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For nearly a decade, I had the privilege of serving as CEO and co-founder of HoneyBee, a…
Articles by Ennie
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Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter
The financial system is at the heart of racism and inequality in America. Racism and poverty are inextricably linked.
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Bringing Empathy to the Fight Against this Virus
Bringing Empathy to the Fight Against this Virus
Disneyland has closed its doors. NCAA March Madness has been canceled.
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Ennie Lim shared this"What's one money thought you have often, but rarely say out loud?" That was the question at our first Kina launch dinner, on a garden patio in LA, surrounded by moms who run teams, budgets, board decks, and households. Every mom went home with flowers and a tote that finally gave the job its proper title: Chief Everything Officer. A question like that usually gets a polite laugh and a change of subject. That night, it didn't. When it was my turn, I told the truth. My son just got into private school. My parents were immigrants from Malaysia. Private school was never even a conversation in our house. Now I'm two months away from our second child, doing the math on giving two kids access I never had. The hardest part to admit after a decade in fintech: I know our startup's burn rate down to the month. Our family finances? We'll figure it out later. And I almost never buy anything for myself. Somewhere in becoming a mother, my money stopped feeling like mine. I wasn't the only one. Around that table: guilt about spending on ourselves. Not knowing the numbers. Worrying about what we're passing down. I'd heard this before. Ten years ago, I built HoneyBee Financial Wellness, 90% of our users were women, mostly moms. They didn't avoid money conversations because they didn't care. They avoided them because they thought they should already know the answers. Money shame survives on silence. It took one question to break it. A room full of executives, and not one of us had it figured out. So I'll ask you: What's one money thought you have often, but rarely say out loud? Mine is later. Thank you Rei Wang Anita Hossain Choudhry and The Grand for creating the space. Kana L. Sarah Gwilliam Patricia Valdez Connie Lee Bicky L. Courtney Fede (Smith) Devika Tandon Jen Saxton
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Ennie Lim shared thisI’m excited to partner with Natalie Gouché for Kina’s October event of moms, a conversation around moms and money, how we’re building wealth, making thoughtful financial decisions for our families, and creating a stronger financial future for the next generation. Because moms are making financial decisions every single day. It’s time we talked about it more.Ennie Lim shared thisNew Narratives With Natalie is back with our 2nd Celebration for Cycle-Breaking Mothers in Los Angeles! And this one brings together a few things I care deeply about: Motherhood, community, connection, and creating a legacy for our families. New Narratives Uncorked: A Mom’s Night Out Mixer is an evening for moms to get out of the house, enjoy a guided wine tasting, meet other women, and have conversations about the lives and families we’re building. And I’m excited to have two partners joining us who fit beautifully into that conversation: 💰 Thrivent will be there as we talk about financial planning, building wealth and creating a legacy for the next generation. ✨ Kina is partnering with us around making the things moms are already investing in for their families work harder for them with rewards. This is what I love about community-led brand partnerships. Finding brands and organizations that make sense for the people already in the room and creating opportunities for REAL conversations without it feeling forced. We’re expecting 60 moms for this one, and I’m excited to see the room come together. 📍 Culver City, CA 📅 October 7 🍷 Guided wine tasting + mixer 🎟️ Complimentary with RSVP If you’re a mother in L.A. committed to parenting differently, leaving a legacy and embodying that for your community, come hang out with us: https://lnkd.in/gWQMfcvm And brands looking for meaningful ways to connect with decision-making mamas in Los Angeles, this is the kind of work I love to build, so let’s get connected! 🤎 #CommunityLedMarketing #BrandPartnerships #ExperientialMarketing #CommunityBuilding #LosAngelesEvents #Motherhood #NewNarrativesWithNatalie
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Ennie Lim shared thisThis is exactly the kind of conversation I hoped Kina would create. So much of the financial side of motherhood happens quietly, what we spend, what we worry about, what we plan for, and what we rarely say out loud. Hearing moms speak so openly about money, confidence, guilt and what they want for themselves reminded me why this work matters. Thank you Rei Wang & The Grand for creating the space for such an honest conversation.Ennie Lim shared this"What's one money thought you have often, but rarely say out loud?" I asked that at The Grand’s dinner with Kina last week. "I feel guilty spending on myself, even when I earned it." "I don't actually know how much we have. My partner handles it." "I'm scared I'm not teaching my kids anything about money." Mine? I still feel shame asking for money. Even after years of pitching investors and running a business, a small voice tells me that wanting more makes me greedy. As moms we carry so much invisible money work. Camp deposits, school payments, the babysitter, the dentist bill, all living in a spreadsheet in our heads. It's a quiet act of love, and it's exhausting. And we carry it alone. That silence is where money shame grows, keeping us from asking for more or making plans for ourselves. This summer I've been working on my own relationship with money. I've been unpacking my money story, spotting the scripts I run on (hello, scarcity mindset) and writing my money mission. Here's a preview: "Money gives me the freedom to build boldly, to move through the world fully, and to give my son a foundation of security and possibility. I own my time, say yes to what lights me up, and never apologize for it. There is enough abundance for us all and I deserve to live like it." Writing it down was the first time I let myself want more without apologizing for it. I want that for every mom. The confidence to go after it and build a life that reflects what matters to her. Thank you Ennie Lim and Kana L. for building Kina and for finally making moms feel seen when it comes to money, and for the fresh flowers in every tote. Flowers and finances, never a better pairing. What do you want your money to do for you and the people you love? I'd love to hear yours.
