Erika Ayers Badan is best known as the former CEO of Barstool Sports, but her story is about far more than one company or one massive exit.

In 2016, Erika stepped into a 12-person operation valued at roughly $15 million and became Barstool Sports’ first CEO. During her time there, the company grew into one of the most recognizable media brands in the country and was eventually acquired in a deal valued at approximately $550 million.

But this episode is not a step-by-step breakdown of how Barstool scaled.

It is the story of the woman who agreed to lead it.

In Season 1, Episode 5 of Fine, I’ll Do It, Faith and Jenn explore Erika Ayers Badan’s career, her leadership style, her experience as a working mother, the lessons from her book Nobody Cares About Your Career, and her next chapter at Food52.

We talk about:

• Why Erika accepted a job almost everyone warned her not to take
• What her years at Barstool Sports reveal about leadership, risk and resilience
• How she handled criticism, failure and working in a highly public role
• The career lessons behind Nobody Cares About Your Career
• How ambition and motherhood shaped her decisions
• Why leaving a successful chapter can be just as important as building one
• What we can learn from her move from Barstool Sports to Food52
• The takeaways mothers, founders and women in business can apply to their own careers

Erika’s story is a reminder that your career will rarely follow a clean, predictable path. Sometimes the biggest opportunities are the ones that make the least sense on paper.

This episode is about betting on yourself, doing the uncomfortable work, learning as you go and taking ownership of the career you want to build.

Fine, I’ll Do It studies the real stories of successful mothers in business—the risks, decisions, failures and lessons behind what they built.

Listen to Season 1, Episode 5 wherever you get your podcasts.Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Read Nobody Cares About Your Career by Erika Ayers Badan
Erika’s book is an honest, practical guide to navigating work, failure, difficult bosses, unexpected opportunities and the reality that no one will take greater ownership of your career than you.

https://www.erikaayersbadan.com/book

Subscribe to Erika’s Substack, Mule Media
Read Erika’s thoughts on work, leadership, motherhood, career changes and building a life that works for you.

https://erikaayersbadan.substack.com/

Join Work Like a Girl
Work Like a Girl is Erika’s community for professional women who want to connect, learn from one another and create value for each other at work.

https://www.worklikeagirl.com/

Support Fine, I’ll Do It

Enjoying the podcast? You can support Fine, I’ll Do It through Buzzsprout. Your support helps us continue researching, recording and producing in-depth business stories for mothers.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2614319/support

The Platform We Use to Build FIDI

We use GoHighLevel to manage the Fine, I’ll Do It website, landing pages, email list, automations and The Group Chat community—all from one platform.

We recommend GoHighLevel for business owners who are tired of piecing together separate tools for their website, email marketing, customer management, funnels, courses and community. Having everything connected in one place makes it easier to follow up with your audience, automate repetitive tasks and build a more organized customer journey.

Learn more and try GoHighLevel here:

https://www.gohighlevel.com/?fp_ref=vineyard-village-12

Disclosure: The GoHighLevel link above is an affiliate link, which means we may earn a commission if you sign up through it, at no additional cost to you. We only share tools we genuinely use or believe may be valuable to our listeners.

Stay Connected with Fine, I’ll Do It

Join The Group Chat for private mini episodes, practical business resources, AI tips and behind-the-scenes conversations for mothers building businesses.

https://www.wearefidi.com

Support the show

Find us at @WeAreFIDI

Episode every other week

This Mom entrepreneur found a corner of the internet nobody else wanted — and built a real business there. In this episode, we break down how one mom turned a topic most people would never think of into a following, a brand, and an income (actually 3 income streams) and what it actually took to get people to trust her enough to pay for it.

We get into the early doubts, the pricing mistakes, how she found her first paying customers from a blog and an e-book, and the moment she realized she had something bigger than a side hustle.

If you've got an idea you're scared is "too weird" or "too niche" to build a business around — this one's for you.

🎧 Listen: The Podcast
📸 Follow FIDI: @WeAreFidi

Join our Community "The Group Chat" - Free for now! Get exclusive access to 5 Minute Mini Episodes and more! https://wearefidi.com/ - And let's chat about everything you're doing in life and in your business. Chaos is welcome.

Find Andrea Olson

Support the show

Find us at @WeAreFIDI

Episode every other week

In this episode of Fine, I’ll Do It, Jenn and Faith finally introduce themselves.

We’re sharing how we each found our way into business while raising kids, building families, and figuring it out as we went. Faith shares how she went from the wine industry to building a kid-friendly wine tasting room and play café in Napa Valley in just three months. Jenn shares how she went from nursing to helping scale a family real estate business from 11 units to 250, while also building creative work in photography, hospitality, and mom-centered storytelling.

This is the episode where you get to know the hosts behind the mic — the moms, the businesses, the pivots, and the “fine, I’ll do it” moments that brought us here.

Join our Community "The Group Chat" - Free for now! Get exclusive access to 5 Minute Mini-episodes and more! https://wearefidi.com/ - And let's chat about everything you're doing in life and in your business. Chaos is welcome.

Support the show

Find us at @WeAreFIDI

Episode every other week

Alli Webb was a stay-at-home mom with two toddlers, a background in hair, and zero business plan. What she had was a gap in the market, a Yahoo mommy group, and the audacity to charge $40 to drive across LA and blow out her friends’ hair.

That side hustle became Drybar — 150+ locations and $255 million later. And this was not planned.

In this episode, we trace how a mom who needed something for herself accidentally built an industry. We cover the mobile blowout days, the leap to a brick-and-mortar with her brother’s money and her husband’s creative vision, and what it actually looks like when lightning strikes in the first week of opening.

We also don’t skip the hard part — building something massive doesn’t insulate you from everything falling apart personally.

If you’re in the middle of building something while your kids are small and your life feels messy, this one’s for you.

Follow us on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/wearefidi

Join our Community "The Group Chat" - Free for now! Get exclusive access to 5 Minute Mini Episodes and more! https://wearefidi.com/ - And let's chat about everything you're doing in life and in your business. Chaos is welcome.

Support the show

Find us at @WeAreFIDI

Episode every other week

This is the story of a mom who was running out of options and had a 3 month old baby. She needed to make some additional income while her husband was in between jobs and she didn't have the luxury or time to casually pursue a hobby.

She noticed a gap in the jewelry market where you could buy really expensive jewelry for a lot or really cheap jewelry that didn't last. So after taking a few jewelry making classes and having friends ask her to make them custom pieces, she decided that she had a market.

This is the story of a mom entrepreneur who faced failure, death in the family, lost businesses, failed marriages, the challenge of raising three children while building her company and so much more. We are studying this successful mom's story to see where she pivoted when most other people would have quit. We're taking her lessons and seeing how we can use them in our own pursuit of raising kids while raising a business.

Join us, leave a comment, share your stories, your success, your failure and we'll all feel a little less alone on this journey of motherhood in business.

We Are FIDI (Fine I'll Do It)
The story of most mom-owned businesses.

Find us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/wearefidi
Join our Community - Free for now! Get exclusive access to 5 Minute Mini Episodes and more! https://wearefidi.com/

Support the show

Find us at @WeAreFIDI

Episode every other week