A Mother Chooses Herself And Sparks A Movement For Women To Be Seen with Krystal Jugarap

A cluttered jewellery shelf became a doorway to entrepreneurship, and a new mum’s need for creativity became the spark for a movement. Mel sits down with Krystal Jugarap, a two-time founder, brand visibility strategist, award-winning speaker, and mum of three. Krystal unpacks how a simple product idea led to Book of Bijoux and then to EM/POWEREDbyWMN, a fast-growing platform that gets women founders seen on stages, in stores and across media.

We dive into the practical engine behind visibility: building an open, user-friendly directory that helps people discover women-owned brands by identity and category; creating vendor markets and pop-up programs that connect makers to brick-and-mortar partners; and opening doors to speaking and press opportunities that accelerate credibility. Krystal breaks down what makes support truly accessible for small business owners, why many marketplaces exclude early-stage founders, and how to design resources and pricing that don’t punish women for starting where they are.

The heart of the conversation is mindset and modelling. We talk frankly about mum guilt, the cost of trying to keep every ball in the air, and why choosing yourself isn’t selfish, it’s a lesson your kids will carry for life. You’ll hear simple practices for asking for help before burnout, carving out ten minutes to refill your cup, and letting go of the “super-parent” badge so you can focus on what matters. If you don’t have family support, Krystal shares concrete ways to find or build the room where support exists, from free communities to strategic investments that pay compounding dividends.

If you’re craving community, clarity and the courage to be visible, this conversation gives you tools and proof you don’t have to wait for permission. Follow Krystal @IamKrystalJ on Instagram and explore @empoweredbywmn for directories, events, and their upcoming Bay Area summit. Enjoyed the chat? Subscribe, share with a woman who needs a boost, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 2:24 From New Mum To Product Founder
• 5:20 Creating Community To End Lonely Business
• 9:40 Visibility As A Growth Engine
• 13:10 Accessible Support And Real Connection
• 16:30 Asking For Help And Avoiding Burnout
• 20:30 Choosing Yourself And Modelling It For Kids

Transcript

Mel: 0:24

Welcome to Beyond Organised, the podcast that helps you simplify your life and amplify your purpose. I'm Mel Schenker, life coach, speaker, founder of She's Organised, but, more importantly, a wife and mum of four little kids. If you've ever felt overwhelmed, like you're constantly juggling everything but never quite catching up, this is the place for you. Here we go beyond just the tidying up and creating systems. We're talking about real life strategies that bring order to your life, but also we talk about the things beyond the organising, the things that really matter, like your parenting relationships and so much more. So grab your coffee and let's dive in.

Mel: 0:59

Welcome back to another episode of Beyond Organised. I have Krystal Jogarat here with me today. I'm going to give you, well, probably a decent bio this time on who this lovely woman is. So Krystal is a two-times founder, brand visibility strategist, award-winning speaker, podcast host, philanthropist, community hype woman, and most importantly, mum to two little girls and a baby boy. Through the Empowered by Women platform, she continues to cultivate a community that uplifts women in their entrepreneurship through vendor fairs, networking events, annual summits, virtual workshops, and the Empowered by Women podcast, their online woman-owned small business directory, which now highlights more than 100 women-owned brands and so much more. Their community is all about creating space for visibility, connection, and shared resources. It's Krystal's mission to remind women and future generations that they are not only capable but so worthy of creating lives and businesses they love. I really love your statement. Welcome to the show, Krystal. Welcome.

Krystal: 2:08

Thank you, Mel. I am so excited to be here and I'm excited to dive into whatever we're about to chat about today.

Mel: 2:16

Yeah. Look, I just want to know more about you. Like what inspired you to do what you're doing, particularly with the Empowered by Women?

Krystal: 2:25

Oh my gosh. Okay. So I know we have very limited time, so I'll try to keep it brief. But really long story short, I knew I was going to be an entrepreneur since I was in high school. The crazy thing is, I grew up fairly traditionally and I didn't have any entrepreneurial role models around me. So to kind of itch that entrepreneurial scratch, I would take on these jobs that felt like they were giving me some kind of autonomy, right? Fast forward, I became a new mom. One of my past jobs was selling jewelry, and I had amassed so much jewelry. And my way back to myself as a new mom, because we all know we kind of go through that process, was creativity. I grew up in a very creative household. And so one day, seeing all of this jewelry just completely overtaking my shelf, I was like, okay, we need to do something about it because this is a very valuable space that we need, especially, you know, with all the kids' toys and clothes and things. I need to take back that shelf space. And as every entrepreneur's story goes, you know, I tried to find a solution online to fit all my jewelry, couldn't find one that I liked. So I decided to create one for myself. And so that's what led me to launching my product line, Book of Bijou. And in that, in making that decision to launch my business, it just made me think of the community I once had selling jewelry, where we were surrounded by so many incredible women that were doing the same thing, that were very ambitious and supportive of each other, and the energy was just immaculate. So I said, How do I recreate that community for myself? Because I was adamant that entrepreneurship was not going to be lonely for me. I know it's a it's a it's a notion that is out there that's commonly stated, but that was not gonna be my story. So I said, How do I start getting women together in person? And obviously building a brand from scratch, you have to recognize the power of leveraging existing audiences. I mean, you know very well with your podcast. So with my product line, that's what I was doing. I was leveraging existing audiences with joint giveaways and things like that. But it really got to a point where, again, I want to have some amazing women in my circle. I want to take this relationship a little bit further and actually get to know the people that I'm collaborating with. So I kind of that casually turned into our podcast. We I just started interviewing them for fun. And then it took on another layer of how do I get these women together in person. We hosted one market in 2022. And although I had no intention for Empowered by Women to Turn Into a Business, that really solidified us as an emerging community where I saw other women basically saying, We need more of this, we need this community, we need this energy, we need this opportunity to connect with one another. And I got to bring my two daughters at the time, which was a very surreal experience because again, I didn't have that kind of role model. I didn't have that exposure to what else could be in life. And so that moment just was a really defining moment for the trajectory of Empowered by Women. It's kind of just naturally progressed from there.

Mel: 5:26

Oh, that is so cool. And yeah, it there is something that happens inside of you when you realize I am stepping into a different path than the generations before me. And I'm breaking free from that time is money, all that hard work. I mean, it this is hard work, don't get me wrong. Yeah, it's very hard work, but it's so rewarding in being able to see lives changed the way that we do. And the fact that you could bring your daughters along, yeah, you'd have that realization of going, you know, you're going to be so much further ahead than I am when the time comes for you to work out what you want to do with your life. You're not going to be limited to just certain careers through colleges or whatever else there is. You're going to see possibilities of so much more that you're not always exposed to when you're at school. So I think that's exciting because I've had that a very similar revelation with my kids just going, you know what? The world is your oyster.

Krystal: 6:30

And it's so beautiful, like seeing the light bulbs start, you know, flickering on in their own minds and seeing how their creativity kind of ties in with all this imagination you're opening up for them.

Mel: 6:42

Yeah, for sure. And I'm seeing it in my nine-year-old, he's he's got entrepreneur written all over him. The ideas, the things that come out with, I'm like, we're gonna have to get you started sooner than later. I think I know. It's just it's it's incredible. And um, I certainly didn't have anything like that growing up. Even though my dad ran his own business, it was still the traditional he was a mechanic, you know, open a shop, work, do all of that kind of stuff. So this whole online world is just it's taken off. It's completely different. Yeah. So I'm curious as to how you help women in what you do through your summits and your workshops and that. How do you help the women that you serve?

Krystal: 7:32

So it really started with visibility. That is and that remains one of our core focuses and how we're supporting our women. So the event that we hosted in 2022 was a vendor market. So we had 20 women vendors, which was amazing. And from there, after that event, I got so many messages asking me, do you know anyone that sells this? And do you know anyone that sells this? And do you know anyone that sells this? And I was always like, honestly, I go down an Instagram rabbit hole, clicking on hashtags, looking at who's following who's following who, and finding my people that way. And being very solution-oriented, I was like, okay, there gotta be a better way. Yeah. So we started by launching our online directory, which we decide uh designed to make it very intuitive, very user-friendly. It's open to the public. It's not just members only, but you can also go on there and be very intentional. So if I'm I'm Asian, so if I wanted to find an Asian-owned jewelry brand that I wanted to support, um, or maybe for, you know, if I wanted to find a Latino-owned brand because it was Hispanic Heritage Month that I wanted to support, I could go on there and do that. So it was really about making it more accessible for the community to find and support these women-owned brands. And from there, we started attracting all of these service-based providers for some reason, which was amazing. But they started seeing me doing more speaking engagements and that conversation started of, oh, I want to be a speaker too. Like, how are you getting on these stages and how are you finding these opportunities? So we really expanded the way that we're offering our visibility from just vendor markets. We also have our pop-up program where we're connecting vendors to different brick and mortars, and now we help them get on stages, whether it's empowered by women's stages or we're partnering with other organizations and event organizers, and also giving them access to media opportunities. So the visibility is one aspect of it. The next aspect is really just making support, education, resources, experts more accessible. And there are so many directories and marketplaces out there, but some of them really just aren't feasible for small business owners. And as women, we already have so many hurdles we face and expenses and living life. Yeah. And then grow a business on top of that, that that's really one of our core values. How do we make things as accessible as possible so that women, regardless of what stage in business they're in, they can feel supported? And then the third layer of that is really just cultivating these opportunities for genuine connection. And I say with my whole heart that we attract the most incredible, amazing women. And that's what makes it so special, is because the women that come in, they see the vision and they truly want to support each other.

Mel: 10:14

So powerful when it when you've got the right people aligned to your goals and your visions because it just it just works like clockwork. It's so good.

Krystal: 10:25

It is, and we as women need that, honestly. And there are so I mean, very beginning of my entrepreneur stage, I had to have that conversation of with myself of, hey, Krystal, like it's okay to ask for help. We need to start getting comfortable asking for help because we just inherently we we naturally try to do everything for everyone and put ourselves last. And we continue to take on the load and take on the load, take on the load, and then wonder why we're so exhausted at the end of the day and feeling unfulfilled and feeling like we don't have time for anything because we don't let anyone come in and support us.

Mel: 11:01

Yeah. Oh, 100%. That's exactly what I say to all my clients all the time because you know, we have our to-do lists or whatever, and we put our own needs at the very bottom. We never get through the list, so we never get seen to. It's just it's never-ending, you're always busy, but what have you got to show for it kind of day? And it's just it's draining and it's it's discouraging too. Because you just, you know you're capable of more, you can give more, you can do more, but you're just so exhausted from and then yeah, and it does feel disturb discouraging because you feel like you've done so much yet you haven't done anything. Yeah. You haven't done anything that matters. Yeah, at least in your mind.

Krystal: 11:47

Yeah. Right. Or anything even that you like want to do. Yeah. Because you've made it a point in your own head that everything else comes before your own wants and desires.

Mel: 11:58

Yeah, definitely. I always encourage people to, particularly the mums, to spend at least 10 minutes a day pouring into themselves, pouring into their own cup, because you can't pour from an empty cup. So you're going to end up enjoying your day more, you're going to be more productive, you're going to be more efficient in what you do because you're recharged. It's it's like, yeah, driving a car and running out of fuel and you're just sitting on the motorway waiting for help. You don't want to get to that stage. You want to be refueling along the way.

Krystal: 12:31

So exactly. And I really do look at the work that I do as a form of self-love and self-care because the women that I'm surrounding myself with, they empowering I said, are amazing. Yeah. And it feels like so fulfilling to be in this space. So that even if I have to step away for work, I don't come back feeling exhausted and drained. And I could be tired, but I'm tired from doing the things that I love and that license. So that I can come back to my kids and my family more patient and more engaged than ever before when I was going to a job that was even more draining that I absolutely did not like.

Mel: 13:07

Yep. Completely agree. Completely agree. It's a different level of exhaustion and tired. It's a real satisfied, I feel so good in what I've achieved and what I'm doing. And yeah, I get it. I really do. So, what do you find is holding women back in moving forward in their future, in maybe pursuing their goals and dreams? What do you find is sort of the main thing that holds them back?

Krystal: 13:35

I really do think the biggest thing for us as women, especially as moms, is that it's hard for us to put ourselves first.

Mel: 13:42

Yeah.

Krystal: 13:43

And for me, it really was a conscious choice that I made when I launched my business because for so long, up until that point, I had been doing everything everyone has asked me to do. And doing things. Well, I've I'm still I've always been kind of very untraditional. So there were still moments that, you know, I kind of followed my own untraditional path. But other than that, I did, I checked all of society's boxes and I made a conscious choice one day. I was head home and I was, you know what? I'm gonna start betting on myself. I'm gonna start living life my way. I'm gonna do things my way. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna create the life that I've always wanted for myself, but I've never allowed myself to step into because I've let everyone else's opinions and thoughts and visions for my life be the dictating factor. Yeah.

Mel: 14:32

Yeah. But it sounds like what I've gone through recently. Sounds like something I could just say.

Krystal: 14:32

Exactly. But at some point we have to honor ourselves. And that's a hard decision to make. And it's honestly a decision that we have to keep making over and over and over again. It's constantly. And it's hard, it's hard communication with yourself. It's hard conversations to have with your family, but it's consistent conversations that you need to keep on having so that it becomes a little bit easier every day to keep stepping into that woman that you want to become and that life that you want to have.

Mel: 15:02

Yeah. Oh, that's so so true.

Krystal: 15:04

I think regardless of anyone that's listening, whether they've got their own business or not, these are concepts that are worth grasping and getting your head around that it is so important to ask for the help, to put yourself first and just think about the direction in where you want to go as well, because you've got little ones potentially that are watching and learning and and they're gonna follow what you do as well to a certain degree. You know, they're gonna copy. So it is important. Um and the one thing that I say, because mom guilt, parent guilt, I don't know if your audience is just women, but parent guilt truly never goes away. There's always gonna be lingering guilt in all of those moments that come up. And one thing that I love to share with the people that bring that question up of like, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with putting yourself first in all the guilt that comes with it? Is you're not just choosing yourself, you're showing your family that they're allowed to choose themselves too.

Mel: 16:06

Yeah, 100%. Definitely. Because what message are we sending our children? If we don't ever look after ourselves, we don't go for our own goals, our own dreams. We're telling them that, oh, you can have your dream, but when you grow up, that's it. Then your dream's no longer realistic, right? It's no longer valid, it's not worth anything. You then have to sacrifice your dreams and your future and your happiness for your children. Well, they're gonna go, well, I don't want children then. Like whatever, you know? And I want to be a grandparent. So it's it's what are we, what's the message that we're sending to our own children, let alone the other children that are out there too that are watching and learning from their own mums that we're helping here.

Krystal: 16:55

So I mean, there's I know your audience is not all entrepreneurs, but there's just so much knowledge that we can kind of indirectly impart into our children simply by the way that we're showing up for ourselves.

Mel: 17:08

Yeah, definitely. Yep. And like I said, you don't need to be an entrepreneur to be the role model that you want to be for your kids. Like even if you are slogging it out, working night shifts, you're doing this, you're doing that to make ends meet, to to provide for your family and still provide a future for them, then good on you. You are doing your bit. If you are at home staying with the children, raising them while your partner is out working and you are up all hours of the night feeding the baby, doing all of this, good on you. Like it is hard work, no matter what season, what stage you're at, what choices you've made. We are trying to do the best for our children, regardless of what choices. Whether we send them to daycare, we keep them home, whether we breastfeed, bottle feed, whatever, we're all doing the best that we can.

Krystal: 17:58

Yeah. It's about giving yourself some grace. Exactly. I love that. We're in sync. It's about giving yourself grace. And one thing that I learned that I heard someone say, I think it was at the beginning of the year, that no one's ever actually said out loud is that it's okay to drop the ball. And that was so powerful for me, and I'm sure it will resonate with a lot of your audience that we feel like we need to keep all of these balls in the air, but it's just not realistic. Yeah. And we don't need to have this super mom badge that other people have given to us. You get to determine what makes you feel fulfilled and how you want to show up as a parent, as a professional, as a partner, whatever it is. And it's okay if balls drop in different areas because that just means you were able to pour more time, love, and attention into the things that truly matter and that you want to.

Mel: 18:53

Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't, couldn't have said it better myself. So good. What is one thing that you wish more women knew? Obviously, besides the things we've already talked about, but what's one thing that you wish they knew looking forward to?

Krystal: 19:08

I want to say that there is, you know, that I'm I'm a community girly. I'm a community hype woman. That was that was part of my bio. I want to I want to say that there is support for everyone out there. And I say this because a lot of times the conversation could be about, you know, just ask for your partner, ask your partner for support, ask your family for support. Some people don't have that. And I want to be mindful of that. But just because you might not have that family or that partner or whatever, there is still support out there if you're willing to look and if you're willing to put yourself in the rooms.

Mel: 19:43

Yeah. And you're willing to invest in yourself a bit. Because sometimes, depending on the level of support, you it might come at a little bit of a cost, you know, financially or with your time or in in any other way. But if you're willing to go, I'm gonna put myself first, I'm gonna invest in myself and in my future, which in turn will see the dividends in my own children, then you go for it. I I think go for it because you can only get so much always doing things for free as well. You're only gonna get so much out of it. And there's amazing free communities out there for sure. But also look at where it is you want to go and what resources are available for that. And if it requires an investment of any sort, time can be a huge investment too. Then consider it.

Krystal: 20:35

And if you can't find one, create one. That's what I did.

Mel: 20:38

Yeah, yeah, that's it. Oh, well, I've pretty much done the same thing now that I think about it. Yeah. It's like I created a community that fits with what it is I was looking for that I couldn't find back then and now got over a hundred women in there, you know?

Krystal: 20:53

It's that's right. We get to create what our normal looks like. And that sounds like yeah, crystal shore, whatever. You really can. And it can start with just small steps, right? It can start with just okay, five minutes tomorrow. I'm gonna go for a walk. I'm just gonna have a quiet time. Right. That could be your self-care and just layer into that slowly but surely. And then a year from today, you'll find yourself in this whole new line by yourself. Right. Where it feels more aligned, more fulfilled, and you've recognized the power of giving yourself grace and the power of community. Yeah. 100%.

Mel: 21:34

Completely agree. Oh, I love this. I feel like I could talk forever. I know. Of course.

Krystal: 21:39

I was trying to be mindful of the time, but now, like, this has been so much fun.

Mel: 21:43

That's okay. Uh, it's it's always the way. We just get chatting, and then before you realize, time's just completely disappeared. But I've really enjoyed everything you've shared so far, and I'm sure the listeners have too. So, where can they find you if they want to hear more and see more of what you're doing?

Krystal: 22:03

So, my personal Instagram is @I am KrystalJ, Krystal with a K. And then if you're interested in our community uh women's platform that's @empowered by wmn, all one word, a women is spelled W M N. And that links back to all the websites. So follow us on there. If you're in the Bay Area in California, in the US, I know you're not in the US now, but if anyone in your audience is in California, we also have our second annual summit coming up in person, November 15th, and we'd love to have you join us.

Mel: 22:34

Perfect. Well, I can tell you now there are plenty of listeners that are in California and surrounding states. So I'm sure it's probably not too big a stretch to maybe drive or fly. It's gonna be worth it. Yeah. It'll be worth it, I'm sure. And all the details will be in the description there to make it nice and easy for those that are listening. But thank you so much for coming on today, Crystal, and just sharing your story and sharing what it is that you're doing to help women in this current season. Thank you so much.

Krystal: 23:05

Thank you, Mel. It was so much fun and we'll chat too. Definitely.

Mel: 23:10

If you like this episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you want to continue the conversation, you can connect with me on Instagram @shes.organised or for some free resources, head over to beyondorganised.com/ toolkit. Remember, organising is a tour to live the purposeful life of beyond it. See you next time.time.