Financial freedom through entrepreneurship: Why 98% of VC funding misses women (and what to do about it) | Emmie Faust, Female Founders Rise

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In this week's episode, Stephanie Melodia interviews Emmie Faust, the 3X exited entrepreneur-turned-angel-investor, now Founder of Female Founders Rise - the supportive and inspiring resource for female founders to help them succeed with their businesses.

Watch on YouTube via the link below or keep reading for the transcript, where Steph and Emmie discuss:

• The impact of motherhood on self-confidence

• Female role models, including Emmie's first powerhouse boss

• The power of mindset shifts in order to serve a more personally fulfilling mission

• How entrepreneurship can lead to financial freedom, and why women need to consider this path for empowerment

• Angel investing, including Emmie’s portfolio and what she looks for in a deal (hint: numerology features!)

SM: Why do you think it's so important to put it upfront and centre that you're a mum of 4? EF: I think I'd just like to say that upfront because that's probably one of the most important parts of my life. Definitely is. I also feel like maybe not that it explains things, but it's important for me. So I think it's important for other people to know. And I doing my consultancy, I actually hid the fact that I had four children because I felt like my clients might think, oh, you know, she's not gonna be capable because she's got four children. She's gonna be so busy. I also thought and I did have a few conversations that I the impression is what people thought. Oh, you're a mom. You're just doing this little bit of fun on the side. Oh, you charge that much. That's very expensive. You know, aren't you just doing a little passion project? So when I was doing my consultancy, I remember actually feeling like I can't for that. I've got four children because that will definitely go against my pricing and against them believing in my ability.

Whether they think that or not, is another matter. And then I think now I'm doing my own thing. I can just, like, be proud of who I am. And, also, I just found my voice and realized that, you know, it's important to speak the truth, and it's important for people to know that. And, actually, that connects me with a lot of people because they can see that you can be a mom and have children and be a founder.

And, yeah, it's So do you feel I'm sure it is, and I definitely wanna ask how how you do it all, which, you know, with everything you've got going on and for kids, I'm sure everyone is wondering how on earth you do it. But it's interesting to hear do you feel that you kind of you've reached this point in your career where you've got enough confidence to share the fact that you're a mom of four, or do you think that there's more of a movement now where people can embrace more of that authenticity? Obviously, you've got a big following online as well, and that authentic voice that you definitely have shines through. It's a mix. I think, it's really important to obviously be authentic and be yourself, and it can be really difficult to do that when you're doing your own thing and you don't have stakeholders and potential clients.

And I I feel like I can say what I want, and there's not gonna be any comeback. And if there is, then I don't care about being associated with those people anyway. But I remember when I had clients, you know, I probably couldn't I would feel like I couldn't talk about my mental health, and say that I was struggling or that I'd had a wobble because I'd be thinking, well, what are they gonna think about me? They're not gonna think I'm and so I do think and often I get DMs from people who might be trying to raise investment or they might be working in a business, and they say what you said really resonated, but I actually can't share those things because if I do, I'm not seen to be capable. So I think I'm in this position now where I I can, you know, share how I feel and share what I want to share.

And I've got that. It's an amazing privilege to be able to do that. I think when you're working for someone, you maybe don't or you you need the clients or you need the money from investors. You can't be telling people, like, the truth of what's really going on out there. Those anxieties, I think, are so valid, and I think so many of our listeners would resonate with that.

I'm hearing a lot of these stories as well, the worry of what other people think, especially if it's clients as you say. I mean, what was your process? Because I've read about you kind of going on a bit of a journey yourself through you know, you have had your success, so it does make it easier to be more vocal about these your mom of four and everything else. But was there anything else that helped you kind of find that confidence and be able to be authentic? I think, you know, I was successful when I was quite young.

So we set up our business when we were 25, and we sold businesses, some successful, some failures. Actually, the failure was like a will. You know, I never told anyone about that. We went on Dragon's Den. I I I'm confident to talk about it now, but at the time, I didn't because I felt like it was a failure, and that business failed on Dragon's Den.

And I sold my business. And even though I'd been really successful and made quite a lot of money, not huge amounts, but, you know, enough to be able to angel and embarrass and do, you know, do great things, I didn't tell anyone about all of those things. So, like, none of my children's friends' parents would have my new friends would have known about my past. Like, they didn't know I'd been on Dragon's Den. They didn't know I'd had successful businesses.

