This is Help Wanted, the show that tackles all the big work questions you cannot ask anyone else.

I'm Jason Fyfer, editor-in-chief of entrepreneur magazine.

And I'm New York Times best-selling author and money expert, Nicole Lapin.

The helpline is Open.

Today on Help Wanted, I wanted to lift the M&N veil even more than usual. So I co-host this show and also a solo daily show money rehab and those shows and other

awesome business and finance shows are part of a network that I used my life

savings to build. Money News Network is more than my baby. It is me. When something bad happens with it, I feel bad, but like really, really bad. It affects me more than I ever thought. Now don't get me wrong I am

so proud to have not taken on investors. I am so so proud to have bootstrapped

through a crappy time for advertising that I had to navigate right out of the gate.

And I am extremely proud to be able to pay our lead, mean, badass team really well.

But it hits differently when all that money

comes essentially out of one banking portal.

I choose every day between spending on personal stuff and spending on stuff for the business and I think you know which wins

Make no mistake we are doing really well as a company and I have personally been able to build a rich full life that

Younger Lappin would be so proud of.

But self-funding this company has not only affected my net worth, my self worth in big ways. I know though I am not alone

here in a world that funding is hard to come by generally and most especially for female founders, there's a growing crew of us who not only

sacrifice sleep and friends as is often expected in startup land, but who feel the ups and downs of the business extra hard.

Because when you're self-funding, you and your business have no safety net but you.

So I wanted to talk more about this with one of my favorite self-funded founders Christina Stemple.

She started Farm Girl Flowers and she gets these feelings better than anyone. Christina Stumble, welcome to Help Wanted.

Thanks for having me, Nicole and Jason, I'm excited to be here.

...