Turning “Big Hairy Goals” Into Action Plans: Alicia Tulsee on Scaling Startups With Purpose
- Stephanie Roulic
- Jun 2
- 6 min read
Alicia Tulsee didn’t walk into her Startup Boston Week workshop promising founders an easy path to success. Instead, the founder and CEO of Moxie Scrubs arrived with a challenge: learn how to “tame the beast” of ambitious startup goals by breaking them into measurable, manageable steps.
Speaking to a room filled with founders, operators, and students, Alicia Tulsee framed the session around a central idea many early-stage builders struggle with: big goals are meaningless unless founders can clearly define, communicate, and operationalize them.
“We’re going to go in really detail here to take these huge big hairy goals and break them down into bite-sized steps so you can conquer these goals and achieve them,” Tulsee told attendees at the start of the workshop.
Building a Business Around a Problem Worth Solving
Tulsee’s own company became the case study throughout the session. She shared how Moxie Scrubs, which she described as “the first lifestyle brand for nurses,” grew to $2 million in revenue within two years following the pandemic, despite limited marketing spend.
The company was born from personal experience. Tulsee recounted growing up watching nurses care for her aunt, who battled severe diabetes complications and underwent multiple surgeries.
“I realized, whoa, nurses do this every single day,” she said. “They show up for us at our worst. So I created Moxie Scrubs to take care of nurses the way they take care of us.”
Throughout the workshop, Tulsee repeatedly emphasized that founders should “fall in love with the problem” before trying to scale a solution.
For Moxie Scrubs, that meant deeply understanding both the operational gaps and emotional frustrations nurses experienced when buying medical apparel. Tulsee explained that when the company launched in 2021, most scrubs were still purchased through physical retail stores, forcing nurses working 12- to 16-hour shifts to shop on their limited free time.
“That is inconvenient,” Tulsee said bluntly.
She also identified a broader market failure: premium scrub brands largely targeted doctors while overlooking nurses, particularly plus-size nurses, despite nurses making up the largest segment of the healthcare workforce.
“So we said, let’s sell this direct-to-consumer online,” she explained. “And give them inclusive sizing.”
Defining the “Big Hairy Goal”
Much of the workshop focused on helping founders distinguish between aspirational thinking and actionable strategy. Tulsee walked attendees through popular goal-setting frameworks including SMART goals, OKRs, and KPIs, using Moxie’s first major milestone - reaching $1 million in annual revenue - as a practical example.
“Our big hairy goal was a pretty big one,” she said. “It was getting to one million in revenue in our first year in business.”
But Tulsee argued the number itself wasn’t the true goal.
“The one million that we said was because we wanted to prove to investors that we were a scalable business,” she explained. “That this wasn’t just a mom and pop business or small at-home business, that this was a scalable national brand.”
That distinction, understanding the “why” behind the metric, became one of the workshop’s recurring themes. Tulsee encouraged founders to constantly reconnect goals back to mission, especially during difficult stretches.
“There will always be challenges,” she told the audience. “But when you go back to the objective of your goal and look at it, you’re like, okay, it’s to create a profitable, scalable business.”
Founder Mindset and Resilience
Tulsee also leaned heavily into founder psychology and resilience, describing mindset as foundational to execution.
“One of my favorite quotes: all things are created twice,” Tulsee said. “That means first in your mind. If you can’t see it, you can’t achieve it.”
She urged founders to stay connected to the underlying purpose behind their businesses, particularly during periods of uncertainty.
“When you are going through the hard times, that’s where the passion, the objective of your goal, looking at your stakeholders is so important,” she said. “The value is not just the monetary value.”
For Tulsee, that meant continuing to build community even during periods when Moxie struggled with inventory shortages.
“My nurse following kept growing because they got value in the community we built around the brand,” she said. “That motivated me to keep going even though I had nothing to sell for two years.”
Turning Customers Into Stakeholders
As the workshop progressed, Tulsee shifted toward how founders communicate ambitious visions to customers, employees, and investors. She described stakeholder trust as one of the company’s biggest competitive advantages during periods when Moxie struggled operationally.
“When we didn’t have a product for two years, our customers didn’t leave us,” she said.
That loyalty, she argued, came from building community rather than simply selling products. Moxie invited nurses into the product design process, naming scrub styles after real nurses and positioning the brand around healthcare worker wellness rather than apparel alone.
“We said, we are a wellness brand for nurses that happens to sell scrubs,” Tulsee explained.
One particularly memorable moment came when Tulsee described how Olympic qualifying nurse Sam Roker approached the company wanting to run the Boston Marathon in Moxie Scrubs to attempt a Guinness World Record.
“We did not pay her to do this,” Tulsee said. “She’s like, ‘We have to support nurse-first brands because they support us.’”
Why Founders Need Clear Metrics
Tulsee spent a significant portion of the workshop explaining how founders should use KPIs to evaluate whether goals are actually working.
For Moxie, those metrics included customer acquisition cost, return on ad spend, average order value, and lifetime customer value.
She also demonstrated how market-share analysis helped the company identify expansion opportunities in specific states with large nurse populations.
“So you see how you apply this KPI now in this real-world data approach that allows you to then start thinking about how to craft other goals and other strategies?” Tulsee said.
Ultimately, Tulsee argued that measurable frameworks give founders clarity during chaotic periods of growth.
“You take your big hairy goal and you tie it back to each step,” she said. “That way you have clarity, you have focus, you have measurable progress.”
Interactive Founder Coaching in Real Time
The workshop also included live coaching exercises with audience members.
One attendee, Sebastian, a logistics company owner from Chicago, shared that his “big hairy goal” was reaching $6 million in annual revenue. Tulsee helped him identify operational KPIs like same-day fulfillment and customer volume as measurable indicators tied to that goal.
Another attendee, Ava, a first-year marketing student at Suffolk University, described her goal simply as wanting to “build a resume with a good standing resume.” Tulsee reframed the ambition into broader quality-of-life outcomes tied to future employment and fulfillment.
“Even though they’re interviewing you, you’re interviewing them,” Tulsee told Ava while discussing future employers.
Leadership, Hiring, and the “Golden Goose”
The workshop’s final section shifted toward leadership and company culture, where Tulsee stressed the importance of accountability and mission alignment.
“If you can’t do the small things, you can’t do the big things,” she said.
She later expanded on that idea while discussing hiring practices.
“Hire slow, fire fast,” Tulsee told the room. “When they start to be weird, fire fast.”
Tulsee also introduced what she called the “golden goose” philosophy, the idea that startups are ecosystems where employees, customers, investors, and founders all benefit when the business is healthy.
“If the goose dies, nobody’s getting eggs,” she said.
The analogy became a broader call for founders to think beyond short-term gains and focus on sustaining the communities surrounding their companies.
A Reminder That Startup Success Rarely Happens on Schedule
By the end of the session, Tulsee revealed that Moxie Scrubs ultimately reached its original $1 million revenue milestone, just not within the initial 12-month target.
“What happened? We actually did one million in eighteen months,” she said. “And I wanted to share that because that didn’t mean it was worth giving up.”
Six months later, the company generated another million dollars in revenue.
Linda Brown closed the workshop by reinforcing Tulsee’s emphasis on leadership, accountability, and stakeholder-driven culture.
“It’s critical in building the family culture that has everybody rowing in the same direction and eating, breathing, and bleeding for the company,” Brown said.
Tulsee ended the session with one final reminder for founders navigating uncertainty and scale:
“Think big,” she said. “Execute in small steps.”
