A good afternoon, everyone. How's everybody doing out there? Oh is that? Good. Okay. Great. Thank you for coming, and thank you for joining us. This is the We Hatch panel called Capital Catalysts Women Funding the Future. My name is Laura Gazarowski. I'm a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware. But today, I'm happy to just be your friendly moderator, or if I like to call it your Hype Man or ma'am. Your hype ma'am, for all things Entrepreneurship. But it's an honor to have you here today, and I think it's going to be a really great conversation. For those of you who might be new to We hatch, let me give you just a 32nd origin story. So we hatch was founded during the pandemic, and it had the goal of empowering women entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, and social innovators who were facing unprecedented challenges. And from that initial vision and with a very generous gift from Amber Glassman, who is a UD Lum and an entrepreneur, we hatch has really grown quite a bit. And the programs that we host, like today's panel, are designed to foster connections and provide resources for women to thrive. So I really encourage you to take advantage of all the opportunities of today, talking with each other, talking with our panelists after our event, and then attending all the other events at Innovation Fest. Because you never know what can happen. Um, but now let's talk about today's panel. So we're joined by a phenomenal group of women who have really done it all. They've raised capital. They've grown businesses. They've invested successfully. I heard them talking about, like, you know, kind of getting people's balance sheets into whipping them into shape. So basically, if entrepreneurship were an Olympic sport, they would all have gold medals. But just figuratively, we would have to get another gift from Amber to give them actual gold medals. But they have very graciously agreed to let us pick their brains today. So without further ado, let's meet our panelists. I would like to ask each one of you to just introduce yourselves, and then we'll jump right into questions. Holly would you like to start? Sure. Hi, I'm Holly Flanagan. I am a University of Delaware graduate from 1993, and then I came back in 2001 and got my MBA. And I currently work for Gabriel Investments. We're an early stage venture firm up in Philadelphia, but I spent the first 20 years of my career in banking in Wilmington at a couple of credit card issuers. And at Gabriel, we're mostly focused on funding companies that are in the region, that are technology companies that are typically looking for their first round of financing. Alright. Hi, I'm Jen Roland, a blue hen, as well from Class of 1990. I am an accountant, a CPA, an accidental accountant, kind of a reluctant accountant. I was kind of forced into it as my major here at Delaware, but I actually, you know, I love it. It's my passion now, and I have a lot of great accounting stories, if you couldn't imagine. And I tell people all the time, my friends. I said, If you think accounting is boring, you are so wrong because every day I have a new crazier adventure. I've been a controller, a CFO, a partner at a big accounting firm, and now I run my own consulting business where someone described me yesterday as, like, the Ray Donovan of accounting problems. I come in and I clean accounting messes, or I fill in gaps where a company needs either a fractional or an interim CFO. I work also with a lot of early stage companies in figuring out, you know, cash flow, forecasting, getting your financials into shape so that you can pitch and present and how you can talk to your financials in a confident way because I'm in awe. I've worked with Horn and a bunch of entrepreneurs, and I'm in awe of your creativity and your ideas and your brilliance. But, you know, a lot of times you don't want to think about the accounting and you hesitate to think about the accounting, but I'm here to help you figure out how to talk about the accounting. Hi, my name is Jennifer Seibert. I have a I started out life as a biochemist, and I worked for a lot of biotech companies and life science startups. One of them those back in the day was Amgen, and um, as I grew, I just moved had a lot of luck in life, and I moved on to do private investing and, uh, and I like to work with a lot of angel groups. Actually, she's under valuing herself because she was a real star at Amgen. I forget which drug it was that you were involved long. It's their very first one. Okay. EthropEPOEb. So she's a real star on the marketing side. So my name's Ann Sheeb. I'm a member of an Angel investing group called Golden Seeds. They have a number of chapters primarily based out in New York City, but also we have other locations as well. Now, we my background, I'm not I'm sorry, I'm thinking I'm the only person here is not a UDL graduate. I went to Rice in University of Chicago, different color, not blue. I think it's purple. But anyway, um, so and from there, I I did a bunch of different new ventures and eventually was successful enough to be able to start investing in other small companies. I mostly focus on medical devices, sometimes pharmaceuticals and less so diagnostics. And Golden seeds most is their entire focus is on women led entrepreneurship. Uh, so the criteria they have is 5-10% of the company needs to be owned and operated by a woman in the C suite. And I think Golden Sets has been going for almost 15 or 20 years by now, and has put a ton of money, I think it's a couple of hundred million dollars possibly into women led entrepreneurs. And they have some very sort of not rigid but clear, um, criteria for what they'll invest in. And I'd be happy to tell you more about that as time goes on. Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to kick it off with the first question, and it's a privilege of sitting here. But then I will open up to anyone else who has other questions. So my first question, a lot of you talked about investing in other companies. What's the first thing that you look for when assessing a business for investment? And what are sort of the first or, like, the common red flags that would make you hesitate and that anyone can answer at any point. Always want me to start. Yeah, it'd be start. Sure. Um, well, I mean, we all have our own criteria that we pretty much follow in our own brains. Golden Seeds being an angel investor group does not have a hard and fast, uh uh criteria for once you get into the company and it fits with the structure of the company fits with our other criteria. But personally, I like to look at a CEO or a management team that has had experience in doing something like what they're doing now at least once before. And so I'd like to see somebody who's the chief technology officer who in this is in medical devices. It's a little different for tech and other things. I'd like to see a chief science officer, chief technology officer who has got a product through development through to the market. I'd like to see a CEO who's actually taken a new product and got it into the market and had successful. So those would be the two primary things I would look for. I would second that as really important criteria for me, also. I like to see some experience, moving a technology for it. I also like to see realistic timelines and realistic assessment of how much capital is going to be required. Not really interested in financing the first six months, you know, of the business I want to see it, how it's going to unfold over five to seven years. Mio. Completely agree. I would also say we really like entrepreneurs who understand their finances, which is probably what you would say if you were gonna say something. But mostly it's a couple of things. One is, you know, why are they raising money? What is it for? How long will it last them? And also, really, how will they use the money? And, you know, why do what's the cash runway? But also, we understand that not always great products get sold, you know, aren't you know, the best products don't always win. So how are they selling to their customers? So what does that look like? You know, is it I'm just going to put an ad on Facebook or is there some demonstrated proof for this is why people are going to buy it. This is some proxy for them buying it. We love companies that understand the cost to acquire a customer and really the value of that customer relationship. So, for every customer that I acquire, I'm going to bring in this much revenue and this much profit. And by the way, the market is big enough that now with some funding, I can get a lot more of those customers. So those simple dynamics are things that are really interesting to us. Alright. Thank you. Does anybody else have the next question? Come on. Don't be shy. So I'll follow up online and you guys can think. But to follow up on that, I'm assuming the red flags are if they don't have those things. But is there anything else that you commonly see as a cause for rejection that aren't the things you just talked about? Um, me again. Okay. I would say, um, unreal. Well, we talked about timelines and finances, so we really need to see a reasonable length of time of a projection, especially if they're in pre pre clinical trials or early stage of the technology development, I want to know what are the milestones getting to the point of when they're starting to commercialize the product? Then beyond that, how are they going to I think she said that it was what's the go to market strategy and how does that what size of market is it going to be and how do you actually get those customers? I'm a marketing strategy person, and of course, I think that the world revolves around marketing strategy and finance and operations and everything else comes first, but you have to find who your primary customer is going to be. And, um, and really have a good assessment of what it's like to be that customer. How important is this solution that you're potentially bringing to them? How important is that to their everyday management or whatever they're doing? So yeah, I would say timelines are very important clear market and customer segmentation, and everything else for me kind of follows from that. Anybody else on red flags? You know, I would say I'm sorry, where you going to go? I like to see some experience in the industry that they're providing the solution for. So if I see no experience, that's a really red flag for me. And I was going to say red flags are often you know, you're pitching an investor, and you might bend the truth or I have this many investors off circled or lined up or I have a customer you know, in our diligence process, we'll get further into those details. And unfortunately, lots of times I've called on customer or, you know, I've called on references or I've called on customers or I've looked at bank statements, and the story is, like, slightly different. And so a lot of what we're doing as investors, we're looking for reasons, sadly, a very cynical business. We're looking for reasons not to invest. And so sometimes it's a hard checklist and sometimes it's a mental checklist. But we're looking for were they not quite honest? Were they Isn't This isn't quite the story they told. Those are like really bad red flags. But I would also say it's a small investment community is a small world. I'm sure, well, we haven't invested together, we know people that have. And so anytime I'm talking to a company and they say, This investor is considering investing in my company, I usually call