BIZ/DEV
David Baxter has over fifteen years of experience in designing, building, and advising startups and businesses, drawing crucial insights from interactions with leaders across the greater Raleigh area. His deep passion, knowledge, and uncompromising honesty have been instrumental in launching numerous companies. In the podcast BIZ/DEV, David, along with Gary Voigt, an award-winning Creative Director, explore current tech trends and their influence on startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture, integrating perspectives gained from local business leaders to enrich their discussions.
BIZ/DEV
Invest in Women w/ Fierce Foundry | Ep. 152
In this episode of the Biz/Dev podcast David and Gary talk to the dynamic duo behind a twist on traditional venture studios- with the female driven, and female centric, Fierce Foundry. Elizabeth Prenger and Melissa Wallace talk about what it looks like to make money off women- women led businesses statistically make more money than mens; who knew? Why women? Listen here.
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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.
In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.
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[00:00:02] Melissa/Elizabeth: The underlying goal is to accelerate the flywheel of changing the landscape of what we know today for funding for women.
[00:00:17] David: Hi everyone. Welcome to the biz dev podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, joined per usual by Gary Voigt, who is currently hunkering in a bunker somewhere in Florida. How's it going, man?
[00:00:28] Gary: It's going, it's all right. Just watching all the tracks and predictions.
[00:00:32] David: Milton is on his way to his house. And that's the dude's name in
[00:00:37] Gary: Yeah, dude. If they just gave him a stapler back
[00:00:39] David: Oh my gosh, dude, I can't, this is the best. How many memes are flying across the internet right
now about a stapler? Just the best. That's got to be the best hurricane name in years. Anyway, I hope everything works out.
We've got a couple of days until they actually smacks it, right? Yay.
[00:00:55] Gary: of days of angst.
[00:00:57] David: It's just another day in Florida. All right. More importantly than Gary is we are joined. This is our first, we've have two guests at the same time. We have Elizabeth Pringer, who is the head of founder experience and Melissa Wallace, excuse me, Melissa Wallace.
We're going to fix that. Who is the founding partner of fierce foundry, which is a women led venture studio. I have so many questions about that. So welcome first ladies. How are you?
And you guys are up in New York, correct?
[00:01:26] Melissa/Elizabeth: I'm based in New York. Elizabeth is in Arkansas, northwest Arkansas. Today we are both in Arkansas.
[00:01:34] David: Oh, very cool. Very cool. That's and you guys have an event coming up in the next couple of days. It'll be after. This will air after it happens, but you guys have a big thing on a couple of days. Tell me a little bit about
[00:01:46] Melissa/Elizabeth: We have a lot of events. In fact, we just wrapped two events and we have another event tonight. So we're basically doing events all the time. But we did just wrap our all female hackathon called FemHack here in Arkansas yesterday. And then we have another we have a, an ongoing series of events called Female Founder and Funder Networking.
And those are, yeah, That's we love alliteration. Yeah.
[00:02:12] Gary: Yeah. The alliteration is insane.
[00:02:14] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah.
[00:02:14] Gary: Fierce
[00:02:15] David: I'm pretty sure my list would just fall apart trying to say
[00:02:18] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah. But yeah, so every month in multiple cities, and we're hosting one tonight here in Bentonville. And then there'll be another one on Wednesday up in New York. So there. If you do you want to come meet us in person, that there are
lots of ways to do
[00:02:33] David: Busy. Very cool. So let's take a step, big step back. Tell me where, what Fierce Foundry is, how it got started, and what you guys are doing now.
[00:02:42] Melissa/Elizabeth: you want me to Yeah. Take that one. Okay. So we were a nonprofit a year ago mentoring community for female founders, helping them sort of bridge the gap in getting the funding they needed to get to the next stage of business. And last year the board met and decided we wanted to take more action and have more impact. And that's when we explored the idea of building a studio. We looked at incubators, we looked at accelerator programs, all the different ways that, you know, startups are supported out there and the studio model. Really was what worked best in our minds because you're basically, Fierce Foundry basically co founds from idea to exit. So we're supporting the founders through the entire journey and ensuring that they make it to an exit. Our goal is to have our founders exit within seven years so that they go on and invest in more of it. So it's really.
