The Queer MBA
A Group Coaching Program for Queer Small Business Owners
The Queer MBA
A Group Coaching Program for Queer Small Business Owners
Take your business from scrappy to stable with a gaggle of friends.
Enrolling GrowHorts (small groups) for September 2026!
Take your business from scrappy to stable with a gaggle of friends.
Enrolling GrowHorts (small groups) for September 2026!
What is The Queer MBA?
Your Meaningful Business Approach
Graduates of The Queer MBA don’t just leave with a business plan they might use someday… They walk away with a Meaningful Business Approach and a deep community of support that makes running their business more fun and successful - forever.
How do I manage the daily wobble of running a business?
Build a clear vision - Create a sustainable plan based on your values. One that gives you a steady place to land when the old worries and doubts try to compare you to everyone else.
Set up simple marketing systems - Make it easy for your people to find you, book you, and receive your magic
Manage your energy in motion - Practice balancing the energy in, the energy out, and the joy of all of it all so you don't burn out.
Design a business on your own terms- Clear the other BS out of the way so you can be yourself and do great work.
We co-create real, grounded community connection and support from day one. To do that, each GrowHort track is capped at 8 business owners.
Stop waiting for your chaotic calendar to magically clear up before you look at your operations. Spoiler: it won't.
How much personalization do you get inside a group coaching cohort?
So often big hearted visionary leaders take the leap to self employment only to find themselves facing new and unfamiliar challenges, alone.
While we meet as a GrowHort, your specific business setup is treated with individual respect. You are not copying a generic corporate template. You get customized support to build your business, on your terms, mapped directly to your values and current capacity.
How do I handle self-employed overwhelm and decision fatigue?
Queer MBA members usually sign up because they are stuck in a hard wobble and struggling with:
❌ Burnout, distraction, and letting worries & doubts run the show.
❌ Self promotion and marketing that feels icky or forced.
❌ Too much decision fatigue and overwhelm to take consistent action.
❌ Doom scrolling and dread run the schedule.
What is a queer small business group coaching program, and what skills will I walk away with?
By going on this adventure with a group of committed queer small business owners (your GrowHort), you will be supported to build your business, on your terms.
Can a group coaching program deliver real business results?
Participants walk away with the practical tools to navigate their daily operations. Inside our group workspace, you will practice how to:
🚀 Listen to your Voice of Wisdom - Learn how to show up and be of service without letting your worries & doubts run the show.
🚀 Move from scrappy to stable - Build and maintain a business model that pays you a consistent salary and actually works for you and your life.
🚀 Break the analysis paralysis loop - Practice making great decisions and taking small sweet steps with confidence.
🚀 Say the thing with grace - Learn how to navigate crucial conversations with your clients, teammates, or hired contractors with ease and connection.
Create a business that is in service to the world you know is possible.
When is the next enrollment deadline
for the group cohort?
Our next GrowHorts launches September 9th, 2026!
Enrolling by July 31st for the September GrowHort covers your access to our live Summer Session for free - a $444 value.
What is included in the Summer Session Early Bird access?
Enrolling early is a huge business party. Your early spot includes free admission to our complete live Summer Session throughout June, July, and August:
Live Monday Huddles - Real-time training, guest presenters, and structured co-working blocks.
Live Group Coaching Blocks - A monthly group call to work through your operational wobbles with Slam.
Monthly Money Parties - Clear your financial anxiety and tidy your books inside a sweet community of support.
How the onboarding and application process works:
This application is the first step to discovering if this program is right for you:
Fill Out the Application: Take 5 minutes to tell me about your business, your current stage, and your vision. Everything is completely confidential.
Join a Live Intro & Q&A Session: Attend a live group call July 13th at 12pm Pacific to see how the program works. (Can't make it? You'll receive a link to book a private call with me right on your form submission screen).
Confirm Your Cohort Placement: Once approved, we will lock in your track selection and give you immediate access to our evergreen curriculum and June, July & August live Summer Session bonuses.