I just kept it all very quiet. And I remember when I sold my business, I had a very short stint at Google, which didn't last because I realized I was never gonna see my family. And then whilst I was there in that six weeks, we sold another one of our businesses, so I didn't need to desperately work, at that point. And, so my stint at Google didn't work. Then I basically decided I'd do consultancy, but I didn't really I wanted to work because I love working, but I don't know what to do, which sounds silly.

But, do I do business growth? Do I do consultancy for marketing? Because I'd run a media agency. I've been like a sort of you know, you do a bit of everything when you run a business, you know, because you've run a marketing agency. You do the new business.

You look after the team. You're doing maybe some of the work. You're doing I I was, like, really into all the finance. I was trading currencies because we were buying media across multiple territories. So I didn't have this kind of, like, expertise where I could be like, I'm a SEO guru or I'm a whatever.

And at one point, I had one client that was half a day a month or something. They were paying me £500 a month. And I just thought, I'm getting paid £500 a month. I've got all this incredible insight. What is going wrong?

Like, why am I not got loads of clients? But I really didn't have any confidence because I hadn't ever told myself when I sold my business that I'd done amazingly well, and there was weren't it's much more congratulatory. Is that the right word? Now, like, people are much more, like, celebrating things. I remember everyone just saying just be really humble.

You're brought up to be humble. So it didn't, you know, it didn't sort of celebrate that. And then I had a call with this mindset coach, and I was like, I just haven't got any clients. And I just and he was like, well, why aren't you telling everyone about, like, what you did? And I was like, oh, you know, can't do that kind of thing.

That's really embarrassing. Why don't you tell everyone about the successes you've had? Because, actually, if you don't tell them, they won't know you can help them. And that really, like, flicked a switch because I was like, I wanna help people. I wanna try and share all the things I've learned.

And, actually, by being quiet and not telling people what I'd done, I was just expecting people to know. I was kind of waiting for people to be like, oh, Emmy, you're amazing. Can you come and help us? Without actually telling them that I could do that. So that was really interesting.

He really helped me change my my mindset. And, also, he was like, you must tell everyone about going on Dragon's Den. That's amazing, the fact that you got into Dragon's Den, the fact you got accepted by Google even though you know, because the fact that I went to work at Google and it didn't work out, that was another massive nod to my confidence because it wasn't them. It was me. I said, I can't stay here.

But I'd made this such big thing in my head about getting a job there. And it was gonna be my ideal job, and I was gonna be so happy. And it was, like, you know, the best job for someone working in digital and tech, this big brand. And then I felt really embarrassed that I hadn't managed to, like, see it through. And people would be like, how's your job at Google going?

And you're sort of like, oh, it hasn't worked out. And I don't know. I just felt like though that kind of really knocked my confidence. Also, when you have babies, maybe I'm speak I'm not speaking for everyone, but speaking for a lot of people I know, when you have babies, it does not feel confidence because you're out of the work scene. And then you sort of go back and you feel like you've been out of it, and you've, like, maybe lost some of your connections or you've forgotten or things have moved on, and you're suddenly, like, feeling like, oh, I'm back in this place as a different person because I've got a child.

You know? And all these different things going on in your head, and you do. You just you just lose your confidence. So I think, actually, after selling my business, I definitely wasn't confident. That's such a surprise because you come across as someone who's so confident.

I feel like I found it again. You found it now. But, obviously, you've had to you've grown through what you've gone through is what it seems like. And it's such an important message to share and just having you as a role model to other women because even as I'm listening to you, I can think of individuals that I know firsthand who've gone through exactly what you've gone through. This is a story we hear over and over.

Very briefly on the subject of role models, I feel like there's so many other things I wanna ask you, but I heard about you having a female role model quite early on in your career, a lady called Anne. That's amazing. She we actually used to work around here. Oh, what a coincidence. Yeah.

Very close to here. Do you feel like the amount of female role models has changed now? Do you feel like women have more, less, or the same women to look up to now? I was talking about this earlier with, someone about having role models. You know, like, we've gotta be able to see these women from all backgrounds, all sectors, all verticals, all ages doing amazing things so that we can, you know, we can see that it's possible.

If I look back, I think it was quite unusual because also the other interesting thing was that her husband worked for her. So she was, like, in charge. She was pregnant and would bring her baby into work and would just, like, leave it on the floor in a little, rug. She was nails running a very successful, very profitable business. And her husband was behind the scenes, and he used to come do all the finances and the accounting and stuff, which was kind of like at the time, like, the other way around.

