[Women Presidents’ Organization Series] Bring It to Life

Lara Nikola is the Founder and President of Smart Sips Coffee, an exciting brand of unique flavored coffees, decaf, lattes, cappuccinos, and hot chocolate. She is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been featured on Good Morning America, where she swam with the sharks from Shark Tank. She has been interviewed on Fox and Friends, Money Magazine, and iHeartRadio. Lara was featured on the cover of NJBIZ and in ROI-NJ. Her products have been featured in US Weekly and Reader's Digest.

Lara left her corporate advertising career eight years ago to start Smart Sips Coffee and has grown the company into a successful national brand. Her diverse marketing expertise helped her level the digital playing field and compete in the highly competitive coffee space. She created a niche building a brand based on creativity, innovation, and products that insert excitement into the daily coffee drinking routine. She is a member of the WPO, Women Presidents' Organization, and a Women's Business Enterprise National Council certified company. Through her exemplary leadership, exceptional community advocacy work, and sustainable competitive edge, Lara has received numerous outstanding accolades and recognition. She is a New Jersey native, wife, and mother of two.

In this episode…

Building a new business can be very challenging for first-time women entrepreneurs, especially if they don't have a supportive community of fellow business owners. Some people may not understand what the entrepreneur is trying to build and may even try to discourage them from pursuing their dreams.

Having gone through this same challenge and learning from experience, Lara Nikola empowers other women and helps provide the resources they need to build successful businesses. She advises and encourages them to keep moving forward despite all the obstacles they face in their entrepreneurial journey. She also encourages them to embrace failure, pivot when things hit a wall, and pay attention to what their customers say.

Lara Nikola, the Founder and President of Smart Sips Coffee, joins Andrea Heuston in this episode of the Lead Like A Woman Show, where she talks about building a flavored coffee brand and empowering women leaders. Lara also explains why she became an entrepreneur and talks about some of the challenges she has faced scaling her business. Stay tuned for more!