Entrepreneurship: Reimagine the World by Betting on Yourself
FemWealth Issue #9
Happy Sunday & Mother’s Day, FemWealth Friends!
Entrepreneurship is one of the topics most dear to my heart. Every one of us is, at our core, an entrepreneur. We are all problem-solvers in our daily lives. With a leap of faith, we can venture into the business world and solve small or large problems.
I believe entrepreneurship plays a crucial role in advancing gender equity and equality. By solving problems we care about, we also create job opportunities and wealth that positively impact all areas of life, private and public.
Female-only founded startups receive 2% of venture capital investments (even less if they belong to underrepresented groups). It is a systemic problem to be urgently addressed. The more women found, build and fund companies, the more girls and women of all ages will have role models to identify with, sparring partners, co-founders, and financial backers.
Now is one of the best times to found a business or social-change organization. Women have a unique opportunity to reimagine and build a more equitable post-pandemic world.
Entrepreneurship is betting on yourself. You already have what you need to succeed. You will polish your skillset and mindset by doing. You will learn all you need to know about running a business, building a team, and fundraising (if external funding is right for your business). Just start with a small step!
For inspiration and insights, check out FemWealth Founders. It's a collection of resources and a list of remarkable trailblazers in entrepreneurship, technology, and investments. I'm building it in public. Please get in touch if you have any feedback, ideas or you’d like to cooperate. Also, if you have questions or want to bounce ideas about starting a business, hit me up!
This week, I am thrilled to shine a light on some of the entrepreneurs I admire:
Noor Sugrue, Founder of Vintro, and Student at the University of Chicago
I believe that anyone with a powerful idea and the drive to execute it has a right to have the chance to put it into the world. [Source: Vintro]
Growing up in a family of entrepreneurs, Noor Sugrue was well aware of the challenges building and running a business entail. While still in high school, she started thinking of ways to use technology to break down barriers between people with powerful ideas and the people who can help bring their ideas to life.
In 2018, she started Vintro, a marketplace that connects high-profile leaders and investors with entrepreneurs. The platform launched this year and has an expert network that includes Barbara Corcoran, Founder of The Corcoran Group & a Shark on ABC’s "Shark Tank"; Giovanna D'Esposito, General Manager for Southern Europe at Uber; and Anita Sengupta, former engineer at NASA.
Sugrue, who is 19-years old, has also partnered with MasterCard to promote the platform to young entrepreneurs, particularly women and those from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
📖 All-stars advice platform Vintro eyes £20m for global expansion
Akiko Naka, Founder & CEO of Wantedly
The hardest part is actually finding what you truly love. To find out, you have to be out there, try different things and taste different things. Lastly, don’t think too much. Just act – the passion will follow. [Source: Techsauce]
Akiko Naka started her career at Goldman Sachs in 2008, the same year the global financial market hit. Less than two years into the job, she realized that this is not how she wants to lead her life and decided to resign and become a Manga artist. While honing her drawing skills, she also taught herself how to code in Ruby and built Magajin, an international manga-sharing platform. Next, she joined Facebook Japan as a growth coordinator. This short stint made her aware of social media’s massive potential.
In 2012, Naka launched Wantedly, a social-networking service for professionals that grew to 2.5M users and 35,000 corporates. The company matches job-seekers and companies based on passion and values rather than money or benefits. On a mission to build a world where work meets passion, Wantedly has already expanded to Singapore and Hong Kong.
Naka is the youngest Japanese female founder to bring her company to IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Through her work and leadership, she is also changing Japan’s traditional societal rules.
🎧 The Indirect Way a Startup is Disrupting Japan – Akiko Naka – Wantedly
📖 How Wantedly's Akiko Naka Is Disrupting The Job-Seeking Market In Japan
📖 Drawing your life with Wantedly’s Founder and CEO Akiko Naka
📖 Goldman Sachs to failed manga artist to startup queen: Akiko Naka's unique path to success
Sharmadean Reid, Founder, and CEO of Beautystack and The Stack World
At first it wasn't about running a business for me, it was about creating a physical space to connect with my friends. I researched the hell out of the salon business and figured out that at first it wouldn't be scalable but that it wouldn't lose money either, so I set up shop with 17 grand of capital my friend had lent me from her own savings.
One of our main missions is to change the perception of careers in beauty. It's an industry that is often stigmatised as superficial or unintelligent, but it’s a billion-dollar sector that has allowed women all over the world to start businesses, work flexibly and feel empowered. We aim to continue that and help destigmatize the industry. [Source: WePresent]
Sharmadean Reid started WAH, a hip hop magazine for girls, in 2006 while studying Fashion Communication at Central St Martins School of Art. It was her debut in entrepreneurship. After graduating, she worked for companies like Nike and Asos and also ran pop-up nail salons. In 2016 she opened an innovative salon WAH Nails in Soho, London, showcasing a VR app for nail art.
In 2018 she co-founded Beautystack, a social marketplace for booking beauty services via images. The startup raised funding from Local Globe and Index Ventures. When the pandemic hindered the launch of Beautystack, Sharmadean helped increase awareness to the UK Government on the impact of the pandemic on beauty professionals. To better serve the community, Sharmadean Reid and her team launched The Stack World, an ecosystem for women to women services using content and conversations to drive commerce, earlier this year.
Also a founder of FutureGirlCorp, Sharmadean Reid was awarded an MBE in 2015 for her service to the beauty industry and women’s empowerment in business.
