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Speaker 1: All up with Angela Ye. I'm angela Ye. And Jasmine Brand is here yes, and we were having an amazing conversation without the micson, So I know this is going to be even more fun now that we're talking about UM. Karen con is here and you're the founder of I Fund Women, Yes, ma'am all right, And Odesta Jenkins is here also, and Odessa Jenkins hold on, I want to say this, Monk is UM the founder of the Women's National Football Conference. Yes, yes, the w NFC, w NFC, And we were talking about sports and you were saying that sports, you feel like UM is super important growing up and it has been for you absolutely, and I think even even as for adults put growing up, nothing builds character like sports, especially team sports. You learn how to handle adversity, you learn how to handle diversity, You learn how to communicate when things are going bad and things are going good, especially for girls and women in those scenarios where you aren't being taught to speak up and say certain things or act certain ways. Sport gives you the permission to speak up and to communicate and handle tough situations like a boss, you know, And I think we need more of that. I remember being on the bus going to like our failed hockey games and basketball games on the away games, and the bonding experience that we even had just in those trips and then coming back if you won, you're celebrating. If you lost, you're like quiet on the bus. Well like boys are boys aren't for a second or two, and then girls have fun like boys are boys are are like asked to create community around all kinds of stuff, sports their gear there, and then girls, yeah, venture capital, and then girls are asked to like compete with the things. Right, So like sports helps you build that community, just like entrepreneurship and fundraising does. So it's kind of a dope intersection. Now, Karen, I want to talk to you about I fund women because we've spoken before. We did some things together with Stacy Tisdale, my partner, and well on the Wednesdaysdale you love her, and so it's still an issue, right it is Women's History Month, but this is an ongoing issue that has never been erectified. But for women when it comes to venture capital, we were just talking about that, Um, what is the percentage of what we get? And for black women it's even lower. So can you discuss the disparity with that absolutely, and I you know, I hate being like the Debbi Downer the of the funding world. But the numbers don't lie. So women as a collective we receive around two percent of venture funding dollars, So ninety eight percent of VC dollars and that's about three hundred billion a year in the US alone. With a bee go to men, and female founders of color get point three two percent. Yeah, yeah, point three percent. It's the numbers are disgusting. Why is that? Is it because it's mostly white men who are and they see somebody that's like them and they're giving it to each other. That you pretty much summed it up. Yeah, I mean, the disparities around funding are not just relegated to venture capitalists. But yes, So in order to raise VC, you have to have what's called founder pett agree. Founder pedigree encompasses three things. One, you have to have made money for the firm before okay, so exited a company. They know that you're a sure bet. Number Two, you need to be an engineer or a head product person at a fang company. So for like Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google, it's sort of antiquated, but you've got to be an engineer or a product person at one of these massive unicorn companies that have had major outcomes, or you have to be friends at play golf with the buddies at the front, because it's it's it's even more extreme than that, right, Like from an even higher level. Most of these founders that are getting funding ninety percent of them plus are white males from three different schools, right ivy League. It's like Harvard, Yale at Stanford. So it's out again. Right. So as as when Karen starts talking about these things and you think you're thinking about where you're going to raise your capital as an entrepreneur, you eliminate you. You start eliminating yourself and you need other ways to find funding. There's no way that what has traditionally happened is going to work for us. And then you also in these situations, have the opportunity to not be successful with your entrepreneurship so that if this doesn't work well, I can just get raise some more money and start something else. And for you, Karen, can you talk about how you even started I fund women, because this is all came from something that I didn't work out for you? Absolutely, So I was a female founder who could not raise funding, period. So I fund Women's my second startup. My first startup failed because we couldn't raise funding. And Angela I came from. I was born and raised at Google. I was there for ten years. You know, it was extraordinarily successful, and I had access. When I came out of Google and began my company, I had access to venture capitalists just through the connections and through this color skin, the white skin privilege. I had acces right, so I could get into the room where it happened. But because of founder pedigree and the algorithms in their heads and actually on paper of who they're going to fund, it didn't matter that I worked at Google for ten years and had a connection to such and such and got into the room. They were not going to fund my business. They had not seen anybody that looked like me, let alone look like Odessa. Right. So I thought to myself, truly, if it is this hard for me to raise venture capital, and I am very privileged, how hard must it be for the eighty nine percent of women entrepreneurs in this country who are women of color entrepreneurs? Right? And so I said, right then and there, I'm like we're pivoting, we're shutting down the first business, we're starting a funding platform. This is a massive problem. Yeah, and I just was like, I'm going to try to help solve it. And that is literally while we're here, all right. And then Odessa, let's switch over to you two for a second, because you play football all kinds of accolades, right, and I tell you said in the first seven years you didn't even have a new helmet correct and playing. So can you just discuss like your career, your upbringing, and then what made you decide that you needed to start your own Absolutely so, I'm an athlete, always been an athlete, as you said, and growing up being a girl or a woman in a man's world, in a man's sport, particularly football and basketball. In some ways, when I was first coming up, it was always that you had it was harder, and that's just the way it was. If you were the only girl on the team, it was harder for you. You couldn't go into the locker room. That's just the way it was. I end up playing Division one basketball and then playing football, and there wasn't a place for me. There wasn't a place for me to think about making a living wage to play football, and I wanted to change that. And so in twenty seventeen, I got recruited into the NFL through the Bill Wash Diversity Internship. I was in technology at the time as well, so it was like this great parallel path where I was an outlier both in the world of technology and enterprise and in the world of sport. So I was starting to see, like, wait a minute, there's no opportunities for people like me. Women can't make a living wage playing tackle football. Why is that. I need to dig deeper to understand why that is. And so when I had my I left the NFL and thought, I want to create this for women. I don't want I don't want ever want a woman to feel like I felt where I could not have an opportunity because I'm not the type that you can't you can tell me I can't have it. And so when I left, I was also exiting my first tech company of someone who had raised capital and we had gone through the process, and so I got to twenty nineteen and I was like, wait a minute, this is this just doesn't make sense. I'm a woman in sport. This is America's sport. There are thousands and thousands of women playing it. I'm going to create a business that supports the business of sport for women in football, and that's how the w NFC was born. That's actually how I found that, which is wild, which is wild, So tell me about that experience and two connecting with I Fund Women and a WNFC. Yeah, so when I finished exiting the business, and it's so wild that you asked Karen the question about women raising capital because I didn't even think about going VC route. I didn't think that that was for me when I started my business. Why is that for people? Because everybody's always like VC, VC money, VC money. I never seen it. I didn't see it. I definitely never seen a woman like me raise capital. I hadn't seen any women in sport raise capital, and women in football they barely existed, let alone raised VC funding. So I as as as aggressive as I am for advancing women because I couldn't see it. I didn't think it was possible, right, That's just that's just the truth. So then you met Karen. So then I met Karen, and I was I actually went looking for iPhone women, So I went looking for alternative ways to raise capital