that investor because it's a small, you know, it's a small community. And so they'll let me know what they're thinking. They'll let me know whether they really were committing or whether they just took one meeting. And so I would just say, know that everyone talks and everyone's fact checking, not because they don't believe you, but because it's the only way that we can do our diligence. Especially because these companies are typically so young, that there's not a ton of information that we can dig into for due diligence. So a lot of it really comes down to who else you're talking to, who you're doing business with, and who your investors are. I guess from my perspective, I'm not investing in the company, but I guess I'm investing in the founders of the company that I would want to work with. And so when I, you know, have an initial meeting with someone, I always want to understand, you know, what's your why? Why are you here? Why are you building this business and tell me your story. And 99% of the people I work with are wonderful. And I didn't really see this red flag at the beginning, but I had someone I started working with and she said, you know, I want to be on the cover of Forbes magazine. I said, you know, next week or what are we doing? I said, Well, who is your target audience? What's your pricing? All those kind of questions. And she just kept coming back to, you know, I'm going to this speaking engagement, and I want to be on the cover of the magazine. And lo and behold, you know, some time later, you know, it just was really hard to work with this person because they weren't focused on the business. They weren't answering the right questions, and it just wasn't a good fit. So I guess that's what I'm looking for when I invest my time and helping you because, you know, I charge for my time, but I do make investments as well, because I get excited about, you know, the early stage companies and your journey and what you're doing. So that's my investment perspective. Interesting. I'm going to ask you specifically a question because we've been talking about investment, but I think you bring a really interesting perspective. What are some of the biggest challenges with start ups and entrepreneurs and accounting that you kind of wish they knew about or knew what to do about? I think, cash flow. There's a lot of people when I first start talking to them and I say, you know, what are your goals? What are your objectives? What are you looking to do in the next, you know, three months, six months in a year? And how do you plan to do that? And, you know, have you scribbled anything on paper? You know, what does that look like? That's kind of a challenge. I know that, um you know, accounting and people get overwhelmed by it. They might have, you know, a bookkeeping system, or they might I think a lot of times you rely on someone that's word of mouth or maybe you have a tax accountant who helps you with your taxes every year you have to pay taxes, whether they're personal or your business comes into play. But sometimes they just rely on that person to do everything. I had a client where I had to undo a lot of the things that the tax accountant did because he was not the bookkeeping, you know, he wasn't keeping books per se. So I think the challenges with early stage is just having the ability to look at your data and your information so that it can help you make decisions because unless you really have unlimited funds, which, you know, good God bless if you do, but that's not my experience. You have to make decisions between certain things. So do I need to hire this person? Do I need to hire them now? Do I need to, you know, what kind of, you know, marketing and advertising can I afford at this time? You know, is that a priority? Is it a do I need? Somebody I started working with had already signed a two year lease for this huge office space. And I said, You're not. Who's sitting here? Nobody? Like, where is your money? And what could you have done with that money instead? So those kind of things like ask I would say ask if you're working with a financial person, ask them those questions first or talk through your story, and we can put it on paper so that you're able to make the decision, I think. Sometimes people make decisions based on their gut or their emotions. And then there's some regret a little bit later. Is one of the problems that they aren't thinking about accounting and finding someone as a partner early enough? I think so. That's part of it, definitely, because I have another person that I was working with that just really had no idea how much money was coming in, where it was going out. There was just credit cards and things. And if you don't have one view of it all pulled together, it's really hard to make decisions. Yeah. You know. Yeah, I think accounting is and you don't have to you don't have to hire a CFO your first month of business and pay someone hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can there's a whole, you know, ecosystem of fractional organizations and fractional people that I'm a CFO of probably ten or 11 companies. Some are very small, 2 hours a month, 3 hours a month or as needed. So, you know, 20 hours a week. And, you know, it depends. It's ebbs and flows. But you can get good advice and good support without, you know, hiring a full blown, you know, like, you know, Bank of America, former Bank of America CFO. You can get that help because that's going to help drive, you know, all of the next steps that you need. Interesting. The audience have any ques I think we have a few. Yeah. Hi, thank you all so much for your time. My name's Jen Holwell, a serial entrepreneur, but I joke I hate that term because I haven't killed many businesses. I hear you on the wanting