How to really help female (and any other) founders?

I am a tech founder and a woman. I also happen to be a book rat, a Bulgarian, a football fan. Nobody cares about that for sure! It's female founders people wanna know about, and more particularly - how could one "make more of us"? Just take the same question and try applying it onto any another minority in the workforce: "You are an introvert people manager. How can we make more of you?" or "You are a deaf singer. How can we make more of you?" or "You are a black billionaire. How can we make more of you?". Even if I understand it's for a good purpose, it still hurts to be taken out of and put into just another box. Maybe answering the question "HOW TO HELP FEMALE FOUNDERS?" will make people stop. So here is a list. Follow it to help any founder, not just female entrepreneurs. It goes from hard to easy, so just keep reading!

Capital

• Funding. Spend it, invest it, borrow it. A study by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on fighting poverty in developing countries found that the problem of the poor is not lack of knowledge, nor lack of wisdom. The problem of the poor turned out to be just being poor. While female founders are not necessarily poor, they do lack equal access to finance for a variety of reasons: they are more often engaged in part-time jobs as they spend more time with unpaid caregiver jobs like nursing children or households, lower pay (14% on average in Germany), lower pension (up to 45% n Germany), lower access to well-paid top management positions. Actually helping female founders with funding is the best way to support equal chances in entrepreneurship. Studies show - the returns from female-led startups can be higher, less risky, and more sustainable over time.
• Orders. Another way to fund them is just buying their services. You want to support female founders and you are catering a party? Go find a female-run caterer to order from. You want to act for diversity in the workforce? Find a diversity fund to invest in. You want to be more sustainable? Check out your next SaaS provider for their environmental impact policy. You lead!

Labor

• Unspecialised: Give an hour of your time once a week to help with operations, administration or organisation. Any founder in the world is short on time. You, too. So unsurprisingly, spending time is the highest price you can pay for helping founders. But especially for female founders, it's the time that's scarce, especially if they are caregivers. This is not a strategy session this is co-working, the-getting-shit-done way.
• Specialised: Identify your own strength and offer to help a founder with what you can best. Make two sessions to define a go-to-market-strategy, sit down and simplify the financial plan, go through the sales deck, and make an alternative story for another buyer persona. All that takes time, but less time for you as an expert. Yes, give it away - for free. It all comes back to you one day. Guaranteed!

Social capital

• Mentoring, coaching, shadowing, sparing, networking, you name it. In a platform economy value is created through social networks - not just with capital and labor. You can help with your know-how, experience, contacts. The only problem is that sticky information is not so easy to "hand over". This is also the reason why so many well-meant, thoughtfully designed programs only have an effect by pure serendipity. I'll give you a few very specific examples how to help founders with what doesn't cost a thing, neither a minute, nor a penny.

Here comes the ultimate list of super specific examples on how to help any founder without spending money or time with the help of social capital.

Super specific examples

1. Follow them on social media. LinkedIn, Instagram, you pick the place and click that follow button. That matters today - for the business and for the person! Especially startup accelerators - follow those alumni of yours, to stay up to date, but also to give them a heart when they need one. Often times founders share jobs and opportunities on social media which can be of value of your current portfolio. But even if not, just follow!
2. Like their posts. Yes! You get where I am going. It's algorithms, baby. I often meet people at events that tell me "Oh, you are Tina, I follow you on LinkedIn." Really? Well, I've never seen your name. The easiest way to begin a relationship today is to give a thumb up. You're not only making yourself visible, you're showing a person in a digital work that there is someone out there who cares. That's more help than you might think.
3. Tag them on posts to share information. If you think that it's relevant for their industry, expertise, work, interests, the easiest way to say "This might be useful" and also "I am thinking of you" is by tagging them in the comments. It's less time than actually assessing the relevance yourself, writing a whole email about s
4. Endorse them individually. e.g. for skills. Only if you know them, but without overthinking it. Today the skills assessment on professional networks like LinkedIn has become very sophisticated, allowing you to select the organisation, relationship, and reporting line you were in with the person.
5. Endorse them publicly. Often times event organisers or even the media is looking for (female) speakers with specific (entrepreneurial) background, experience or industry. If you happen to know a person matching this profile - just write their name in the comments and put an @ in fron of it. It's the least you can do in a digital world, and believe me, every time this has happened to me, I have been grateful for ever. So would you be too.
6. Nominate them for awards. I feel weird for saying this. But I have to. So often we see the same faces everywhere. The reason is laziness. The media and program managers today heavily rely on visibility in order to find and reward women and men in all disciplines for their impact. You would wonder, how little traction their effort sometimes creates and how helpful they are for recommendations. And let's be honest - it's the easiest recommendation you have ever written, right?
7. Recommend them as speakers. How often I have invited speakers to an event who couldn't make it and just cancelled! It's a lost opportunity for a recommendation. The most successful people have it as a habit to never say no without an alternative suggestion. B successful. If you can't make it name another person (a female founder?!), it doesn't cost you a minute, you are making a great impression about yourself, and helping a founder out!
8. Invite them to speak. You are organizing a fair, a panel, an event? Give them a chance. Get creative. What could they speak about that would add value to your audience? Is there some topic you would like a different perspective on? Are your experts equally distributed. Be a change maker. Get them on stage.
9. Make an introduction. OMG! Yes, I know, this is really tricky. Although technology is making it possibly easy. To tag two people and even click on a pre-formulated text block, it's the holy grail of networks. The untouchable! As you depend on your social network, as they do, too. This is why, introductions are where change happens. Real social impactful change! This is diversity in action - whatever dimension you want. This is how you make purpose work.
10. Don't mute them. This is the easiest and toughest one. You want to be mindful about your feed, but with all the humblebrags you sometimes just want to mute those people. This is where the circle closes. You need to stay tuned, to support founders, female or male. Just think about it as the leanest possible newsletter. Feeds are like people - never black and white. They come in packages - the gems with the garbage. If you want to support any person, stick with what they are, not just with what you'd like them to be. Sooner or later they might become it. This will be your payoff.

It's that easy! But if we wall just rely on "programs", grants, "initiatives", and continue to not support (female) founders ourselves, change will never happen. In a global connected world, you are a builder - with every click, every like, every comment you are having an impact. If you want to support founders you have to start where they are, give them just what they need to get to the next step, and watch them blossom, secretly knowing it was not as simple as capital or labor, but more over a social journey - the journey we all make in life.