female founder

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Episode 79-Transparency in the venture funding process with Jane VC founder Maren Bannon

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Terri talks to Maren Bannon about what drove her to launch Jane VC, a fund focused on investing in female founders in the US and Europe along with a fellow Stanford grad, Jennifer Neundorfer. 

Who is Maren Bannon?  

Maren is Co-Founder and Partner at Jane VC, a venture fund to invest in female-led technology startups.  Maren is an entrepreneur at heart who has been building tech businesses for the past 15 years. Previously, she was CEO and Cofounder of LittleLane. Her operating experience also includes leadership roles at health tech startups as well as leading consumer marketing for a $1B product at Genentech. She is the mother to three young daughters and feels energized each day by her vision of creating a different world for them. She has an MBA from Stanford and an Engineering degree from Dartmouth.  

Show Highlights 

  • Maren talks about joining forces with one of her fellow Stanford grads, Jennifer Neundorfer, to create a new fund, Jane VC, to not only get more capital into the hands of female founders, but to activate more female investors. 

  • Maren shares the journey from reconnecting with her partner Jenn in January 2018 and leveraging AngelList to quickly create and raise the fund by bringing on supportive people in their network.   

  • Terri asked Maren about Jane VCs plan to get access to deal flow, being open to anyone, and their plan to provide transparency to the VC process to work towards leveling the playing field.  

  • Maren shares their plans for Jane VC in providing transparency, investing in women, and actively looking for investing opportunities outside of the Silicon Valley.  

  • With Jane VC, they are focused on investing in pre-seed and seed stage rounds, but they will also invest in Series A. With Maren based in London, they will have the opportunity to focus on startups not only in the US, but also in Europe including London, Berlin, Paris, and the Nordics.   

  • If Maren could wave a magic wand, she would shift the power dynamic to make it more equitable for women.   

 Terri’s Key Takeaway 

To shift the power dynamic and improve the world, we need to activate more female investors and invest in more female founders.  

References in the Podcast 

Contact 

Maren can be reached by email at hello@janevc.com.   

Founders interested in pitching to Jane VC can do so here:  https://www.janevc.com/contact-us 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

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Episode 78-Moving from startup to growth stage -a conversation with founder Mary Ray of MyHealthTeams, the social network for people with chronic illness

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Terri talks to Mary Ray of MyHealthTeams about the shift from startup to growth-stage and the importance of listening to your customers. Mary Ray started her entrepreneurial journey in second grade selling Pac Man trading cards which eventually led to founding MyHealthTeams with her co-founder Eric Peacock to provide social networks for people with chronic illnesses.

Who is Mary Ray?  

Mary Ray, cofounder and COO of MyHealthTeams, has a deep understanding of consumer behavior and social networking, which drives unmatched engagement among MyHealthTeams’ more than 1.6 million members across 29 communities serving people living with chronic conditions. Her innovative vision for people-first digital health solutions and laser focus on user experience, authentic connections and scalable platforms has helped the company quickly address 90% of the chronic condition population since its launch in 2012.  

Drawing from her personal experience with friends and family members living with chronic conditions, she is passionate about building communities that empower individuals, families and caregivers to share experiences, resources and lifehacks that help them actively manage health and wellness while living with a chronic condition. Previously, Mary has held executive positions with established leaders such as IAC and Sony as well as with innovative startups across the mobile, digital media and consumer technology landscape.  

Mary is a graduate of the College of William & Mary School of Business and George Mason University. A serial entrepreneur, Mary is an advocate for women in technology and has served as a SXSW mentor for up-and-coming female leaders. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and son.  

Show Highlights 

  • Mary takes us through her background and her entrepreneurial journey into being the co-founder/COO of MyHealthTeams.  This journey started in 2nd grade selling Pac Man trading cards.   

  • Mary talks about meeting her co-founder Eric Peacock and how they decided to start MyHealthTeams as a spin-out from Insider Pages. 

  • MyHealthTeams is no longer a startup and is now in the growth stage.  Mary talks about where they are today and the plans to go deeper in their segments and provide greater benefits to their members.   

  • Terri asks about their strategy for creating new social networks and why they don’t roll out for lots of conditions at the same time.  Mary answers and shares some of their biggest surprises in the MyHealthTeams social network rollout and usage.  

  • Mary’s favorite founder resources include connecting with others through LinkedIn groups, female founder groups, and Harvard Business Review. 

  • If Mary could wave a magic want, she would change it so that people sincerely understand each other and act accordingly.   

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

Listen to your customers to learn about ways to improve your product in unexpected ways.   

