WOMAN /ENTREPRENEUR SPECIAL.................... SHE'S AN ENTREPRENEUR, NOT YOUR WIFE

SHE'S AN ENTREPRENEUR, NOT YOUR WIFE





…………………. a bunch of female startup founders share their experiences of raising capital in an ecosystem where men mostly hold the purse strings

“you should know that the only thing I have in common with your wife is a vagina”

That was the earnest advice of Israeli serial entre preneur Sarah Nadav to the global venture capital (VC) community, based on her experiences in fund-raising and battling queries along the lines of “how are you going to manage your kids“ and “I think mothers have more important things to do“. In a midFebruary blog post in Medium.com, Nadav explained in her inimitable way why the question that perhaps keeps a huge section of VCs awake at night -about managing kids -is irrelevant and insane: “Because, in my head, I can't imagine a scenario where you trust someone with millions of dollars to run a business but think they don't know how to deal with childcare.“ (Read Nadav's piece for ET Magazine, “We Don't Need Help, Men Do“) Globally, women entrepreneurs realise that the odds are firmly against them when they venture out to raise funds. A 2015 study revealed that 92% of investment teams in the top global VC firms are men and another study suggests that only 4.2% of VC funds go to women-founded businesses. From their frustration come pearls of advice and lessons: from staying focused on your product or service that solves a real problem to taking along a cofounder “who is over 6 feet 5 inches and built like a tree“ for a late-night meeting with an angel investor. Jessica Richman, cofounder of uBiome, a platform for microbiome sequencing, revealed to Fast Company that she had to resort to the company of a bulky man to meet an investor who, despite the presence of the “tree“, “kept on trying to be flirty“.

Back home, as more women -single, married, straight, LGBT, with or without degree and pedigree -hitch a ride on the entrepreneurial roller-coaster, they're facing worse stereotyping. For founders in India, the battle may be on various fronts: for instance, gender bias coupled with that of caste can be a toxic combination. Yet, capital-raising in itself is not an impossible task, as the journey of these entrepreneurs reveals.But, for sure, it is no walk in the park.

Read on to know why:

“We Were Told We Will be More Successful in the Fashion Industry“

Dear investors, calling our dream business a dhanda is the most cringe-worthy term we had the displeasure to listen to. We are sure you do not intend to mean it in a wrong way, but from our point of view, it has a negative impact. Being women entrepreneurs, there are quite a lot of things that make our eyes roll and have us heave an exasperated sigh. You might not realise this, but it really turns us off when you judge us for not having a male cofounder in our startup. The surprising part for us is when we enter a room to pitch our part and don't see other women, making us wonder whether women entrepreneurs and investors are just a myth.

We are entrepreneurs, not someone for you to judge on the basis of one pitch. Just standing in a meeting and getting those looks sometimes really make us want to run the hell out of that room. And we are not even talking about how people's eyes roam all over us, which is truthfully one of the most disgusting feelings.Did you know there were times when one of us had to wear a scarf around the neck just to hide our neckline?
An investor once suggested that we will be more successful in the fashion industry than running an ecommerce startup.

Neither of us is a feminist. But sometimes we wonder, as women in India, is it our achievements that got us this far or something else? Having said that, it has always been men who have come to show their support and help us grow.

Let's hope this article doesn't change that. Keep the support and funds coming.

“Can You Turn Up in a Salwar Kameez?“

The night before an important meeting with a well-known angel investor, the adviser to the fund-raising process called to enquire what I had planned to wear to the meeting. I hadn't thought about it yet, but I mentioned I would most likely wear one of my standard formal business outfits. “Oh, he (the investor) is a bit conservative, if you know what I mean. I would suggest you dress conservatively and be less aggressive. Do you have a salwar kameez?“ The most common feedback I hear from advisers and friends is that I am “intimidating“.The most common feedback my male counterparts hear is that they are “not aggressive enough“. It is callous, biased and inappropriate to ask women to dress and act any differently than you might expect a man to. We bring different qualities to the table; our value and po tential should be measured by our intellect and experience, not our looks or our “femininity“.

Feedback on our outfits and personalities is not the only thing we have to worry about.Some investors will go as far as to hit on you during the diligence process. It has happened with me many times.

