How Pearl Spark Pages Founder Lisa Simone Richards Is Building Something Sustainable in the Messy Middle

A year ago, Lisa Simone Richards had 1,000 journals delivered to her door. Today she is down to her last 50.

It's a milestone worth celebrating, but ask Lisa what it feels like, and she will tell you that she's in the messy middle of it all. “We’re stuck in that hard space between the need to do a reorder, but not yet having the cashflow for it.”

Welcome to the foundation year.

Lisa is the founder of Pearl Spark Pages, an elevated stationery and guided-journaling brand for female founders, focused on helping women entrepreneurs build confidence and self-belief. She is a member of The Entreprenista League, and right now she is living out the chapter almost no one posts about.

What the foundation year really looks like

The start of a product-based business is the glamorous part. You design the product. You choose the packaging. You launch the website and watch the first orders roll in. It photographs beautifully. Then the launch high fades, and the real work begins.

“Last year I was coming up with the idea and launching it, and that was super cool,” Lisa says. “Now I’m in the stage of growth where I want things to be repetitive, consistent, and boring.”

This is the season where a business is actually built. It is less about the next big idea and more about reorders, conversion rates, and creating standard operating procedures. It rarely makes for an exciting Instagram post. But it is exactly what creates a sustainable business.

Why discipline beats expansion for women-founded companies

Lisa has a big vision for Pearl Spark Pages. She’s inspired by what Intelligent Change, the company behind the Five Minute Journal, has created and she’s building her business specifically to serve women founders. She already knows the next products that she’ll be adding to her line.

And, she is choosing to wait.

“Intelligent Change focused exclusively on the Five Minute Journal for their first two years in business before they ever launched new products. They solidified their brand, what they were known for, and got good at building their business before getting distracted by adding new SKUs,” she says. “I’ve only sold 1,000 units so far. Not to minimize it, but there are so many more people to reach and processes to master before I complicate the business.”

That is the discipline this stage requires. The temptation is always to add more products, more offers, more launches. The smarter move is to go deeper on the one thing that is already working before building the next thing. Consistency is what separates the founders who are still here in five years from the ones chasing the next trend. Boring and consistency works.

Finding your people in the foundation year

The hardest part of this stage is the comparison. So many of us are working from home or with tiny teams, watching everyone else seemingly moving forward faster.

What helps is community. In Toronto, Lisa is part of a WhatsApp group chat with 250 women founders and she also makes it to at least one or two founder events every week. Those rooms remind her she is not building alone. If you are in your own foundation year right now, doing the unglamorous work and wondering if it counts, here is your reminder: it does.

No one should ever have to build a business alone. If you want to find founders who understand exactly where you are, you can join us inside The Entreprenista League.