Founding Women The Founding Women

Today we welcome Robbie Hardy to the show. Robbie is an “entrepreneurologist” with extensive entrepreneurial, investment, startup, and board experience. She is the Founder of xElle Ventures, an Angel fund for women investors investing in female founders. She’s also the author of two books, Upsetting the Table and Fed Up to Start Up.



We get a chance to talk candidly with Robbie about the self-imposed limitations that women face, FOMO, confidence-building strategies, talking yourself up in the bathroom, taking action in the face of uncertainty, and more.



Links

xElle Ventures

Upsetting the Table (book)

Fed Up to Start Up (book)

Robby’s website

Robby’s LinkedIn

Today we welcome Jenny Fielding to the show. Jenny is one of the most active global pre-seed investors, having invested in 300+ companies as the first money in. Jenny is a co-founder of the global venture capital firm, Everywhere Ventures (formerly The Fund.)

Previously, she was the Managing Director at Techstars for 7.5 years where she led investments into companies that now have a market cap of over $10B.

We talk candidly with Jenny about the ‘table stakes economy,’ surrounding yourself with the right people, cap tables, the importance of vesting schedules, and the company ‘red flags’ she notices as a prolific early investor.

Links


Jenny’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jefielding
Cap Table Hygiene: a slide deck by Jenny
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making by Tony Fadell

Sharon is the co-founder and former CEO of Boardroom Insiders, a SaaS business intelligence platform that was acquired in January of 2022.

Sharon is our first guest who fully bootstrapped her company. As entrepreneurs, we’re sold a glorified path to entrepreneurship: seed rounds, A, B, C rounds, all on a prescribed timeline between raises… but this isn’t the only way to raise capital.

In today’s show, we talk to Sharon about her journey bootstrapping and ultimately selling her successful startup. We talk about some of the benefits, like full control of your company (operating without a “knee in your back”) – but also her lessons learned and sage advice for others looking to fundraise in a similar way.

Today we welcome Bridget Johns to the show.

Bridget is the CEO and Co-Founder of To & From, a gifting intelligence company that makes the gifting process simple with the help of patent-pending technology and thoughtfully curated products.

From running a corn stand at age 11 to making her mark in the startup divisions of major brands like Polo Ralph Lauren and Tiffany & Co, it’s clear that Bridget is an entrepreneur at heart. But when she could no longer ignore a persistent desire to start her own business, she took the plunge and founded To & From.

In this episode, we talk about bringing your whole self to work as a woman, being a non-technical founder, moving away from bro culture, slowing down, seeking advice from others, and what surprises her the most about being a founder (hint: everything!)

Today, we welcome Kate Brodock to our show. Kate is the CEO of Switch (formerly Women 2.0), a global brand for women in tech that’s working to create a society where gender parity, diversity and inclusion are the norm. She’s General Partner at The W Fund, which aggregates capital and deploys funds to women and diverse-led tech startups. She is also an active – and respected – voice on Twitter in the startup sphere.

Kate brings her 20+ years of experience to the show, and offers sharp advice on a variety of topics: how women can step into their economic power by embracing risks, performing cold outreach, wielding confidence, leveraging your network, and how founders can raise money in the current economic climate.

Links
Kate’s company, Switch
The W Fund
Kate’s Twitter, @Just-Kate
Podcast: Pivot by Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway
Book: Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Today, we welcome Carleen Haylett to our show. She’s the CEO of EnrichedHQ, a hub of curated educational content for kids in a wide variety of disciplines — like entrepreneurship and personal finance — that are not often found in a school curriculum.

“Childcare doesn’t end when your kid graduates from daycare.” Frustrated by having to source, buy, and schedule extracurricular content for her own son while juggling a busy career in enterprise sales, Carleen founded EnrichedHQ to help women thrive in their work and home life.

After pitching over 200 VCs and angel investors and closing large enterprise clients, Carleen comes to the conversation with a ton of practical, applicable advice for entrepreneurs. We cover her lessons learned making that many pitches, the differences between sales and pitching, speaking the language of VCs, putting on the monkey suit and dancing, keeping your eyes on the prize, qualifying in versus qualifying out, and how she keeps her work life separate from her role as a mother.

Links
Carleen’s company, EnrichedHQ
Carleen’s LinkedIn
Book: Digital Marketing Strategy