Sometimes it is subtle. They will ask if they can meet you at a coffee shop for a “follow-up“ while inquiring about your marital status and dinner plans.

Other times, it is more overt. Someone who was managing a group of angel investors once hit on me over WhatsApp. I was in the midst of trying to get through to the next round with that same group of angels, so I was tonguetied: If I spoke up and told him off, would he cut me from the list? This is not how we should be doing business.

“Do You Plan to Get Married Soon?“

My cofounder is male. One of the first questions that an investor asked me during our meeting was whether my cofounder was my husband. I wondered how that was more important than knowing about what we were building. He told me that he doesn't invest in companies that have husband-wife as partners because the divorce rate in the US is more than 50%.

I believe our country, its ecosystem and values are different so it wouldn't be right to apply US statistics and learnings here. Every team needs to be evaluated on the basis of their ability to build a business and work together.

In another incident, one of the investors asked me my age and when I planned to get married. When asked why it should bother him, he answered: “If I invest right now and you plan to get married in the next six-eight months, the business will be impacted as my priorities might change. Sorry, personal and professional don't mix.“

I am an IITian. I graduated from a top business school like INSEAD, came back to India and have been working hard for the past three years. So the last thing you can question is my commitment to the business.

Having said that, not all investors are the same. Our current set of investors backs our vision to enable every human's quest of living a healthy life.

“Two Kids and a Startup? I Don't See This Working“

Two months after I had my second child, I had an investor walk in the door and tell me he wasn't sure I could run this startup. He was judging me by the fact that I had stepped out once every two hours to breastfeed my two-month-old. My ques tion, of course, was which investor spends four hours in my basement office figuring out who I am. To top it, he wouldn't stop with the aggres sion: he made blatant references to my young children and the fact that my office was in a basement, had only three people and was right below my home. “I'm questioning your choices,“ he said, “of moving back to India, having an office in the basement and then having a second child while starting up.“ I showed him the door.

Everyone makes compromises of all kinds to accommodate their choices and to increase the chances of those risks paying off. My cofounderhusband is as much a caregiver to my children as I am. He cancels travel plans, no matter how important, if he has to be at home. I travel during those times and the opposite is true, too. We can't change any of this until people change the perception that a woman is solely responsible for all things domestic: household and childcare.

The alpha male syndrome seems to follow most VCs who, I bet, contribute little or nothing to their home family. I can tell in five minutes who are the VCs that are equally part of homechildcare as their spouses are. And I've noticed I generally get along really well with them and would obviously prefer their money to that of the rest.

“You are Great but We Can't Take the Risk“

Let's face it: there are prejudices at play. In this scenario, looking for investments is never a smooth ride for women entrepreneurs primarily because we are often judged by our familyfirst commitment, and generally perceived as a “non-ambitious“ gender.Women are often asked to justify how they will manage a work-life balance in the event of pregnancy andor if we have kids. Do our male counterparts face such questions too?
After I was ready with my minimum viable product (MVP) to replicate and expand to other cities, I started the fundraising activity. The attitudes were disheartening. Some investing companies could not relate to a woman without a tech or IITM background running a business, and that too alone. At times, I was asked directly whether I was planning to get onboard another cofounder or whether my husband was involved in the business too.

I knew my business was scalable, buy I felt my abili ty to tell the business story was still weak. After a few rejections, I could sense that people weren't convinced about EasyFix's team. Once, after spending nearly four months with an investor, exchanging data analytics and business details, I got a polite and diplomatic rebuff. The gentleman said: “Well, you are great but we can't really take the risk. Running one city is okay but a multi-city operation is a different ball game.“

Every cloud has a silver lining. The initial failure in generating investor interest has made me a stronger person, personally and profession ally. I have learnt to aim for perfection and stay the course I have chosen.

“Can You Manage Home and Business?“

When I met my first team of investors at a startup event, the first question I faced was: How many cofounders did I have in my startup and what was the ratio? We are three cofounders, two of them male. The investors specifically asked if we could in clude another male cofounder to “balance“ it out. When I asked them what does “balance“ mean, I got the shock of my life. I was told that I would just be a spokesperson. The selling, marketing and implementation would be done by the male cofounders. This was an insult and a rude jolt to my capabilities.

