Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Ami Gosalia, Founder and CEO of Mondays, located in Los Angeles, CA, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

The Mondays brand is inspired by the late-90s cult classic Office Space, which appropriately noted – “someone has a case of the Mondays.” Flash forward to 2022, and here we are. Just about everyone has felt the Monday blues. 150 million American workers who work out of desks, vehicles, hospitals, assembly lines, and checkout counters know the experience far too well.

Our company and our brand is about bending that status quo and taking a different approach to work. We hope to turn “the Mondays” into something manageable, health-forward, and, where possible, a positive slice of your personal journey!

To accomplish these lofty goals, we’ve created an evidence-based innovation studio and organizational consulting platform that builds and deploys professional wellness solutions for the modern professional. Our brand new Mondays Marketplace also curates high-quality products for traditional and home office environments focused on your Mind, Body, Brain, and Space.

An example of a high-impact Mondays engagement is a project we launched with a 100+ employee non-profit based in the Bay Area, where we developed wellness-based interventions and delivered delight-oriented gifts to their remote employees. Based on the phenomenal feedback, it was a much-needed reset for their team and culture.

Tell us about yourself

While I’ve been fortunate throughout my career to work with mission-oriented companies where I had a genuine passion for the business, I also learned the hard way that de-prioritizing mental and physical well-being leads to negative outcomes, regardless of organizational alignment. As I opened up about this to others, I noticed I was having more and more conversations with friends, family, and even strangers about work-related burnout as a widespread problem that has only accelerated during the pandemic.

I started learning in detail that many workplace cultures across all workplace environments (traditional office or remote work, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, etc.) have yet to embrace the concept that quantity of work isn’t necessarily correlated to the quality of work. And I heard from so many that they felt their relationship with their work was broken or unhealthy. I knew this was a problem I wanted to understand better. That’s where Mondays was born.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

When we first started Mondays, we needed a Day 1 product to establish the brand and get us off the starting block. We landed on an idea around a fun and functional book for stressed and in-pain office workers. Despite zero experience in the space, we went to work and, within several months, secured a publisher to manufacture and distribute Mondays Moves around the world. I should also mention that I was seven months pregnant at the time. A few months later, the pandemic hit, and supply chains for our next series of products went haywire.

We kept moving forward, though, and opened up a new path to direct engagement with companies on organizational solutions. Because we started not with a specific product or business model but only with the mission of enabling anyone anywhere to have a healthy relationship with their work, we can be flexible around how we create impact. I’m proud that we’ve been able to adapt and stay nimble these last few years while never losing sight of that important overarching goal.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

There is always more to do… it’s all about prioritization and finding balance.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Talk to lots of people about the problem you want your business to solve. The voice of the customer is the one that matters most — if you’re solving a large, urgent, and valuable problem for them, you’re in the right place.
  2. Just start! And once you do, set up realistic mini-milestones that you can accomplish for days or (at most) a week at a time. Build accountability into this roadmap and celebrate your progress and momentum. There’s a lot you can do with little to no capital; you just have to keep moving!
  3. Surround yourself with people you can learn from and who complement your experience and skill sets. Also, people who dream big! They’re the ones who will push you higher.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Thanks to a wave of advocacy from various stakeholders along with competitive pressures from market-leading companies, it is now standard for organizations to support the physical health of their workforce. We strongly believe the next frontier of this movement should be mental health.

At Mondays, we encourage organizations of all shapes and sizes to invite their teams into a heart-forward conversation about mental health in the workplace and to listen. If you’re not in a leadership position where launching this effort is realistic, that’s ok too! Find a colleague who might be open to a discussion, and start there. Regardless of where it begins – taking that first step of introducing an open-minded and authentic discussion around work-related mental health is a critical part of any winning culture.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://mondays.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mondayslabs/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mondayslabs/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amigosalia/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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