educate clients and like talk about your impact. ⁓ But I think that the
Leslie Youngblood (34:27)
Yeah.
Right. ⁓
Maiya Holliday (34:48)
Yeah, being a differentiator, it's like a double-edged sword, because the more B Corps to get certified, the better it is for the world and everything else. And then the competition, it's just not as much of a differentiator, and you're kind up against your peers. But ⁓ there's still lot of ways to kind of leverage it, I think.
Leslie Youngblood (34:57)
Yeah.
Sure, I think that's so interesting. Would you say that you saw any measurable results from becoming a B Corp, whether that's revenue growth, client retention, and client attraction, specifically when it comes to the business,
Maiya Holliday (35:16)
and
It's hard for me to say in a quantitative way because we also changed size a lot over that time. I think when we first got certified, we were like four people. ⁓ Over the next years, we more than doubled. ⁓ But I would say that we connected more easily and readily with ⁓
clients that were like minded and ⁓ we, it was definitely a selling point. I don't know what the exact like sort of growth and value metrics would be, but ⁓ it made a difference. And like when we create our impact report, which is like always kind of a pain, but it's like worth doing. ⁓ Then we share that and we get a lot of good feedback from that. We ⁓ and there's a lot of clients that really like record or potential clients that really recognize that. And it's, and it is a selling point for them.
Leslie Youngblood (36:18)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, think that's great. And also too, because you're not just doing it for that stamp, right? Like you are actually those values. And I think again, so much of business comes down to that connection between your service provider and client and the audience, right? And like, and people are smart. They can smell a phony, right? And so, and then equally people...
Maiya Holliday (36:18)
So, yeah.
Good night.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Leslie Youngblood (36:42)
love to work with people that they connect with and like resonate with and support similar values that they do too. And so, you know, like you said, it's not just like a track mark. It's like really truly something you have to live and embody. And also others will recognize that too, no matter what. So it's not like do this and you'll get 10 new clients in six months. You're finally a B Corp. But it's like, it's just about so much more. Yeah. It's more than the bottom line. It's like truly the impact. And I think that
Maiya Holliday (36:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, like nothing ever works that way. Yeah.
Leslie Youngblood (37:12)
you know, is so fantastic as well. What advice would you give to another woman business owner curious about B Corp, but feeling overwhelmed at the same time?
Maiya Holliday (37:24)
⁓ I would go to see if there's a meetup in your area. There's a lot of regional B Corp meetups that are ⁓ open to kind of like be curious or ⁓ people who are just interested in understanding the B Corp stuff better and meeting other people. So I'd go there. People are generally quite friendly in those circles and really happy to welcome new people who are interested. ⁓
Leslie Youngblood (37:47)
Yeah.
Maiya Holliday (37:50)
And then just look through the BIA, as I was saying, and just kind of get a feel for what's in there and start to think about how it aligns with your organization, what you could do, what you maybe would do with a certain amount of effort and on a certain timeline and go from there.
Leslie Youngblood (38:07)
I think that's great. Now, so you've grown this business doing it as a B Corp. You now have a team of 11. said, did I get the, oh 15, oh gosh, even better 15, right? So gone from, know, like one to four to, you know, 15. What is next for your B Corp business in mangrove moving forward?
Maiya Holliday (38:15)
Yeah, we're about 15 now. Yeah.
we've actually kind of gone through all the motions in the last couple of years. At one point we were 24 people and then we've paired back down. It's been a really, it's been a big few years in our industry and a lot of, ⁓ kind of post pandemic reckoning, ⁓ for digital agencies that were really, really busy during the pandemic. then between the pandemic and, ⁓ or post pandemic and then AI kind of shifting, ⁓
the landscape, there's just been a lot of change. right now I'm really just working, I don't wanna really grow any larger than we are right now. I've done it and it's not ideal for me. I really wanna just focus on figuring out how to create more impact and kind of growth within our organization in terms of what we can provide to clients, like figuring out ⁓ how we can.
reduce the workload of our team by using smart AI or automation practices and workflows, which is really fun for me because I'm a developer by trade and a lot of these are very like, they're like technical engineering, but you don't have to have as much code to actually make, or you don't have to know how to code at all really to make a lot of these things work. And so ⁓ I really want to see us be able to, there's a lot of.
