What Meghan Sussex’s Entrepreneurial Story Can Teach Women at Any Age

Meghan Sussex’s latest Instagram post could easily be dismissed as a sweet collection of childhood photographs and behind-the-scenes clips from As Ever. However, we think it says something much bigger about the woman behind the brand.

The montage includes family memories too, including her mother, Doria Ragland, alongside glimpses of the work ethic Meghan says started young. She shared that she was around eight years old when she began making scrunchies on her grandmother’s Singer sewing machine and selling them for $1 each. Girl Scout cookies, lemonade stands, a job at a frozen yogurt shop and “countless other jobs” followed.

“My entrepreneurial spirit was always there,” she wrote.

We love this for Meghan because that one sentence connects so many parts of her life. Long before the Duchess title, the Netflix deal or As Ever, Meghan understood the satisfaction of working and creating something of her own.

Meghan Was a Working Woman Long Before Royal Life

There is a strange tendency to credit Meghan’s success to marrying a prince, as if every woman who dates one walks away with a career, a business and a brand. Meghan entered royal life with years of professional experience, her own lifestyle platform behind her and successful commercial collaborations already on her résumé. Royal life interrupted that work, but it did not erase the entrepreneurial instincts she had already developed.

Long before As Ever, Meghan had already started building. She founded The Tig in 2014, turning it into a lifestyle platform covering food, fashion, travel and women she admired. She later worked with Canadian retailer Reitmans on two fashion collections, including a 2016 workwear capsule she helped design.

That matters because Meghan did not discover entrepreneurship after leaving royal life. She returned to something she had already been doing.

Unlike other royal women who married into royalty, Meghan built an independent career long before she ever set foot in a palace. A brief stint at a clothing brand and some work for a family business are not the same thing as years of supporting yourself professionally. Nor is it the same as structuring your adult life around the prospect of marrying into royalty.

Meghan’s years of working and earning her own money gave her something far more valuable than a title: financial independence. It is exactly why so many parents tell their daughters to build careers, earn their own money and keep something of their own. A rich husband and a fancy title may look like security, but neither guarantees freedom.

“Financial independence gives you freedom of choice. There’s nothing taboo about women talking about money or power. When we invest in each other, we’re not just supporting lives, we’re supporting legacies.” — Meghan Sussex at the #FortuneMPW Summit https://t.co/Wj6JfvCJ0l

— Feminegra (@feminegra) October 14, 2025

As Ever Is a Real Business With Real Demand

As Ever launched its first collection in April 2025 and sold out in less than an hour. The company has since expanded beyond its original pantry products into wine, chocolates, candles, gift sets and seasonal releases.  

Her latest post came as As Ever introduced its holiday collection, which has already drawn strong interest from shoppers placing early orders. The montage showed products being made and packed, childhood memories, Prince Harry, and even a brief appearance from their daughter, Princess Lilibet, helping Meghan make the raspberry preserve and saying she thinks “it’s beautiful”. These moments reflected how far the company had come. 

“As I pinch myself looking at how this brand has grown,” Meghan wrote, “I feel very proud, and grateful.” She then thanked her team, which feels especially fitting because years ago on The Tig, Meghan shared the line, “Behind every successful woman is herself.” In her new post, she adds something to it. Behind that woman can also stand “a community of love, a squad of support, an amazing team.”

The word “squad” may also feel like a quiet nod to the people who have defended Meghan through years of hostile coverage, online abuse and increasingly personal attacks. Whether she meant it that way or not, the sentiment fits. Success is rarely built alone, especially when someone has had to keep going while facing a relentless public backlash.

Meghan Has Been Investing in Other Women Too

Meghan’s latest montage also included a handwritten reminder to herself: “Did I tell you to serve other people if only in a small way?” It feels fitting because her idea of success has increasingly included helping other women build alongside her.

For Meghan, entrepreneurship is not only about building As Ever. She also wants to help other women build their own businesses. In 2024, Meghan said her portfolio included between five and 10 brands. By 2025, TechCrunch reported that it had grown to more than 10 companies. She described her approach as a “dolphin tank” rather than Shark Tank because she wanted founders to feel supported rather than pressured.

Her investments include Clevr Blends, a wellness drinks brand; Cesta Collective, a luxury handbag company; and Highbrow Hippie, a hair and scalp wellness brand. When Meghan invested in Highbrow Hippie, she said she was proud to back founder Kadi Lee “as a friend and as a female founder.”

Her support also brings visibility. Meghan has used her platform to introduce these businesses to much larger audiences, while Cesta’s founders said traffic surged after she carried one of their bags.

That approach fits with what she told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang: “I really do believe that a high tide raises all boats. I think there’s room for all of us.”

It also explains why Meghan speaks so often about financial independence. She has said women should earn their own money so they can make choices without depending on someone else to meet their needs.

That is the part we find most interesting. Meghan is not simply building for herself. She is using her money, profile and experience to help other women build too.

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Confessions of a Female Founder Felt Like Business School

That is also why we loved Confessions of a Female Founder. For us, listening to Meghan interview women who had actually built companies sometimes felt like attending business school for free.

The conversations were not simply about success after everything works out. They dealt with hiring, financing, mistakes, confidence, scaling and the uncomfortable decisions founders make while trying to keep a company alive.

The podcast won Gold in the Business People and Entrepreneurs Shaping Culture category at the 2025 Signal Awards, as well as the Listener’s Choice Award.

Meghan has spoken about wanting women to see that they can build businesses themselves. That may be one of the most useful things about her current public life. She is not asking women simply to admire what she owns. She keeps talking about how women can own something too.

You Are Not Too Young or Too Old to Start

Maybe that is the lesson hiding inside the scrunchie story. A girl can be eight years old and learn that something she makes has value. A woman in her twenties can still be figuring out how to support herself. A woman in her thirties can change countries, careers or families. And a woman in her forties can start a company after her life has already changed several times.

Meghan Sussex launched As Ever in her forties. That alone makes the endless obsession with women supposedly having an expiration date look ridiculous.

Some people looked at Meghan marrying a prince and saw the ultimate achievement. We never did.

For many working women, the more interesting Meghan has always been the woman who earned her own money before Harry, walked away from a system that no longer worked for her and started building again.

Royalty gave Meghan a title. It did not give an eight-year-old girl the idea to sit at her grandmother’s sewing machine, make scrunchies and charge a dollar for them. That woman was already there.