Life has a special way of digging its claws into us, pulling the humanity from the skeleton. As Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” Few embody that more fully than Amanda Goetz, a small-town mom who turned personal chaos and professional rejection into a deeply human, anti-bullshit approach to modern entrepreneurship.
While the internet continues to crank out girlboss clones, Goetz is something else entirely.
She’s a first-generation college graduate from Wyoming, Illinois (pop. 800), and the daughter of the town plumber. Goetz began her career in corporate America, grinding in brand marketing before launching a wedding-tech startup and eventually leading marketing at The Knot for five years. During a divorce, while raising three young kids in the middle of a pandemic, she spotted a gap: women desperate for space in their overloaded lives.
So she launched House of Wise, a wellness brand centered on stress, sleep, sex, and strength. She raised over $2 million, built a loyal following, and sold the company in 2022.
Building a Portfolio Career on Her Terms
Today, she’s stepped away from the single-lane founder life in favor of a multifaceted career. She blends consulting, coaching, and a fast-growing newsletter that’s approaching 80,000 subscribers. Her first book, part memoir and part manifesto, is set to land this October.
She’s building in public, leading with vulnerability, and offering a refreshingly honest take on modern ambition. You could say she’s killing it, but she’d probably just call it surviving, out loud. Chatting with Goetz, she comes across as easygoing, confident, and grounded — someone who doesn’t rattle easily.
“After selling my company, I started building what I call a portfolio career: consulting, coaching, and growing a newsletter that’s now nearing 80k subscribers. It’s my way of de-risking in a world where nothing feels certain,” she says as sunlight drifts into her office. “I launched House of Wise to help women create more space in their day: for sleep, sex, stress, and strength. For me, it wasn’t just a product line, it was a permission slip.”
Rejection Becomes Rocket Fuel
Living in the online world means constantly navigating the tension between what gets rewarded and what’s truly valuable. It challenges old definitions of success — those glossy, curated, male-dominated ideals that left little room for the messy, emotional growth real life demands. It’s about carving a path through corporate minefields, then pausing long enough to ask whether the scars were worth the blood. Life’s work shouldn’t feel like a downgrade; it should be a conscious recalibration.
Especially when you’ve helped turn a brand like The Knot into a household name.
Goetz is emblematic of a new kind of working woman: one building an empire not out of ambition alone, but out of necessity, passion, and values. Her time at The Knot taught her about industry cycles and about the power of serving a universal need like wedding planning through a unified platform.
She led marketing, regularly appeared on morning television, and delivered keynotes to packed audiences in Las Vegas. But when she applied to speak at a high-profile women’s empowerment conference, she was rejected, not for her experience, but for lacking social media influence. That sting of exclusion flipped a switch. “I tweeted about it, and the tweet went insanely viral,” she says. “I gained thousands of followers overnight. That’s when I realized, maybe there’s something to this.”
She began posting daily during the Jack Dorsey-era Twitter (the good era, the sane era, maybe). Her rapid growth landed her in front of the entire Twitter executive team as one of the fastest-growing women on the platform. It also paved the way to investors, a community, and ultimately a business. “I had never made a dollar from social media, but I had 100,000 followers. That changed how I viewed everything,” Goetz says. Today, her work as a content creator is built on emotional honesty and a refusal to fake it.
A Relatable Hero in a Curated World
For Goetz, showing up online isn’t performance. It’s survival. “I call it being a ‘relatable hero.’ I want people to know I’m in it with them. Some days, I’m just trying to keep it together, too.” She categorizes content creators as either lighthouses, flashlights, or porch lights — those who walk with their audience instead of ahead of them. She sees herself as the latter.
“The creators who stand out now are the porch lights,” she says. “They’re the ones saying, ‘I don’t have all the answers either, but let’s figure it out together.’”
Leading by Lifting Others
When asked who her heroes are, Goetz doesn’t hesitate to shine a light on women who share their power. “A lot of my heroes are women who open doors and bring others with them. I could scroll through my phone right now and name so many who’ve said, ‘I’ve got you.’ They’re not necessarily content creators either. For example, the current CMO of Starbucks — I met her at a retreat. She’d just interviewed Oprah, and still, she was like, ‘Hey, I’m bringing you to Starbucks HQ. Let’s do something with your book.’ She blurbed it and offered her support without hesitation. Same with Eve Rodsky, a New York Times bestselling author. We met once at a conference, and she immediately said, ‘I want to help you.’ She blurbed the book, too. These women don’t have to help anyone. They could just keep doing their own thing. But they choose to stay accessible and generous, and that’s what makes them powerful. They leave the door open behind them.”
This kind of generosity is transformative. According to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace report, women with access to supportive professional networks are 2.5 times more likely to advance in their careers. That’s what makes these door-holding, spotlight-sharing women so powerful. They’re not thriving in their lanes; they’re building highways for others to follow.
In a world still stacked against women in leadership, access and advocacy can change everything.
Leave the Light on
Goetz’s working-class roots keep her grounded. “My dad is the town plumber. My parents — I didn’t come from money. I’m also the first person in my family to go to college,” she says. “I don’t have a pile of DuckTales cash I can dive into. So I have to balance impact and growth while being a solopreneur, doing all of it myself. Figuring out where to offload, where to invest, how to spend the money I’m making — it’s about building a flywheel the right way so I can keep the lights on at home while growing the business. It’s a lot.”