Build Your Own Boat

Jacqui Fishman spent decades as a creative marketing strategist before reviving a shelved apparel line into This Girl Can! Change the World, a mission-driven brand and media property that tells girls, out loud and on purpose, that they have the power to change the world. In this episode of Build Your Own Boat, Fishman explains how a Harvard graduate degree in children's media, a portfolio of designs that sat untouched for over twenty years, and the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic combined to push her to relaunch the brand — starting with "This Girl Can Vote" merchandise timed to the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. She shares how she beta-tested designs before investing heavily, how she prices products to stay accessible while still funding donations to organizations supporting girls' education and rights, why Facebook shut down her political-themed ad campaign, and how mission-driven partnerships — not paid ads — became her most effective growth strategy. The conversation offers a real-world roadmap for any woman considering reviving a dormant idea into a full-fledged, purpose-driven venture in midlife.

Janine Vanderburg sits down with Jacqui Fishman, founder of This Girl Can! Change the World, to explore how a creative marketing career, a Harvard graduate degree in children's media, and a decades-old shelved product line converged into a mission-driven brand built to help girls find their voice and claim their power. Fishman traces the connection between children's media representation and how girls come to believe what kind of life they're "allowed" to have, discusses the impact of screens and AI-generated content ("AI slop") on young children, and describes how the character Jane — a sassy, messy-haired stick figure representing every girl — became the face of a growing portfolio of apparel, storybooks, and planned animated media. The conversation also digs into the practical entrepreneurial lessons Fishman learned relaunching a brand in a completely different retail and social media landscape than the one she originally built it in decades earlier.

Jacqui Fishman is a creative marketing strategist and serial entrepreneur who has spent her career helping startups, nonprofits, and children's media brands find their voice and bring their ideas to life. She holds a graduate degree from Harvard focused on children's media, studying how the content children see and hear shapes who they believe they're allowed to become. Fishman previously built and successfully sold a sports-focused apparel line into national retail, and has produced children's television series and books. In 2020, she revived a decades-old apparel concept into This Girl Can! Change the World, a mission-driven brand and media property designed to help every girl believe in her own power — now expanding into a planned book series and animated media featuring the brand's central character, Jane. Fishman also serves on the advisory board of The Legacy Project, an organization focused on intergenerational work.

This Girl Can! Change the World is a mission-driven brand founded by Jacqui Fishman that uses apparel, storytelling, and planned animated media to tell girls, from the earliest age, that they have the power to change the world. The brand includes related lines like "This Girl Can Vote" and "This Girl Will Vote," and donates proceeds to organizations supporting girls' education, health, and rights worldwide.

Fishman had a portfolio of apparel designs that sat untouched for more than two decades. The 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, combined with the extra bandwidth created by the COVID-19 pandemic, gave her the timing and motivation to relaunch the concept, starting with commemorative "This Girl Can Vote" merchandise.

The confidence cliff refers to the point, typically around ages 10 to 12, when girls who were previously outspoken and fearless begin to lose confidence and develop self-doubt, often driven by media portrayals, social media influencer culture, and pressure around body image and perfectionism.

Facebook flagged and shut down Fishman's paid ad campaign for "This Girl Can Vote" merchandise, categorizing a commemorative design honoring the 19th Amendment as political content. This forced her to abandon paid social ads and pivot toward organic content and mission-driven partnerships instead.

Fishman recommends printing or producing a small test run of a product and sharing it within your own network first to gauge reaction before committing significant money to full production — a low-risk way to validate whether an idea resonates before scaling.

According to Fishman and podcast host Janine Vanderburg, it's never too late — dreams don't have an expiration date. Fishman's own experience relaunching a shelved apparel concept more than 20 years later, in a completely different retail and media landscape, demonstrates that timing and renewed purpose can make an old idea newly relevant.

Build Your Own Boat is a podcast series hosted by Janine Vanderburg — award-winning three-time entrepreneur and anti-ageism advocate — featuring women who have launched new entrepreneurial ventures in midlife and beyond. The series is part of a larger storytelling project that includes a Substack publication and a forthcoming book, all built around one goal: changing the narrative about who entrepreneurs are and making women in midlife and beyond visible as builders of wealth, freedom, and possibility.