and I found iPhone Women. I was like, Wow, this is an opportunity, Like this money is free. I was a little skeptical to be sound like a scam. I was like, so, I it's a platform, and it's like, what do you want to do? I filled out the Universal Grant form. I started to receive grants, grants off top, I started my crowdfunder. The reason we started the crowdfunder was for production. We wanted to produce women's tackle football for the first time. And I didn't even know about the grants and they just started pouring in, started coming in. Because capital is definitely one of the things that is the biggest obstacle. It might be the biggest obstacle when it comes to being successful as an entrepreneur, and it's a it's a it's a shock as an entrepreneur to get onto a platform like I fund women crowdfunds, see your friends and family start to come in. But businesses like Adidas gave us a grant, American Express chose me as one of the one hundred for one hundred entrepreneurs and gave my business, and then Johnny Walker gave us a big giant check in Brooklyn here. So it's just like all of that happened through being a part of the I fund Women platform, and that's when I knew something we had to hook up. We had to Yeah, and Karen with a fund Women. It's not just funding that you give, right, It's not just the funding platform. Can you talk about the other services that are available on that platform that you saw a need for. Yeah, So when we started the platform, it was just crowdfunding, right. We were like, Okay, what's the fastest way to cash, which is working capital for your business? We can't wait for loans, we ain't getting VC. We needed fast, so cash is fast. So crowdfunding was the first thing we did. And we realized that our beta customers didn't how to crowdfund, and to be fair, we didn't have to crowdfund until we crowdfunded on another platform to pay for our mvpur Minimally viable product. We did. We kind of led our way into another platform and said we were this creative thing when we really weren't. But that's a whole other story. So we crowdfunded thirty grand to build our platform, and that was the crowdfunding platform, and we realized that our customers didn't know how to do it. I think most people think that when they put up a crowdfunder that if you build it, if you put it up, they will come This like is not field of dreams. It's sales and marketing. Truly, you are raising small increments of money from lots of people that you know that add up to just enough to get your business off the ground or get a new product launch or whatever it is. So we started to teach people through our Slack community how to do it right. So people would start asking questions about how do I track this? How do I know where my traffics coming from? And I would be like, oh, just put your Google Analytics code into your page, and they'll be like, you're speaking another language, what do you mean? So I would jump on a zoom with them screenshare set up the Google Analytics for them, and it would It's the business gift of a lifetime, like teaching people like, oh, here's where my traffics coming from, how can I think about marketing? So on and so forth. So from there was born our coaching program. So where we started teaching people about crowdfunding, we were really teaching them about how to build a business and how to sell and market their products. So our coaching program is an award winning program that works to make women money. And so that is kind of like one of the crown jewels that I fund women beyond the funding because to your point, of course, the number one problem in women's businesses succeeding is the lack of access to funding. The second biggest part of that problem is a lack of access to coaches. Not necessarily mentorship, right because a lot of people are getting mentored in mentorships lovely, But like I want to learn how to set up my Google analytics, how to do Facebook retargeting ads, or how to do how to write a business plan, you know, I want connections to banking relationships and connections to institutions who are going to give me grants those things exactly. So we started doing coaching, We started doing broker in grants for different enterprises, and we also have a marketplace for freelancers to get new customers. So the best form of funding is revenue. That's always what I'm going to say, forever and always. The best form of funding is revenue. And so there are opportunities for business services entrepreneurs like graphic designers and lawyers and accountants who are entrepreneurs. They're like one woman bands to come on the platform and get new customers. And I think sometimes people are nervous about crowdfunding because, like you said, you know, you do have to know how to market. You have to know where where the traffic's coming from. People also don't like to ask for money. That's hard. Yeah, it's the first thing you have to kind of get over this entrepreneur is asking for help, asking for anything, but the to be to be to give Karen credit to I fund Women's sort of playbook on how to crowdfund that the idea that that's there and you get coaching first takes a little bit of that away because you get a plan. If you have a plan, it's easier to ask. Asking without a plan makes it so much harder because you're dealing with all the anxiety of it. That's too well said. So I have my own business. I'm entrepreneur, just like Angela. I have an entertainment site and I started at about twelve years ago. I was going to say shut out telling people, Yeah, but so I started about twelve years ago or something like that I had no business plan, I had no money, I had no idea how to run a business. I was you know, it was it wasn't my intention. So knowing something like this would have been a great resource for me. What do you think is the biggest And I never thought about trying to get funding or crowdfund like anything like that. I just that wasn't in my vocabulary. My dad's a entrepreneur. He never talked to me about that kind of stuff. What do you think the biggest misconception? Biggest misconception is about crowdfunding or getting um, you know, money and that kind of thing. I think that the biggest misc there's a bunch of misconceptions. One is that it's easy. Many people think it's easy. I do it sounds very hard to me. I think I think that people when they look at it and they're not they haven't done it before, they think it looks easy. Just kind of like if my friends gave me twenty dollars, that sounds easy. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's kind of like you think when you're gonna go sell something on the internet, it seems easy. Yeah, right. You think all your friends are going to support you. Think all your family's automatically gonna support you, think they'll spread the word. Yeah, and when you become an antentnewer, you find out it can be a different word place. It's like the quickest post that you click passes that one that says is if all my followers gave me a dollar, you'd be like, exactly right, it's dollars. She has a problem with people. Yeah, I don't like what people feels like cash. I'm on their birthday right, Well, I don't not people. I don't like what celebrities do it. Anyway, we did a topic and then a bunch of people sent her money. Able to do it anyway to me a dollar? It was so annoying, yet it was it funny, it was great. I want to do it again anyway. Okay, well we need to do you need to get back and that's what we're going to do it. Yeah, that's what we're doing. Yeah. So I think, like one misconception is that is easy, um, which it's it's not. But as Ourdeska said, if you use the playbook and you get the coaching, which by the way, is such a small investment to make sure that your round is successful, it's a no brainer, um. And I think that a lot of people have crowdfunding shame, which leads to the misconception that if they eventually want to raise venture capital or go and get a bank loan, it almost like delegitimizes them, when it's actually the opposite. So my phone rings off the hook with seed stage venture capital firms. They're always asking me for the tea, What are thet who are the hot founders, who's crushing it, what are the new sectors, what are the new sort of microsectors that you're seeing come up on the platform, because they know we're getting the earliest stage entrepreneurs when ideas are fresh and new and never been done before. And I'm giving myself chills because I just I'm thinking so specifically about entrepreneurs who have done never before done things and that's hard to do, right. It seems like fresh ideas are hard to come by, not for women. And so I think that just getting just wrapping up the answer to your question. If you're listening to this and thinking about crowdfunding and you're worried about the perception, people are going to think you're like not a real business, or you're asking for charity. It is not like that vcs want to see. Venture capitalists want to see that you've busted your butt and that you can get an audience and you can get people behind your product or service. And crowdfunding is literally just selling your product or service. Those are your rewards that you talk about getting people showing that you can get people behind your product or service. It's a huge part of product market fit. Getting market pool is a huge part of growth in scale. And when Karen talks about the idea that friends and family round goes first, that's normal. It's a normal part of the capital raised process. And I think if people like you knew more that the first step is the friends and family round, then you get a seed round, then you get a series ABCD, A lot of us don't know that. Yeah, but that's a part of the process. An iPhone women helps you start and that's try too because like for me with my companies, you know, I haven't gotten invest theirs yet and I'm I went to which is outrageous, which is which sucks using your own money all the time. But sometimes people think when you make money and you have money, why are you raising money for women? Exactly right, Yeah, so men don't use their all money even when they have it correct most of the time. What stage, like, you know, if someone is watching and listening and they they've been in business five years, is it good for the mccumby wall or should they come at the very beginning? When is the best time or is it anytime? Anytime? It's really anytime. It's really anytime. I mean, of course when you are just starting out, as you said it was twelve years ago. Yeah, so if we had jasmine right out the gate, of course, like it's better when you you know, to get it early. Yes, But we have entrepreneurs that have come to us, whether it's through COVID to keep their doors open. We had brick and mortars that have been a lot you know, out for twenty years and COVID hits and they've got a crisis crowdfund. So people are at all different stages. We also have people that have raised venture capital a seed round and that are having a lot of trouble raising the next round of capital because it's oh much harder. Most women founders drop off the funding map after venture capital founded venture capital backed founders after the seed round. Getting from seed to Series A is very very very difficult. What's the difference between UM crowdfunding and VC? Great question. Crowd So crowdfunding is when you, the entrepreneur, go out and raise capital from people that you know, like the first round. The first step is what you guys are saying, ask what crowdfunding is? Okay, and they don't have they won't have owners sequity in your business. Okay, Okay, I didn't. I thought always when you gave mound they had some kind of tiny even Okay, such a good question. So there's two ways to crowdfund. There's rewards based crowdfunding, which is what I fund women does, which is UM jasmine what's your product? Like, what would you have entertainments Like, I don't have a tangible products? What's the product? What's the service I had if I had a t shirt line? All right, but I'm trying to do like live coach. Yeah, so you can get a shout I make money off. You can say one of your one of her, one of your rewards can be literally oh yeah, yeah, there you go, there you go. Okay, I'm trying to do this live. Somebody gives a thousand dollars in your crowdfunding, and at that tier they can get a free shout out that maybe somebody donates five thousand dollars get their crowdfunding, and they can get sponsor and if they give you ten you'll teach them how to do it. Yeah, okay, So basically you're getting cash rewards. It's rewards. You're getting cash. You're selling. You're selling a product or service. Okay, for cash. They don't get equity in your company, no ownership in your company. It's not debt. You don't have to pay it back. It's literally a transaction. Got it. You can also do equity crowdfunding. I know what that is. Much it's more difficult in that there's a lot of legal that you have to go through, you have to be let's just leave it there. It's it's a good path if you are on the venture funding path and you are a tech company SaaS company, that's a decent path. But for the majority of women entrepreneurs who are not who are we're sector agnostic. You could be a farm to table restaurant, you could be a beauty salon, you could be you know whatever, and common crowdfund on I fund women and raise capital, raise cash to fund your business. Let's keep it all the way one hundred and two. Women of color in particular have a harder time raising capital, particularly VC money, and then the second round is even harder for us if we are getting our funding as women from women. So if a VC that is owned and operated and funded by women, it's even harder to get our second round as women of color. We need all different ways to raise capital. And I don't care what stage you are in. If there is a different way for you to get dollars into your business, you should be doing it. And that's why I think iPhone women has a special unique place and it's an opportunity for any entrepree ppreneur at any stage, but for us for black women too. Like with your business, you could be thinking about a project based raise that is it just about your business in general, It's about something you want to go and do, because that's what funding does. It unlocks opportunity for your business. And so this is this is these are the kind of opportunities that are trying to unlock for entrepreneurs. Now, I fund women of color that since we were talking about that, and the more we have way more obstacles to so can we talk about I Fund Women of Color than necessity for that. So, when I started the business six years ago, right out of the gate, seventy five percent of our customers were and continue to be women of color entrepreneurs. Okay, twenty two percent, And I know there's a little difference in there because some people don't want to say who they are. Twenty two percent self identified as Caucasian. Okay. So I'm watching this thing, watching the funding volume, and I know right out the gate, I'm like, oh shit, Oh it's fine. I'm like, oh shit, I know what's gonna I can see the future, and I don't like how it looks. I know that the twenty two percent of white women are going to raise the vast majority of capital. I just I saw it common. So I happen to say to Olivia Owens, who was the founder of I Fund Women of Color. She was one of my employees, she'd my first employee, and I said, Livy, we are going to need to do a lot of special things and support for our customers, who are largely women of color, starting right now. And I got pushed back from the women of color employees. In my People of Color employees in my in my at the business, they were like, don't other us stop putting baby in a corner, like let it be, and I'm like, but the funding volume don't lie. So I was like, all right, Like being the white lady named Karen, I would like have to mind my p's and q's. And even though I'm the CEO of the company, I'm like, okay, I'm like, all right, I did dedicate my education to this, and I do and I am slightly yeah. I was an AVM major back in the day when D and I weren't even letters the people. And I'm like, all right, kids, let's see what happens. So a year goes by. Twenty seventeen was our first year of really running the business. Twenty eighteen goes by. After twenty eighteen, I look at Olivia and I was like, eighty percent of the capitol is being raised by the twenty percent of white women. Go find an engineer and a product person and build I fund women of color. And she was like okay, and she did it, and we launched it at the Women's March in twenty twenty and since then we have taken the cumulative funding volume over the five years of I Fund Women, in the first year of running IFE on Women of Color, we took the cumulative funding volume and brought it to parody. Oh wow, that's great. So, and you know, women of color are not a monolith. We know there's all kinds of diversity within there. But it was a But that's staggering to hear what it was like eighty that they were getting the twenty two percent. We're getting eighty percent correct on the platform. Yeah, that's It's the reality and fundraising in every way. And if you aren't intentional about creating spaces for us, that is what will happen. That's what's shown what happened in our in our society. So building products for us is critical to our success. Dessa and Karen, how did y'all get so tight? You know, I just honestly, we were we were talking about this. We were talking about this, and I and I think that we are both women who have dedicated our life to accelerating equity for women. And it's as simple as that we care about women. We've dedicated our businesses to it, our lives to it, and I think we're gonna see women get equity or die trying, and that's kind of like that's the bond that connects us. Obviously the business connects us, um, but that's the bond that connects us. Yeah, I mean, and we met obviously through the through haf on Women a long time ago. And you know, OJ and I both being in tech and both being women who are doing this thing from like I'll do this till I die, meaning like advocate for women. You know, all the money for all the women now is like my hashtag which is very long, yeah, like literally right now, not yesterday, right now. So we share this common bond and we you know, I've called her many times over the years with like business struggles and she's in the same and so I think we've coached each other, right, And I think it's a representation of what you want to see from more executive women, is it's okay to be coached by another woman. I don't have to knock the crown off a year head, you don't have to knock the crown off the mind. We talk about past batons back and forth earlier, like we can both stand in the light and shine. And I think that's why we have this, this this great relationship. But this also technology. We both love technology, right, and and football. So I'm gonna I can't wait. You're like, you're gonna get you out in the course. Oh my god, I do throw a tight spiral. I do, say yes, I do. Let's find out I have not seen you throw a football. Okay, this is springing, this is I've got many. Yeah, we just now what was by the success some of the biggest success I can't even say the word sex success stories that you've had on I Fund women. Oh my gosh, so many Angela, Okay, so many, so many. But I'm going to talk about a couple. So um Kim Roxy, who is uh girl out of Houston, woman out of Houston. Shout out Kim Roxy, founder of Lamik Beauty. It is a clean beauty line that Kim started uh honestly twenty years ago. Kim started as the brow lady in the mall. Her mother gave her a loan. Loretta God Rest her soul. Lauretta is always around. Who's Kim's mother. Kim's mother gave her five hundred dollars loan to go start her brow business in the mall at a stand she used to go to the food court to bring customers over. She grew, She went into a brick and mortar space was doing brows and makeup. COVID hit. She was like, all right, I got a pivot to being a direct consumer, to selling products online. She had already set up her manufacturing. Stuff is made locally in Texas. It's all clean. Her mother unfortunately passed of cancer. Kim is very particular about the product, the ingredients in the product. Long story medium, Kim came to I fund Women. I didn't know her. She was a person that just came raised fifty five thousand dollars in cash in one month from almost five hundred funders because her products are so good. Um. She then was another person who got the Amex one for one hundred grant. She got a grant from Caress, who was the founding partner of if on Women of Color. She then, this is gonna like I'm not gonna cry, but like, honestly I want to, I'm not gonna cry. Um. Fast forward to the royal wedding Megan and Harry has Um. Meghan Markole started wearing Kim's product and it was in a Lore magazine and she blew up how she is now an Alta Beauty. She's in many other major retailers. She's on the CBS Morning Show. She's just like has blown up, but like having Megan Markole, that's big. Can you imagine out of nowhere? Out of nowhere? And it's I that's how amazing the product is. The product is great, and you know, Lemique said, Lemique La m I K And and you can find it on Alta Beauty that's sold exclusively online at ault Beauty. So that I mean that to me is just the epitome of a success story. This is a girl from Houston who started with five hundred bucks and has a great product and knows how to sell it, and here she is. Are there any stories like this? They're surprised you like, you didn't think that maybe they would be as successful And you're like, oh wow, I didn't. I didn't see that one coming. Is there anything like that? Are you? Are you pretty? I am predicting, you know, it's interesting, Jasmine. You can't predict necessarily when someone just starts their campaign. You can't predict what's going to happen until you start to see the funding volume. Yeah, it's really the founders. It doesn't matter what business sector they're in. It doesn't matter if they're in tech, if they're in beauty, if they're in food. It's the founders who can sell and market. Yeah, those are the ones who win, and the ones who do the coaching or use I mean, we have a free coaching product and we have a paid coaching product. The paid coaching product is so affordable. But even if you use the free tools, right, you get the playbook for free, if you take the time to fill it out and have a plan, those are the ones to win. Yes, So a good gift for entrepreneurs too. I feel like gift, salute and now destin. What's the endgame for you? Um? I think for me, I am you know, anything that involves, as I said, connecting technology, advancing women in sport is what I'm going to do. Obviously the WNFC and seeing that continue to grow, continuing to to stand an audience with women like Karen and businesses like I Fund Women. Um that that that is really my future. I'm going to continue to lead in tech. I'm going to continue to lead in sport and represent particularly represent black women, and show that we don't have to be in a box. We don't have to represent one thing. We can get a plan, we can get a purpose, and we can make some cash and keep on multiplying that over and over again. So my future really is in representing women who stand tall in the world of creating and accelerating equity. Did the host Silicon Valley banking? Because I know that was a lot of tech startup money? Did that affect people that I fund women? Because I know a lot of people had their money there. Yeah, so we didn't. We don't bank with SVB. That being said, you know, the entire startup ecosystem was just upended. Right. We have a lot of friends. We were talking about this on the way end. We have a lot of friends in the startup ecosystem, both men and women, who have just been going through hell, and our hearts genuinely go out to them. As it relates to women entrepreneurs. We're already at two percent of venture funding. We're going to go down. It is going to be near impossible to raise venture capital for the foreseeable future. And the reason for that is is because the VC firms needed to help put cash in to shore up the companies that had money in SVB to help them payroll and it's so it's it's a real mess right now. Um, it doesn't bode well for the entire startup ecosystem with regards to raising money and for women, it's going to be exponentially harder, which is even more of a reason why I Fund Women is such a critical essential service for entrepreneurs because we are not a venture capital firm, right we are a marketplace where you can come you know, you can get collateral free loans, you can get grants, you can do crowdfunding. You can have some control over whether you can raise capital or not through even just crowdfunding. So um, thank you for asking. Though, by the way, that was a very kind question. I might have to come over to I Fund Women and get some come through some crowdfunding. I might need to give me a coach, serious paid one. Yeah absolutely, Jasmine, I will be your coach, and I'm and how about how about on the house? Yeah? Well okay, but I do know, but I'll take you as a coach. In mind your business, mind your business, in your pockets. Okay, like Olivia told her first, wait, just mind business. But that's great, and I would left for you to detail that journey you know as well. I might have to do it too. I'm not gonna let's do it for me on a cash apple. How much did you raise on the My issue is when celebrities do it, like when they put their cash up on their birthday and I'm like, y'all are good, like stop, like you don't even do that. Y They're like, if all my followers give me a dollar for my birthday and it makes me so mad. Your money probably somebody shot it, did donate it. I remember that. I think we use your money to have lunch. I know, way more than thirty dollars. It always does, it does. This is a fact I don't like to eat. I don't think it's hard to do that in New York City right now. Yeah, but now, I do love this energy that you guys have and how you came together so are anically and explained everything so well. And I do feel like, and I met Karen a long time ago. It must have been early on. It was really Yeah, it was really early on. But I love the progress and we're gonna use it. Yeah we should. We're gonna talk about it, and I'm gonna talk about it on the show on the show about like, you know, the process and all that kind of stuff. We live coaching and really like dig in. I think the journey from especially now in your business to where you where you will be after coaching, would be really dope left to see it. Yeah, yeah, and Nodessa, I'm gonna get back on into sports. Let's do it. Let's when we were talking about it. You sound like you love it, so don't don't don't quit? Okay, all right? And they build some character. Yeah, I'd never played pickleball, but Danielle rawlings that is his favorite sport to play. What I don't? What is that? Everybody's like investing in invailable It's like ping pong on a mini chinnas chorre yes, like badminton. Okay, I know badmints Okay, kind of he got the pattle and I haven't played yet. But my plan is I want to play pickle ball for no good reason. Let's figure yeah, I want to. I will totally play. Let's take a lesson down now, all right, honestly, thank y'all so much, Odessa Jenkins, Karen con I appreciate you guys so much. I fund women. How can they find both of you? Go to iFund women dot com and get started. We are there for it, or ifnd women on all the socials. Yes, and you can find me at Odessa Jenkins dot com or follow the w NFC. Please follow our fund women because when you follow them, you follow women. So do that, all right? We love it? Way up with Dandela ye where
Speaker 1: All up with Angela Ye. I'm angela Ye. And Jasmine Brand is here yes, and we were having an amazing conversation without the micson, So I know this is going to be even more fun now that we're talking about UM. Karen con is here and you're the founder of I Fund Women, Yes, ma'am all right, And Odesta Jenkins is here also, and Odessa Jenkins hold on, I want to say this, Monk is UM the founder of the Women's National Football Conference. Yes, yes, the w NFC, w NFC, And we were talking about sports and you were saying that sports, you feel like UM is super important growing up and it has been for you absolutely, and I think even even as for adults put growing up, nothing builds character like sports, especially team sports. You learn how to handle adversity, you learn how to handle diversity, You learn how to communicate when things are going bad and things are going good, especially for girls and women in those scenarios where you aren't being taught to speak up and say certain things or act certain ways. Sport gives you the permission to speak up and to communicate and handle tough situations like a boss, you know, And I think we need more of that. I remember being on the bus going to like our failed hockey games and basketball games on the away games, and the bonding experience that we even had just in those trips and then coming back if you won, you're celebrating. If you lost, you're like quiet on the bus. Well like boys are boys aren't for a second or two, and then girls have fun like boys are boys are are like asked to create community around all kinds of stuff, sports their gear there, and then girls, yeah, venture capital, and then girls are asked to like compete with the things. Right, So like sports helps you build that community, just like entrepreneurship and fundraising does. So it's kind of a dope intersection. Now, Karen, I want to talk to you about I fund women because we've spoken before. We did some things together with Stacy Tisdale, my partner, and well on the Wednesdaysdale you love her, and so it's still an issue, right it is Women's History Month, but this is an ongoing issue that has never been erectified. But for women when it comes to venture capital, we were just talking about that, Um, what is the percentage of what we get? And for black women it's even lower. So can you discuss the disparity with that absolutely, and I you know, I hate being like the Debbi Downer the of the funding world. But the numbers don't lie. So women as a collective we receive around two percent of venture funding dollars, So ninety eight percent of VC dollars and that's about three hundred billion a year in the US alone. With a bee go to men, and female founders of color get point three two percent. Yeah, yeah, point three percent. It's the numbers are disgusting. Why is that? Is it because it's mostly white men who are and they see somebody that's like them and they're giving it to each other. That you pretty much summed it up. Yeah, I mean, the disparities around funding are not just relegated to venture capitalists. But yes, So in order to raise VC, you have to have what's called founder pett agree. Founder pedigree encompasses three things. One, you have to have made money for the firm before okay, so exited a company. They know that you're a sure bet. Number Two, you need to be an engineer or a head product person at a fang company. So for like Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google, it's sort of antiquated, but you've got to be an engineer or a product person at one of these massive unicorn companies that have had major outcomes, or you have to be friends at play golf with the buddies at the front, because it's it's it's even more extreme than that, right, Like from an even higher level. Most of these founders that are getting funding ninety percent of them plus are white males from three different schools, right ivy League. It's like Harvard, Yale at Stanford. So it's out again. Right. So as as when Karen starts talking about these things and you think you're thinking about where you're going to raise your capital as an entrepreneur, you eliminate you. You start eliminating yourself and you need other ways to find funding. There's no way that what has traditionally happened is going to work for us. And then you also in these situations, have the opportunity to not be successful with your entrepreneurship so that if this doesn't work well, I can just get raise some more money and start something else. And for you, Karen, can you talk about how you even started I fund women, because this is all came from something that I didn't work out for you? Absolutely, So I was a female founder who could not raise funding, period. So I fund Women's my second startup. My first startup failed because we couldn't raise funding. And Angela I came from. I was born and raised at Google. I was there for ten years. You know, it was extraordinarily successful, and I had access. When I came out of Google and began my company, I had access to venture capitalists just through the connections and through this color skin, the white skin privilege. I had acces right, so I could get into the room where it happened. But because of founder pedigree and the algorithms in their heads and actually on paper of who they're going to fund, it didn't matter that I worked at Google for ten years and had a connection to such and such and got into the room. They were not going to fund my business. They had not seen anybody that looked like me, let alone look like Odessa. Right. So I thought to myself, truly, if it is this hard for me to raise venture capital, and I am very privileged, how hard must it be for the eighty nine percent of women entrepreneurs in this country who are women of color entrepreneurs? Right? And so I said, right then and there, I'm like we're pivoting, we're shutting down the first business, we're starting a funding platform. This is a massive problem. Yeah, and I just was like, I'm going to try to help solve it. And that is literally while we're here, all right. And then Odessa, let's switch over to you two for a second, because you play football all kinds of accolades, right, and I tell you said in the first seven years you didn't even have a new helmet correct and playing. So can you just discuss like your career, your upbringing, and then what made you decide that you needed to start your own Absolutely so, I'm an athlete, always been an athlete, as you said, and growing up being a girl or a woman in a man's world, in a man's sport, particularly football and basketball. In some ways, when I was first coming up, it was always that you had it was harder, and that's just the way it was. If you were the only girl on the team, it was harder for you. You couldn't go into the locker room. That's just the way it was. I end up playing Division one basketball and then playing football, and there wasn't a place for me. There wasn't a place for me to think about making a living wage to play football, and I wanted to change that. And so in twenty seventeen, I got recruited into the NFL through the Bill Wash Diversity Internship. I was in technology at the time as well, so it was like this great parallel path where I was an outlier both in the world of technology and enterprise and in the world of sport. So I was starting to see, like, wait a minute, there's no opportunities for people like me. Women can't make a living wage playing tackle football. Why is that. I need to dig deeper to understand why that is. And so when I had my I left the NFL and thought, I want to create this for women. I don't want I don't want ever want a woman to feel like I felt where I could not have an opportunity because I'm not the type that you can't you can tell me I can't have it. And so when I left, I was also exiting my first tech company of someone who had raised capital and we had gone through the process, and so I got to twenty nineteen and I was like, wait a minute, this is this just doesn't make sense. I'm a woman in sport. This is America's sport. There are thousands and thousands of women playing it. I'm going to create a business that supports the business of sport for women in football, and that's how the w NFC was born. That's actually how I found that, which is wild, which is wild, So tell me about that experience and two connecting with I Fund Women and a WNFC. Yeah, so when I finished exiting the business, and it's so wild that you asked Karen the question about women raising capital because I didn't even think about going VC route. I didn't think that that was for me when I started my business. Why is that for people? Because everybody's always like VC, VC money, VC money. I never seen it. I didn't see it. I definitely never seen a woman like me raise capital. I hadn't seen any women in sport raise capital, and women in football they barely existed, let alone raised VC funding. So I as as as aggressive as I am for advancing women because I couldn't see it. I didn't think it was possible, right, That's just that's just the truth. So then you met Karen. So then I met Karen, and I was I actually went looking for iPhone women, So I went looking for alternative ways to raise capital and I found iPhone Women. I