During the course of interactions with another team of VCs, the questions that kept popping up were: Do I have the capabilities to manage home and business? If I am so ambitious, can I give up motherhood for this venture? Even more annoying was that the same investors, over the next few meetings, kept hurling these questions at me albeit in a different avatar, much like a sugar-coated bitter pill.

I am focused as an entrepreneur. I was never taught that a woman has to give up her dreams and desires for anyone or anything. For me, meeting with such investors was like someone trying to invade my private space, by asking “when are you getting pregnant“ they are just reinforcing their inherent biases about a woman founder.

The thought that a woman may be forced to take a break for motherhood and it will impact a business decision greatly is regressive. Of course, we didn't accept their offer, since they were not comfortable having a female cofounder.

“Men Don't Like Women Who are Confident“

Discrimination is something that happens every other day for us to even notice or remember. But there are some episodes that are outrageous enough to talk about.

I was trying to raise our first round and met a couple of investors. It was going good until one of them lost interest, probably for the right reasons. But another offered me `1 crore for any percentage of equity. The rest was unsaid, but clearly understood. I still get some messages on WhatsApp, enquiring if I had raised funds, probably to check if I have grown desperate enough.

There was another incident where this man, who runs an angel network, advised me to be less confident and not be “aggressive“. Reason: Men don't like women who are confident as they come across as egoistic, he said. The worst part was the advice first came from a lady who was part of his team, which was then reiterated by him.

I remember another instance. I got a meeting scheduled with an investor and he said I wouldn't have got that meeting had I been married, as married women apparently can't run companies.

Such things do happen a lot perhaps because investors are going by the patterns they see and by social conditioning. They are not the only ones to be blamed here. Society does not allow as much freedom to women as it does to men. More often than not, women have to give up on their dreams to fit them selves into societal norms. If we have to be put an end to such attitudes, we need to talk about the source of these issues and tackle them.

“Do You Understand Technology?“

AVC assumed that just because I was running a fashion tech startup I only understood the fashion side of the business. That's far from reality. I may not have a technology background, but I put all my blood, sweat and tears into building the business as much as any man would. And it's unfortunate that in the first minute of walking into a VC pitch, the VC makes assumptions about what I am and what I am not capable of just because I am a woman.

The problem is so rampant that, when going into a VC pitch, women entrepreneurs enter the room with the belief that the VCs are predisposed to in vesting in startups where the founding team includes a man.This changes the equation in the room in the first 30 seconds and changes the way a woman approaches any pitch.

India is ranked 113 out of 135 countries in terms of workforce equality. This conservative school of thought should have increasingly faded with each passing generation. However, it has not.

While we could promise all women that there is hope, this would mean that the men recognise it as a problem. Herein lies the challenge.

While many VCs may not have seen their colleagues, friends or influencers supporting the growth of women entrepreneurship, there is a case for a brighter future. We have seen VC funds focused exclusively on women entrepreneurs and angel investors at conferences accepting questions exclusively from women.

“Are You Dating Anyone?“

Sometimes an effort to intimidate a founder leads to irrele vant questions being asked. As an unmarried, 25-year-old, I've been asked if I'm dating anyone, if the relationship is serious and how my personal life affects my professional decisions. My first reaction is, “Are you being serious?“ I mean, we are in 2016. I don't see male founders being asked about their relationship status. And why must anyone assume that being married is a form of being a “stable founder“? Questions like these are infuriating but I think it's important to not lose your cool when your patience is being tested.

The issue at hand is deeper than just silly, ignorant statements being made.It comes down to the big elephant in the room -representation of women in VC circles. There are very few women leading the big VCs, or even smallto midsize funds, for that matter. I can't remember the last time I walked into a potential investor's office and spoke with a woman, instead of a room filled with men (Not that I have a problem with the latter, but it would be awesome to have accomplished women in the room too. There's no dearth of them). Even at an angel and mentor level, it's rare and difficult to find women who helpinvest. I've been lucky to have Mona Gandhi as a phenomenal adviser and mentor, Aashti Bhartia, who is an entrepreneur herself, as an investor, and the best male investors who support entrepreneurs, irrespective of gender.

My take is, don't take money from people who don't draw the line between questions that are related to your business and questions that are personal.

ETM6MAR16