The Community That Refused to Stay Quiet

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Most ideas don’t show up as ideas.
They show up as patterns you can’t unsee.

A repeated question in NTE Pro.
A quiet signal in WhoFiled Pro.
A story that keeps resurfacing even when no one’s pitching it.

That’s how It Exists usually starts.

For this one, we interviewed Kadijat Salawudeen, the founder of Girls Who Listen.

Not because she set out to build a company.
But because she kept running into the same problem and noticed others were too.

No roadmap.
No master plan.
Just a gap that refused to stay invisible.

Kadijat didn’t wake up one day and decide to build a community.

She hosted a panel.

Four women. Different corners of the music industry. Honest answers. No smoke. No mystique.

When it ended, someone pulled her aside and asked a question that landed harder than applause:

“Are you going to do more of this?”

Not this was cool.
Not you should do this again.

More.

That question lingered because it revealed something uncomfortable:
this wasn’t interest, it was need.

People weren’t showing up to be inspired.
They were showing up because they didn’t know how the industry actually worked and no one was explaining it.

That’s how Girls Who Listen began.
Not as a mission.
As a response.

The $800 Lesson No One Warns You About

Years earlier, Kadijat learned how expensive access becomes when no one writes the rules.

Freshman year at St. John’s University in Queens. Hungry. Ambitious. Trying to break in.

She met an artist manager who promised introductions to some of her favorite artists.

The price: $800.

She paid him using her work-study money.

It was a scam.

No intros. No follow-up. Just silence.

That moment did more than sting.
It clarified something brutal:

When industries stay opaque, people sell fake doors.

What frustrated her most wasn’t losing the money.
It was realizing how common this was and how many young people were being taken advantage of simply because they didn’t know who to ask or what questions were “allowed.”

Girls Who Listen wasn’t built to make music easy.

Kadijat is clear about that:
the industry should stay exclusive.
The work should still be earned.

But knowledge?
Knowledge shouldn’t be hoarded.

The Gatekeeping Wasn’t Cruel - It Was Structural

Around the same time, she noticed something quieter.

When she reached out to women in the industry for guidance, responses were often limited or nonexistent.
Not rude. Not dismissive.

Just unavailable.

When she reached out to men, replies came more easily.

Kadijat doesn’t villainize this.
She understands scarcity.
Bandwidth.
Proximity.

But she also saw the outcome:
access was flowing unevenly, mostly by habit.

So instead of asking why isn’t anyone helping, she asked a more dangerous question:

What would happen if someone did?

She pitched a women-in-media panel.

No roadmap. No nonprofit plan. Just four women talking honestly about how things actually worked.

Afterward, the feedback sounded eerily similar every time:

“I didn’t know this was possible.”
“I wish I had heard this years ago.”
“This answered questions I’ve had forever.”

That repetition mattered.

It meant this wasn’t about motivation.
It was about information asymmetry.

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Girls Who Listen Wasn’t a Company Yet - It Was Infrastructure Forming

At first, it wasn’t a business.
It wasn’t even intentional.

Kadijat just loved bringing people together and asking better questions.

Then momentum forced a decision.

She saw a grant opportunity.
One requirement: the business had to be registered.

So she registered it.

Not because she had a grand vision.
But because motion had already started.

She didn’t come from a family of entrepreneurs.
She wasn’t mapping TAM or thinking about scale.

She just kept responding to what people were asking for and narrowing focus when needed.

Originally, Girls Who Listen aimed to support women across music, film, and TV.

Then she pulled back.

Music was where her experience was deepest.
Her network strongest.
Her credibility earned.

Focus wasn’t a constraint.
It was respect.

The Pandemic Didn’t Create Momentum - It Revealed It

When everything went virtual, Girls Who Listen didn’t scramble.

It expanded.

Attendance grew.
Reach stretched far beyond New York.
People showed up from everywhere.

More importantly, they stayed.

They shared resources.
They referred friends.
They returned at different stages of their careers.

That’s when Kadijat realized something important:

This wasn’t an event series.
It was becoming a consistent resource.

Girls Who Listen wasn’t just helping people feel seen.
It was helping them move forward.

Leadership Didn’t Feel Like Power - It Felt Like Weight

The hardest part wasn’t the mission.

It was the responsibility.

Balancing a full-time job while building a team.
Onboarding volunteers while the vision was still evolving.
Aligning people when clarity lagged execution.

Kadijat also had to confront something internal:
in the music industry, she didn’t always feel “worthy” without a senior title.

Building Girls Who Listen rewired that.

Leadership stopped being about position.
It became about impact.

Still, doubt showed up.

When similar organizations emerged, she wondered:
Is this still needed?

But the signal kept returning:
people still needed the space.
Still relied on it.
Still trusted it.

So she stayed.

What Kadijat Thinks Needs to Exist Next

Kadijat isn’t excited about louder events.

She’s excited about continuity.

Access that doesn’t disappear when a session ends.
Resources people can return to between moments.
Clearer pipelines between talent and companies.
Infrastructure that helps curiosity turn into opportunity.

She wants Girls Who Listen to serve individuals and the industry itself, reducing friction on both sides.

Not flattening the music business.
Just removing the unnecessary fog.

What You Can Learn From Kadijat

• Access is a market. When people keep asking the same questions, something is broken.

• Exclusivity isn’t the enemy. Opacity is.

• Communities form around gaps, not audiences.

• Focus is a form of care.

• Leadership isn’t visibility, it’s follow-through.

• Feedback beats intuition when serving others.

• Longevity matters more than hype.

• You don’t need permission to build what’s missing.

Girls Who Listen didn’t start as a nonprofit.
It started as someone refusing to accept that confusion was just “part of the game.”

Six years later, people still say:
“Oh, you’ve heard of Girls Who Listen?”

That’s not branding.
That’s relevance.

It exists.

Stories like Kadijat’s are why Needs To Exist exists.

NTE Pro helps you spot the idea before it’s obvious.
NTE Zero to One shows how people turn lived frustration into something real.
WhoFiled Pro lets you see what happens when those ideas finally harden into companies.

It Exists lives in between.

That moment where nothing is guaranteed but something clearly needs to be built.

Kadijat didn’t wait for permission.
She paid attention.

And that’s usually how it starts.