"Anything you can do, we can do better."

Three Latina founders walked away from companies that only cared about the next dollar and built the agency they wished they'd worked for. This is how MiMo Marketing got made.

Featuring Cheyenne Mejia, Jennifer Whitehurst & Lauren Coats. 

The Origin Story

Every good agency has a "we could do better" moment. What was yours?

Jenn: We started like most female-founded businesses do... feeling like we could do better than what we were seeing and what we were working in. I came from entertainment: Disney, Hulu, J.M. Smucker, a lot of the big family companies. After having my baby, I needed to control my schedule and work somewhere that actually felt positive. So I teamed up with two amazing women, and we've been building something that feels so much bigger than ourselves.

Lauren: My background is events, logistics, marketing, basically all the liaison things. And like my co-founders, I kept landing at companies that didn't care about their clients or their employees. They only cared about making money as fast as they possibly could, and it didn't sit right with me.  So we set out to make something different. Something we'd be proud of, that our families would be proud of.

Cheyenne, you've spent a decade helping brands find their voice. What pulled you in?

Cheyenne: I started in non-profit PR, moved into social and digital along the way, and I've worked across just about every industry: tech, automotive, finance, real estate, telecomm, you name it. Through all of it, my focus has always been the same: connecting with people on a deeper level so we can tell a story that resonates. I hate the direct, salesy stuff. I want people to connect with the story first. The lead comes later.

"You can really tell people's true colors when the storm starts to come in." — Lauren

The Leap

So how did a "crazy idea" phone call turn into a company?

Lauren: Cheyenne and I met in 2022 as coworkers and loved working together. I genuinely thought, I'm going to retire here. Then the storm came, and it brought out some true colors in leadership. We both made sacrifices for the team that were never reciprocated. So I called Cheyenne with this crazy idea, fully expecting her to think I'd lost it: "Have you ever thought about working for yourself? Making an agency?"

Cheyenne: I did think you were a little crazy. [laughs]

Lauren: Love that. And honestly, my mindset back then was, people like me don't do stuff like that, only people who have it all figured out do. Which is ironic, because the only way to get that experience is to just start. Doing it together is what made the difference. On my own, it would've taken me way longer. Maybe never.

And Jenn you basically invited yourself in over lunch?

Lauren: Jenn and I worked at Disney together, and we got lunch just to catch up. She asked what I was up to, I told her about this thing called MiMo — purely as life news — and she goes, "Are you looking for a third partner?" She believed in the mission before it was even built. So I brought her to Cheyenne, who probably thought, "I don't know who this woman is" —

Cheyenne: — but I trusted Lauren. The three of us hit it off right away. We've been building our own little empire ever since, and it's exactly what I wish every team I'd been on had actually been.

"We're not jumping ship. But if you ride out every storm, eventually you drown so we decided to be our own lifeguards." — Cheyenne

Was there a single moment the fear finally broke?

Cheyenne: We're both overthinkers, so it took a while. Starting a business felt so big. But we'd worked for so many people where we thought, "I could've done that better. I had the idea, I shared it, no one listened" and then it failed. Eventually it clicked: if they can do it, we can do it. I literally kept singing that song from my childhood... "anything you can do, I can do better." And I believed it then, and believe it now. We can do it better.

What Makes MiMo, MiMo

Plenty of agencies claim they're "different." What actually makes yours different?

Cheyenne: We'll never prioritize money over our morals. There's never been a paycheck big enough to change my ethics, and Lauren's exactly the same. We realized we were surrounded by businesses that would trade their values for money- we've seen it firsthand- and the only way out of that environment was to build our own.

Lauren: As marketers, we could give you a whole list: branding, strategy, all of it matters. But what really makes the difference is how you operate with humans. Are you coming from a lens that cares, or one that doesn't? I don't know how you expect anyone to care if you don't. It starts at the top. MiMo is different on the outside, and it's very different on the inside.

You lead with empathy but also with directness. How do those coexist?

Cheyenne: I credit my mom. She's a first-gen Mexican mom, and a total straight shooter. She raised me to say what you need to say, then let's move on and get past it. I try never to be passive-aggressive, because it does nothing. You can be direct without being unkind. And honestly, this is a whole other conversation, but when men say what they mean, they just "move on." When women do it, suddenly we're "aggressive." So rewriting those rules and boundaries that woman have had to abide by is important work.

Lauren: So much of Cheyenne's DNA is in MiMo's DNA. A lot of leaders avoid hard conversations because they're not trained for them or they're not comfortable. We just have them. I won't pretend it isn't hard but the only way through it is through it, not around it.

Okay so what does MiMo actually do?

Cheyenne: We're a full-scale marketing agency, founded by three Latina women who decided to build their own thing. We're focused on intentionality, authenticity, and genuinely caring about our clients and their audiences. A lot of agencies right now either lean on AI so everything sounds robotic and void of soul, or they crank work out fast because they think volume is impressive. We believe quality over quantity, and it shows in our work.

Jenn: I'm the branding, business development, and partnerships side, so pretty much anything in that bucket is something we offer.

Cheyenne: I sit in marcom-- where communications, PR, social, influencers, content meet. 

Lauren: And I'm operations and day-to-day project management. I focus on how the team works together, how tasks get delegated and followed up without a thousand sticky notes across ten different apps. And events. We love events around here.

Cheyenne: We've all worn a lot of hats throughout our career, and currently as we build our business. But the good thing about women? We wear hats well.

What about the things you don't do?

Lauren: We're honest about it. We don't say "give us your credit card, we'll Google it tonight." If we don't know how to do something, we usually know someone we trust who does who we'll bring in. And if we can't do that, we'll tell you the truth either way. I've watched all three of us say no on sales calls, which is genuinely unusual in American sales culture. I'm really proud of that.

Cheyenne: We're also intentional about who we work with. That was a foundational rule from day one. We want to be aligned with you, because if we're operating in two different worlds, we're never going to build the trust a real partnership needs.

On The Momentum Sessions

So what is The Momentum Sessions?

Cheyenne: I think of it as the media arm of the business, and right now, that's this podcast. We wanted a space where women, and eventually other people we think are freaking amazing —entrepreneurs, moms, coaches, career professionals— can sit down and just talk like you're catching up with a friend over coffee or drinks. Honest conversations about what women go through, especially around marketing, work, motherhood, and everything in between.

Lauren: What makes it different is the follow-through. There are a lot of places that hype you up — you leave ready to run through a wall, but you don't actually know what to do with that energy. Bring the energy here, and we'll help you figure out what comes next.

We like to yap. And we've got opinions.

Catch The Momentum Sessions on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Find us on Instagram @themomentumsessions or at teammimo.com.