It would normally be like the woman doing all the, you know, the PAYE and the stuff like that. So I think she really did inspire me, but, obviously, at the time, I didn't realize that. And I remember telling her that I was gonna set up a business like hers, and she it's a bit of a weird thing. I said to tell your boss. And she said something like, oh, no.

You're not, you know, you're not Emmy. You wouldn't but, basically, she was saying the lines of, like, that you you'd actually be bored doing this. You you know, you need to do something else. And I probably would have been bored doing what she did, but she was very successful. And the thing that I learned from her, she treated us so well.

So she paid us really well. Whenever we used to go away, she used to put us up in these amazing hotels, like, hotels that aren't actually so amazing anymore. But at the time, we're, like, you know, the five star, like, the coolest hotels. And the reason that I know this area, because we're in Shoreditch now, is her, first office was here. She bought an office here, actually, ages ago.

It takes us out to these really cool restaurants that we'd never be able to you know, we were, like, in our twenties, so we'd never be able to afford to go there. And we used to go for really nice dinners and have amazing cocktails, and, like, I was just like, wow. You know, this woman's amazing. And so now today for women, do you feel like that number has grown across I think there are. I just think them were way more visible.

I think maybe the those women were there, but we weren't aware of them because, you know, we weren't on social media then. This was, like, I don't know, 20, must be I'm 45 now. So this must have been over twenty years ago. We didn't have any of that kind of thing. Mhmm.

So it really was just like, do you know someone Yeah. Who you're working for? I I don't remember there being anyone else. But, you're super lucky to have that experience. I was.

Yeah. She sounds amazing. I wanna meet her. I did actually track her down on LinkedIn, I think, recently when someone had asked me, and I was just like, I just wanted to let you know that, you know, you're amazing. Yeah.

Amazing. And you touched on Dragon's Den as well, which is something else I wanted to briefly ask. So we're gonna get into Female Founders Rise, Your Exit, Angel Investing. Those are some big topics I wanna try and make some time. But just because you were talking about Dragon's Den before, I this is probably a coincidence, but you are now my third guest on the show who's been on Dragon's Den and just so happened all three of them have all been women.

So, again, it's probably a coincidence, but I wonder whether there is now that you are the third female guest that I'm interviewing who's been on Dragon's Den, Yeah. Of course, I'm wondering, is there something there? I wonder whether it's almost, you know, easier to go on Dragon's Den and pitch even though it's a four hour to grueling for does that seem more attractive to women than going to VCs? I don't know. But it's just I don't know because I think, with Dragon's Den, for us, it was 20 ago we went on twenty eighteen years ago.

So it was a totally different program to how it is now. I think now they often go and source founders and businesses to go on based on, you know, they probably want to have a good mix of business types and people and all that kind of stuff. At the time, it was really new Dragon's Den, and I just thought it might all be a bit made up. So I'd on a whim. And, actually, the business that I applied for wasn't making any money and wasn't doing anything, and I literally just remember doing it as a bit of a joke.

And I put in that we wanted $300, and we were valuing the business. And then it was so we wanted $200, and we're valuing the business at 2,000,000 or something like that. I mean, I had I didn't even know how to do evaluations. This was just, like, take a total piss take. And then for some reason, we got on.

We had an interview, and we got on. And then I was like, I need to make this business that has never made any money that's, like, six months old be valued at 2,000,000. How do I do that? And my background is actually I did economics, accounting, and law at uni. So, like, numbers is, like, my forte.

So I managed to create these complicated equations, which I also managed to remember. And they didn't show this in the, in the thing, but, like, I just flipped the whiteboard over, and I was like, do you wanna see how it got hit? And it came out as too many pounds, and they were like, oh, okay. And we got we got the funding, but they actually gave us $200 for 30%. So I said Wow.

$200 for 10%. So at the time, it was the biggest single investment ever. So he dragged my business partner on there, but he really didn't want to go on Dragon's Den. And he was totally not up for it at all, and it was kind of my little project that I'd it's kind of a long story. But anyway, he he definitely wasn't up for it.

I was up for it for, like, initially just to sort of scope out, is this thing real? And then we got funding. Not only did you get funding, but you obviously made history by getting the biggest amount at that point. Yeah. I think since then, there's obviously been people that got more.

But, Yeah. Up until that point, anyway. If I'm looking in, it almost seems as though linking back a little bit to the confidence theme, which might be a recurring topic as as we continue the conversation. But it almost seems as though your confidence has kind of gone on a bit of a u shape in terms of this high confidence at the start of your career. You had this female CEO, this boss you kinda looked up to.

