Meet the founder of Penny Finance, Crissi Cole, a veteran of Wall street and financial whiz. After college, she moved to New York City with a sh!t ton of student debt and was paying for rent on her credit card – even after growing up with a super-financially forward mom, studying finance in college, and landing that dream job at Goldman Sachs.
She figured it out without ever making a fortune or maxing out her 401k – with small intentional steps to trim down her loans and invest a little bit every year. Now she is on a mission to make financial advice more accessible to women who don’t yet have wealth. Because who wants to work till you’re 80? (No, thanks)
Tell us something about yourself: I am the founder and CEO of Penny Finance, an early stage fintech startup tackling the wealth gap. I am 32 years old, left-handed, live in Boston, am pregnant with my first child via IVF, and part-owner of my family ice cream business!
What inspired you to start Penny Finance?
One of my former colleagues at work was crying in a conference room because she didn’t know how to file her taxes (even though she was the most badass, whip-smart young woman) and it was in that moment I knew I needed to build a platform to demystify finance and investing specifically for women.
(We worked at Goldman Sachs, the mecca of finance, surrounded by arguably the best financial resources– and I still spent so much of my 10 years there teaching my women co-workers and friends how to invest their 401ks, how to pay down their student loans, and make the #s work)
It’s hard for women to start invest when they’re in debt. What can they do?
Get your arms around your debt, and then start small. It is so normal to look at your total loan balance and think holy shit there is absolutely no way I am ready to invest. But, that is not the case at all. Even if you have $100k in student debt (A LOT), your monthly payment is likely around $500. Focus on the $500 a month not the $100k total – game changer. And then try to invest even 20 bucks a month. Or $100 once. You can do it. That $100 could grow to $2,000 over your lifetime. Start small, one step at a time.
Can you share a few mistakes to avoid when investing?
- NOT investing your 401k or IRA. You HAVE TO invest your retirement accounts to build a nest egg big enough to retire. Contributing even the max every year doesn’t get you to the $1 million you need to retire. I see so many women doing the hard work of saving and contributing to their 401ks or IRAs, but not taking that extra step to invest the money. That is the magic piece.
- Listening to the media and the hype around “getting rich fast”. Please don’t feel like you have to be a crypto-trader or a stock day-trader or start-up investor to make money. Investing in a long term, lower risk, stock and bond investment portfolio is how you protect and grow your money over time. You don’t have to follow the stock market every day or hit big on an investment to grow your wealth.
- Understanding what you are actually investing in. This is why we built Penny. 70% of women opt out of investing – because they think it is too risky. Once you learn what the different investment options are, the worries go away. Education is the solve here.
Can you share a few tips on how to become more financially secure?
Knowing your numbers and leaning into your financial picture is by far the #1 thing you can do. Women are incredible investors, financial planners and money makers. But we avoid it at all costs. Without the information, how could you take action?
Practically speaking, first, know how much you have to spend every month to live (rent, insurance, car payment, etc), and back into if you have anything left over. With the left-over dollars, pay the minimum balance on your debts (excluding credit cards – if you have credit cards, please move them to 0% cards ASAP), open a 401k or IRA and contribute as much as you can to it, and set auto-pay and auto-transfer up on everything. And then spend the rest…. seriously… enjoy life and do the things you want to do. Just get your debt in order and save for retirement, first, and you are golden!
What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?
I pitched 70+ investors in venture capital last summer (a couple months after we launched our beta app). I didn’t get one yes. Not one. I was crushed. Looking back, that was a major blessing, and not a major failure.
I had spent 2ish months of countless hours and energy on this first attempt at fundraising when I really should have been 100% focused on learning from our beta launch, tweaking the beta app, building our marketing tech stack, understanding the themes of where our customers were coming from. Instead, I thought we could super-charge the business before we had the metrics– nope! Slow down, sequence it out, and remember you can’t build a business overnight.
And who knows – you might learn that you can fund your business without investors (like we did) if you focus on getting the product right, first!
Tell me about what you’re working on now.
We are building more self-powered financial tools for women who are pre-wealth on penny-finance.com, and expanding our education modules to cover the full gambit of life events women encounter from 18 – 65. We are adding more community features so our women can connect with and learn from each other. And we are also building a mobile app for iOS and Android. Oh, and I am growing my first baby (the hardest of all these things!)
How do you keep yourself updated? What are some of the websites or magazines or apps that you subscribe to or read regularly?