What do graduates say about the Queer MBA program?
"I love how kind and supportive everyone is."
"Slam has a way of making even the most dreaded biz tasks into something accessible, playful, and soulful"
"I feel extremely held and seen and then subsequently freed from big insecurity"
How is The Queer MBA group program structured?
What is included in the 4-month small business group coaching schedule?
Before you choose your specific container focus, take 5 minutes to walk through this logistics breakdown video with me, Slam!
This short overview reviews our whole coaching model - explaining exactly how your GrowHort works, what to expect inside our Monday Huddles, and how we run the Monthly Money Party to clear your financial anxiety. I also break down the difference between the Get More Clients track and the Lead with Love track so you can see which group fits your current business setup.
What is the weekly time commitment for the Queer MBA program?
When you look at how our community calls and coaching blocks map out each month, your regular calendar setup includes a 1x a week Weekly Huddle, a once-a-month 90-minute Money Party, and a once-a-month Group Coaching session during the Summer Sessions (shifting to 2x a month once the GrowHort begins):
Bi-weekly group coaching! Meets every other week for 90 minutes of deep coaching in your small group track. (3 hours/month, starting September)
The Weekly Huddle A weekly 60-minute container for training, guest speakers, and live co-working. We use this time to do the curriculum work together. (4 hours/month)
The Monthly Money Party is part financial literacy part co-working. Bring Clarity, Focus, Ease & Grace to how you use your money! (90 minutes/month)
How many hours a month does the group coaching calendar require?
You'll have 5 to 6 live meetings per month, total. That adds up to roughly 5 hours a month during the Summer Session and maxes out around 8 hours a month once the full GrowHort begins in September.
If you show up to the live calls, you are doing the work. There is no extra homework or outside reading required—our live Monday Huddles are built specifically for you to execute your tasks and build your operations alongside your peers.
A visual map of your monthly group coaching workspace calendar
Choose your focus container: Two customized pathways for September 2026
Which QMBA GrowHort track fits your current business stage?
Now that you know how the schedule maps out, choose the exact group container that matches your day-to-day operations:
Perfect for the early stage of business where you are focusing on the un-glamorous, necessary tools to start enrolling clients with ease, spreading the word, and delivering services directly from your heart.
Designed for established business owners navigating the operational challenges of leadership, managing contracts, setting boundaries, and handling relationships with employees, contractors, or clients.
Inside the Get More Clients Curriculum Pathway
What skills do you learn in the early stage small business cohort?
Ensure that your business is creating something of value. We do this by identifying your ideal client and preparing to connect with them. You will declare (or refine) a niche that is safe enough to try for your next 10-100 clients.
Craft an invitation that you are proud to share with potential clients (a conversation, website, email, etc). Your business will be a welcome environment for your clients (and you) to thrive.
Enroll stakeholders (clients, teammates, investors, etc) with more confidence and consent. You will build a consensual environment where you partner with your clients right away and tools that allow you stay grounded even when it is new or uncomfortable
Establish systems that allow you to do this for the long haul. You will design a business model that works for your clients, your business and YOU!
Guarantee your finances are supporting your business. You will set your rates with ease, use your time + revenue to best support your business, and declare a smart goal worth playing for.
Inside the Lead with Love Curriculum Pathway
How do you build team culture and handle small business leadership challenges?
Authentic Leadership requires that you both know yourself and like yourself. This module empowers you to lead your team to success by bringing out your all star team and supporting each other to thrive.
It's easy to avoid what feels daunting and complicated, this module focuses on simple and fun ways to prepare and build confidence around crucial conversations. End results: you and your conversation partner walk away in a better place, with connection, clarity, and alignment.
Take those crucial conversation skills to the next level and bring your team onto the same playing field with a shared focus, empowering everyone to stay connected and engaged regardless of the obstacle at hand.
Whether this is around agreements, shared practices, or alignment, this module will support you to enroll your team in a shared vision and action plan that you can all lean on when times get tough.