You had that confidence to go on Dragon's Den and Yeah. Yeah. Sell a business even though it wasn't revenue generating. Oh, yeah. That's quite amazing.

You had all that amazing stuff and then it almost, from the sounds of it, kinda dipped with some of the failures, the Google experience, maybe the the kids, and now it's kind of like you're going back up and finding it again. Yeah. I think running a business is very tiring as we know. And so that was, like, right at the beginning when I was 25, like, oh, you know, we're invincible. We can do anything.

And then we had the recession in 2008, and then, you know, your your team end up leaving and going to someone else. It's, like, feels hard. You know? And you have all these things that's, like, constantly being sort of slightly worn down, and then you add children into the mix. And, you know, some of my children set really well and some didn't.

And then you add in, you know, various other things, going to goo, liking out. And then also after that, I did set up another business with someone, and that didn't work out. That was, like, another knock to the, thing. And then, actually, I did my consultancy for a long time. And I obviously then I had that session with the mindset guy, and finally, I sort of got my mindset sorted.

But still, I wasn't doing what I loved. I think the last year and three months has been when I found my voice and found my confidence because to cut a very long story short, I was ill, for about a year and a half Being physically just had all these things going wrong with me all the time. And so I basically had a bit of a breakdown, and I had long COVID and a whole and the perimenopause, like, a mix of everything all came together. I moved my family to Wales. That didn't work out.

I moved them all back. So moving four children, like, schools there and schools back. And my husband lost his job twice and had had an accident before that. And then we had COVID. And, like, I literally was like a shadow of my former self.

Jesus. Unable to do anything really, actually. Like, not even go to, like, a day or go to a client meeting. I'd be having, like, a sort of a panic attack. I didn't realize it was a panic attack at the time.

Wow. And then finally, last so not the summer we've just had. So now, like, eighteen months ago, I got, I finally found a doctor who helped me and, made lots of changes. I did a post about this actually on LinkedIn yesterday. Made lots of changes to my life and started therapy, anti anxiety meds, stopped stopped doing my consultancy, sold my house in Wales, so I sold my business, started investing in a female founders, which has been amazing for my life, my brain, my my, like, you know, energy, set up female fans.

Right? So I kind of, like, changed everything. And that I've slowly got better, and and I've kind of come out the other side. And I'm now doing my my what I love. You know?

This is my true passion. It's what I want what I always would have loved to have done if I knew I could, and it's just happened. So I feel like Well, I'm so happy to sit with you now. You're out the other side. And you went through all of that, but lovely segue into female founders.

Yeah. Got there on the end. You're the perfect, you know, guest, of course, for many reasons to be on the Strategy and Tragedy podcast, but, Jesus, it sounds like you really went through the wringer there. So I'm sorry to hear it, but, again, glad that you're through it. I think we all have these struggles, don't we?

And I remember the very, very, very beginning, like, when I was first saying to my friend who's a naturopath, like, all these things going wrong, she said something's gonna come out of this, and it's all gonna be worthwhile. And Leave it in the moment. Moment. And also that I didn't expect it to be, like, eighteen months of not feeling right and thinking I was getting better, and then suddenly something would happen. But, like, now I'm like, I can see everything that's happened to me, has led me to where I am today.

Amazing. Yeah. Well, welcome to hear where you are today. Sat with me telling me about your amazing story. So FEMA founders rise, I wanna congratulate you not only on such a great initiative.

We'll hear more about it in just a sec, but also to congratulate you. The fact that my LinkedIn feeds, you mentioned LinkedIn before, are absolutely full of other women who are female founders, who are part of the tribe, who are sharing their voices, their stories, and it's all because of you. They're all tagging you. They're all tagging female founders rise. There's this big movement, so big pat on the back.

Huge kudos for that. Thank you. You've grown into a community of 2,000 members, and I read that you said that the reason why you set it up was because in your words, as a woman, it's different. What by that line exactly? It's really tricky because quite a lot of people ask me that.

And, actually, I was talking to a female founder yesterday, and she said, it's just so different, isn't it, as a female founder? So I think when you're a female founder, you know it's different. There's lots of things. I think, obviously, we know that only 2% of VC funding goes to women. So the funding side is often more difficult.

We also often set up different kinds of businesses, so maybe some more more purpose of businesses. But I think what I was trying to say, like, as a woman that's different is you do differently. I remember, my investors and my board treating me differently. You know, if you're upset about something, it's like, oh, you're hormonal. You're hormonal.

