Are you waiting to feel ready before you take the leap?
You might be waiting forever.
In this episode, I sat down with Virginia Frischkorn, serial entrepreneur and founder of Partytrick, to talk about what it really takes to start a business, scale it, and keep going when things get harder than anyone warned you they would be.
What Virginia shared completely reframes how we think about readiness, preparation, and what “overnight success” actually looks like behind the scenes.
About Virginia Frischkorn
Virginia Frischkorn grew up in an entrepreneurial family in which her father had his kids pitch him business ideas as children. Her entrepreneurial journey includes:
- Started her first company at 24 in Aspen, Colorado, with no formal plan
- Built Bluebird Productions into one of the top 50 event planning companies in the world, recognized by Vogue and Martha Stewart
- Scaled from $500K to $5M events through systems and documentation
- Ran four businesses simultaneously in the live event production space
- Lost her father in 2020 and completely rebuilt her professional life around purpose
- Founded Party Trick, a platform that helps people plan gatherings with ease
She is a psychology major-turned-serial entrepreneur, a mom of two, and someone who believes that bringing people together is one of the most important things we can do.
Her journey offers powerful lessons for any woman who is building something, thinking about starting something, or stuck in the cycle of over-preparation.
Key Takeaways: What Women Need to Know About Starting and Scaling a Business
1. Just Start, Even When You Don’t Feel Ready
When Virginia was 24, she was working in luxury hospitality in Aspen. She had no business plan, no roadmap, and no experience running a company. She was watching the people around her and thinking, “I can do this better.”
So she just started.
Virginia’s words: “I didn’t know what I was doing, but I just did it. And I think that’s almost every day. I still don’t know what I’m doing half the time. I mean, I have a plan, but then it changes, right?”
She didn’t wait until she had all the answers. She saved money from working multiple jobs, built a financial cushion, and launched. She went wide at first, testing 10 different concepts to see which one would stick. Event planning took off, and she built from there.
The lesson here is not “be reckless.” Virginia was financially responsible and thoughtful. But she didn’t let the absence of a perfect plan stop her from starting. And that’s the difference between women who build things and women who are still preparing to build things.
How to apply this:
- Ask yourself honestly: am I preparing because I need to, or because starting feels scary?
- Give yourself a deadline. Not “when I feel ready,” but an actual date
- Start with one small action this week, even if it’s just having a conversation about your idea
- Remember that Virginia built a globally recognized company starting from “I have no idea what I’m doing”
2. Stop Consuming and Start Doing
During our conversation, Virginia encouraged people to keep learning and reading, but also warned about a real danger that I know very well: becoming an information junkie.
I had to be honest on the episode and say, “I’m guilty as charged.” I’ve bought so many courses. I’ve consumed so much content. And a lot of times, it felt productive, but it was actually a way of avoiding the thing I was scared to do, which is just going out and doing it.
Virginia put it plainly: “Listen, but also just do it. Like you learn by failing forward.”
This is something I see again and again in the women I coach, not just when they start businesses. It shows up in careers, too. We tell ourselves we need one more certification, one more training, one more mentor conversation before we’re qualified. And while we’re consuming, other people are doing. They’re not more talented or more prepared. They just gave themselves permission to start before they felt ready.
How to apply this:
- Audit your “learning” honestly. Is it moving you forward, or is it a comfortable place to hide?
- For every hour you spend consuming content about your goal, spend at least an hour doing something toward it
- Accept that you will learn more from one month of doing than from six months of preparing
- Failing forward is still forward. Preparing forever is standing still
3. Systems and Documentation Are What Make Scaling Possible
One of the most practical and actionable parts of our conversation was about how Virginia scaled her business from $500K events to $5M events. And the answer was not “work more hours.” It was systems.
Virginia started documenting everything early on. Her processes, her workflows, every repeatable task. She initially used them to train her team, but she quickly realized that the documented systems could automate much of the work that was eating up everyone’s time.
