Raising VC capital should be as easy as getting laid, so why are women failing at it?

Let’s start off with some interesting figures:

• If you go out and want to get laid, as a woman you have a 92% probability of succeeding, when for men, this number goes down to 23%
• In 2021, female founders secured only 2% of VC funding capital

Yes, I just made up the first two figures - it might not be that far from reality though, but what matters is not so much the exact data as the insight you get out of it. Same audience - women; same skill set required when it comes to male hunting and fundraising - strategic vision, prioritization, self confidence, drive for execution, resilience, and eventually ability to fake (whoops).? So, I couldn’t help but wonder, why do women struggle to get funding if they intrinsically have “what it takes”??

Following a basic marketing framework and approaching the matter as a conversion funnel, we could rephrase it as follows: do we lack leads or do we have a conversion issue?

Starting with the latter, yes, the gender gap in funding to women entrepreneurs might show a structural conversion issue, driven by the fact that the VC industry is wildly dominated by males - women holding just under 12% of the partner roles at both accelerators and corporate venture firms. The gender imbalance in investment decision-makers for early-stage capital may have adverse consequences for women entrepreneurs, especially in the first two steps of the VC investment process: first, in the deal sourcing stage, by not obtaining opportunities to pitch because of network gender bias, or 2. in the pitching stage, by being asked preventive questions (highlighting potential losses and risk mitigation) Vs men being asked more ‘promotion’ questions (highlighting upside and potential gains), and knowing that entrepreneurs addressing promotion questions are six times more likely to raise money.

However, there is a ton of great literature on gender bias in VC funding and I don’t want to make it the core of this article. Also, I tend to think that systemic misogyny is doomed to disappear, because A/ male-only companies can’t absorb the funding frenzy that is occurring today (hooray! more bubbles for less sexism) and B/ investors are interested in… returns, and guess what, your stock price depends more on traction and unit economics than whether you have balls or not, and I’m convinced that smart investors know that (I have a bunch of them in my Linkedin connections, let's see what they have to say about that!).

Now, let’s look at the matter from an inflow perspective. We are pointing out that only 2% of VC funding capital goes to women, but my first question when reading this would be: what’s the share of startups founded by women? Rough number, between 20 and 30%, but hard to say since most of the literature focuses on the lower funnel. Therefore, can we conclude that there is a structural glass ceiling that would prevent women from founding a company??

My answer is, beyond any doubt, no, there is not such a thing. Let me rephrase though, there is no external ceiling that would prevent women from being as successful as men doing so. There is, though, an undeniable internal ceiling, that I would describe as the self-undermining ability women have to picture themselves above all as women, and to think about advancing their career wondering how to be successful as women, instead of wondering how to be successful, period. I also call it the labeling limitation. It’s simple, if you see yourself first and foremost as a woman, and you internalized that being a woman means intrinsically being less self-confident, less ambitious, less outspoken, more risk-averse, more doubtful … in a nutshell, in a weaker position, you are creating a self fulfilling prophecy and shooting yourself in the foot. Big time. When you hear “how to succeed as a woman” you can implicitly understand “how to succeed despite the inherent condition of being a woman”, right? Let’s add to this the huge elephant in the room also called “creating life”, which leads most women to the conclusion that having kids will slow their career down - when they are not entirely convinced that it’s totally incompatible with a C-level position or being a founder - and you have all the ingredients to write the playbook for “how to set yourself up for failure”.?

Always - the menstrual hygiene brand - dropped this AMAZING campaign #alwayslikeagirl in 2014 where they asked teenagers to show what it looks like to “run like a girl” or “fight like a girl”. You can imagine the result: people - both boys and girls -? flapping their limbs around pathetically. And they end up making us wonder: when did something “like a girl” become an insult? Brilliant.?

Well, ladies, you are your own coach, and as it is today, your coach is insulting you while telling you you’re gonna lose. So then what’s the point of playing right? Let’s go back to my first example, men are truly aware that their conversion rate while approaching a woman sucks, and let’s be honest about it, if you think that VC funding is unfair, trust me, you prefer, by far, to struggle at raising capital than to struggle at getting laid. But what do they do about it? They just go against the odds, they try, they fail, they step up their game, they try again, they fail again, they get feedback, and eventually, they succeed. But I’m pretty sure that something they never do is go and approach a woman while bearing in mind that they only have a 12% probability of success. Fake it until you make it, remember?

Don’t get me wrong though, do I think women have a more complex road to get to the top? Definitely. I’m aware that being pregnant for 9 months, being away from the company for 4-6 months, and bearing most of the mental load while raising kids, is not an easy task (yes, it’s a huge euphemism). However, I truly believe that it’s not so much being pregnant or raising kids that will slow your career down, but rather the very interiorization of this idea, plus, the undermining self-labeling I’ve described before, that will only discourage you and have you implement reverse scheduling of your entire career while self restricting your ambitions. Also, this will misguide you into asking the wrong questions, in the wrong forums, and will drive you away from the core understanding of what you need to build to be successful.