I can’t live without Trello. It is my happy place. We manage a 13-person team and stay on-top of it all with the organizational boards, alerts and lists.
I read CNN’s “5 things” every morning to stay up to date on the news, follow the financial markets via CNBC and MarketWatch, and read Inc. and Fast Company for entrepreneurship and leadership advice.
I “time box” everything in my calendar. I pick no-meeting blocks where I can be heads down doing work, and stack all my meetings back-to-back on certain days so I am not switching from Zoom to work to Zoom to work. This has made me incredibly efficient, and less exhausted.
What has been your key (or keys) to success?
Consistency and focus. 90% of starting and launching a company is in the little details and tasks that build and build and build on each other. Every week I focus on the 3 things I have to get done, and my team has to get done, and do it over and over again.
What is the best advice you have ever received? It’s not a race. Slow down. Enjoy each step in the journey. When you get to the “end” (whatever you think that end goal is in your mind) you will actually be really sad and want to go back and do it all over again.
If you could go back by ten years, what would be some of the top tips you would give our audience?
Put that extra 50 bucks into your retirement account or towards your loans, your future self will thank you. And take that trip with your girlfriends – you only live once and you are only in your 20s with no responsibilities once. I let my anxiety of having sooo much student debt rule my life. It all works out. Oh, and power through that analyst job or bite your tongue with that terrible boss. You gotta start somewhere and will learn so much from the tough times ☺
![From Music to Perfume: How did your background as a music teacher influence your transition into perfumery, and how do you incorporate your musical sensibilities into creating fragrances? I’ve always thought in terms of metaphors, and music has many that can be related to perfumery! Beyond just thinking in terms of top, middle and base notes [soprano/alto/tenor in choir], I approach each fragrant idea as a composition. When documenting my ideas, song structures often come to mind. As the scent brief is visited, I meditate on what the fragrance should convey - do I want to create an accord or a “chord” of fragrance note combinations? Do I want an a capella soloist (a particular ingredient to stand out more than others?) Many of my thoughts regarding song composition transfers to my scent formulation process, with me treating each note as an intentional soliloquy at some point.
Brand Origin: What inspired you to start Pink MahogHany in 2005, and how has your vision for the brand evolved since its inception?
An avid lover of all things pleasantly scented (with slight modesty), looking back in retrospect, it’s no huge surprise that I’ve created an indie perfume house with just an idea to provide unique options for those who may be sensitive to unnecessary pungency. Initially, I just wanted to evaluate various blends to note their aroma profiles when “played” together…it wasn’t until I had friends and family asking if I knew of brands that catered to those who may be on the more olfactory sensitive side, that I really began to take my research more seriously. In the almost 20 years that Pink MahogHany has been in existence, our micro visions for the brand have evolved to larger territory. Where Pink MahogHany used to only be a personal brand, we are now also a bespoke formulation service provider to other indie brands seeking unique fragrance offerings for their products. These products range from (but are not limited to) perfumes, candles, body butters and lip balms. Ingredient Transparency: You emphasize transparency and the use of desirable ingredients in your products. How do you select your ingredients, and what challenges have you faced in maintaining this standard?
Being an indie brand often comes with a set of assumptions and misconceptions - one of them being more negative than positive as it relates to ingredients used. There is a lot of “fluff” in the industry with labeling falsification. Because fragrance formulas are a trade secret, not every molecular breakdown of a material has to be noted on the ingredient label (it would be incredibly long), but we at Pink MahogHany™️ adhere strongly to the IFRA [International Fragrance Regulatory Association] regulations that state for common and potential allergens to be listed on our ingredient label. We’ve taken this a step further to also include these ingredients listed on our website to promote further transparency, all while protecting our intellectual property. Unfortunately, we’ve had companies to unethically sell lesser expensive “dupes” of our artisan perfumes, so as a way to create a better authenticity stamp, we make it our duty to be honest about our claims. If our perfume says “Rose Bulgaria”, it is in fact just that and not a component of rose being passed off as the source material. Collaborations and Custom Scents: Can you share more about your work with private label clients? What excites you most about creating custom scent solutions for other indie brands? I could easily sum this up in one word and say “Funding.” True, there is money out there, but I’m always thinking outside the box. Having a program that has an “Each One Fund One” mentality doesn’t exist (that I’ve been made aware of). Bootstrapping can be quite the challenge, even when you’ve reached the 6-figure mark annually. Competition to be seen and set apart is extremely high, so having quality packaging and branding is a must. There are lots of factors to consider, though when desiring to make upgrades. If there were a unique, tier-geared funding operation available, it would help perfume brands offset packaging and bulk material costs in the beginning stages.
