This article was originally published in the Spring 2025 issue of ICON/REFINED. Grab your copy here. 

Written by Jennifer Yamnitz, marketing consultant and owner of Adance Marketing

Photography by James Patrick

In January 2023, I found myself dazed, sorting through what felt like the rubble pile of my professional aspirations. My carefully architected career plan came crashing down swiftly and unexpectedly in that corporate earthquake companies call an acquisition. 

Just five months earlier I had accepted a position to be the first marketing director for an education technology company. It was an exciting opportunity to work for a mission driven company with people who seemed to really like and care about each other. Most importantly, I believed I could make a significant impact in the company while doing important work in the world. 

The opportunity was enticing enough that I turned down two other, higher-paying offers when I signed on. So, when I found out in January 2023 that the company had been acquired and everything that had inspired me to take the job had been obliterated, I felt like the earth had shattered beneath me.

If you’ve ever worked in a company that has been acquired, you know the kind of disorientation and emotional upheaval that follows. During those early days of anxiety and confusion, I decided to hold true to the commitment that I had made to myself when I first took the job: This would be my last corporate job because deep down I really wanted to start my own business. I had imagined a gradual, five-year transition—not an overnight free fall—but I chose to see the situation as the universe giving me a painful kick in the pants to pursue my dream.  

“I chose to see the situation as the universe giving me a painful kick in the pants to pursue my dream.”

Starting From Zero

The early days of building my business, Adance Marketing, were hard: I was still reeling from the acquisition experience; I had no business plan; I didn’t even have a website. I was freaked out about losing my regular paycheck and funding my new business from my personal bank account with no guarantee that anyone would hire me. It was a lot. All I could do was hold on to the knowledge that I had proven myself to be a successful marketer in every job I’d held in the past and have faith that I would figure it out this time too. 

One thing that I kept coming back to was how sad it made me that the company that I had been working for had to sell because it was the best option for continued funding. In the few months that I was there, I uncovered several significant marketing issues that I am confident contributed to missed revenue goals. I still believe the mistakes could have been avoided if the company had brought on an experienced marketer years earlier. That knowledge motivated me. I knew that I wanted to do what I could to keep other small businesses from the same fate.  

Finding My People

The momentum really started to pick up when I decided to focus on woman-owned businesses. I had worked in tourism, higher ed, and ed tech—so many possible niches. But the more I explored, the more I felt drawn to women entrepreneurs.

As I started working with them, my research confirmed what I already suspected: Women often feel misunderstood in business. Some navigate industries where there are still gender barriers, and many struggle to balance the demands of entrepreneurship with being the primary caretaker of kids and household duties. 

Most importantly, I saw an unmet need that I felt I was uniquely positioned to fill: marketing education for women entrepreneurs. As a female entrepreneur myself—with a master’s degree in marketing and a decade of work experience in education-related fields—it seemed like the perfect fit. 

“While I am just starting my third year in business, I feel like I am finally doing what I was put on this earth to do.”

The BFF Brand Academy

In October 2023, I began working on a digital course to help entrepreneurs with marketing. As part of an accountability pod including other female entrepreneurs, I started to get a clearer picture of what marketing knowledge and skills new entrepreneurs need to acquire to have better results with their own DIY marketing efforts. 

Through the year-long process of working on the course, pivoting, iterating, and refining, I also realized that women have some innate skills that can be marketing superpowers: empathy and relationship building. There have been several scientific studies in the past two decades that have shown that overall women perform better than men in tests related to these skills. 

That’s how I landed on the name the BFF Brand Academy for my digital course name. My goal with the course is to teach women how to leverage their natural relationship-building skills to create strong small business brands. By combining those skills with marketing fundamentals—including target audience research, differentiation, and competitive analysis—I hope women will finish the course with a new sense of confidence in their marketing abilities as well as solid, research-backed branding knowledge. 

The first cohort of students just launched last month in February 2025. At press time, we are in the middle of the seven-week course, and I’m walking the students through the steps of creating tangible brand assets that they can use in their marketing communications.

Even though the first cohort size is small, the process of creating my course has been immensely rewarding. I’ve gained so much clarity about who I want to work with, my unique point of view, and developing content ideas around my topic. The initial launch was also a huge learning experience, and I am immensely grateful for all I’ve learned throughout the process.

While I am just starting my third year in business, I feel like I am finally doing what I was put on this earth to do, and I am excited to use my skills and knowledge to help women thrive.