She told me a story that I think every woman running a business or managing a team needs to hear. One of her team members was managing 60 weddings and working 80-hour weeks. She was completely overwhelmed. When Virginia looked at her Asana, she hadn’t touched it in a month and a half. They sat down together for two days, worked through the system, and that team member went from 80-hour weeks to 40-hour weeks. Same workload. She just started using the systems already in place.
Virginia’s insight: “It creates that standardization to then create customization on top.”
What that means is that systems don’t make your work less personal. They free you up to be more personal where it actually matters, whether that’s the creative side, the client relationships, or the strategic thinking that only you can do.
How to apply this:
- Start documenting your repeatable processes today, even if it’s just for yourself
- Look for patterns in your work where you’re doing the same thing over and over
- Invest time in setting up systems, even when it feels annoying upfront, the payoff is real
- Ask yourself: am I trading time for money, and what would it take to change that?
4. Build Relationships Intentionally and Systematically
Virginia shared something that surprised me. She uses Asana as a personal CRM to manage her relationships. She puts people on a rotation and proactively reaches out once a month. She keeps notes about their kids, where they live, details from past conversations. She links recordings from calls. She tracks over 500 brand relationships this way.
When I said it sounds very intentional and planned, she agreed. And she reframed something I think a lot of women struggle with.
We tend to think of relationship-building as something that should happen organically. When we hear “system for managing relationships,” it feels transactional. But Virginia flipped that entirely. The system is what allows her to keep it personal. Without it, she’d forget details, drop connections, and lose the personal touch.
Virginia’s perspective on “transactional” relationships: “If you treat people like people, and just as they are, strip away titles, strip away status, and you ultimately just foster that relationship person for person, you’re gaining that connection, that community, and from that people want to work with people.”
Her approach is to lead with “how can I help?” rather than “what can I get?” And the professional growth follows naturally from that.
How to apply this:
- Create a simple system to track your professional relationships, it can be as basic as a spreadsheet
- Set reminders to proactively reach out to key people in your network every month
- Keep notes after conversations so you can follow up on personal details
- Reframe networking from “transactional” to “investing in people I genuinely want to know”
5. Validate Your Ideas Honestly, Not Comfortably
Virginia recommended a book called The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, and the concept is brilliant in its simplicity.
If you take a business idea to your mom, your mom loves you. She’s going to tell you it’s amazing. Same with your friends. So how you do market research matters enormously, because you can accidentally surround yourself with people who just tell you what you want to hear.
Virginia admitted she defaults to this herself: “I definitely default and I go back to selling my baby the way I want to and actually not questioning people properly.”
The book teaches you how to ask questions that get honest answers instead of polite ones. How to remove the bias of people wanting to please you. How to actually figure out if your idea solves a real problem that people will pay for.
Virginia rereads this book every two years. That tells you something about how important honest validation is, even for experienced entrepreneurs.
How to apply this:
- Before you build anything, talk to real potential customers, not just friends and family
- Ask about their problems and behaviors, not whether they like your idea
- Look for evidence of pain, not just polite enthusiasm
- Read The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. Virginia says it’s essential, and I’m adding it to my list too
6. Everything Takes Longer Than You Think, and That’s Normal
Virginia was very direct about this, and I appreciated her honesty. Everything takes longer. It’s always more expensive. People who say they love your idea don’t always buy it.
She compared building a business to having a child: “Everyone says it’s hard and then this love for your child is something that you can never know until you have one. Then you have a child and you’re right. That love is unlike anything else. And yes, it’s harder than you could have ever told me it was going to be, but more rewarding as well.”
And she called out the “overnight success” myth directly. Those stories about companies that launched five months ago and already have a million users? Virginia said they’ve usually been building for five years. The announcement is just when the numbers looked impressive enough to share.
I think this applies to careers too. When you see someone get promoted quickly or land an amazing opportunity, you don’t see the years of quiet work, the relationship-building, the strategic positioning that happened before that moment became visible. Comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle will keep you stuck every time.
