Sydney Stein
Sydney is Co-Founder and CEO at Wimzē, a Brooklyn-based social story-telling agency that works exclusively with mission-driven wellness brands. She is also an instructor at General Assembly, a high school mentor through iMentor’s NYC Chapter, a volunteer for her local animal rescue, and an all-around listener and fixer.
On challenging the status quo
Since my early academic years, exploring unconventional routes and immersing myself in experiential learning has always been more conducive to my growth.
Most of the time, you can figure out a way to make something happen even if you're getting a lot of “No”. This is something I discovered while facing a lot of rejection—in school and in the dance world— while trying to get the extra support to learn in the way that was best for me.
I’m used to challenging someone when they come to me and say that something can't be done a certain way. It caused me to become a very resourceful person that relies on my community, which helped in developing my networking skills from a very young age.
Turning rejection into something positive
Several conversations with the right people will ultimately get you to the place you want to go. Being a good listener and communicator will allow you to position yourself in the most favorable light to your audience and counteract any rejection you could face.
For example: you could argue that I didn't get the best high school experience, but you can also argue that I received a unique or innovative high school education, which meant I could position my experience in a different light for college applications. This translates to all areas of life. Know how to position yourself, your needs & wants and your experience in a favorable light.
Curating curiosity
I'm very interested in coaching right now—this is a side project that I'm working on. I’ve been asking people if I can shadow them, rather than getting paid early on with the limited experience I have in the space.
Curating authentic relationships
Putting yourself out there and showing people that you’re committed to the time and effort it takes to learn is a great way to build strong relationships, leading to a resourceful network.
The chip on her shoulder
I was fairly unhappy during my first job, despite how much I was learning. I want to point this out because sometimes when you're learning stuff, you're also unhappy and you've got to take that hit just for the sake of learning.
A piece of advice from my dad when I started looking for a new job: "If you ask for a job, you’ll get advice. If you ask for advice, you’ll get a job.” The idea behind this is, when you come off desperate and needy, or just are, and you use people to get ahead––that reads almost immediately, so you're probably going to be met with some hard words.
On how she built Wimzē
When starting your own business, you need a high level of self-awareness and ability to acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. What I saw in Taylor, my former colleague and now business partner, were all the things I lacked which was a strong synergy that brought us together to start Wimzē.
Doing the work
In the early days, we actually took a lot of free work or low-cost work, just so we could build up some really strong case studies.
Her greatest asset
The beautiful thing is that my best tool was my kick ass business partner. We are so strong together, which is hard to find. We even did couples therapy to emphasize how committed we were to the relationship. We wanted to make sure that if there was something that was going to pull us through, it would be a solid foundation and the ability to lean on each other.
Relinquishing control
My greatest strength has become learning how to work through difficult conversations with my business partner. Vulnerability is key. Being able to say “What can I do better” or “Hey, I suck at this, can you help me become better?” is a greater strength than it is weakness.
Vulnerability helps you know when to relinquish control so that you’re taking action to benefit the business, not your ego. We did a lot of work around ourselves and becoming better business partners so that we were always able to put the company first.