Leslie Youngblood (39:35)
No, no, no.
Mm-hmm.
Maiya Holliday (39:51)
people who have been in the organization for quite a long time and have really moved from being like a front end developer to being a strategic technical coordinator. And ⁓ we're using things like cursor AI to ⁓ expedite and augment our coding practices. We're building different workflow tools to speed up sort of like the content integration process into sites and those kind of like strategic systems based shifts are what
are more fun and also like, you know, someone recently said to me, AI should eat all the busy work. And I'd love to see that happen where it feels like people are really working in their zones of genius and are not bogged down with a lot of like tedious stuff and things feel like they're really like able to get into a flow state and things are really well like managed and systematized and all of that. And we've always been pretty good at doing those things, but there's so much more opportunity right now.
Leslie Youngblood (40:27)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Maiya Holliday (40:50)
⁓ so I'd love to see sort of growth like internally within the positions in the team. And then also, ⁓ there's plenty to do in terms of staying relevant in this industry. We're not really specifically rolling out AI services to clients, but there's, you know, we've done a number of API integrations over the years and they're at some point going to be somewhat synonymous of, of.
you know, a more complex API integration will become like a kind of an AI augmented workflow. And so just like figuring out how to strategically stay relevant and really effective for our clients so we can support their impact and make sure that they're really able to go out and do whatever they do in the world and reach the right audiences and connect the dots in a way that is really effective.
Leslie Youngblood (41:40)
Yeah, I think that's wonderful. And again, what I think is just so wonderful and special and what you demonstrate, Naya, and your team is like there are so many women out there in aspiring business owners and business owners and you think like, ⁓ I'm not making an impact.
Well, you want to make an impact on your clients and what you do, right? But like, I'm not a nonprofit or I couldn't do a nonprofit. And it's like, you don't have to be a nonprofit to make an impact, right? And there's so many different ways it's getting that B Corp certification. It's, you know, getting involved in the community, being, you know, in philanthropic.
Maiya Holliday (41:58)
in there.
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Youngblood (42:12)
philanthropy, you know, getting involved in that way. And I just think that the B Corp thing is so cool and important for everybody to know about and learn about because it's something that anybody can do that's a business owner and pursue and again, make an impact in additional ways and truly like.
Maiya Holliday (42:13)
Uh-huh.
Leslie Youngblood (42:30)
Why do you become a business owner in the first place? not for the fun of it, but it's not easy. ⁓ We all have this thing inside that we want to express or make an impact. And so I just think this is fantastic thing that you've been able to do and example. And I'm so glad that you came here to share your experience with it today with our listeners. ⁓
Maiya Holliday (42:35)
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks
for having me.
Leslie Youngblood (42:57)
Of course, and so before we go, Maya, I would love for you to share where our listeners can connect with you and follow up with you and mangrove outside of the podcast.
Maiya Holliday (43:05)
Yeah, our website is mangrove-web.com and you can find me on LinkedIn, Maya Holliday. There's only one with my spelling. And ⁓ we don't post in a whole lot of other places. So those are the best ways to follow us. We stopped posting on Instagram when ⁓ there was kind of a hostile takeover. So yeah, just another thing like kind of following our values there. So LinkedIn is the best spot for now.
Leslie Youngblood (43:26)
Hi. Hi.
Right.
Maiya Holliday (43:33)
Not that they're like the saviors of the world, but they're the lesser of the peoples for the moment.
Leslie Youngblood (43:34)
Right. Right. No, no, no, no, certainly not. Right, right. And we'll make sure to drop those links in the show notes below too as well. So thank you again so much, Maya. It was a pleasure. Love everything that you're doing and thank you for taking the time to be with us today on Serious Lady Business.
Maiya Holliday (43:52)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me.