folks to have domain expertise in the business that they're working in. But to counter that, if you look at Bezos jumping into the fragmented book sector to work in e commerce or Musk jumping into electric vehicles after PayPal, sometimes the best insights come from having a different perspective and then surrounding yourself with a very strong advisory board who has the domain expertise. So I guess my question to you would be, are those the kinds of entrepreneurs you would also back or are you really leaning towards the entrepreneur themselves has to have that particular industry domain expertise? Do you want to go who's that? Uh, well, I understand there are those extraordinary human beings on this earth, but for me, I look for domain expertise. I want someone who realistically understands the customer, the market and can roll it out. You know, for everyone, there is a first time. You know, I acknowledge that. It's just, you know, you need to understand your market, understand your customer. And it's the rare individual who can do that without any experience. I think I agree with that, by the way. Yeah, I don't mean to crush anyone's dreams. It's just, you know, I Yeah, I would say on the technology side, you know, it may not be necessarily domain expertise, but someone who really can experience whoever's struggling with that issue, they're trying to solve that problem. So whether they may not have, like, you know, expertise, they have some connection to the problem that gives them enough knowledge that would make them know how to solve it. Okay. I think we've got some other. Hi. My name is Annaval and my question is, from an entrepreneur standpoint, when their products already developed and they're already actively selling, when should an entrepreneur know that the company is ready to take the leap to start raising funding or green flags that a company could benefit from having an investor? I couldn't quite hear that. Did you Can you shout that for the deaf people on the? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. For an entrepreneur, when the product has already been developed and they're actively selling, when should an entrepreneur know that the company is ready to take the leap to start funding or green flags that a company could benefit from getting an investor? Well, I mean, that's a really I could write several books on that actually. Where to start. I would say, obviously, you start with your timeline. First of all, you start with your customer, right, and what you're bringing to that customer and your anticipation of how this product will be used in that customer's life. And then I would say you would then start to do your projections to look out, you know, how far you're going to be until you get first cash coming in and you start being cash flow positive. Now, again, it's very dependent on the industry. So in the pharma business and certainly in the medical device business, it may be that you don't get to a positive cash flow before you have to start looking for investors. So I would just say milestone it out until you find, you know, a potential option for starting to go out to entrepreneurs. The other thing is, these markets change from year to year. I mean, we have just gone through some major changes that we foresee for 2025. Um, so a lot of times you have to sort of continually test the entrepreneurial financing market. Are you investing in these kind of things this year? You know, what are the terms? What are the valuations that you're seeing? What are the things that you're interested in investing in? I know in medical device, possibly Pharma, certainly in diagnostics, these things change, you know, every two or three years. It's small molecule this year. It's it's a capital equipment next year. It's a Pharma thing the next year. Um, so these so you really want to start going out and talking to finance people, before you get too far into the process. The other thing is that as you're developing your timeline from the start of this, sort of you had this light bulb go off in your brain and you're starting to develop it, you constantly want to be, um, checking with the finance group financiers and talking to them about how they work with entrepreneurs. What is your due diligence process like, things of that nature? I think that was basically what I yeah, I think that advice is very good to constantly be sort of thinking about financing or raising funds. It's great. If you're on the market and your products develop, then, you know, if it's successful, then you're really pitching a market expansion capability and it's always good to get that feedback. Also, investors have certain areas where there areas of comfort. So depending on what market your product is for, you might find some funds are more interested in investing in that type of thing than others, you know, and so constantly searching for the right kind of investor that can understand your business and be excited by what you're doing. It takes time, and it's always good to get that feedback from them, also. But can I just butt in and get? Because there was something I was going to say and I forgot. Mid sentence. So one of the things that's really important is as you're developing these milestones development milestones, I really think of them as sort of risk points at which risk has been mitigated. So if you imagine you're sitting at a table and you have these dishes that represents different kinds of risks that you have to do with commercial getting the product commercialized, getting through regulatory affairs, getting, you know, various other things, capital equipment or getting manufacturing run. Um you start start doing things along this timeline and with milestones that takes risk off the table. That I think helps