Exactly. You know, you're not really I I I remember crying in a board meeting, and then I had a session with this coach. And she was like, you just can't do that. You've gotta be nails. If you do that, you're seen as weak.

You know? This is the second time I've heard you say nails. What do you mean by that? You've gotta be nails. Could be, like, really, like, you know, hardcore.

You know? And and I'm one of those people who's like, if someone upsets me, even if it's at work, that would make me cry. You know, I've cried quite a lot of time at work. Like, if if someone's aggressive or horrible to me, like, I can't be, like, put on this, like, I don't know, exterior where I don't care because I do. Because, like, my work isn't part of me.

And something in particular happened which really upset me, when I was running my business. And I basically I think I did cry. And I just remember then having a session with this woman, and she was like, if you go in like that, they will just totally discount you, which they sort of were a bit, you know, a bit like, oh, you're just a woman. Oh, don't worry about Emmy. She's probably just having a bit of a bad day kind of when actually, like, what they done was really quite serious and horrible, and it really did upset me.

Have I got totally off tangent to the other side of that? You are making me think of the translation of, you know, the same Why it's different, you said? Why is it different as a woman? Yeah. And then I think also there's the thing, like, a lot of us will go on to have children.

And, obviously, I am a mom of four. So I'm very since I had my breakdown, my husband has taken on 60 to 70% of the work with the kids, which is amazing. It's like the tables have totally but before, it was like, as a mom, you just do everything. You know? He was off traveling, and it would be it was like, I would do it.

And what I've noticed, actually, which is really interesting, is the schools always call me. Yeah. So, like, as a mom, you are the one that First port of call. You're the first port of call. Yeah.

And and I'm always the one that they email. I'm like, hang on a minute. I'm co parenting with my husband. Can you so I think and and, actually, just the way that my children are and I think many children are is that they turn to their moms often first because, you know, you might have been with them on may change, but, like, historically, you've had maternity leave. You've been around with them more.

The dads have been off at work. I know that's probably gonna change with the hybrid working, all of that. But, there's definitely that pull. And then, obviously, you know, often we do more of the logistical type things. So if you look at the school WhatsApps, it's most of the moms who are on the school WhatsApps doing all the logistics, doing all the organization.

I've actually come off the school WhatsApps, and I said to my husband, you can go on. I think he's on it now. I bet they applaud him. And they think, what a great dad. But it's interesting.

So I had to I made him off that, and that's like, I know that Axel, my little one, probably doesn't get invited to all the birthday parties because they can't find so, actually, sometimes I'm like, you tracked me down. So you obviously want him there, but he we're not on that big, like and I I will miss out on things. But also for my own mental well-being, I don't want to be on those WhatsApps. But that's just an example. Like, as a woman, you often we know the stats show that we're negative not negatively that sounds, but, you know, we're more likely to care for our elderly parents and the children, and and that load falls to us.

So, of course, it's different. And then we do have our hormones. We do have, you know, the way that we are. It we're different. Yeah.

We're different to men. You know, we're both great. But being a female founder and, also, I know there's so much work being done by so many people to change things, but the way that historically we've been treated in the past is not the same. I've sat on advisory boards where I've been totally ignored by other men, who just look at me and they just like, I've sold my business. I'm more successful than most of you sat around this table, but you don't actually wanna listen to me.

So I can really feel the anger rising within me. And I'm having to make I'm so angry at you, Emmy. How dare you? I'm having to make such, an effort with myself to calm it down. I can feel my blood boiling because I'm fully aware of the stats and the situation, and I, of course, completely agree that as a woman, it is very different for many, many different reasons.

But for our own mental health and to save and conserve our own energy, I'm gonna focus the conversation on how things are changing Yeah. And focus on it. Female founders rise and how things are changing. You mentioned a few statistics there that I will touch on very briefly. So you did mention about less than 2% of UK VC funding that goes to female founders, let alone when we get into the racial side of things as well.

A female founders report sorry. Female founders forum report that came out in December showed that there was 2.3% in the 2023. And then, of course, we've got the new legislation with angel investors as well. So you're an angel. So, you know, that we'll get into that too.

But the numbers are bleak, and it does look like things are getting worse, dare I say. The numbers are not painting a pretty picture, but you have had a ton of momentum and success with female founders rise. So what are some of the impactful things that you're doing? What are some of the achievements that you've managed to to have in the past kind of think year or so. Things that I wanna do is try and focus on the positive things that we can do to change.