References in the Podcast 

Contact 

Mary can be reached by via email  mary@myhealthteams.com, Twitter @marycray and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryray/ 

 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

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Episode 76-Using IoT innovation to make infrastructure smarter and safe and have a positive impact on the environment with Cécile Villette

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Terri talks to Cécile Villette about why she started Altaroad to use IoT to gather information on road usage to positively impact the environment and ‘make infrastructure smarter and safer’.

Who is Cécile Villette?  

 

Cécile Villette is the CEO of Altaroad. A telecommunication engineer by degree, she spent 10 years as a Digital Strategy consultant deploying connected devices and new services globally for large Telco and Energy companies, before joining up forces with Bérengère Lebental in 2015 during her MBA in HEC to launch the connected road project that would become Altaroad.  

 

Show Highlights 

  • Cécile talks briefly about her background, the evolution of IoT, why telecom and IoT were/are interesting to her, and why she chose industrial IoT for her startup AltaRoad to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 

  • Cécile shares how she found her co-founders and the characteristics and aspirations she was looking for 

  • Terri talks about the false narrative around women not being able to have children and be founders in a startup 

  • Cécile goes into greater detail on what Altaroad does, how their technology works and where they are as a company 

  • Terri asks Cécile what she has been most surprised about as a founder of a startup and how her co-founding team splits and shares responsibilities of the company 

  • They discuss the impact of autonomous vehicles on how cities and roads are designed and how Altaroad will be a part of it 

  • Cécile shares her experience in fundraising thus far in raising from extended friends and family 

  • Cécile’s favorite founder resource is her network. She emphasized the importance of asking for help when you need it.  

  • If Cécile could wave a magic wand, she would fix global warming.  This keeps her up at night.   

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.   

 

References in the Podcast 

  • 4YFN:  https://www.4yfn.com/ 

  • Deep Tech (per TechWorks): We define Deep Tech as technology that is based on tangible engineering innovation or scientific advances and discoveries. Deep Tech is often set apart by its profound enabling power, the differentiation it can create, and its potential to catalyze change. 

 

 

Contact 

Cécile can be reached through LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/cécile-villette/ 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

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Episode 73 - How To Survive The Turbulence As A Founder Of A Small Company In A Big Market

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Terri talks to Laura Fleet about how a personal experience gave her the idea and inspiration to start SendaRide and that she is both loving the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship and challenged every day.   

Who is Laura Fleet?  

 

Laura Fleet is a leading expert in health care and regulatory law, having represented health insurers, providers and hospital systems for more than twenty years. Her professional career as legal counsel, lobbyist and Executive Director for numerous non-profit Associations in the health care sector has given her a unique perspective into our health care delivery system. Having successfully identified an opportunity to bridge one of the many gaps, she launched and Co-Founded SendaRide. 
 
During her career she has continually been at the frontline of our ever-evolving healthcare delivery system, shaping and interpreting the laws that providers, insurers and hospitals operate within. She is identified as an industry expert and thrives on solving the many problems the healthcare industry faces – whether regulatory, legal, legislative or implementation.  

Show Highlights 

  • Laura talks about her company, SendaRide, and why she started the company.   

  • Laura continues to talk about being a smaller player in a bigger market, her go to market strategy and differentiating factors.  

  • Laura has become very comfortable with the word ‘pivot’ and being uncomfortable.   SendaRide started as a B2C LLC and is now a B2B Delaware Corp.  

  • Laura has become comfortable with being the face and brand of SendaRide.   

  • Laura’s favorite founder resource is her network of female founders who have gone before her, and investor resources who are willing to make introductions and be available to answer questions and bounce around ideas.   

  • Laura was accepted into Springboard and shared what she is looking to get out of the time with her advisory group.   

  • Laura has been surprised by how much she is enjoying being a founder of a startup and the variety of skillsets she has developed over her time as CEO.   

  •  If Laura had a magic wand, she would make chocolate and champagne have no calories and carbs.  She would also have people stop in their tracks and not make judgments and not look at stereotypes when they make decisions.   

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

Don’t become a founder because it’s cool; you have to be 100% committed.   

References in the Podcast 

 

 Contact 

Laura can be reached through LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-brookins-fleet-49aa9a54/ and via email at Laura.Fleet@SendaRide.com.   

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

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Episode 70- Imène Maharzi's vision to educate and train 2000 female business angels and get female founders greater access to capital for their startups.

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Terri talks to Imène Maharzi about why she started OwnYourCash this year to educate and train 2000 new female business angels and get female founders greater access to capital for their startups.   

Who is Imène Maharzi?  

