The Journey to $1M ARR
As of March 4, 2026
20% there
Meet the Women Building Cool Sh*t This March
Nomiki Petrolla
·7 min read
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My unfiltered journey to $1M ARR as a solo female founder.
27 women. 27 states. 4 countries. Nurses, engineers, an astrophysicist, a jeweler, a speech pathologist, and a software architect. This is the March 2026 cohort of Women Build Cool Sh*t.
Every cohort I kick off, I walk into the call not knowing exactly who is going to show up. And every single time, I leave thinking: these women are going to change everything.
This is our third official Theanna cohort. And the March 2026 class is something else. We have nurses, engineers, a speech pathologist, a jeweler, an astrophysicist, a dermatology PA, a software architect, and women building everything from dating apps to kitchen management systems to anti-scam platforms. Across 27 states and 4 countries.
What You Will Learn in This Post
- Who Is in the March 2026 Cohort
- Healthcare and Wellness Founders
- Consumer and Social Platforms
- Business, Finance, and Enterprise
- Education, Science, and Parenting
- Why These Women Are Not Waiting for Permission
- What Happens in the Next 12 Weeks
Who Is in the March 2026 Cohort
This is Women Build Cool Sh*t. Here is who showed up.
Twenty-seven women from across the country and around the world. Some have been building for years. Some just started. Some are coming from corporate careers. Some are building from lived experience so deep it stopped being optional a long time ago.
Healthcare and Wellness Founders
Devon Climer is a medical speech pathologist who spent her career with stroke and neuro patients. She is building a post-discharge platform for stroke survivors and their caregivers. Built from deep professional expertise and a mission she takes personally.
Emily Burkert is building Rooted, a nutrition app focused on hormonal health. A space that is wildly underserved and overdue for real technology.
Erica Bolar is a nurse practitioner who specialized in addiction medicine. She is building Nurse Recovery Institute, an early intervention coaching platform for nurses struggling with substance use. A safe place to get help before their license is on the line. She is already in Launch stage.
Ptarmigan Emery is a nurse building Ptarmigan Nurse Consulting, consulting infrastructure to help people navigate some of the most complicated situations in the healthcare system.
Savanna Perry is a dermatology PA who has spent 10 years helping students get into PA school. She is building The PA Platform, an AI-powered dashboard for pre-PA students. Meeting them where they already are and making AI actually useful to them instead of a shortcut. She has always bootstrapped without a real plan. She joined to finally have one.
Stephanie J is building SkinLynq, a tele-derm platform connecting patients with dermatology care remotely. Healthcare access meets beauty tech. She is in it.
Swaroopa Shigli is building Coordl AI, AI-powered scheduling automation for nurses. One of the most broken, time-consuming workflows in healthcare. Healthcare operators, this one is coming for you.
Sonya Ramsey is a former web designer and museum educator building Modigital, a culturally diverse wellness app for parents raising mentally tough, confident kids. She is the kind of founder who does not quit.
Consumer and Social Platforms
Jordan Sims is a technical program manager who has lived the frustration of modern dating apps firsthand. She is building No BS Dating App to cut the limbo. The ghosting, the endless talking that goes nowhere. Get people on actual dates faster. She joined for the structure to validate before she builds.
Michelle Steffani is building HRTKIN, a family-supported dating app where you bring your trusted person into the experience with you. Full consent required. Introductions done together. She already has the LLC, the trademark pending, and a full pitch deck built. She just needed the community to get the rest done.
Fiorella Iannuzzelli is a computer engineer who is pissed off that the technology being built to connect people is being weaponized to scam them. She is building TrustButVerifyMe, a consumer-facing anti-scam platform because everyday people are left completely unprotected. She is right.
Flor Antara is a software engineer with 15+ years of experience. She built Wonderkeep, a collaborative digital album app for private events after a friend needed a way to collect photos from a quinceañera. Guests used it. Loved it. People paid for it. Now she is turning it into a real product.