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Ennie Lim shared thisThere’s a book about Gloria Steinem on my 4-year-old son’s shelf. I want him to grow up understanding that the world we inherit was shaped by people who fought to make it better, people who paved the way for others to have choices and opportunities they didn’t have before. Years ago, I had the opportunity to meet Gloria through Stacey Tisdale, another woman who has dedicated so much of her career to creating greater opportunity for women, particularly around money and financial empowerment. I think about how much of what I take for granted today, the ability to have my own bank account, to build a company in my own name, to walk into a room and expect my voice to matter which exists because women like Gloria refused to accept the world as it was handed to them. She didn’t wait for permission. She helped make the world uncomfortable enough to change. For decades, she reminded us that women’s lives, choices, work, and ambitions mattered, long before much of the world was ready to hear it. That kind of conviction is rare. Sustaining it for a lifetime is rarer still. My son is too young to understand any of this yet. But he’ll grow up knowing her name. Knowing what she stood for. And knowing that the opportunities women have today exist because people before us were willing to fight for them. And hopefully, he’ll understand that progress isn’t something we simply inherit. It’s something each generation has a responsibility to carry forward. Thank you, Gloria. For paving the way.
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Ennie Lim shared thisThis week, I watched my son cannonball into the pool and take off, kicking, laughing, completely fearless. He’d just spent two weeks swimming with his older cousins. No fear of the water. Just joy. I never had that. My mom was the sole breadwinner for a household of five. There was no money for swim lessons and camps. No themed birthday parties. So this summer, I added it up. Swim lessons. The waterpark. A trip to see his cousins on the East Coast. His Spider-Man birthday party. Close to $8,000 for a 4-year-old. No financial product I’ve ever used would call any of that an investment. But I would. Watching him in the water, I realized I’d given him something I never had: the chance to meet the water without fear. That’s the invisible ROI of raising kids. We spend on camps, lessons, tutors, activities, childcare, and experiences, constantly making bets on what might build confidence, independence, opportunity, or simply a memory they’ll carry with them. Nobody hands moms a spreadsheet for this. We build it in our heads, between meetings and school drop-offs, while the financial system looks at each transaction and simply calls it spending. The expense is immediate. The return might take years to show up. Sometimes it’s confidence in the water. Sometimes it’s independence after a week away at camp. Sometimes it’s a summer with cousins. Sometimes it’s discovering the thing your kid will love for the next 20 years. We don’t know which investments will pay off. We make the bet anyway. Because family spending was never just about what something costs. It’s about what we’re trying to build. And yet, the financial system rewards us for dining, travel, groceries, and gas while barely recognizing the thousands of dollars families spend every year raising their kids. Camps. Lessons. Tutors. Activities. Childcare. Parents already treat these as investments. Maybe it’s time our financial products treated them like a category worth rewarding, too. That’s the invisible ROI of raising kids.
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Ennie Lim shared thisWaiting isn't the exception anymore. It's become the pattern. At 35, I was building my first company. Raising money. Saying yes to opportunities that scared me. Trying to build a future I could be proud of. During one doctor's appointment, egg freezing came up almost in passing. I remember thinking, maybe later when my startup is further along. There was never enough time. Never enough money. Never a moment that felt like the right one. By 38, I started IVF. Five rounds. While running our startup company. At first, I thought my story was unusual. Then I looked around. Women I knew had spent their 20s and 30s building companies, making partner, earning equity, and finally reaching financial stability. Almost every one of them became a mother in her forties. It turns out we weren't the exception. We were the trend. Women are having children later than ever. At the same time, women are controlling more wealth than at any point in history. By 2030, women are projected to control nearly $34 trillion in investable assets, while the largest transfer of wealth in history is underway. We're delaying motherhood while building the financial foundation that finally makes it feel possible. The problem? The financial system wasn't built for women delaying motherhood, building wealth, and managing families at the same time. But that's exactly who today's mothers are.
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Ennie Lim shared thisWorking moms carry two jobs. Only one of them shows up on LinkedIn. The school schedule kept entirely in your head. The allergy nobody else remembered to mention. The registration deadline you caught before it closed. The pediatrician appointment rescheduled around your kid's best friend's birthday party. This is the work running in the background of every working mom's day. Invisible. Uncompensated. Constant. It doesn't have a job title. It doesn't get a performance review. But if you tried to outsource all of it, the coordination, the anticipation, the remembering, the bill would be staggering. A few years ago, while I was building HoneyBee, a financial wellness platform serving working Americans, most of whom were moms, I had the chance to sit with Eve Rodsky. She had just written Fair Play, her New York Times bestselling book, and she put words to the feeling every mom carries but can never quite explain: invisible labor. The work moms carry that nobody sees, nobody counts, and nobody compensates. It stayed with me. Because moms aren't just managing families. They're running operations. Forecasting needs before they become emergencies. Managing budgets across a dozen categories. Coordinating logistics that would make a project manager sweat. Holding the entire system together while everyone else just lives inside it. The Fortune 500 has a name for people who do this. They're called COOs. I'd love to know, what's the one thing on your invisible list that exhausts you the most? And if someone built something to help with exactly that, what would it need to do?