entrepreneurs, first of all, understand where the risks are. I mean, financial people, as well as, you know, what are you going to do to mitigate those risks? And how important are those risks and how easy are they going to be to overcome, even if you are financed. Something. So on the technology side, on the pharma and medical device, it's a little bit more capital intensive. On the technology side, you can get pretty far without raising any money. And so I often say, if you never have to raise money, then you're way better off. And I can say it as an investor, because you have to recognize that when you take investment, you have bosses, and now you have an obligation to return the capital, and it's not usually just the capital. So I often say, if you can run a business and never take any investment in, you're in way better shape. But, you know, in our world, when you take capital or when you're looking for capital, it's usually for a few reasons. It's usually because either you need capital because you're funding a loss of the business, so the business will lose money, but eventually hopefully it'll make a lot of money. So you're either funding that loss period, or you're already profitable and you are seizing some market opportunity. I I I got an investment of X million dollars or X hundred thousand dollars, I could really capitalize and sell into this particular market opportunity. So those are usually the reasons in my world why you would try to look for investment. Now, how you get investment, it becomes easier if you think about risk. So the riskiest businesses that are looking for money are unprofitable and very new and don't have a lot of progress attraction. So the further you can get in that story line with less risk, the easier stories to tell and the more demand that you'll have from different investors. So it's all about your narrative. My company is profitable, or if I didn't market, it could be profitable. I have X number of customers, not pilots, not proxies for customers, but actual paying customers that are paying rack rate and this is sort of my timeline for what I will use with the money. Like, that's clear, you know, obviously, that's an easier story to tell. You're gonna tell that story with confidence, and you're going to have a lot of an easier time getting investment. But that's a couple of things I would be thinking about in terms of when to think about raising money. And I would go back even further. This is, you know, they're talking about raising the money, the money that has a cost. There's also a lot of free money out there. So even at the earliest stages, look into grants or pitch competitions. And even if you get a few thousand here or there, just to put that in your next round of funding, when you do go to Friends of Family or you do go to investors, you say, I won this pitch competition, and I had this money, and I was awarded this grant. So I would spend it is worth the time to do a little bit of research. I know it's intense when you're starting your own company, but there are definitely things, economic development money. But if you can get some of that early on, that's free money. Freer, I guess. And I would say I totally agree. Totally try to get free money. But the other thing to think about is if you play out and work backwards. So, you know, think about it from the customer's perspective first that way, it sort of bottoms up, but also top down, which is in X number of years, I want to sell the company for this much money and put this much money in my pocket. So for me to do that, it means I need to own this much of the company. If I take investment out, now I own less, so I have to sell the company for more to get that same net result. So, you know, lifestyle businesses, it's not a dirty word. No raising venture capital is not a bad thing. Ultimately, you have control over everything. And if you sell the company, you know, you are the sole recipient or to some degree of what happens in an exit. So, you know, work both ways, you know, bottoms up and tops down for how you think about raising money. Can I go back to that question that came from the back of the room about Elon Musk and others? Yeah, I think you're alluding to. So, you know, one of the things that could potentially be a way around the fact that you may not have as much domain expertise, and I'm talking about my industries as somebody who's been in the business for 25, 30 years, if you're able to come to the table with, I had these four really good quality grants from the NIH or the National Science Foundation, and I get these great scores, and I've been given a couple of million dollars, and I have an SBIR grant. I think nt financiers are going to be more interested in taking a look at that and they can also potentially help you build a management team. Now, that is a double edged sword. They may not want their help. Thank you very much for building a management team, but it is at least something that you could think about. Okay, other questions? I think I saw a few hands earlier. I've got one over here. Hi. Is this on? Okay. Yeah. Hi, I'm Matty. Question I have is, what are you most excited about for kind of going into 2025 in terms of trends in certain industries or innovations? What are you most excited to find a company to invest in? Well, I mean, I can talk about, you know, the medical device diagnostic pharma space and you can chip in on the farmer. I'm not as much farmer these days, but, you know, things that we look for in that space are things that have a very high need. So there's a big problem. Okay. It's not just, well, it's a problem, but it's like down here on my list of priorities. I want it to be the top one or two or three problems that the clinician, for example, or the nurse or