2 female Houston entrepreneurs discuss challenges women face during fundraising
women in VC
It's estimated that women make up only around 10 percent of decision makers in venture capital firms in the United States, and women-led companies only receive of a fraction of venture capital invested. And, stats aside, female entrepreneurs continue to face obstacles in the process that their male counterparts don't always share.
Kim Raath — co-founder and CEO of Topl, a Houston-based blockchain startup — and Leslie Goldman — general partner and co-founder of The Artemis Fund — discussed some of these obstacles at a virtual fireside chat for Dallas Startup Week. Here are the three challenges women face during fundraising, as Raath and Goldman discussed.
Balancing being realist with optimism
It's almost a chiche at this point — yet it still holds a great deal of truth — that women tend to be more honest than men when it comes to applying for jobs, for instance. Goldman says she's seen it plenty of times, especially when she was involved in corporate recruiting at one point in her career. Raath and Goldman agreed, women want to check off all the boxes on a requirements list.
"Men would apply if they could check just one box," Goldman says. "Women tend to be more realistic."
This trait, while noble, can be a disadvantage as it translates to the fundraising process.
Navigating unconscious bias
Raath says she's no stranger to discrimination for being a woman. In the chat, she tells a story of when she was a girl and the woman's track event she was supposed to run was canceled. She had her heart set on getting to nationals, so her father lobbied for her to get a chance to run in the boy's race. Eventually, they let her and she came in second place.
She continued to observe moments like this throughout her schooling, especially when she started studying male-dominated studies like economics and statistics — Raath now has a master's and a Ph.D from Rice University. When recently raising money for Topl's latest round, her observational and statistical mind picked up on something. Raath explains that there are two types of questions a VC might ask you — preventative vs. promotional. An example she gives for each is:
- Preventative: "How many daily users do you have?"
- Promotional: "How do you look to acquire users?"
"About three months in, I started realizing that I'm constantly getting these preventative questions. So, I did a little research," Raath says, explaining that she found that women are more likely to get these preventative questions. "Now, every preventative question I got, I started answering with a promotional answer."
It's the same unconscious bias as how a young male entrepreneur might be considered, "young and promising," while a woman with the same resume would be considered, "young and inexperienced."
Creating a supportive network
Raath and Goldman discussed the importance of women surrounding themselves with supportive networks made up of both women and men. On one hand, it's key to have fellow female entrepreneurs or investors who have been in your shoes before or whom you can give advice to — Raath says she created "woke woman wine nights" with her interns this summer.
On the other hand, having men in your network who can act as advocates — like Raath's father was as well as her male co-founders whom she says are great supporters — is crucial too.
"I have been surrounded by some amazing male counterparts," Raath says. "That's the other side of this is finding male champions."