Valentines Day: Gender Gap & Start-ups

Similarly to most tech industries, the FinTech sector is marked by a strong gender gap. In other words, it is a new sector with the same old habits. I will not make the point that we need immediate parity within tech start-ups. While it is a headline that no one can contest, it is irrealistic as it takes decades to be a successful entrepreneur (i.e. the 10,000-hour rule for mastering a craft).

Therefore let's aim to have equal gender representation by 2025 and until then celebrate some key power woman (i.e., Melissa @ Arbor Ventures, Christine @ DFI, Susanne @ FinTech Circle or Sophie @ Fidor). Furthermore, keep in mind that the best way to close the gender gap is in woman funding other woman, so shout out to Nicole @ Next Chapter.

Instead, my argument is different. I want to bring focus to something more immediate, impactful and symbolic on Valentines Day: the entrepreneurial spouse behind each founder. If we do not we will be another statistical fatality: divorced. So here it goes:

Let's celebrate, today, the girlfriends, fiances and wifes of entrepreneurs. They bring the certainty of love and affection in the uncertain world of early-stage founders.

Spouses support is critical to the success of a company, and yet not only they receive little public recognition, but they also get to privately witness the difficulty faced by founders. This then increases the perception of gender gap so often witnessed in events, fundraising or news papers.

I know it, it happened to me or should I say I brought it on us. This blog is a new take on valentines day card, one illustrating why you need your better half and how entrepreneurship brings humility as it pushes you to your limit. If you do not realize it you will be another statistical reality: entrepreneurs have the highest divorce rate than any other professional category, ask Sergey Bin or Elon Musk!

The problem is that entrepreneurs suck at relationship and it is not because of the long hours of work. After all, a lot of other jobs are extremely demanding, and Hong Kong as a city is the one with the longest working hours (i.e. 50.5 hours, or 30% more than London). No, it is hard to be with an entrepreneur for two reasons:

First, because of what they psychologically, emotionally, professionally go through to build their venture(s). One of the best articles I read, The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship, illustrates this. Depending on who the reader is, the story is either a window into - or a mirror reflecting - an entrepreneur's life. Being a founder is a unique journey that calls for the best in you, but this journey will also challenge you like never before and exposes some of the darkest thoughts.

Second, "More fundamentally, people start companies to do their own things, while marriage is about doing things together." Your spouse gets to witness all the downside of an entrepreneur (i.e. cashflow prob, stress, mod-swings, fear, joy, depression, neglect) and you have little control over it. Being a founder is a self-imposed decision that is then too frequently also unilaterally pushed on the family around the entrepreneur. This creates a tension between the duty as a founder and towards your spouse.

This brings the cost of entrepreneurship into couples and families. In practice, the necessary unconditional love and passion to drive a business and inspire a team drain the energy that cannot be given back on a personal level. It is another twist on spreading yourself to thin and this can build up jealousy in priorities. If you had to answer in a split second, the need to make a decision between your company and your spouse, we are not proud of what our answer would be. However, qualify your answer saying that you will certainly be less effective without your significant other.

Founder's schizophrenia is not just about reading everywhere multi-million deals, and you do not raise anything. It is about an external sense entrepreneurial success and marital failure. Bottom line, if you are a good entrepreneur, you will need to work twice as hard to be a good partner as you need to extract yourself from a consuming passion.

If you don't, you may lose the single most important person that keeps your sanity and provides with the only certainty: every evening there is someone when things are hard. The problem is that this certainty creates complaisance and yet there is no contradiction in the fact that someone may love you because you are a founder as well as leave you as a result of being an entrepreneur.

I realized that over breakfast with an outstanding person now in his fifties. He divorced but only realized it years after it happened.

The restless nature in entrepreneurs meant that when challenged by external events, such as a divorce, you keep doing what you do best building ahead. Only to realize, too late, that who makes you best is your partner .

Life is about balance, and perhaps the above doesn't reflect a universal truth. I would image second-time founders and later stage companies to be beyond this point (?). I certainly still have a lot to learn and until then the best weapon in self-awareness to ever so slightly rebalance when you are on edge.

Understanding, I may express self-bias, I did speak with other founders, a common theme was their regret of having lost the one they loved or the strain they put on their current spouse. It is for these few moments that I want to give a larger voice and platform to say thank you to our spouses.

Take the time today to celebrate the person that made who you are. Celebrate her when you publicly speak about your company. Make the person in your shadow more visible so as to show that behind a successful man there is an equally important woman. Let me start saying I love you Inna, thank you for staying strong in my weak moments, and you made me who I am and what I built today and will achieve tomorrow.

I should perhaps have started with this joke, as it captures the message and you can easily share it:

“One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to go for a casual dinner. When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the president’s secret service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged, and Michelle had a conversation, with the owner. Following this conversation President Obama asked Michelle, “Why was he so interested in talking to you.” She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her. President Obama then said, “So if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant,” to which Michelle responded, “No. If I had married him, he would now be the President.”

So share the story and more importantly internalize it.