📖 All The Stuff I Got Wrong In 2020
📖 7 Days of Covid-19 as an Early Stage Founder
🎥 Sharmadean Reid: Diversity is a Competitive Advantage
Anne Boden, Founder and CEO, Starling Bank
People did think I was crazy, that no one ‘starts a bank’, especially people who looked like me, but I’d reached the stage where I was prepared to fail. I was 54 and confident enough not to care if somebody said I was stupid. [Source: The Guardian]
I launched Starling because I wanted to offer people a fairer, smarter and more human alternative to the banks of the past. We have achieved this by giving our customers world-class technology in the palm of their hand and 24/7 customer service, allowing them to feel supported wherever they are, and whatever their financial needs. [Source: Starling Bank]
Anne Boden had an accomplished 30-year career in traditional banking before venturing into the startup world. Disillusioned with the status quo and the broken trust in the banking sector in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, she decided to shake things up by setting up her own bank. She founded Starling Bank, the UK's first digital-only bank, in 2014.
Starling Bank serves both consumers and small businesses and is the winner of Best British Bank at the British Bank Awards in 2018, 2019, and 2020. With a staff of more than 1,000, 40% of Starling’s senior roles are filled by women.
In 2018 Boden received an MBE for services to FinTech. She also sits on the UK Finance Board, representing more than 250 firms in the banking and finance industry, and the Government’s Board of Trade.
📖 ‘It’s crazy, but I started my own bank’: the story behind Starling
📖 Anne Boden: ‘Cash will disappear’ | 🎧 Money Clinic meets Anne Boden
📚 BANKING ON IT How I Disrupted an Industry, Anne Boden
Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder, and CEO, Bumble [$BMBL]
The importance of a woman making the first move is not exclusive to the world of dating, romance, or love. It is a powerful shift, giving women confidence and control. It ignites healthier connections, which lead to relationships rooted in kindness, accountability, and equality. We remain committed to the major opportunity ahead of us to make dating healthier and more equitable around the world, not only for woman, but for people all across the gender spectrum. […]
Throughout the journey of building Bumble, we were told that it was impossible to create a successful women-first brand and platform. That women don’t, won’t, and shouldn’t speak first. That it would never work. Those objections have only fuelled us. Six years and countless Bumble weddings, babies, friendships, business partners, and meaningful relationships later, we have a diverse and fast-growing community spread across six continents. We’ve celebrated I.7 billion first moves made by women. [Source: Whitney Wolfe Herd’s IPO filing letter]
When 31-years old Whitney Wolf Herd rang the Nasdaq opening bell with her one-year-old son on the hip, she became the youngest businesswoman to take her company public in the US and one of the youngest self-made billionaires.
A co-founder and former vice president of marketing at Tinder, she left the company after facing sexual harassment and discrimination.
In 2014, she founded Bumble, an online dating startup with a unique approach: women make the first move when matching with men. Wolfe Herd partnered up with Badoo, a London-based tech company, to extend its global reach (the companies are now Bumble Inc.).
With more than 1.7 billion first moves made by women, Bumble's female-focused algorithm defied traditional gender norms (both online and real-life), putting women in a position of power. Wolfe Herd and her team (85% female with a women majority C-suite) built a global community-first brand. Bumble is expanding its scope beyond dating, developing products around friendships, professional networking, and other areas of connection. The platform is also a strong voice against body-shaming and online harassment. It has strict policies and is pushing for legislation changes against lewd behavior in the US.
📖 How Whitney Wolfe Herd Turned a Vision of a Better Internet Into a Billion-Dollar Brand
📖 Why a baby at the Nasdaq opening is such a big deal
📖 Bumble IPO: The female founder behind the dating app making market history
📖 An Interview with Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd by Female Founders Fund
🎥 Bumble CEO: We Made the Right Decision in Going Public
FemWealth Curated Content
📖 The Funding Divide: Tracking Bias in Early-Stage Fundraising [Report]
📖 Stop blaming the pipeline problem – here’s how we fixed our recruiting
🔔 The Honest Company Founder Jessica Alba Rings The Bell
📖 Vanta Goes From Low-Profile Startup To $500 Million Valuation With $50 Million Sequoia Series A [US]
📖 April Underwood’s Local Marketplace Startup Nearby Raises $21 Million Series A [US]
📖 The Perfect Gift for Moms: Money
📖 Why This Author Says Women Should 'Think Like a Breadwinner'
📖 Angela Merkel Will Leave a Mixed Climate Legacy. Other Leaders Will Fare Far Worse
📖 Nicola Sturgeon’s Quest for Scottish Independence
FemWealth Recommended Events
🗓 Natalie Haynes & Bettany Hughes: Reclaiming the Women of the Ancient World [May 11]
🗓 #ThoseWhoDare [May 17-21]
🗓 Gen Z in finance: How fintechs are preparing for the next generation [May 19]
Call to Help! 🆘
If you can, please support the fundraising campaign initiated by 9 years old Environment & Climate Justice Activist Licypriya Kangujan to provide Oxygen concentrators & ventilators for COVID patients in India.
Happy Mother’s Day & a great week ahead!
Anamaria
Founder & Writer @FemWealth
P.S. I loved this surprise visit Emily Chang got from her kids on her birthday last week.
Photo credits: Sharmadean Reid
Nice article! It is really inspiring to hear about such business models that tackle real societal issues and offers possibilities to a certain self-fulfillment to the people working along and to their customers.
I grew up in an environment where someone who owned a business was seen as someone who only wants to exploit the rules to gain a bigger profit margin. Which at the end, I believe, prevented local well-meaning people from entering the field themselves as entrepreneurs. This at the end created a self-fulfilling prophecy, no matter how narrow-minded this picture can seem to be for some.
This is why for me it was great to read your articles of women entrepreneurs tackling problems and working on the betterment of their local and the global society. Respect to all the game-changers!