Of a hundred dollars invested in startups around the world, only $ 2.30 will go to executive teams led by women. Meanwhile, in our region, the labor gap between women and men is more than 29 percentage points.
Almost a decade ago I founded TransparentBusiness, a telecommuting platform that allows remote teams to work in a coordinated way. This undertaking has a positive impact on teams that seek to reach the best available talent and take advantage of diversities.
The trigger was to get women from all over the world to enter the labor market with equity. This endeavor is already valued at more than a billion dollars and joins the 500 unicorns around the world. Today, only 20% of these unicorns are led by women, TransparentBusiness’ commitment is to try to increase the figure. In this journey, I learned that as women we have key strengths in areas that ensure success. The first three are essential, regardless of the size of the venture.
The first thing we bring to a venture is the most important thing it should have and it starts with passion. The cause that makes the heart beat stronger is enhanced if it becomes the reason to undertake. And there, first, the social, economic and environmental impact must be focused; earnings are a consequence of values and motivations.
Women are very good at networking. And that’s not just meeting the right person in the right place. Business is a contact sport: if one cannot establish genuine mutually beneficial relationships, he cannot do business. We must build relationships up, with mentors or sponsors who help us to position our brand, but also down, making ourselves known.
Resilience is mastering fear and getting back up after the last fall, defined Arianna Huffington, a model entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is not easy and many times it means overcoming. But showing conviction and adaptability are key elements in getting funding. When presenting the project to investors, the entrepreneur must be the winner. And if she arrives supported by her passions, it will be.
However, as indicated at the beginning, there is a bias in funding towards men. And that is skipped with creativity. If the rules of the game are not favorable, then you have to bend them – without breaking them. In our funding rounds, we apply this idea: to bend the traditional rules without breaking them. We go out to look for capital through a global private offering of shares, a tool that allows us to sell shares of a company before going public to investors in the United States and the rest of the world.
The strategy democratized access to investment and assembled an international army of brand ambassadors. The concept is so powerful that we are baptizing the community of female entrepreneurs that we will launch soon and that will bring together women entrepreneurs from around the world to share tools, techniques and knowledge that will help them take their business to the next level.
The idea inspired a change in the way I work with my passion, now as the executive producer of Unicorn Hunters, a show that presents projects to a panel of experts that includes Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple with Steve Jobs; Rosie Ríos, former treasurer from the United States; Moe Vela, former White House adviser; and Lance Bass, former NSYNC member and startup investor; among other renowned panelists.
Unicorn Hunters approaches the principles under which I undertake projects that have already passed a financing round and enter their growth stage before going public. Thousands of small investors on the planet can get into the business of buying shares before a public offering and capitalizing on it after that exit. In addition, it allows to delve through the questions in the program, the research work on each company that we share on our websites and, of course, the essential personal analysis process necessary in each investment decision.
In my case, when we receive an entrepreneur in the program, the first thing I look at is passion, as I already mentioned, it is the engine that drives everything. And to the four initial values already mentioned, complete with another two. The quality of the talent and which team accompanies the initiative, which is directly related to the performance of the company. People with diverse abilities have a better chance of reaching an important space in the business sector in which they undertake. Thus, a diverse workforce oxygenates teams and strengthens management quality. That makes seeing women at all levels another key to success.
Secondly, without focus you cannot
to nothing. And a woman who experiences challenges when it comes to balancing personal life with professional development, she must know how to discern what is important so as not to waste time and effort. Given the challenges and opportunities we have, this is one of the attributes that I look for among those who choose the path of entrepreneurship.
Investing in projects run by women, in addition to addressing important social issues, is very profitable. For every dollar of financing, women generate 78 cents of profit and men, only 31. This is one of the most important arguments to demonstrate the impact we have in the business world. Investing in women financially profitable, in fact, two and a half times more profitable.
Finally, for all of us who have managed to achieve high levels of performance in the still-male world of business, there is responsibility. We must be aware that the more that come and accompany us, the more naturalized our presence will be at the highest levels.
In business, being a woman has her privileges but it also implies more responsibilities. Therefore, all these recommendations are meaningless without solidarity with those who come after them. Each entrepreneur must accompany another, with mentoring, exchanging ideas, contacts and with concrete actions to open the game to those who think about the difficult and satisfactory path of entrepreneurship.