was like, Wow, this is an opportunity, Like this money is free. I was a little skeptical to be sound like a scam. I was like, so, I it's a platform, and it's like, what do you want to do? I filled out the Universal Grant form. I started to receive grants, grants off top, I started my crowdfunder. The reason we started the crowdfunder was for production. We wanted to produce women's tackle football for the first time. And I didn't even know about the grants and they just started pouring in, started coming in. Because capital is definitely one of the things that is the biggest obstacle. It might be the biggest obstacle when it comes to being successful as an entrepreneur, and it's a it's a it's a shock as an entrepreneur to get onto a platform like I fund women crowdfunds, see your friends and family start to come in. But businesses like Adidas gave us a grant, American Express chose me as one of the one hundred for one hundred entrepreneurs and gave my business, and then Johnny Walker gave us a big giant check in Brooklyn here. So it's just like all of that happened through being a part of the I fund Women platform, and that's when I knew something we had to hook up. We had to Yeah, and Karen with a fund Women. It's not just funding that you give, right, It's not just the funding platform. Can you talk about the other services that are available on that platform that you saw a need for. Yeah, So when we started the platform, it was just crowdfunding, right. We were like, Okay, what's the fastest way to cash, which is working capital for your business? We can't wait for loans, we ain't getting VC. We needed fast, so cash is fast. So crowdfunding was the first thing we did. And we realized that our beta customers didn't how to crowdfund, and to be fair, we didn't have to crowdfund until we crowdfunded on another platform to pay for our mvpur Minimally viable product. We did. We kind of led our way into another platform and said we were this creative thing when we really weren't. But that's a whole other story. So we crowdfunded thirty grand to build our platform, and that was the crowdfunding platform, and we realized that our customers didn't know how to do it. I think most people think that when they put up a crowdfunder that if you build it, if you put it up, they will come This like is not field of dreams. It's sales and marketing. Truly, you are raising small increments of money from lots of people that you know that add up to just enough to get your business off the ground or get a new product launch or whatever it is. So we started to teach people through our Slack community how to do it right. So people would start asking questions about how do I track this? How do I know where my traffics coming from? And I would be like, oh, just put your Google Analytics code into your page, and they'll be like, you're speaking another language, what do you mean? So I would jump on a zoom with them screenshare set up the Google Analytics for them, and it would It's the business gift of a lifetime, like teaching people like, oh, here's where my traffics coming from, how can I think about marketing? So on and so forth. So from there was born our coaching program. So where we started teaching people about crowdfunding, we were really teaching them about how to build a business and how to sell and market their products. So our coaching program is an award winning program that works to make women money. And so that is kind of like one of the crown jewels that I fund women beyond the funding because to your point, of course, the number one problem in women's businesses succeeding is the lack of access to funding. The second biggest part of that problem is a lack of access to coaches. Not necessarily mentorship, right because a lot of people are getting mentored in mentorships lovely, But like I want to learn how to set up my Google analytics, how to do Facebook retargeting ads, or how to do how to write a business plan, you know, I want connections to banking relationships and connections to institutions who are going to give me grants those things exactly. So we started doing coaching, We started doing broker in grants for different enterprises, and we also have a marketplace for freelancers to get new customers. So the best form of funding is revenue. That's always what I'm going to say, forever and always. The best form of funding is revenue. And so there are opportunities for business services entrepreneurs like graphic designers and lawyers and accountants who are entrepreneurs. They're like one woman bands to come on the platform and get new customers. And I think sometimes people are nervous about crowdfunding because, like you said, you know, you do have to know how to market. You have to know where where the traffic's coming from. People also don't like to ask for money. That's hard. Yeah, it's the first thing you have to kind of get over this entrepreneur is asking for help, asking for anything, but the to be to be to give Karen credit to I fund Women's sort of playbook on how to crowdfund that the idea that that's there and you get coaching first takes a little bit of that away because you get a plan. If you have a plan, it's easier to ask. Asking without a plan makes it so much harder because you're dealing with all the anxiety of it. That's too well said. So I have my own business. I'm entrepreneur, just like Angela. I have an entertainment site and I started at about twelve years ago. I was going to say shut out telling people, Yeah, but so I started about twelve years ago or something like that I had no business plan, I had no money, I had no idea how to run a business. I was you know, it was it wasn't my intention. So knowing something like this would have been a great resource for me. What do you think is the biggest And I never thought about trying to get funding or crowdfund like anything like that. I just that wasn't in my vocabulary. My dad's a entrepreneur. He never talked to me about that kind of stuff. What do you think the biggest misconception? Biggest misconception is about crowdfunding or getting um, you know, money and that kind of thing. I think that the biggest misc there's a bunch of misconceptions. One is that it's easy. Many people think it's easy. I do it sounds very hard to me. I think I think that people when they look at it and they're not they haven't done it before, they think it looks easy. Just kind of like if my friends gave me twenty dollars, that sounds easy. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's kind of like you think when you're gonna go sell something on the internet, it seems easy. Yeah, right. You think all your friends are going to support you. Think all your family's automatically gonna support you, think they'll spread the word. Yeah, and when you become an antentnewer, you find out it can be a different word place. It's like the quickest post that you click passes that one that says is if all my followers gave me a dollar, you'd be like, exactly right, it's dollars. She has a problem with people. Yeah, I don't like what people feels like cash. I'm on their birthday right, Well, I don't not people. I don't like what celebrities do it. Anyway, we did a topic and then a bunch of people sent her money. Able to do it anyway to me a dollar? It was so annoying, yet it was it funny, it was great. I want to do it again anyway. Okay, well we need to do you need to get back and that's what we're going to do it. Yeah, that's what we're doing. Yeah. So I think, like one misconception is that is easy, um, which it's it's not. But as Ourdeska said, if you use the playbook and you get the coaching, which by the way, is such a small investment to make sure that your round is successful, it's a no brainer, um. And I think that a lot of people have crowdfunding shame, which leads to the misconception that if they eventually want to raise venture capital or go and get a bank loan, it almost like delegitimizes them, when it's actually the opposite. So my phone rings off the hook with seed stage venture capital firms. They're always asking me for the tea, What are thet who are the hot founders, who's crushing it, what are the new sectors, what are the new sort of microsectors that you're seeing come up on the platform, because they know we're getting the earliest stage entrepreneurs when ideas are fresh and new and never been done before. And I'm giving myself chills because I just I'm thinking so specifically about entrepreneurs who have done never before done things and that's hard to do, right. It seems like fresh ideas are hard to come by, not for women. And so I think that just getting just wrapping up the answer to your question. If you're listening to this and thinking about crowdfunding and you're worried about the perception, people are going to think you're like not a real business, or you're asking for charity. It is not like that vcs want to see. Venture capitalists want to see that you've busted your butt and that you can get an audience and you can get people behind your product or service. And crowdfunding is literally just selling your product or service. Those are your rewards that you talk about getting people showing that you can get people behind your product or service. It's a huge