Imène Maharzi is a French based professional, who started working in the French Private Equity space 18 years ago. She started out her career as an auditor with Arthur Andersen, and then became an investment professional with Butler Capital Partners where she had the opportunity to explore several sectors, geographies, investment sizes and targets.  

In 2013, she created Butterfly Partners, a company which invests time and money in start-ups and subject matter experts which demonstrate a social or environmental positive impact. In 2014-2015, she took over a majority stake in a school transportation company dedicated to exceptional children with autism, Down syndrome, etc.. As the CEO, she transformed a 15-year family business into a social business, with a resolution to trigger a positive social impact on both employees and beneficiaries, through a strong user-centric, quality-driven approach.  

As she moved through her professional career, she noticed that there was a problem in getting access to capital for female founders that she saw resulted in a massive waste of both economic and social value. This led her to create OwnYourCash this year. OwnYourCash is an educational platform, both online and IRL, to train women (and men) to become Business Angels. By opening a conversation on biases, gender-lens investing and impact investing, OwnYourCash will contribute to smoother access to capital for projects co-founded by women. 

With OwnYourCash, she is committed to training 2000 new female business angels by the year 2020.  The mission of OwnYourCash is to foster economic independence for women leading to true male/female equality 

  

Show Highlights 

  • Imène shared her professional journey into private equity and ultimately starting her new company OwnYourCash to educate and train 2000 new female business angels by 2020.   

  • Imène talks about social entrepreneurship in France…creating a social return and a financial return.   

  • Imène shares the details on OwnYourCash and how the time is right to educate new business angels and create a new business angle network and how the change in the tax laws in France this year will be a positive thing for new business angels. 

  • If Imène had a magic wand, she would make the ‘plain vanilla’ investing be impact investing with everyone going after economic return along with a social or environmental return.   

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

Investing is an information business.  

 

References in the Podcast 

 

Contact 

Imène can be reached via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/im%C3%A8ne-maharzi-439294/. 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

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Episode 69 -How Accidental Entrepreneur, Fran Dunaway of TomboyX, happened to launch an apparel company

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Terri talks to Fran Dunaway of TomboyX about how she and her partner and wife Naomi Gonzalez started TomboyX in 2014 to create a better shirt and ended up launching an underwear company.  Fran and Naomi recently raised a Series A and Fran shares their journey to this point and where she sees TomboyX going in the next few years.  

Who is Fran Dunaway?  

Fran likes to call herself the accidental entrepreneur. In 2013, she had a great life as partner in a media strategies firm with big budgets, lots of vacation time, regular exercise, and excellent sleep habits. She and her wife, Naomi Gonzalez, started a little side business because they wanted some cool button-down shirts like a Robert Graham for women. They picked the name TomboyX because they thought it was cute.  
  
When the name started resonating with women and girls around the world, they knew they had an instant brand. It turns out that the word 'tomboy' opens the door to a conversation about being whoever it is you want to be. Women were SO elated to have a brand that saw them for who they are at their core. So, when customers started begging for TomboyX to design the first boxer briefs for women, Fran and Naomi obliged.  
  
In September 2014, they pre-sold two styles of boxer briefs designed for women and sold out in two weeks. They have never looked back. TomboyX has since refocused solely into the underwear/loungewear market and is thriving on the fact that people of all shapes and sizes want to be part of a brand that stands for values they share. Their customers continually prove that there is a toughness required to express your individuality – the defining characteristics of a tomboy. 
  
  

Show Highlights 

  • Fran shares the story behind TomboyX and the evolution of the TomboyX brand 

  • Fran continues to talk about how difficult it has been to raise funds to fund the business and what it’s like to run out of inventory as an apparel brand.  

  • Terri and Fran about the shifting landscape for female founders and the economic opportunity in investing in these founders.  

  • Fran explains how she went from a job in corporate to being a founder and focusing on TomboyX 100% 

  • Fran talks about how she and Naomi have evolved as founders and leaders and the evolution of their team as the company as grown and matured 

  • Terri asks Fran about how she sees the company evolve over the next few years 

  • If Fran could wave a magic wand, she would change the lens with which we see each other; to be less judgmental of each other and to have greater clarity as to who we are as individuals.   

  • Fran’s favorite founder resources are Loose Threads (podcast), Leap Frog (the book) and founders stories in general. 

 

Terri’s Key Takeaway 

Money is power and to shift the power dynamic, we need to shift the economic dynamic.  

 

References in the Podcast 

 

 

Contact 

Fran can be reached through the TomboyX website https://tomboyx.com/,  on Twitter @fdunaway and via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/frandunaway/ 

You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com or on Medium:  https://medium.com/@terrihansonmead.  

Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com. 

To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife.