Anne Dougherty sits down in Cartel Coffee Lab downtown with about 45 minutes to spare before she needs to pick up her 7-year-old daughter and head to roller derby practice.
Dougherty, 37, co-founded the energy consulting and research firm Illume almost four years ago. On the side, she skates with Vice Squad, a Tucson Roller Derby team. She's the head of sponsorship for the league.
On skates, she goes by Sock-it Wench (Energy. Derby. Get it!?) Her daughter, who is just beginning junior roller derby, is Pocket Wench.
The Sock-it Wench with the Pocket Wench.
Dougherty started skating in Ann Arbor, Michigan about six months before she and business partner Sara Conzemius launched Illume. Derby made her braver, bolder and unafraid to fail. Exactly what she needed to leave a steady job and venture into the unknown.
Dougherty and Conzemius started Illume to provide more intimate and innovative consulting in an industry they felt was becoming increasingly controlled by "mega consulting firms," says Dougherty, who focuses on marketing and promotion work for Illume.
They do research and consulting to help clients figure out how people use energy, how to improve existing programs and how to make energy use and infrastructure more efficient. Clients include utilities, state governments and federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy.
Beyond providing more specialized service, Dougherty and Conzemius also wanted an alternative in an industry they considered male-dominated.
"We saw that women, particularly in science and consulting, were being overlooked for promotions because they were getting sandwiched between caregiving for kids and caregiving for parents or just having young children and often feeling like they needed to step back from a demanding job..." Dougherty says. "There are so many talented women who are not given opportunities that work with their skills and expertise. We wanted to build a model that honored that and said, 'We know that you have a lot going on in your life and you're juggling a lot, but we also know you're incredibly productive and incredibly effective and good at what you do. We'll give you the flexibility you need and support you in your life and give you a great job and the level of responsibility that you deserve."
They anticipated maybe having five or six employees by year five. Illume turns 4 in September, and Dougherty estimates they will have close to 20 employees and offices in Tucson, Wisconsin, Oregon, Vermont, California and Washington, D.C. Conzemius works in the largest office in Madison, Wisconsin. The company was ranked in the top 15 of Women-Led Disruptive Businesses to Work for in 2017 by executive resource company Ivy Exec. (And just for the record, a few men DO work for Illume).
Although Dougherty stepped away from roller derby for a few years as the business grew, she got back into it as a method of self-care after the family moved to Tucson in July 2015.
"The sort of work you have to do personally to let go of all of that pride and all of that fear can be really humbling and really help you with personal growth," she says. "You just let go of trying to be the best ... because to improve, you have to be honest with yourself, and it shows, because when you're learning to skate and falling down constantly, everyone knows that you don't know what you're doing."
We asked Dougherty to share with us a piece she wrote for the Illume website about how playing roller derby prepared her to start a business. Really, they have a lot in common.
What I learned about starting a business from roller derby
Anne Dougherty originally wrote this article for illumeadvising.com on January 5, 2016. She gave us the OK to post it here.
Before I started ILLUME, I started derby. I am convinced that if I did not go out on a limb to start skating (and to have the support and love of you get from the fresh meat process), I would not have had the heart to start my own company.
That said, after we launched ILLUME, I had to step back to get ILLUME off the ground. But now that I have an amazingly strong and talented team, I am skating again, and I love it. Here’s what I learned along the way:
1. Women can do anything.
Derby is a volunteer-driven, women-led and woman-affirming sport. Women organize the leagues. Women train each other. Women make the rules. Women built an empire that has its own governing association comprised of 329 leagues and 97 apprentice leagues (the current count in Women’s Flat Track Derby Association when Dougherty wrote the article). Leagues can have as many as six teams comprised of women. The sport supports derby-specific skate shops and enterprises and has even inspired a men’s league and a dedicated fan base. If I ever doubted that I could start a woman-owned and led business, derby erased those doubts.
Anne Dougherty, center, poses with a few of her teammates.