The underlying goal is to accelerate the flywheel of changing the landscape of what we know today for funding for women.
[00:03:46] David: So this sounds like semantics, but do you. Let's see if I can say this right. Do you invest in women led companies and, or do you invest in women focused companies,
[00:04:01] Melissa/Elizabeth: It's both.
[00:04:02] David: both so if I were a dude who was making a gizmo of any sort that was focused towards women, my audience was primarily women.
Would that make me allowed to be supported by y'all or no, you've got to be both in that case.
[00:04:16] Melissa/Elizabeth: And I think we would like to see female leadership of every company that we build. We definitely want to include men in the process because we have a lot of problems to solve. It's going to take everyone, but we will be prioritizing female leadership at a really high level.
[00:04:31] David: Okay. So we just interviewed. Gosh, very recently, Nick Jordan, who is leading the unboxed venture studio in Durham, which is where near where I'm at. And so I, we just got a fresh look at what a venture studio is, but I know it has a lot of definitions. So I would like to hear what yours is.
[00:04:51] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah, it, they're all, Focus on the same idea of de risking the investment, right?
[00:05:00] Melissa/Elizabeth: Different from traditional VC where you invest in a portfolio of companies, hoping one of them will do really well. We're investing very closely into each company. As we build a fund you're really investing in all the companies to succeed. So the studio model is set up in a way that we make sure that the company, the founder, the product doesn't move on to the next stage of its journey, if it's not going to absolutely make it. So in general, as a studio model, that's what we're trying to do. We're de-risking at every stage.
If we need to turn back, if we need to make a change, we made those decisions hand in hand with the founder.
[00:05:43] Melissa/Elizabeth: Our studio model is set up in a way that we. invest services. So we estimate the services to be around 250, 000 on the baseline, which allows us to do everything from market research to design and dev, go to market strategy, and then, you know, going as far as working with exit strategies. In some cases, it'll be more than that, but that's our commitment is 250, 000 worth in services. with an additional 500, 000 capital investment as well. So our model is a little bit different in that regard and in return we ask for 35 percent of equity.
[00:06:21] David: Okay. So that's interesting. So you guys have a set contract. Of we'll do all of this for 35%. It's not variable in any way. Like when we've spoken to other ventures, there is, that could be a tiny investment because all we're doing is part of our model, right? Or to the whole enchilada where we're going to take a big chunk, maybe even the majority.
[00:06:44] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah, and I would say most studio models are between 50 and 80 percent equity because they're coming up with the idea and attaching a founder to it. We're more focused on founders that come to us with ideas and we're really focused on them holding a majority of the equity so that they have the money to go in and invest in women when their company exits.
[00:07:05] David: So what if I'm a lady, which that's already, we've already jumped weird lands there, but I'll do the ugliest woman ever. Anyway, if I started with y'all. And you guys did your thing and you guys did a great job and I'm killing it. You know, I'm the leader. I'm the CEO, right? I'm assuming I would stay as CEO or do you replace me in as part of this process?
[00:07:28] Melissa/Elizabeth: I think it's a case by case basis. I think it depends on where their leadership skills lie. If we can fill that role in a better way we would fill that role. But I think it is that it's assessing who the founder is, the idea that they have the resource that are needed and how we can best support the startup going forward to make those decisions.
[00:07:48] David: So let's assume I'm amazing and I'm amazing CEO and you don't replace me. So seven years pass, I'm killing it. I am loving what I'm doing. I don't want to let go.
[00:07:58] Melissa/Elizabeth: That's okay. That's
[00:08:00] David: not breaking some sort of rule.
[00:08:02] Melissa/Elizabeth: No. And I think like one of the things that we've learned in talking to founders who have been through accelerator programs and other Great opportunities out there is that there are often not designed for how women work in general. So rather than put, you know, restrictions on this is how it's done we'll maintain a level of flexibility with milestones.