whoever it is, has. So I want it to be something that will demonstratedly, or be easy to demonstrate improvement in the clinical outcomes and improvement in the cost effectiveness. I don't know what technologies those would be, but those would be the things that I would look at immediately. And if that's a iffy thing, it's not going to do those things or if it's going to be hard to demonstrate to other customers, to people in a clinical trial or something, then I'd probably pass it up. Yeah, I'm being really careful. I guess one space in pharmaceuticals that I've been following developments on is more in neurology and immunology, some of the neurodegenerative diseases, early detection, staging of, you know, cognitive decline, those types of things, Um, I find that there's a lot of new approaches, new technology. There's been a lot of failure in things like Alzheimer's, but then with every failure that stimulates, you know, a new idea. And there's a lot of really early stage, new ideas that I've been tracking. That being said, I'm very careful about life sciences in particular, very, very early stage because I know much how capital intensive that can be. So, um I've been probably less on the drug side of watching it and more on the detection side, the diagnostic side, simply because some of those products, while it's a challenging area, some of those products can get to market faster, although that market can be challenging. I'm really looking for the acquisition environment. You know, what types of technology are the big pharmaceuticals, the Pfizers, what I call the distribution houses? What are the types of technology that they're acquiring and why strategically? Because in early stage life sciences, often you get, um bought out, you know, before you actually get to the market. Once your drug shows efficacy, shows that it's, you know, that it can work, and you need to fund the larger stage of trials, you know, that's when you hope to sell out to a Big Pharma. So I try to take a really close look at what Big Pharma is looking for. On the technology side, everything's AI. So I'm not even sure we know exactly what we're looking for. It's it's just everyone saying, What component of your business can either be replaced or should we be worried about that AI is gonna come in and change or manipulate in some way. So how are you preparing for that? So I don't know exactly know what that means or what that looks like, but it's what everybody's talking. So where all the money is right now. And I guess my angle for even that perspective on AI is, you know, I didn't grow up with technology. I'm a little older. But I've been using, like, AI and technology on a smaller scale within my own laptops. I'm not, you know, I'm not a product agnostic for whatever type of, you know, laptop or technology you use. But there's a little icon on the bottom of my computer, and I said, someone asked me to write, you know, policies and procedures about accounts payable. How do we pay our bills and who does what? I typed it in, in 3 seconds, there was two pages worth of Here's the policies and procedures around accounts payable, and I tweaked it for my client and their roles, and it was done. Whereas before, if I didn't think about it or poke around in that little icon at the bottom of my computer, you know, it would have spent a few hours, thinking, Oh, back, okay, how did this client do it? How did this client do it? Let me dig in my files and try to find a piece of paper or something like an old policy and procedures. But here, if there's something that you can do, like, that's not even related to your core product or what you need to do. You can use that for a lot of tasks that may free up your time because at this stage, if you're an entrepreneur, early stage, and you're starting, time is money. Your time is so valuable and it's split between so many things. So if there's a way that you can cut down maybe, like, a two hour activity to 20 minutes, I would just say look at ways to do that without, you know, putting yourself at risk or putting any intellectual property or anything out in the ether, but, you know, something that's basic that you say, you know, I put something in one of my clients asked me, um, how do I develop a safe? It's a simple agreement for future equity for one of, you know, they're going out for fundraising and pitching. I typed it in with some numbers and a time period, and who, I spit out a whole schedule for me. It was actually beautiful. And then I vetted it with my network, and I said, Hey, I pulled together this agreement. You know, is this something that you would expect to see if someone said they were going to give this to you? And nobody came back, like, Yep, that's what it looks like. I said, so it was great. So I would encourage you to think of ways to save your time because your time is your most valuable asset right now. Okay. Other questions from the audience? I do have one because this is a we hatch event. I do have to ask this, but I'll put a spin on it. So because we're a women's entrepreneurship group, I always want to ask what unique challenges are you seeing women face in securing funding? But I'm also wondering, you guys have had fantastic careers. Have you seen anything change in the last ten years or so? So unique challenges, and has anything changed about that? Sure. I mean, I'm an old timer, so, you know, when I first started out, you know, there were no women. There were, you know, I walked in many a time where I was the only woman in the room. And now, you know, there are there's women in all those venture, you know, funds and angel groups. There's a lot of resources available for, you know, female entrepreneurs, you know, through various networks. And, you know, I think that right