2. You will be terrified.
Is it terrifying to skate super fast and throw your body into other women? Yes. How about throwing yourself into a woman twice your size? Or a woman who clearly wants to take you down? Absolutely terrifying. Skate against an amazing team? Join a scrimmage with veteran skaters as a newbie? So scary! But you do it anyway, because that’s what you’re there to do. Take on giants. There is always a bigger firm, a more established team. Who cares? You don’t start a business to shy away from competition. You start a business to become a player.
3. You will fall down, hard.
In derby, if you let your fear of falling get the best of you, you will never bout. Some women have to learn to skate (at all). Others, like me, had to learn to skate for real. And then you have to learn to fall on skates, defend yourself on skates, take and receive hits on skates, etc. You fall all the time. ALL THE TIME. And you forget about it instantly. You get up, you skate. If I took every lost proposal or work bid personally I would have quit in the first two months. You have to learn from you losses but you also have to just let it go. You have to stay focused and move on because it will happen again and again.
4. Focus on what you are doing, not others.
If you waste any time in derby worried about what other people are doing you will quickly lose faith in yourself. As a new business, there is no point in trying to deliver the same thing as well-established firms or worry about who is trying to beat you, play you or undercut you. Like derby, you only get better if you focus on self-improvement and your own goals. Which leads to my next point.
5. You have to have heart.
Starting a business is not for the faint of heart. Nor is derby. This sh** is hard. There is no way around it. But you do it. Why? Because you want to be a part of something bigger. Because you want to challenge yourself. Because this life is short. You do it because you don’t feel alive unless your heart is in everything you do.
6. There is no should, only do.
There is no time for excuses in derby. You have to just do it. If you don’t practice, you won’t get better. If you don’t put the time in, you’ll get injured. The best skaters are not the naturally talented athletes. They are the most consistent athletes. Play derby long enough and you’ll see women who could barely stand in their skates become lead scorers for their teams. They show up. Every time. In business, you have to show up to be great.
7. You have to plan and commit to the plan.
Derby is demanding. Practices twice a week. League obligations and volunteer time. Playing derby and running a business require my village. It requires careful planning and communication with my husband so we have clear parenting expectations and carefully divided responsibilities. It requires that everyone on my team at ILLUME is in front of, and owning, their work and responsibilities. It requires that I plan it all out. Conferences, work trips, practices, my daughter's days off of school, Girl Scouts, soccer, vacations. I schedule out and work around my husband's work trip – even my business partner’s work trips and vacations.
8. It takes a village.
Derby wouldn’t happen if people were only focused on their personal success. The derby empire has been built by women who watch each other’s kids on practice nights, who carpool, who pick up dues for others who can't swing the payments in a given month. We all have to be cared for to do great things. Business is no different. At ILLUME, I need to have my team’s back and they need to have mine. We pull in on other people’s projects when it is needed, we work late when it has to happen and when things hit the fan for someone personally, or they simply need a break, we step up. You don’t ask questions, you just step up. This what it means to be a part of a village.
9. You will feel free.
I have always focused on excelling in response to other people’s expectations. But with derby, you have to let go of all of that. If you’re not having fun, it’s just too hard. It’s too much work. I realized quickly that if I didn’t laugh off my mistakes or relish the feeling of skating fast and hard (vs. worrying about how fast I am skating), I would trip up.
No one expects you to play derby. Just like no one expects a woman in her mid-30s with a great job to start a company in a male-dominated industry full of well-established firms. No one. But when you do it for your own reasons, you begin to feel limitless. You feel open and honest and vulnerable, and you’ll never feel more free. Like that peaceful state of bliss when you roller skate super fast and everything goes silent. You know that feeling? It's like that.
To learn more about Illume, visit illumeadvising.com. Learn more about Tucson Roller Derby at tucsonrollerderby.com. If you're interested in joining the league, there's an orientation Tuesday, July 25. Email recruiting.trd@gmail.com for more information.
