Achieving the Impossible, Simply Change the Design

I was speaking with a Venture recently who is working on a follow-on investment from an Activator in our network. The Activator said to them, “When I saw your application a few years ago I voted for you because I thought what you were doing was cool, but I never thought you’d make it.” 

If you look at the world through the lens of how much capital we plow into companies to achieve success, you’d never bet on most of our Ventures. The small amount we are currently investing in them doesn’t seem like enough to achieve success.

And yet, this particular Venture who is scrappy, hungry, persistent and unstoppable in her vision (this is not a ‘company’ for her, it’s her mission), is not only alive but growing and exporting and the Activator who has been observing her growth and leadership is now going to invest to fuel her global expansion.

Women are dramatically under-funded - 4% of bank loans and venture capital goes to women and if you are woman of colour the numbers are way lower. We are so used to being under-funded that we have developed a muscle to be incredibly capital efficient and highly persistent. And when we surround ourselves with radically generous women, literally anything is possible.

As an “expert” in the venture space and as a serial entrepreneur who has seen a lot in my 25 years in business, if I look through the lens of what ‘should’ work, I would not bet on most of the Ventures we fund. However, by redesigning the process, we have dramatically improved the outcomes for women-led businesses and are now starting to build a community of follow-on investors.  I now think that almost anyone can be successful in the our SheEO community.

Our current statistics of business failure are a direct result of a badly designed system.

Our SheEO network is full of women who are still "under-funded" compared to their male counterparts. We started with a model of providing funding to our Ventures and knew that if we could get women-led Ventures in a relationship with women with capital and network and expertise, over time, we could radically increase the success of our Ventures and therefore engage more women in investing, vested in each other's success.

Our theory of change is all about relationships, not transactions.

In this past few months, we have connected millions of dollars of angel investment from our network to fuel the growth of our world-changing Ventures who are tacking the World’s To Do List. And we are just getting started.

Our systems and structures are highly capital inefficient. We have more than enough money and resources to help everyone be successful. We simply need to rethink how we organize.

If you'd like to witness and participate a whole new (extremely efficient) way of organizing resources to transform our economy join us at www.SheEO.World and become an Activator.