How to apply this:
- Budget more time and money than you think you’ll need. Then add more
- Don’t measure your progress against someone else’s highlight reel
- If you believe in what you’re building, keep going, even when it takes longer than you expected
- Develop self-care habits and lean on your community, because building anything meaningful is exhausting
My Personal Experience: When I Had to Break Free from the Employee Mindset
I shared something on this episode that I don’t talk about often. I grew up in an employee mindset home. Starting your own thing, taking that kind of risk, building something from scratch… it just wasn’t part of the conversation in my household.
And even now, after years of coaching women and running my own business, I still feel that conditioning. The pull toward safety. The voice that says “just get another job” instead of “build something that matters to you.”
When Virginia talked about growing up in an entrepreneurial family where her dad had them pitching ideas as kids, I realized how different our starting points were. She had permission built into her upbringing. I had to give myself that permission, and it took me years.
That’s actually what I see in a lot of the women I coach. It’s not that they don’t have the skills or the ideas. It’s that somewhere along the way, they absorbed the belief that starting something, putting yourself out there, leading without being asked, is not for people like them.
It is. You just have to give yourself that permission. Nobody else is going to hand it to you.
How to Apply These Lessons to Your Career or Business
If you’re thinking about starting a business:
- Stop waiting to feel ready. Set a date and take one concrete step before that date
- Talk to real potential customers before building anything. Read The Mom Test
- Start documenting your processes from day one, and systems will save you later
- Build a financial cushion, but don’t let “saving more” become another excuse to wait
- Find a community of people who understand what you’re building, lean on them
If you’re in a corporate role and feeling stuck:
- The pattern is the same: stop preparing and start doing
- Raise your hand for that project before you feel fully qualified
- Build relationships intentionally, don’t wait for networking events
- Ask yourself: Am I growing here, or am I just comfortable?
- The readiness you’re waiting for comes from action, not from more preparation
If you’re already building and scaling:
- Look for patterns in your work that can be systematized
- Build systems that free up your time for the work that actually requires you
- Invest in relationships the way Virginia does, intentionally and with systems to keep it personal
- Remember that it always takes longer, and that’s not a sign you’re failing
- Keep coming back to your “why” because that’s what sustains you when it gets hard
The Question Worth Asking: Why Am I Building This?
The throughline of my entire conversation with Virginia was a single question: Why am I building this?
She was forced to answer it when her father passed away. He was 67. He went to bed and didn’t wake up. And that loss made Virginia and her siblings stop everything and ask, “What are we doing? Why are we doing what we’re doing?”
You don’t have to wait for a crisis to ask yourself that question. Whether you’re building a business, growing your career, or just feeling stuck and unsure about your next move, that question is worth sitting with.
Virginia rebuilt her entire professional life around bringing people together the way her father did. That mission is what gets her out of bed at 3:30 AM to build software. Not the money. Not the recognition. The purpose.
So if you’re building something right now, or thinking about starting something, or wondering if what you’re doing is worth all the exhaustion, ask yourself: why am I building this? And be honest with the answer.
About Virginia
Virginia Frischkorn is the founder of Partytrick, a platform that helps people plan gatherings by telling them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Before Partytrick, she built Bluebird Productions into a luxury event production company recognized by Vogue and Martha Stewart. She scaled from boutique weddings to multi-million dollar brand activations, ran four businesses simultaneously, and then rebuilt everything with purpose after losing her father.
She is a psychology major, a serial entrepreneur, a mom of two, and someone who genuinely believes that connection is what matters most.
Follow Virginia: Party Trick
Book mentioned: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
Listen to the Full Episode
Want to hear the complete conversation with Virginia Frischkorn?