So you do have to meet the milestone because that's how we're going to get somewhere.
But when things change, we're going to work with you and we're going to figure out the best way and the best outcomes for everybody.
[00:08:34] Gary: You mentioned the strategy included everything from starting to the exit strategy. Now is that also like a milestone or can it just be like, nah, we're not going to evaluate the exit strategy. Yeah. Cause everything's going on good. Or is it like,
[00:08:48] Melissa/Elizabeth: Again, you know, let's
[00:08:50] Gary: coming up on 10 years guys.
[00:08:51] Melissa/Elizabeth: If it's, if, you know, the company is doing really well and you know, because of the equity we've gotten the company and we can find a way that the one thing we want to make sure of is that these women go on to invest in more women. So if the company is doing really well and there's a way to, to make sure that is still a component. You know, to the core mission that is still a component, and there's no reason why we need to get them to that point. That's really the milestone is, you know, are they at a level of where now they can start investing in more women.
[00:09:22] David: I don't care about your mission, but I have an amazing idea, right? Is that I've got the Airbnb, you know, the whatever air, the new Airbnb, you can see it. You know, I'm all, I've got lightning and bottle. You're, you know what I'm saying? But I have I don't care about investing in women. I'm obviously a woman in this situation or you wouldn't care, but would you be like, no, take your lightning and go away.
[00:09:44] Melissa/Elizabeth: I think so. Yeah.
[00:09:46] David: Does that mean that's of course completely contrived?
[00:09:48] Melissa/Elizabeth: I don't think you're going
to want to work with us, and we're not going to have a good relationship.
It's not going to be good for anybody. And there's lots of, there's lots of opportunity out there. We talk about the founders that are coming to us. We get inquiries on our website daily, you know, with ideas that we're like how do we get, how do we make this happen?
Yeah, I don't think it would be hard for us to pass up on that type of persona because there are so many incredible women who are dedicated to the mission that we are also dedicated to. So that would be an easy decision, I think, for us. I'm also, I'm
[00:10:22] David: are maybe not so obviously, so we are a custom design development firm ourselves. So we understand we build startups. We help them. We're not a venture studio, but we work with startups quite a bit. So I obviously have some knowledge in this space, but where do you go?
How do you guys do what you do? Like you're, I know you are a marketer. I'm looking at Melissa. Sorry, you can't tell where I'm pointing. So I know you're marketing. What is your background, Elizabeth?
[00:10:46] Melissa/Elizabeth: brand strategist, so a
lot of marketing messaging.
[00:10:50] David: So who's the nerd? Someone's got to be a nerd. Y'all
[00:10:53] Melissa/Elizabeth: have a lot of nerds. We have a lot of nerds. So we have a team of about eight people who make up sort of our initial crew. So we have Theresa Neal who is our head of product. That is, you know, basically, she has a, she has a company, design. And so she's focusing right now on our companies and what's needed from her team, from a design perspective, but she's also having the conversations with all of our partners.
So we have three, actually four engineering partners that we work with. We basically, what we did really, When we first started, this idea was start reaching out to our network that we knew, you know, was going to be the power behind how this all gets executed. And immediately everybody was like, yes, I'm on board.
I'm on board. I'm on board. And, you know, for a good year now, everybody's been working pro bono, which is pretty amazing in itself. That just goes to show you how strong the mission really is. And, you know, to have Teresa working with one of our companies right now and finalizing design. And working to negotiate and, you know, what the timeline, what the fees are going to be for development of you know, these products moving forward. And then, you know, we get more nerds that, that come in to the later stages as well. You know, financial modeling, nerds
[00:12:15] David: Sure. Different kinds of nerds.
[00:12:17] Melissa/Elizabeth: scientists, the research side as well.
Yeah.
[00:12:21] David: So when I look at you, so on your website, which I'm pointing to that no one can see you have four steps, idea, ideation, analysis, beta, and market fit, build and launch, grow and exit. So I can imagine there's a lot of pro bono work in idea and analysis, right? That's ideas and thinking not a lot of concrete.
Things at that point, by definition, they get past that, right? You're saying, Hey, we still see value in this. We did this for two months. We still see value with it. If we don't, we're going to part ways as friends, I'm assuming we're out. But we like this, we're going to move forward. So now you're building things, right?
MVPs, betas, whatever you want to call those. I'm assuming that it's a tech project, but if it's not, you know, that could be its own beta MVP. So now are you finding dev companies who are work building these for free? That's fascinating to me
[00:13:09] Melissa/Elizabeth: No. No. Do you have any that would send them our way? No, definitely not.
[00:13:13] David: Tough.
[00:13:14] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah, and you know, we're working through a strategy now so the only reason why we continue to move forward with the company ideas while we're fundraising is because we don't want to stop and everybody is really, you know, sort of dedicated to getting it off the ground, but we also feel like we can have some level of proof of concept for our investors. If we continue to build so some of the things that we're doing right now is evaluating, okay and we're working really closely with three companies right now, eventually we want to be building five companies a year and one company we realized, you know, it, there's actually more work on the research side that needs to happen. And so we will now put less budget into dev and focus the budget on working with our partner involved. To, you know, spend, you know, more time identifying what, you know, we need to know about the customer and the opportunity and how we built that idea. So we're kind of, again, this is where that flexibility comes into play.
Like we don't have a lot of budget to work with right now and we know we can, you know, kind of modify the process a little bit. It's not it's not like there's a cohort and everybody's like moving stage to stage.
[00:14:26] David: Models, not exactly like this, but I've seen models where I'm, when I start peeling back the layers, the math stops making sense. And that's where these questions are coming from because I've seen it where this was a dev company specifically trying to do a model like yours, where they said, we will invest.
100, 000 or something, they had a dollar amount that they would build your multiple versions until you were out the door. And they took percentages of all this. And when I started breaking it down, I was like, there's no money in this for that dev team. There's no way that dev team is staying afloat unless they're offshoring it or they're doing other things to mitigate costs.
Then you're getting often, not always, I have to be careful with that, a different level of product. So I think they're gone actually, that company that I'm speaking of. I need to look them up again. I haven't looked them up recently, that takes real money, right? You're building an MVP or V1 when you're talking about build and launch.
That's real money. What I typically tell a startup. To come in and it's funny that our numbers are exact. I tell someone who comes to me with just an idea that they need a quarter of a million dollars. And they're like, you cost that much. I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm probably half of that. But the other half of his marketing, legal, et cetera, et cetera.
Cause the way we pitch it to them is you need to build first, you've got to do your pre stuff, what you're talking about is your ideation and analysis. Who's your customer, et cetera, et cetera. Once you have that, you need to build V1, which is, you know, we come into play. It's going to cost this much money.
And then. You've got to go and do get a quorum of users that could be a various amount of people, but a quorum of users that gives you start giving you data. They're signing up for free. You're not making any money yet. They give it. Now you can take their feedback and build V2. Now you're ready to make money.
This process there's legal and mark, cause there's a little bit of marketing after that first one. And then a lot of marketing at the end. And that costs money and people don't realize that a lot of people come to us. They just want us to build the app. I'm like, no, we used to do that. We used to do that a long time ago.
And my PM at the time, Dion, who's still one of my favorite people on the planet, he's are we hurting? Are we helping? Cause we would, they'd come to us and they'd give us all their money. Cause they, you know, I've been, I, you said it was 60, 000. So I got 60, 000 and I want you to build the app. And we were so young at the time we'd be like, cool, thanks.
And we would build them this beautiful app and then they would die because that was all their money.
[00:16:49] Melissa/Elizabeth: You know, it's really interesting. I don't mean to interrupt you,
but at 5 Foot 2 Marketing, our marketing agency, it's the same exact experience. So they'll come to us and say, you know, I need all this marketing. I have to, you know, I can't get investors because I have to, you know, do this. It's Oh what's your budget, right?
How much money do you have to spend on marketing? What's the runway? Oh, I have 100, 000, you know, and it's we find out later that's all the money that they have. So even if we're, you know, you know, out there pushing people to go use the product's not working. It's this is not how this works.
