Build Your Own Damn Table
This being the last day of Women's History Month, I want to tell you about the learning and conversations I've been having through my Fellowship with Strawberry Creek Ventures (part of the Alumni Venture Group leveraging the Cal Berkeley Alumni). I became a fellow for one reason only - to find out how I could make it so more women who look like me sit at the table that writes checks for more founders who look like me.
Right now, the stats are pretty awful. Despite venture capital having banner years during an otherwise chaotic time for most people, only about 2-4% of $330B - that's a billion with a "B", folks - went to women. What's worse, "First Round Capital and Boston Consulting Group's analysis of MassChallenge accelerator program participants showed that founder teams with women outperformed men-only teams. Despite being less likely to raise follow-on funding, founder teams with women are more likely to exit and have a higher internal rate of return (IRR) — 112% versus 48%." It's astounding to me that ROIs at that rate aren't getting GPs (General Partners, most of whom are men - about 86%) all fired up to invest more in women, but then bias, implicit and explicit, is real.
When GPs ask questions of female founders vs male founders, without being conscious of it, they tend to ask women prevention questions (how will you prevent loss) and men promotion questions (how will you build). Do you know what that translates to? For every prevention question asked, it resulted in about $3.8M less in funding on average. Data confirms that women rise up to build better ROIs anyhow.
These past months, I've gotten more and more fired up to roll up my sleeves and put my 15 years as a startup counsel to good use and help fix this plight. The Fellowship has done me a solid service - people are willing to oblige my request for 15-30 minutes of their time. (Thank you, Kelly Ceynowa for making all the intros a woman could ask for!) Anyone who is willing to listen to me talk about this insanity, I've asked, "Tell me how I can help? How do I get a seat at the table and turn around and pull as many women as I can to sit at the table with me?" We need more women lifting up more women with capital. We need more women asking more women production questions. We need more women mentoring and ushering women founders.
The best advice given to me - "You might just have to build your own damn table." (Thank you, Lacey Farrell Johnson!) I spent the last 15 years building an incredibly dynamic law practice supporting startups. I have a wealth of deal knowledge and access to founders and their communities. I feel compelled to give back in new ways. So these days, I find myself learning how to build a new table, and I often think of who I want to sit with me. Ladies, Imma comin for ya!