So it's almost like, how can we rally all these women together to come together and work on and rally men as well? I mean, it's great. We've got lots of men who wanna, support as well. But in terms of, like, one of the things we're doing, which we've just launched, is a personal branding challenge for women. So we've got 250 women who are basically coming and and learning about how to build their personal brand offline and online.

So it's offline. We'll be going on podcasts and doing talks and stuff like that. But often before you get the confidence to do that, you need to just start sharing your voice and content online. And even that is very scary. Like, of course, it's scary the first time you do it.

So you're bringing together women to do it together, community in a sort of safe place. That's what we're doing at the moment. That's incredible to see all these women suddenly starting to share their voices and share their passions and their expertise. And through that, they'll find investors, and they'll find strategic partners, and they'll find clients, and they'll find great team members and things like that. So I think it's really and and, you know, sometimes I was, like, looking at the stats, and and I remember at the beginning, I'd be like, I actually can't change that stat.

I literally can't. And then I start thinking, what is the point of me doing this? Because I'm just bashing my head against a brick wall. And I did speak to a guy, and he said it's a marathon, not a sprint. I spoke to another guy today.

I mean, he was saying this is a thirty year thing. You know? And and I realized, like, I actually can't change it. There's, like, unconscious conscious bias. There's not enough female VCs.

There's legislation's being changed. There's also the fact that, you know, less women historically have set up tech businesses and people wanna invest in tech. So we need to get more women into tech, but that's gonna take time. We need to go into schools and and show girls that they can be successful, you know, role models. Also, women are more likely to build purpose led businesses because, you know, like me with Feed My Founders Rise, I'm not hoping to make loads and loads of money.

I just wanna do something that has touched and is more impactful. So I think it's about trying to focus on the good things. And also, I feel like if we keep telling women they're not gonna get funded, it's kind of like It's even more opportune. Yeah. It is more opportune.

And so this conference that we just did was just really, like, having women talking about their stories, how they raised $500. One of them literally raised $500 while she was having a baby. Like, her baby was really young. And another woman has had bootstrapped, and then she'd found, an angel, and then she'd found family office. So, you know, we all know that it's hard, but being constantly told that, is not always helpful and how she like, what can we do to actually change it?

What annoys me is that some of these policies in place to supposedly change it, I actually don't know how much weight they have. Might get myself in trouble of saying this because I haven't said it publicly yet before. But and then I might have my facts wrong, so I'm I will wait for the haters to, to tell me all Caveat's out the way. Yeah. Caveat's out the way.

There's something called the invest in women code. Yeah? Every year, it's celebrated that more and more people are signing up to the invest in women code, but the number of the amount of money going VC money and money in investment going to women is barely changing. And when you look at that investing women code, anyone can sign up to it. It's all anonymous data, and it doesn't actually tell you whether these people have invested any women.

If it's actually translating into the cash. Yeah. It's all, like, hidden. So it's like anyone can sign up. You might as well just sign up, put on your website.

I've signed up to the investment women code. You don't have to do anything about it. Thing then. You don't even yeah. It's just those are the kind of initiatives that really annoy me.

And I said I spoke to this woman from the government, and I was like, first of all, there's not enough women in government supporting female entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship in underrepresented founders. And secondly, what is the point of something that's just totally pointless? It's just a box tick that doesn't mean anything. It's not gonna make any change. Just the words.

I don't wanna see people ticking a box to say, I'm in I'm on the investing room code. I wanna see the hard stats. I wanna see you proactively coming to my events, which, by the way, we don't see many VCs coming to. And I'm still not sure. And maybe it's because they don't believe that the women at our events are investable.

I don't know what it is. Maybe they're too busy. But if everyone's saying they wanna invest in more female founders, you have to do a bit of work to, like, go and find them. Yeah. Because they can't just pay lip service.

No. Yeah. So that annoys me. But anyway, I try to stay on the positive, try to showcase, just raise more awareness of female founders. I mean, I think the more female founders that we can see, the more that we can hear about the businesses they're running and buy from them, the more that we can support them, the better.

And in and and in turn, also prepare them to run long term profitable sustainable businesses which which is what we're trying to do so they can understand the different funding options because VC funding is not for most. Yeah. It's for hardly anyone. But because it's not because there's confusion, and I was confused, and most people are confused, unless you really understand VC funding, you wouldn't understand that it's only for

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About Stephanie Melodia:

As ex-CEO of an award-winning marketing agency, Stephanie now hosts Strategy & Tragedy, advises MBA students with Oneday, coaches founders 1:1, and travels the world as an international keynote speaker on her signature subject of ‘Hacking Luck.’

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