Sometimes we can’t do everything and saying no with grace is a skill that one develops instead of inherits. This module will ensure you have the clarity and focus to know what you are saying yes to, making it way easier to say no with grace.
What do people say about the Queer MBA business coaching program?
"Wow, I not only got exactly what I hoped for but had so many unexpected wins throughout The GrowHort. I feel prepared for my parental leave and so does my new hire! Both the group coaching and 1:1 sessions with Slam have been really eye opening."
Nat Begej
Bookkeeper
"Slam is an incredibly caring, thoughtful, heartfilled and enthusiastic coach. I really felt like they were on my team throughout our time working together. They gave clear exercises, tools and imagery that gave me insight on how to work on the emotional and logistical challenges of being a small queer business owner. I feel more confident and clear on my next steps and very highly recommend Slam!"
Niksen Kurtz
Esalen Massage
"Slam has a way of making even the most dreaded biz dvlpt tasks into something accessible, playful, and soulful. Her social and emotional fluency has helped me to see business development as part of my personal growth journey. The QueerMBA was a perfect container for taking clear steps towards building a more stable and integrated business. I loved workshopping shared challenges, celebrating wins, and having an empathic and brilliant group to take this journey with."
Elias Serras
ecosomabe
What is included in the Live Queer MBA 2026 GrowHort container?
A space built for queer makers, healers, and builders who feel way more comfortable in artist spaces than boardrooms.
Starts September 9th, 2026!
Evergreen Learning Modules
Relevant, Videos, PDFs, and Exercises
LIVE Small Group Coaching Calls
Weekly Huddles with training + guests
Peer Support: Connect with a Buddy & thrive
How much does the Queer MBA cost?
September GrowHort Pricing: $1,333
Early Bird Special: $1,297! (until July 31st)
Completing your 5-minute intake flow and enrolling by July 31st covers your live admission to our complete Summer Session for free — a $444 bonus value.
This early access locks in your spot, hands you immediate keys to our curriculum, and brings you directly into our live June, July and August Monday Huddles so you can navigate the summer slump inside a sweet community of support.
Want extra eyes on your specific operational systems? You can add three individual, private 1-on-1 coaching sessions for $450 to deeply refine your business model and contracts.
Who is the small business coach behind The Queer MBA and Nimble Roots Coaching?
Meet Rose Slam! Johnson - your partner on the path from scrappy to stable
Since 2009, I’ve worn a lot of different hats in food, finance, and events production across the San Francisco Bay Area — learning most of my lessons the hard way after hitting a massive wall of burnout in my first business.
As a deep community organizer and small business connector here in Oakland, I bring that real-world empathy to leaders, makers, and healers who are ready to transition from scrappy to stable. We look at your real business numbers, design operations around your specific capacity, and do the hard work together so you don't have to face it alone.
Want to read the whole backstory about the festival hummus deliveries, including a bicycle with a kitchen on the back and how I finally learned to slow down?
What kind of real business results can I expect?
"Participating in The Queer MBA helped me start my year with accountability and support. I got clear on the vision that I have for my business and have already started to implement some really meaningful changes."
Jamil Moises Liban-Ortanez
Pahingalay
"Slam! is awesome at distilling huge amounts of knowledge into manageable, easy to follow chunks! That, combined with the power of community, this program gave me a really deep learning and transformational experience. "
Péter Várnai
Tech Consultant
Frequently Asked Questions
The next group will starts September 9th, 2026 and goes through the end of the year.
All Queer MBA participants are welcome at our weekly 60-minute Huddles on Mondays. Once your specific track begins in September, your GrowHort will also meet every other week for a 90-minute live coaching session on Wednesdays (Get More Clients meets at 9:30 AM; Lead with Love meets at 1:30 PM). There are additional monthly community calls throughout the program, including the 90-minute Monthly Money Party.