Listen to the full episode here where we dive deeper into:
- How she started a company at 24 with no plan and built it into a globally recognized brand
- The story of losing her father and how it changed everything about what she was building
- How she scaled from $500K to $5M events using systems and documentation
- The Asana hack she uses to manage 500+ relationships personally
- Why “overnight success” is almost always five years of work nobody sees
- The Mom Test and how to validate your business idea without people just telling you what you want to hear
- Why passion and purpose are the only things that keep you going when building gets hard
More Resources on Career Growth for Women
Read my personal story: I Wasted Years Waiting for Permission to Lead, a deeper dive into my own journey and what finally changed
Need support with your career or business transition? I coach women in tech to grow into leadership roles without losing themselves. Learn more about coaching
About the Author: Limor Bergman Gross coaches women in tech to grow into leadership roles. She hosts a weekly podcast featuring conversations with women leaders and shares personal insights on career growth and leadership development.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I start a business when I don’t feel ready?
You start anyway. Virginia Frischkorn started her first company at 24 with no business plan and no experience. She saved money, built a financial cushion, and just began. The key insight from our conversation is that readiness doesn’t come before action. It comes from action. Start with one small step, have a conversation about your idea, document your skills, and research your market. You’ll learn more from doing than from any amount of preparation.
How do you scale a small business without burning out?
The answer, based on Virginia’s experience scaling from $500K to $5M events, is systems and documentation. Start documenting your repeatable processes early, even if you’re a team of one. When Virginia’s team member went from 80-hour weeks to 40-hour weeks just by implementing the systems already available to her, it showed that burnout is often a systems problem, not a workload problem. Automate the repetitive work so you can spend your time on the creative and strategic work that actually requires you.
What is the best way to build professional relationships?
Be intentional and use systems to keep it personal. Virginia uses Asana as a personal CRM to track relationships, keep notes on people’s families and interests, and set reminders to proactively reach out. Her approach is to lead with “how can I help?” rather than “what can I get?” and to treat professional relationships the same way you treat personal ones. The system isn’t what makes it transactional. The system is what allows you to stay personal at scale.
Is “overnight success” real?
Almost never. Virginia was very direct about this. The companies that announce they hit a million users five months after launch have usually been building for five years behind the scenes. The announcement comes just as the numbers look good enough to share publicly. Most successful businesses, especially in tech, took years of quiet, unglamorous work before they appeared to “pop” overnight. Knowing this can help you stop comparing your journey to someone else’s highlight reel.
How do I validate my business idea before investing time and money?
Virginia recommends The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. The core concept is that if you ask your mom whether your business idea is good, she’ll say yes because she loves you. The same is true for most friends and family. The book teaches you how to ask questions that get honest answers, how to focus on people’s actual behavior and problems rather than their polite opinions, and how to remove the bias that comes from people wanting to please you. Virginia rereads it every two years because honest validation is that important.
How do I find my purpose as an entrepreneur?
Virginia’s purpose became clear when her father passed away at 67. That loss forced her to ask, “Why am I building this?” and the answer reshaped her entire career. You don’t need a crisis to find your purpose, but you do need to ask the question honestly. Virginia’s advice is that money alone won’t sustain you through the hard parts of building a business. You need a “why” that’s bigger than just earning a living, something that gets you out of bed at 3:30 AM even when it’s exhausting.
What tips do successful women entrepreneurs give for starting a business?
Based on Virginia’s experience and our conversation, the key tips are: just start, even before you feel ready. Talk to real potential customers, not just friends who will tell you what you want to hear. Document your processes early so you can scale later. Build relationships intentionally using systems. Budget more time and money than you think you’ll need. Develop self-care habits because building a business is exhausting. And keep coming back to your “why,” because passion and mission are what sustain you when things get hard.
How do women overcome the fear of starting a business?
Virginia grew up in an entrepreneurial family, so starting a business felt natural to her. But as someone who grew up in an employee mindset home, I know how real that fear is. The women I coach often aren’t lacking skills or ideas. They’re lacking permission. Somewhere, they absorbed the belief that taking risks and putting themselves out there isn’t for people like them. The truth is that permission rarely comes from someone else. You have to give it to yourself. And the fear doesn’t go away before you start. It goes away because you started.