Lessons from our Founders: Women’s Entrepreneurship Day 2025
By Deborah Lehr, Leigh Wedell, and Gracie Sun
November 19, 2025
For Women’s Entrepreneurship Day and Global Entrepreneurship Week, we asked the women that built Basilinna to share the lessons that shaped their path.
Their reflections speak to resilience, clarity, and long-term vision. Below is what they shared.
No one has ever failed because they were too generous.
One of the earliest lessons I learned as an entrepreneur is the power of generosity. No one has ever failed because they were too generous. In practice, that means not needing the credit, letting others take the limelight, promoting your team, and extending kindness even when it isn’t required. You never know what kind of day someone is having, and choosing to lead with generosity sets a standard that anchors you, especially in difficult moments. Not everyone will appreciate it, and things will not always work out the way you hoped. But you have to live with yourself at the end of the day. You can become bitter when setbacks happen, or you can stay focused on the lesson and keep moving forward with a clear conscience. I have found that generosity — of spirit, time, and recognition — pays dividends far beyond the immediate moment.
I also feel fortunate to be surrounded by people who share that same outlook. It makes it a pleasure to show up every day and build something together. Generosity is often underestimated in business, but for me, it remains a guiding principle and one of the most reliable sources of long-term success.
Deborah Lehr
Chair and CEO
Surround yourself with good people, and hold onto them as you grow.
While I always knew I wanted to work for myself; I never wanted to work by myself. I was fortunate to find two partners early in my career, Deborah Lehr and Gracie Sun, and that 25-year partnership has since shaped everything about how I operate. Entrepreneurship is a 24/7 “Chief of Everything” job, but when you build alongside people with different strengths and clearly defined lanes, the work becomes more efficient, more scalable, and a lot more fun.
The same is true of the team you surround yourself with. Yousra Abdelhameed and Chynna Hawes, two rising entrepreneurs in their own right, know their roles, define them expansively, and deliver impeccably, allowing us to cascade responsibility with confidence. At the heart of it all, just like in life, is this: surround yourself with good people, and hold onto them as you grow.
Stay calm, stay objective, stay optimistic.
When I was a little girl, I had a small wicker “self-examination chair.” Whenever I became emotional because of a crisis, challenge, or mistake, my dad would ask me to sit there, take deep breaths to calm down, and then reflect on what had happened. There was no time limit—sometimes I sat for 5 minutes, sometimes 15 or 30, or even longer—until I was ready to talk with him about the situation: the facts, what I did well, what I didn’t, what I learned, and what I could improve next time. My dad was a professor, and his first lesson to me was the importance of self-examination, a practice that continues to benefit me today.
Reacting emotionally doesn’t solve problems; more often, it makes them worse. Looking at the facts, putting myself in others’ shoes, and learning from each experience helps me understand what happened and why, and ultimately helps me grow and build something better.