now, you know, you have to have a clearly articulated plan and be able to execute. And right now, the playing field, I feel is pretty good. Would you like to cancer or I mean, I totally agree. I was just thinking back when I was an undergrad, and I was a chemical engineer. So it's not really just limited to finance. But there were 150 students, and there were five women. Now, you go in and it's gonna be at least 50%, if not more in chemical engineering or other hard science type things. So yeah, I, uh I think it's gotten a lot better. Hm. I would say on the technology side, I've been venture capital for 12 years now, and There are more women in the room, but the funding rate is still way too low. I mean, it is embarrassing low. So I think that just being realistic about that and finding great advisors and mentors and women that are investors that can give you know, I spend a lot of my time talking to women about their pitches, what you say in that room, how you follow up, how you continue to level that playing field because women still typically pitch a little bit different than their male counterparts. Women are fantastic about knowing every detail about their business, but not always the best about how they summarize that in a 92nd pitch. They're fantastic about how they use the money that they get once they get investors, but it's just more difficult. So I am encouraged that we're making progress, but it's not as fast as I would like. So and I also think, you know, we showcase our best women entrepreneurs are the ones that are not on showcase because they are busy working are not at networking events. They're not even You know, you guys are amazing. Thank you for taking the time. They're not in these rooms. So I think, you know, how you find your own network of people that are working on companies is really important because I find those small groups have such success in helping each other, not competing, not being Territorial, like it used to be, when I started out in banking, you know, 35 years ago, and it was a different atmosphere. So a lot of it's changing, but still we still need to be vigilant. So as a follow up, what do you think is still causing that gap? So part of it's pitching you were talking about, but what else is it? Well, I think part of it, you know, there are more women in the rooms where you're pitching, but there are not enough. So if you think about, like, women on corporate boards, you know, you might find one, you know, on corporate boards that I'm on, I might still be the only woman in the room. But statistically, you need more than one woman in that room to actually make a difference. So that's part of it. And I just think that I don't know what it is. Right? It's something. I see it in my own daughters. There is this, I don't know exactly what it is, but I wish if I did, boy. We would invest in you if you that the question. Right, because it's less than 2% of venture capital goes to women backed businesses, and even less for women of color. So it's how do we change that? And I know there are different groups that are now focused on, you know, investing solely in those groups. And now there's even banks for women. There's like a women's bank, and there, um there's a women's bank that is now backed by some corporate money that's giving money to the bank so that they can fund more women businesses. I was in a room at an event, and a business owner, very successful over ten years in a marketing business. But she's in Iowa and it's very male dominated and she has her bank, and she was saying, the people that were presenting were from the bank and on the board of the bank and everything. And they said, you know, we're investing in women's companies. And she raised her hand. She my banker won't call me back. He won't speak to me. He never brings anything to the table for me. And they said, Let's talk at lunch. And I think by the end of lunch, she had transferred all her funds to the women's bank because they knew how she thought, how she operated, and what she needed versus the traditional bank. So there are baby steps being made, but I think the current timeline of equity at the board level and at the CEO level in our country is 150 years for equity. At our current pace, I will take 150 years for women to be equitable. So, you know, it's 1,000 tiny pushes, so every little bit will help. But it's organization like Golden Seed? Yes, absolutely making a real difference. Se. Any other questions for our panelists today? Can handle, thatidee. Come on. I know. I know. Honestly, I'm sorry. I I don't want to do that. It's just but that fires me up because that motivates me more to, you know, support organizations, support women and, you know, someday when my kids are out and taking all my money, I will hopefully be able to invest in those kind of organizations, too. We do have another question. There we go. Hello. Hi. Hi. My name is Ashley Pintel, and I'm sure you probably talked about this at length, but I came in a little late. But my question is, if you as a woman are trying to get into venture capital, you know, what is the way that you sort of stand out? What is the thing that you guys did to sort of put you guys, you know, at the forefront of your careers? Well, I do not have a traditional route to venture capital. It's not an easy the traditional route is not an easy one. So I worked with I worked with the same people for about 25 years, and they had great success as entrepreneurs, and they started a venture capital firm. And so I went to work for them at that firm. So again, what is, right? Always do a good job because people remember you, and when they go on to start other things, they will bring you along with them. But in terms of traditional routes through venture capital, I