Prometheus, a Hollywood story genius, and a $6b man walk into a bar. . .

I recently pitched an investor who uses an algorithm to assess the personalities of successful founders. I was told that I was in the very, very, very rare category of founders who have the skills and attributes to be successful. About 2% of the population, they said.

They echoed that those traits were almost never seen in women, due to what the world does to women, I imagine. They further said, they’d never seen a woman with those traits who had also raised as much capital as we had from great investors.?

Sounds to me like I’d be a pretty good bet for a firm making decisions based on an algorithm, right???

They passed. Something about the valuation I’d demanded in the past wasn’t high enough, so I’d given up too much equity.?

This is taking the Goldilocksing of raising capital that keeps women at a 98% disadvantage to a new level, isn’t it??

Be a total exception in an outrageously biased market and then we’ll penalize you for not getting paid like a bro.?

Well, you know what they say about algorithms. . .

At some point, a fund is just going to be named “Only Y Chromosomes Ventures”.?

When I was a journalist in this industry, seeing female founders get sexually harassed or dismissed out of an industry on a regular basis, I still didn’t come close to realizing how extremely rigged a game with a persistent 98% gender bias is. Even when hundreds of female VCs are hired to “fix it.” It’s a game that doesn’t want to be fixed.?

The worst part? When you fail because winning was so outrageously stacked against you, it goes back into the macro VC algorithm of “See? Told ya she couldn’t make it.”?

I spoke with a board member today who said I was one of the last female founders walking in their portfolio. "It's an absolute graveyard," they said.

So why play??

It’s a good question and one I ask myself a lot. Especially in a market like this.?

Some people compare this thankless task to Sisyphus. I wish my life was about being Sisyphus. It’s a bit more like being Prometheus. Everyday, I wake up, I go on a hike or a run, I remind myself why my mission is so important to me, I tap into my miraculously not depleted well of remaining confidence, I check off my Atomic Habits to maximize my success, I grow another heart, which I spend the next 12 hours pouring into this business. It’s again eaten by a vulture. I know in the story of a Prometheus is a liver eaten by an eagle. But it’s definitely a heart and a vulture in the case of being an underrepresented founder.?

Still, I’m here. (For now.) It’s 10 am on a Saturday as I write this and the best thing about working on the weekend is that my heart tends to get eaten later in the day.?

Are you here??

Are you still believing??

Are you still showing the contrarian, maybe misplaced belief that your idea can become huge that is the heart of all real great entrepreneurs??

Are you going to give this your best possible shot no matter what this f’d up industry plans to throw at you??

I guess that’s what keeps me going. I don’t have a lot in my control, but here I am chained to this rock. I’m not gonna help the vulture out. I’m not gonna open my chest and put a sign on it saying, “Hungry? Check out this juicy heart!”?

I am OK with this company failing, failure happens in startups. If you’ve never failed, you’ve never really put yourself out there. There is a time and place you need to call it, because you are too wonderful and have too much to offer the world. But before that moment, I don’t want to look back and feel that I gave in to that vulture.?

This is probably my last startup. And I am going to fight each day like I’ve fought my entire career to get here in the first place. I am going to dare this messed up industry to destroy me on Monday, even after I’ve spent the weekend digging down deeper, binging sales books, drawing on mentors, calling in favors, writing marketing campaigns, and have a bigger, larger, more powerful heart I’m putting into this mission.?

To do that you need to call on every unfair advantage you can get your hands on. And that’s who we are and what we do. We are the equippers of the unfair advantages for underrepresented talent.?

And so as I dig down deeper to find more of them for myself, I’m also digging deeper to find more of them for other underrepresented founders. Because until we join the graveyard, that is our mission. That's why I keep regrowing these hearts. That's what we do.?

We have a course called “Make ‘Em Give a Shit” and the upcoming cohort (starts next week!) is our biggest love letter yet to underrepresented founders, the most unfair of unfair advantages, the most powerful pickaxe I could sell you if you are still in this with me, still chained to the rock.?

I am combining two of the geniuses of all geniuses when it comes to using your story, your journey, your genius– basically all we got here out on this rock– to sharpen the fangs and the talons of those things and give it the best possible shot of getting you more money in an absolutely terrible market when the odds were already against you to begin with.?

Lisa Cron, story coach to Hollywood, best selling novelists and beyond, is the world’s leading thinker on using story and neuroscience to get past objections, transform mis-beliefs and get others to see the world the way you see it.?

Stephen de Zordo is the mastermind that the biggest startups in the world call when they need the absolutely “TAKE MY MONEY NOW PLEASE” killer pitch deck from Series A to IPO.?He's helped entrepreneurs raise $6 billion in the last 24 months alone.

Because these two human beings are awesome people, and they are even excited to spend six weeks learning from each other, they’ve carved out time they really don’t have to co-teach this one time only version of this course.?

If you are at all trying to raise money right now, I don’t understand why you wouldn’t sign up. This is an opportunity underrepresented folks don’t get to bring their best possible pitch to an unfair game that’s gotten a lot worse.?

Need convincing? I don’t know how that would be possible, but come check out the one and only free Zoom workshop we are having with Stephen and Lisa, “No one is ‘data driven’: The brain science and fundraising realities behind using story to raise millions” at 4 pm PST on March 8.?(That's tonight!!)

In this stage of my life, I am all about paying forward ever contact, every privilege, every benefit I've gained as a female founder from my decades of work in Silicon Valley. But only you can accept the gift ;)