part of product market fit. Getting market pool is a huge part of growth in scale. And when Karen talks about the idea that friends and family round goes first, that's normal. It's a normal part of the capital raised process. And I think if people like you knew more that the first step is the friends and family round, then you get a seed round, then you get a series ABCD, A lot of us don't know that. Yeah, but that's a part of the process. An iPhone women helps you start and that's try too because like for me with my companies, you know, I haven't gotten invest theirs yet and I'm I went to which is outrageous, which is which sucks using your own money all the time. But sometimes people think when you make money and you have money, why are you raising money for women? Exactly right, Yeah, so men don't use their all money even when they have it correct most of the time. What stage, like, you know, if someone is watching and listening and they they've been in business five years, is it good for the mccumby wall or should they come at the very beginning? When is the best time or is it anytime? Anytime? It's really anytime. It's really anytime. I mean, of course when you are just starting out, as you said it was twelve years ago. Yeah, so if we had jasmine right out the gate, of course, like it's better when you you know, to get it early. Yes, But we have entrepreneurs that have come to us, whether it's through COVID to keep their doors open. We had brick and mortars that have been a lot you know, out for twenty years and COVID hits and they've got a crisis crowdfund. So people are at all different stages. We also have people that have raised venture capital a seed round and that are having a lot of trouble raising the next round of capital because it's oh much harder. Most women founders drop off the funding map after venture capital founded venture capital backed founders after the seed round. Getting from seed to Series A is very very very difficult. What's the difference between UM crowdfunding and VC? Great question. Crowd So crowdfunding is when you, the entrepreneur, go out and raise capital from people that you know, like the first round. The first step is what you guys are saying, ask what crowdfunding is? Okay, and they don't have they won't have owners sequity in your business. Okay, Okay, I didn't. I thought always when you gave mound they had some kind of tiny even Okay, such a good question. So there's two ways to crowdfund. There's rewards based crowdfunding, which is what I fund women does, which is UM jasmine what's your product? Like, what would you have entertainments Like, I don't have a tangible products? What's the product? What's the service I had if I had a t shirt line? All right, but I'm trying to do like live coach. Yeah, so you can get a shout I make money off. You can say one of your one of her, one of your rewards can be literally oh yeah, yeah, there you go, there you go. Okay, I'm trying to do this live. Somebody gives a thousand dollars in your crowdfunding, and at that tier they can get a free shout out that maybe somebody donates five thousand dollars get their crowdfunding, and they can get sponsor and if they give you ten you'll teach them how to do it. Yeah, okay, So basically you're getting cash rewards. It's rewards. You're getting cash. You're selling. You're selling a product or service. Okay, for cash. They don't get equity in your company, no ownership in your company. It's not debt. You don't have to pay it back. It's literally a transaction. Got it. You can also do equity crowdfunding. I know what that is. Much it's more difficult in that there's a lot of legal that you have to go through, you have to be let's just leave it there. It's it's a good path if you are on the venture funding path and you are a tech company SaaS company, that's a decent path. But for the majority of women entrepreneurs who are not who are we're sector agnostic. You could be a farm to table restaurant, you could be a beauty salon, you could be you know whatever, and common crowdfund on I fund women and raise capital, raise cash to fund your business. Let's keep it all the way one hundred and two. Women of color in particular have a harder time raising capital, particularly VC money, and then the second round is even harder for us if we are getting our funding as women from women. So if a VC that is owned and operated and funded by women, it's even harder to get our second round as women of color. We need all different ways to raise capital. And I don't care what stage you are in. If there is a different way for you to get dollars into your business, you should be doing it. And that's why I think iPhone women has a special unique place and it's an opportunity for any entrepree ppreneur at any stage, but for us for black women too. Like with your business, you could be thinking about a project based raise that is it just about your business in general, It's about something you want to go and do, because that's what funding does. It unlocks opportunity for your business. And so this is this is these are the kind of opportunities that are trying to unlock for entrepreneurs. Now, I fund women of color that since we were talking about that, and the more we have way more obstacles to so can we talk about I Fund Women of Color than necessity for that. So, when I started the business six years ago, right out of the gate, seventy five percent of our customers were and continue to be women of color entrepreneurs. Okay, twenty two percent, And I know there's a little difference in there because some people don't want to say who they are. Twenty two percent self identified as Caucasian. Okay. So I'm watching this thing, watching the funding volume, and I know right out the gate, I'm like, oh shit, Oh it's fine. I'm like, oh shit, I know what's gonna I can see the future, and I don't like how it looks. I know that the twenty two percent of white women are going to raise the vast majority of capital. I just I saw it common. So I happen to say to Olivia Owens, who was the founder of I Fund Women of Color. She was one of my employees, she'd my first employee, and I said, Livy, we are going to need to do a lot of special things and support for our customers, who are largely women of color, starting right now. And I got pushed back from the women of color employees. In my People of Color employees in my in my at the business, they were like, don't other us stop putting baby in a corner, like let it be, and I'm like, but the funding volume don't lie. So I was like, all right, Like being the white lady named Karen, I would like have to mind my p's and q's. And even though I'm the CEO of the company, I'm like, okay, I'm like, all right, I did dedicate my education to this, and I do and I am slightly yeah. I was an AVM major back in the day when D and I weren't even letters the people. And I'm like, all right, kids, let's see what happens. So a year goes by. Twenty seventeen was our first year of really running the business. Twenty eighteen goes by. After twenty eighteen, I look at Olivia and I was like, eighty percent of the capitol is being raised by the twenty percent of white women. Go find an engineer and a product person and build I fund women of color. And she was like okay, and she did it, and we launched it at the Women's March in twenty twenty and since then we have taken the cumulative funding volume over the five years of I Fund Women, in the first year of running IFE on Women of Color, we took the cumulative funding volume and brought it to parody. Oh wow, that's great. So, and you know, women of color are not a monolith. We know there's all kinds of diversity within there. But it was a But that's staggering to hear what it was like eighty that they were getting the twenty two percent. We're getting eighty percent correct on the platform. Yeah, that's It's the reality and fundraising in every way. And if you aren't intentional about creating spaces for us, that is what will happen. That's what's shown what happened in our in our society. So building products for us is critical to our success. Dessa and Karen, how did y'all get so tight? You know, I just honestly, we were we were talking about this. We were talking about this, and I and I think that we are both women who have dedicated our life to accelerating equity for women. And it's as simple as that we care about women. We've dedicated our businesses to it, our lives to it, and I think we're gonna see women get equity or die trying, and that's kind of like that's the bond that connects us. Obviously the business connects us, um, but that's the bond that connects us. Yeah, I mean, and we met obviously through the through haf on Women a long time ago. And you know, OJ and I both being in tech and both being women who are doing this thing from like I'll do this till I die, meaning like advocate for women. You know, all the money for all the women now is like my hashtag which is very long, yeah, like literally right now, not yesterday, right now. So we share this common bond and we you know, I've called her many times over the years with like business struggles and she's in the same and so I think we've coached each other, right, And I think it's a representation of what you