Ines Illarramendi is building Oyster, a platform for expats navigating the overwhelm of starting over in a new country. Through her research she discovered that people come asking about logistics but the real issue is emotional. The self-doubt and isolation that comes from uprooting your life to grow. She joined Theanna to stop second-guessing herself and just build.
Caroline Ray was a prep cook who ran restaurant kitchens like a machine. When her home kitchen became chaos, she applied the same system and built a Notion template that eventually broke from overuse. Now she is building Mise-en-Place, the real app. Her MVP was Notion. Anything is possible.
Sarah Gerrard is a jeweler who has been researching her idea for seven years. She is building an AR/AI virtual try-on tool for lash products. Scanning your eyes for accurate measurements so customers get custom-fit lashes without ever stepping into a studio. She found Theanna on Instagram and joined the cohort ready to build.
Japna Kaur is in travel and event planning, building 9 JOURN ST in a space she knows inside and out.
Business, Finance, and Enterprise
Amber Kuhnert is building Fiona Labs Co., a milestone payment management platform. Escrow-style protection so contractors, influencers, and brands never get ghosted on an invoice again. Her background is in marketing and managing big systems. Now she is building one of her own.
Margaret Broderick is building NextNext.Life, a senior living placement platform that flips a broken, pay-to-play industry on its head. All 44,000 senior facilities in the country are already on her platform. She is building for the seniors and families who deserve an unbiased answer, not the facilities that pay to rank first. This is the kind of disruption that actually matters.
Mariama Jalloh is building MVP+, a crowdfunding platform for startups in emerging markets. Bringing capital access to founders who have never had it.
Racole Jackson is building Jaybez, a transparent real estate contract platform. Bringing clarity to a process that has historically been anything but.
Sharon Larry has 30+ years in sales and she is turning all of it into 90Days2Success, an AI-powered sales intelligence platform. She has been a Theanna member for months and one of the most generous people in this community. When you meet her, actually talk to her.
Karee Laing is building MOXIE, a marketing SaaS platform. Houston. Big ideas. Let us go.
KJ Wiggs is in the financial space, still defining what she is building. Sometimes the most important thing is just showing up before you have all the answers.
V Mari Brooks is building Valent Solutions, a governance consulting practice to fund her product portfolio in development. Helping mid-market firms navigate the massive AI regulatory wave coming their way. She bootstrapped everything she has ever built. She just recently learned the word for it.
Education, Science, and Parenting
Karolina Garcia is an astrophysicist building Klareya, a platform that makes science communication accessible to anyone who wants to share what they know. Researchers, educators, anyone passionate about science who does not know where to start. She is building something that could change how science reaches the world.
Julie Workman is equipping high-achieving parents with tools to raise kids who are emotionally ready for the world they are actually going to inherit through Plot Twist Studio.
Kiechelle Gallenero and Wren Mikols are best friends turned co-founders building budysystem, an intelligent accountability pairing system. Reimagining the matching logic of dating apps for something way more useful. They crossed the bridge from friendship to co-founders. Fingers crossed. We are rooting for them.
Why These Women Are Not Waiting for Permission
Only 1.2% of VC funding went to women founders in 2025.
These women are not waiting for permission.
A nurse building for nurses. An astrophysicist building for scientists. A jeweler building for beauty. A speech pathologist building for stroke survivors. A mom building for other moms.
“They are the most qualified people in the world to solve these problems. They just needed somewhere to start.”
That is what Theanna is.
What Happens in the Next 12 Weeks
Over the next 12 weeks, these women are going to validate, build, and launch through Women Build Cool Sh*t. Some will pivot. Some will get their first paying customer. Some will discover the problem they thought they were solving is actually bigger than they imagined. All of them are leaving with momentum.
“The minimum you get out of Theanna is momentum. The maximum is a company.”
Welcome to the March cohort. Let us build.
Ready to Build Something?
The next Women Build Cool Sh*t cohort is coming. 12 weeks of validation, building, and launching with a community of women founders who actually get it.
If you have an idea and you are tired of waiting, this is your somewhere to start.