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Ennie Lim posted thisThe phone rings. It's the bank. I'm in my parents' basement, trying to figure out what my life looks like post-divorce, when a voice tells me I'm tens of thousands of dollars overdue. I say there must be a mistake. There wasn't. My co-founder had been spending on a card I'd signed away to her months earlier, one she'd needed because her own credit wasn't strong enough yet (this was pre Brex/Ramp days). I'd brought her into a company I bootstrap alone because building alone is lonely. I let her stay with my family. I vouched for her. And when my marriage ended and I needed a partner to stay steady, she offered to buy me out instead. Two years in courtrooms followed. Here's what that cost me, and what I'd tell any founder considering a co-founder: 1. Excitement is not the same as alignment. She lit up the first time I talked about the company. I mistook that for conviction. Enthusiasm doesn't show up at 2am when things get hard. 2. Notice who shows up when things get hard, not when things are going well. She didn't leave because the company was struggling. She left because I was. 3. Reading signals faster isn't the same as trusting less. I don't wait as long anymore to ask myself the harder question. That's experience, not cynicism. 4. The right co-founder is the one who stays when there's nothing in it for them yet. That's the actual test, not the pitch deck, not the equity split. A wrong co-founder doesn't just cost you money or time in court. It costs you sleep. I know, because I paid that price and because I finally get to build with someone I never have to brace for.
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Ennie Lim shared thisMoms aren't just spending. They're researching, vetting, comparing, second-guessing, and coordinating. The purchase is the last thing that happens. Last week I spent four hours researching kids activities before I spent a single dollar on one. That's not shopping. That's a part-time job. And it happens across every single category of family life. I’ve spoken to hundreds of moms. This is what I kept hearing. Moms were showing me activity pivot tables. Spreadsheets tracking every camp, every lesson, every sport, location, age, costs, schedules, waitlists, sibling conflicts, carpool logistics. Built from scratch. Maintained obsessively. This wasn't an outlier. This was every mom I talked to. And it happens across every category that defines family life: Education: tuition, tutoring, enrichment, supplies. Every decision researched, compared, and second-guessed before a dollar moves. Childcare: daycare, after-school, babysitters. Vetted, interviewed, and coordinated around schedules that change every season. Healthcare: pediatricians, therapy, wellness. Tracked, followed up on, and managed between everything else. Activities: sports, camps, lessons, classes. Planned quarters in advance with spreadsheets most project managers would envy. Family experiences: travel, events, celebrations. Researched, budgeted, and executed down to the last detail. Moms are running the most sophisticated consumer operation in the country. And the pivot tables exist because nothing was ever built to replace them. Every mom I talked to had built her own system from scratch. Because nothing existed to do it for her. Sound familiar?
Ennie Lim commented on a post
1d
The tension between honoring our parents’ sacrifices and giving ourselves permission to enjoy the life we’ve worked so hard to build is so real. Thank you for saying this out loud and for sharing your story with us. It means more than you know. 💜
Ennie Lim commented on a post
2d
The most meaningful support has come from other moms who simply get it. The mom who picks up your child when you’re running late, checks in when you’re having a hard day, or reminds you that you’re not the only one trying to hold it all together. That village can make such a difference.
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Ennie Lim liked thisThis question stopped me. Mine is the push and pull between saving and living. I think it comes from being a child of immigrants who gave everything so I could have more than they did. We didn't grow up with travel or 'extras'. Everything I have, I built myself. And I carry this beautiful, complicated weight of wanting to honor their sacrifice while also finally letting myself live the life I only ever dreamed about. The guilt of spending. The fear of not saving enough. The feeling that I owe it to my parents, to my own childhood, to keep pushing — even when I'm already pushing hard. Which is why Kina hits differently. For the first time there's a product that actually gives something back to the people making the sacrifices — parents who spend everything on their kids and rarely on themselves. I wish my parents had this. What Ennie Lim created in that room, and what she's building with Kina, is permission to say all of this out loud. That's everything.
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Ennie Lim liked thisEnnie Lim liked thisJourno request: Our current system is broken for working moms (and dads!) in so many different ways. At this point, I sound like a broken record but it is hair-rising that in 2026 we're seeing the largest exodus of working mothers from the workforce that we've seen in decades. If you're a working mom who got fed up with something in the system and decided to take matters into your own hands and build a business to fix a gap working parents face, I want to hear from you! Please email me at sgupta@fastcompany.com and tell me: a) What problem you faced as a working mom b) When you created your business and how it solves the problem c) The impact your business has made P.S. Dads, I care about you too--if there are any topics you want to hear about, let me know!
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