think one is it's like sales for a company. It's a big funnel, and you have to talk to a lot of people because there aren't a lot of openings. Ventures in a really peculiar place right now from a macro perspective. And so I think it's staying top of mind, getting in front of people, getting experience. And experience doesn't have to be at venture capital firm. It can be at a startup because that's really what you're going to be working on. So having some experience in that ecosystem is helpful. And I think it's just don't give up. I don't know if you guys have anything else, Dad. Yeah, I didn't really have a traditional path that I kind of came up on the science product development then taking a product to market and working with, you know, some successful biotech startup. So my path into it when I went back to school, I went to Northwestern, got a finance MBA, and after that, I began working with some family funds. So that gave me some of those relationships, but it was really, you know, I'm investing my own money. So you know, I I made it myself. I don't really have much to. Network, Network, Network. Network. Alright. Any last questions? We have time maybe for one more, possibly. There we go. Hi, I'm Arha. Thank you so much for all the insights. I have questions about networking, now, because it's mentioned so much, and it seems straightforward, but I don't think it is. So what's the best way to find mentors? And because as you said, the women that are working hard are not here right now. So if you can share insight, that will be amazing. So I would start with you now have the ability to link in to all four of us. And what I would encourage you to do I always encourage people to do is send, you know, it's like, add a note, which you can't do on your phone. You have to do it from a laptop. So when you link in to someone, add a note. We saw you at the event today. It was great connected. Would it be okay if we stay in touch? So, number one, you should do that today. So the second thing, in terms of, like, mentors, I always find this is like a difficult question because you can't just reach out and say, Will you be my mentor. It has to be a little bit more like, organic. You know, you build a relationship. People are interested in what you're working on, and then you keep in touch, and it becomes, you know, it's rare that you like someone labels me as their mentor, but I end up just do you do a ton of mentoring. So I think it's building relationships with people who have either working on something similar or in your sector, or there's some relationship that makes sense, and keeping in touch with those people will end up having that relationship over time. It's like making a friend. You know, over time, you have a deeper relationship, and then they could be what would be considered like a mentor. But I think I mean, those are my two things is stay top of mind, too. So I'm working on this. Is it okay if I keep in touch? And then when it makes most sense to connect deeper, that's I think when it will happen. And there's formal networking, kind of, I'm gonna reach out to this person, and maybe I'll try to get an introduction. But I think just talking to anyone and everyone and just say, Oh, I'm a student. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm doing this business. Just tell your quick little story, someone. It always sparked something in someone. I just helped a young man revise his resume because he works at the pharmacy, and one of my friends sees him when she goes into the pharmacy. She said, I just met this wonderful young man, and he's doing this, this, this. Like, what do you think? Would you, you know, meet him for a coffee? I said, Okay. I met him for a coffee. It's just because he was telling her what he was interested in his life and what his goals were while she was picking up a prescription or buying some Tylenol or something. So it's just she said, Oh, I can introduce you to this person. Even one of my clients was reaching out to someone to get advice from him saying, We're doing this pitch. What do you think about this? How do you think about that? He actually said, I'm gonna write you a check. And they were completely caught off guard. And so it's you're just telling your story from a personal and a passionate perspective, and it's just going to spark something somewhere. I think there's just a serendipitous way that it works out somehow, sometimes. Alright, I think I'm getting the cue to end, so let's call that a rap. Can we give a round of applause to our amazing panelists today?
Capital Catalysts: Women Funding the Future
From Andrew Brett December 16, 2024
2 plays
2
0 comments
0
You unliked the media.
Capital Catalysts: Women Funding the Future
Join us for this dynamic panel discussion spotlighting the influential role of women in venture capital, angel investing, intrapreneurship, and entrepreneurship. This engaging conversation will feature leading female investors and entrepreneurs sharing their insights, experiences, and strategies for driving funding toward women-led initiatives and businesses. The panelists will explore the challenges and opportunities in reshaping the investment landscape and discuss how women are catalyzing change to create a more inclusive and sustainable future. Attendees will gain valuable perspectives on navigating the world of finance and supporting the next wave of women innovators. Expert panelists include Holly Flanagan, Anne Shehab, Jennifer Rowland, and Jennifer Seibert.
This program was part of the 2024 Blue Hen Innovation Fest, recorded 12/5/24 at the Atrium & Audion at STAR, University of Delaware.
- Tags
- Department Name
- Horn Entrepreneurship
- Date Established
- December 05, 2024
- Appears In
Link to Media Page
Loading
Add a comment