Madison Mompreneur Co-Founders Step Up as Industry Experts

This September, Madison Mompreneur co-founders Juliana Piper and Lauren Hooper stepped off their home turf and onto two very different stages — Juliana leading a deep dive on GEO strategy and Lauren at the Influence & Income Summit, sharing what she’s learned about authentic marketing and intentional spending as a financial life coach. Here’s what happened when the community they built together showed up as the experts they’ve always been.

Building a Values-Aligned Brand

Lauren Hooper, co-founder of Madison Mompreneur and founder of The Minimalist Wallet, was invited to speak on the panel at the Influence & Income Summit this September, drawing on her dual expertise as a financial life coach and community builder for business-owning moms. Organizers asked Lauren to address community, authentic marketing, and intentional spending — themes she’s spent years developing both through Madison Mompreneur, the organization she co-founded with Juliana Piper to give entrepreneurial mothers a space to be seen as business owners first, and through her financial coaching, where she helps clients build wealth without losing sight of their values.

Lauren’s remarks centered on a theme she returns to often in her coaching work: authenticity as the foundation of sustainable marketing and genuine business growth. She spoke to attendees about the difference between selling and sharing, the importance of building a brand around who you truly are before marketing it, and how to invest strategically and intentionally in visibility — even, and especially, on a limited budget. Drawing on her background helping clients “declutter” their finances, Hooper offered the room a practical framework for thinking about money and marketing as two sides of the same value-driven decision-making process.

Understand AI to Understand How Your Business Shows Up Online

Meanwhile, Juliana brought a different but equally timely expertise to Madison audiences. On September 23rd, she hosted a hybrid workshop at SBDC-UAH focused on a seismic shift in how local businesses get found: the rise of AI search. With AI answers now appearing on nearly half of all Google searches, and fewer than one-third of searches actually sending a click-through to websites anymore, small business owners face a fundamentally different game than they did just two years ago.

But here’s what Juliana emphasized to workshop attendees (both in-person and online): the panic is premature. “People think they need to reinvent everything,” she explained, “but really it’s about understanding where recommendations are actually happening, Google, Google Maps, inside ChatGPT, Gemini, and making sure your business shows up.” The data backs this up: 61% of local searches still start on Google Search or Google Maps, meaning the SEO fundamentals that worked before haven’t disappeared. They’ve just evolved.

Attendees left with concrete action items for their own businesses, equipped with a clearer picture of what local visibility looks like in 2026, and reassured that they don’t need to throw out everything they know about showing up online. Juliana wrapped up by announcing new GEO optimization services launching in October to help small businesses secure their visibility in AI search.

Madison Mompreneur Founders Are Go-To Speakers

For Juliana and Lauren, September’s speaking engagements weren’t a one-off, they were the latest chapter in a pattern that’s defined Madison Mompreneur since its founding. Both women have built reputations as go-to voices in their respective niches, regularly invited to share what they know with their communities. Lauren’s financial coaching background and Juliana’s command of GEO strategy make them a force to be reckoned with, two different specialties, one shared commitment to helping fellow entrepreneurs grow smarter, not just louder. If September proved anything, it’s that this won’t be the last time either of them is asked to take the mic.