Industry Challenges: What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced as an independent fragrance house, and how have you overcome them to grow your brand? As the brand continues on the path of organic growth, I would like to expand our reach into schools, offering perfumery as an arts elective for middle and high school. I’d love to partner with botanists, farmers and horticulturists directly to grow and source raw materials for the students to work with in the creation of tinctures. My passion is getting back to nature as best as possible, as nature was my first “scent experience” as a child. We would also love to witness our fragrance creations being used to scent model homes, our focus diffuser blends being used in automobile dealerships as well as partner with Air Bnb and boutique hotels that specialize in highlighting minority, indie brands. Personal Journey: How has your personal experience, particularly as a divorced mother and someone who has experienced the loss of a child, shaped your approach to life and your work in perfumery?
Because I homeschool my twin sons, we are together a lot more than most, so one thing we all do is have moments of sharing where a neutral “floor” is laid to converse about anything. Though they are quite communicative by nature, I realize that sometimes I can be in work mode so much that it spills over into what should be our quality time. My sons see the authentic me and learn how to communicate through seeing authenticity. I’ve learned not to feel as if I have to be the epitome of perfection but allow them to see my imperfections vulnerably but with discernment. Having had two traumatic experiences pretty close together has taught me how to truly slow down and enjoy the simplicities of life - igniting a spiritual aspect that I’ve always carried but never fully explored…until Kenji’s sudden passing (2018.) Grief has a way of catapulting us into a quest for more meaningfulness in both life and business. After Kenji’s passing and my processing through the initial stages of grief, I was able to incorporate our spiritual bond into Pink MahogHany by way of essential oil diffuser blends for both focus and sleep and most recently aromatic perfume elixirs. It’s been quite the process channeling the void of his physical presence, but I also have peace knowing he can be honored in a great way through scent. I noticed once I began to be more open and receptive to spiritual signs, synchs and “winks”, more ideas began to flow. It’s been this way since his transition. Emotional Expression: Fragrance is often tied to memories and emotions. How does your personal life influence the fragrances you create, and do you have a particular scent that holds special meaning to you? My creative process is much more alchemic now, and I include Kenji by talking out loud to him, believe it or not. I’m a firm believer that when our loved ones transition from the physical plane, they are still present - just in another form. I choose to keep his memory alive by not pretending he never existed (even if for a brief period of time). I am working (slowly) on a book and accompanying fragrance, but I know it will require me to revisit some memories I’m not quite ready for, so until then, his big brothers will launch their debut fragrance, The Peaceful Tiger (they chose the name.) I’ve learned that even in what we consider “small things”, our transitioned loved ones want to be recognized and acknowledged. When the twins and I designed their fragrance label (with a designer out of the country that didn’t know anything about me personally), we had issues with the graphic - so much so that the designer asked if they could rework the design. When they sent the proof for approval, the Tiger was not only younger but sleeping, with an uncanny, angelic resemblance to baby Kenji! Becoming more aware and being more sensitive to my intention for launching a fragrance has definitely made room for more divine situations like these to occur. Healing Through Scent: In what ways has creating fragrances been a form of healing or expression for you, especially after the loss of your son, Kenji Mwamba? I know my sons may not necessarily want to be perfumers, but they definitely have an entrepreneurial heart. My desire is that whatever they decide to pursue (acting, script-writing, music or architecture), they know that anything is possible with the right amount of determination, grit, belief and immersion. One reason I chose to homeschool is so they could enjoy learning without restraint and have ample time to devote to their own separate passions and it still be fun. They know Pink MahogHany is theirs if they want it (many, many years from now - lol), and we are already discussing business structures for whatever they choose their role to be once I retire. Work-Life Balance: How do you find balance between your professional responsibilities and personal well-being, and what self-care practices do you prioritize? I’m not just a perfumer; I’m also a consumer, and self-care is huge for me. I often take salt baths to reset my energy and clear my mind after being around large groups of people or free a long day. I’m a habitual perfume sampler, and I have so many to choose from to wear as my “nightcap.” Even if just for 10-15 minutes, I cherish each moment I’m able to have some “me-time.” When time and co-parenting schedules permit, I’m definitely on a flight somewhere to indulge in some delicious food and mouth-watering mocktails!](https://www.womenontopp.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/IMG_3812-1200x720.jpeg)
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