want to see from more executive women, is it's okay to be coached by another woman. I don't have to knock the crown off a year head, you don't have to knock the crown off the mind. We talk about past batons back and forth earlier, like we can both stand in the light and shine. And I think that's why we have this, this this great relationship. But this also technology. We both love technology, right, and and football. So I'm gonna I can't wait. You're like, you're gonna get you out in the course. Oh my god, I do throw a tight spiral. I do, say yes, I do. Let's find out I have not seen you throw a football. Okay, this is springing, this is I've got many. Yeah, we just now what was by the success some of the biggest success I can't even say the word sex success stories that you've had on I Fund women. Oh my gosh, so many Angela, Okay, so many, so many. But I'm going to talk about a couple. So um Kim Roxy, who is uh girl out of Houston, woman out of Houston. Shout out Kim Roxy, founder of Lamik Beauty. It is a clean beauty line that Kim started uh honestly twenty years ago. Kim started as the brow lady in the mall. Her mother gave her a loan. Loretta God Rest her soul. Lauretta is always around. Who's Kim's mother. Kim's mother gave her five hundred dollars loan to go start her brow business in the mall at a stand she used to go to the food court to bring customers over. She grew, She went into a brick and mortar space was doing brows and makeup. COVID hit. She was like, all right, I got a pivot to being a direct consumer, to selling products online. She had already set up her manufacturing. Stuff is made locally in Texas. It's all clean. Her mother unfortunately passed of cancer. Kim is very particular about the product, the ingredients in the product. Long story medium, Kim came to I fund Women. I didn't know her. She was a person that just came raised fifty five thousand dollars in cash in one month from almost five hundred funders because her products are so good. Um. She then was another person who got the Amex one for one hundred grant. She got a grant from Caress, who was the founding partner of if on Women of Color. She then, this is gonna like I'm not gonna cry, but like, honestly I want to, I'm not gonna cry. Um. Fast forward to the royal wedding Megan and Harry has Um. Meghan Markole started wearing Kim's product and it was in a Lore magazine and she blew up how she is now an Alta Beauty. She's in many other major retailers. She's on the CBS Morning Show. She's just like has blown up, but like having Megan Markole, that's big. Can you imagine out of nowhere? Out of nowhere? And it's I that's how amazing the product is. The product is great, and you know, Lemique said, Lemique La m I K And and you can find it on Alta Beauty that's sold exclusively online at ault Beauty. So that I mean that to me is just the epitome of a success story. This is a girl from Houston who started with five hundred bucks and has a great product and knows how to sell it, and here she is. Are there any stories like this? They're surprised you like, you didn't think that maybe they would be as successful And you're like, oh wow, I didn't. I didn't see that one coming. Is there anything like that? Are you? Are you pretty? I am predicting, you know, it's interesting, Jasmine. You can't predict necessarily when someone just starts their campaign. You can't predict what's going to happen until you start to see the funding volume. Yeah, it's really the founders. It doesn't matter what business sector they're in. It doesn't matter if they're in tech, if they're in beauty, if they're in food. It's the founders who can sell and market. Yeah, those are the ones who win, and the ones who do the coaching or use I mean, we have a free coaching product and we have a paid coaching product. The paid coaching product is so affordable. But even if you use the free tools, right, you get the playbook for free, if you take the time to fill it out and have a plan, those are the ones to win. Yes, So a good gift for entrepreneurs too. I feel like gift, salute and now destin. What's the endgame for you? Um? I think for me, I am you know, anything that involves, as I said, connecting technology, advancing women in sport is what I'm going to do. Obviously the WNFC and seeing that continue to grow, continuing to to stand an audience with women like Karen and businesses like I Fund Women. Um that that that is really my future. I'm going to continue to lead in tech. I'm going to continue to lead in sport and represent particularly represent black women, and show that we don't have to be in a box. We don't have to represent one thing. We can get a plan, we can get a purpose, and we can make some cash and keep on multiplying that over and over again. So my future really is in representing women who stand tall in the world of creating and accelerating equity. Did the host Silicon Valley banking? Because I know that was a lot of tech startup money? Did that affect people that I fund women? Because I know a lot of people had their money there. Yeah, so we didn't. We don't bank with SVB. That being said, you know, the entire startup ecosystem was just upended. Right. We have a lot of friends. We were talking about this on the way end. We have a lot of friends in the startup ecosystem, both men and women, who have just been going through hell, and our hearts genuinely go out to them. As it relates to women entrepreneurs. We're already at two percent of venture funding. We're going to go down. It is going to be near impossible to raise venture capital for the foreseeable future. And the reason for that is is because the VC firms needed to help put cash in to shore up the companies that had money in SVB to help them payroll and it's so it's it's a real mess right now. Um, it doesn't bode well for the entire startup ecosystem with regards to raising money and for women, it's going to be exponentially harder, which is even more of a reason why I Fund Women is such a critical essential service for entrepreneurs because we are not a venture capital firm, right we are a marketplace where you can come you know, you can get collateral free loans, you can get grants, you can do crowdfunding. You can have some control over whether you can raise capital or not through even just crowdfunding. So um, thank you for asking. Though, by the way, that was a very kind question. I might have to come over to I Fund Women and get some come through some crowdfunding. I might need to give me a coach, serious paid one. Yeah absolutely, Jasmine, I will be your coach, and I'm and how about how about on the house? Yeah? Well okay, but I do know, but I'll take you as a coach. In mind your business, mind your business, in your pockets. Okay, like Olivia told her first, wait, just mind business. But that's great, and I would left for you to detail that journey you know as well. I might have to do it too. I'm not gonna let's do it for me on a cash apple. How much did you raise on the My issue is when celebrities do it, like when they put their cash up on their birthday and I'm like, y'all are good, like stop, like you don't even do that. Y They're like, if all my followers give me a dollar for my birthday and it makes me so mad. Your money probably somebody shot it, did donate it. I remember that. I think we use your money to have lunch. I know, way more than thirty dollars. It always does, it does. This is a fact I don't like to eat. I don't think it's hard to do that in New York City right now. Yeah, but now, I do love this energy that you guys have and how you came together so are anically and explained everything so well. And I do feel like, and I met Karen a long time ago. It must have been early on. It was really Yeah, it was really early on. But I love the progress and we're gonna use it. Yeah we should. We're gonna talk about it, and I'm gonna talk about it on the show on the show about like, you know, the process and all that kind of stuff. We live coaching and really like dig in. I think the journey from especially now in your business to where you where you will be after coaching, would be really dope left to see it. Yeah, yeah, and Nodessa, I'm gonna get back on into sports. Let's do it. Let's when we were talking about it. You sound like you love it, so don't don't don't quit? Okay, all right? And they build some character. Yeah, I'd never played pickleball, but Danielle rawlings that is his favorite sport to play. What I don't? What is that? Everybody's like investing in invailable It's like ping pong on a mini chinnas chorre yes, like badminton. Okay, I know badmints Okay, kind of he got the pattle and I haven't played yet. But my plan is I want to play pickle ball for no good reason. Let's figure yeah, I want to. I will totally play. Let's take a lesson down now, all right, honestly, thank y'all so much, Odessa Jenkins, Karen con I appreciate you guys so much. I fund women. How can they find both of you? Go to iFund women dot com and get started. We are there for it, or ifnd women on all the socials. Yes, and you can find me at Odessa Jenkins dot com or follow the w NFC. Please follow our fund women because when you follow them, you follow women. So do that, all right? We love it? Way up with Dandela ye where