Indeed, lately I’ve been attending some women’s forums - organized by women, moderated by women, with women speakers and women audience (god, I hate it) - and came to the conclusion that most of them (let’s not generalize here) are unfortunately the embodiment of the labeling limitation and are not helping the cause. I am so frustrated that most of the questions that are asked to brilliant C-level executives (who happen to be female) are regarding how they have managed to reconcile their career with their family life, or how they manage to be paid fairly despite being a woman. I’m begging you, let’s do ourselves two favors.?

First, are the questions regarding maternity any relevant ? Definitely. Should they be asked at a point? Certainly (not ten years before being ready to have kids though - don’t pollute your brain too soon). Should they account for such a big chunk of the conversation? That’s a strong NO.

Second, let’s step up our game - especially if you are at an early stage of your career - and start asking the relevant questions when it comes to understanding success: what is the skillset - hard skills and emotional intelligence - you’ve built to reach a C-level position? What kind of people have you surrounded yourself with to grow? How important has mentoring been for you and how to approach it? How did you build your network? What kind of people did you hire to be successful? And a million more. Finally, women’s forums might sometimes be a good starting point to share some concerns and advices, but let’s bear in mind that to truly make a change, these conversations should then be brought to a broader audience to be challenged and debated in order to make a change in a environment that’s not 100% made up of women.?

?I’m gonna conclude with something that is gonna sound awfully cliché, but in life there are two different ways of approaching the same matter. The first one is by seeing it as a problem, the second as an opportunity. For instance, as the only woman in the room with ten guys from Softbank, you have a 89% higher probability of getting attention, a 57% higher probability of receiving a followup email, and a 34% higher probability that they will remember you 3 years later when pitching your first company, than a man. Did I make up the numbers again? Yes (last time I promise). But my whole point here is that we should shun the downside of being a woman and take advantage of the upside that it can represent in a male-led industry.

Modern feminists would probably disagree and fire back here with two arguments. First, that precisely, it’s key that we throw the elephant out of the room and ensure that women are not sexualized and seen differently from men. Second, they would also probably argue that I’m not being very coherent here since I’ve been pitching for the last five minutes that labeling is wrong, but now, I’m advocating that we should take advantage of it. I partly disagree with both statements. I strongly believe that yes, that’s a shame that your boobs are catching more attention than your brain at first, but although the sexualization component should slowly fade away it’s never gonna disappear, for obvious hormonal reasons. Therefore, since I always try to put my efforts into what I can change instead of frustrating myself with what does not depend on me, I could not insist more on the necessity to stop sabotaging ourselves with negative self-labeling; but positive labeling that makes it possible for you to get more attention? Please, be my guest, and make something amazing out of it - like raising funds to build the next USD10B company :)

Having said all that, and for the the few survivors who are still reading me, this is what is coming next:

1. I've decided to put my money where my mouth is, in the form of opening my email address ([email protected] ) to all female founders out there who would want to pitch their ideas. I'll be (for now) writing 5 small checks in the form of angel investments and I'll commit to helping out along the way, with the business itself? - areas of expertise include mostly Growth, Operations, and Product - or connecting them with investors, founders, and operators around the world. Please, reach out!
2. I’ve been willing to write this stuff for quite some time now, so I’m launching my Substack, and will also open some debates on Twitter - so if you’re interested in what I have to say (good luck with that!), subscribe to my list here and follow me @Clara_Gold ! I still don’t know the cadence for writing but I’ll let you know asap. Some ideas I have in mind for the next posts > Why I’m not a feminist, Why you should try psychedelics, Why you should never look for a job on LinkedIn or the power of network, Why love relationships don’t work, Why not replacing meditation by masturbation, How to monetize your attractiveness - without Onlyfans, and more.
3. I will definitely start working on ways to improve training & mentoring at a very early stage in a career and might pilot some of them in Rappi - shoot me an email if you have any ideas you want to share!
4. I would also love to go from writing (which I enjoy a lot), to talking (which I enjoy even more) and start organizing discussions with inspiring people (women or men, let’s be gender agnostic here) to understand what led them where they are. It’s more likely that I’ll be in Mexico in April so I’ll keep you posted on what I’ll be organizing out there!

PS: I'm well aware that this reflection is totally western-centric, and it's important to precise that most of the arguments I put forward here can't apply as it is in countries where women's access to education is still very limited and where gender bias and inequalities define the roles women are able to play in society.