The Live Math: You'll have 5 to 6 live meetings per month, total. This maps out to roughly 5 hours a month during the Summer Session and 8 hours a month once the full GrowHort begins in September.
Because we intentionally use our live Monday Huddles as execution space to build your operations, there is no outside homework, heavy reading, or hidden labor required to get the most out of this program. If you show up to the calls, you are doing the work.
Your GrowHort will meet on Zoom, every other week for 90 minutes for live coaching.
You will bring questions & challenges to discover, gain insights, and take action on what is most important to you!
Badass queer small business owners!
Groups will be formed based on the stage and type of business so that members complement, support, and inspire each other.
This will probably be the best part of the course :)
While our core coaching blocks and Monday Huddles happen live on Zoom, this cohort features a rich regional footprint of business owners right here in the SF Bay Area. This means you aren't just joining an abstract digital course; you are plugging into a living, breathing local network of peers. (And yes, if you are local to the East Bay, you’ll get immediate access to the sweet, in-person Queer Small Biz Owner Workshops I host on the ground in Oakland).
I have witnessed CPAs, therapists, bookkeepers, facilitators, wilderness guides, coaches, massage therapists, technology specialists, somatic practitioners, and death doulas go through this program and walk away with a stronger business that actually works for them.
A GrowHort is a small, committed group of queer or allied business owners going on this adventure together. You stop copying standard corporate roadmaps that don't work for your brain. Instead, you get a deep workspace and structural containment to build a business on your own terms.
Pathway A - Get More Clients is perfect for the early days of business where you are spreading the word and delivering your services from your heart.
Pathway B - Lead with Love is designed for leaders navigating relationships with employees, contractors, or clients. The way you are with your people matters.
Yes, if you miss a live group coaching session you can catch up by watching the recording.
If you wish to speak and not be recorded, the recording can be paused at anytime.
There will be supplemental, previously recorded content to watch between each live session which will include case studies and exercises.
This program might be right for you if:
🌈 You are a small business owner with a viable service or product (sales might be low, but the people who buy your service/product really like it)
🌈 You are queer (or business-queer, queer adjacent, or re-inventing a new world through your business)
🌈 You have a few messy systems (onboarding new clients, retention, inconsistent sales/income, inconsistent money tracking), and want to bring your business into the next level of stability
🌈 You are clear on your path as a business owner (or clear enough to reignite it in this group) and excited to meet more small business owners
This program is not for you if:
❌ You want a new job, not a new business
❌ You want a get rich quick scheme
❌ You value money more than your joy
❌ You want someone to solve a specific problem for you
❌ You want to run a business, but don’t know what yet.
We bring direct financial systems to your business setup through our Monthly Money Party and strategic learning modules. You will look at the real data of cash flow, set your rates with confidence, and move from a scrappy survival space into tidy, predictable revenue that pays you a consistent salary.
You can read more about my scholarship program here.
Joining The Queer MBA is a collaborative, relationship-centered process built to ensure real community safety inside our small-group GrowHorts from day one. We intentionally avoid high-pressure sales tactics or instant, automated checkouts. Here is the exact 3-step pipeline to get in:
Step 1: Start Your Vibe-Check Intake Flow (5 Minutes): Click any of the primary enrollment buttons on this page to open our confidential intake form. This brief form helps you zoom out and articulate where your small business operations are currently wobbling.
Step 2: Reserve Your Live Call Slot: The moment you hit submit, your form confirmation screen will instantly display the direct access links to RSVP for our upcoming live Intro & Q&A Sessions (Next One is July 13th) or schedule a quiet, private 1-on-1 chat with me if groups feel like too much energy right now.
Step 3: Co-Create Your Container Track: Once approved, we will manually lock in your specific cohort focus—either the Get More Clients early-stage track or the Lead with Love leadership track—and hand over your keys to the evergreen curriculum and July's live Summer School huddles.
As a small business owner, you have to do a lot of things yourself, but you don’t have to do it all alone.
Come join us!