[00:17:23] David: Yeah it dies.
[00:17:25] Melissa/Elizabeth: so now we put we push them away and we say, go finish, use that money and finish building the product. Then come back to us like somehow. You gotta figure that out because you're right. You, it can't be put making an assumption that you can get it all done with 60,000.
[00:17:38] Gary: there's.
[00:17:41] Gary: One thing I've learned for sure over the years of doing this podcast is finding the market fit and your audience is key to any thing succeeding. So spending the focus and the money up there upfront and getting that taken care of will usually lead to a better outcome in the end. It is weird to see a lot of people just think that their idea is gold, no matter what.
Never tested it. They asked a couple of friends, their friends are like, yeah, it sounds great. And then just nothing.
[00:18:07] Melissa/Elizabeth: And I think we see the beautiful thing that I've witnessed with the founders that we're talking to. Women are so thoughtful and they, we tend to overanalyze the point where we have analysis paralysis and nothing gets done. It's almost the opposite problem that we're talking about here and they're both major problems.
And so it's just really it's really inspiring to be a part of that process of giving women the confidence that they need. Can make direct decisions and they have the network to make these decisions in a really smart way so that they're not getting ahead of themselves and slowing the process down in a way that it's speeding it up kind of, so that's been nice.
[00:18:50] AD: BigPixel builds world class custom software and amazing apps. Our team of pros puts passion into every one of our projects. Our design infused development leans heavily on delivering a great experience for our clients and their clients. From startups to enterprises, we can help craft your ideas into real world products that help your business do better business.
[00:19:19] David: It's so interesting. So let me, I want to jump forward. Let's go happy path. You guys have raised all the money you ever wanted. do whatever you want to do, right? This is the happy path. Describe to me how this really works. So I'm, I've got a great idea. You're digging it. You do your ideation analysis.
You're like, yep, this is legit. We're going to move forward. You have all your money that you need. You need an MVP. Do you go, do you hire internally? Does fierce founder have their own devs? Do you go grab a. Grab a studio that you've got a great relationship with and work with them. How do you foresee that happen?
[00:19:53] Melissa/Elizabeth: I do see eventually having some level of management internally having a full time product person. But we have great partners externally and I don't see any reason why, you know, they wouldn't continue to be involved. I, it would be the, probably the decision of that individual that we would hire to kind of oversee product development.
But.
[00:20:17] David: So you would have a CTO of some form inside, but not necessarily the dev team, three, four, five, 10 people that you would want to build them necessarily, potentially.
[00:20:28] Melissa/Elizabeth: I think it comes down to, you know, speed and ability to do it within, you know, a reasonable budget. And I think, you know, we have 4 partners right now, if we're building 5 products a year to be able to have. Each of them working on products that are in their wheelhouse. That's the other thing too, is that. You know, we could hire a team of engineers, but, you know, maybe they've never worked on. FinTech product before. And, you know, we need that expertise so we can move quickly and efficiently. I think it, you know, ideally having an internal resource manage external resources is, you know, what seems and feels good to me right now.
[00:21:08] David: Sure. That makes sense.
The softball is why women, this, I know you have this teed up.
[00:21:13] Melissa/Elizabeth: There's a couple of different reasons. Which, whoo! Okay.
First of all, it goes back to, you know, when I started 5Foot2Marketing, early stage startups who have raised between one and 5 million. That was, you know, our sweet spot because they were early stage. We can help them build a foundation. And I start meeting these female founders who can't have this amazing prototype, cannot get the funding because the investor is saying show me your custom, show me, you can get customers first. And every client that I have that I'm working with, they don't have customers, but they've got 5 million in the bank. Women are not treated equally when it comes to VC investment. And that's okay, because, you know, people invest in people they relate to, and people that look like them, and that's totally normal. But when women are receiving less than 2 percent of VC funding, and that's because there's not enough women investing in VC. people that they relate to. That's a problem. So we're trying, that's, we're focused on women because that's a problem that we need to change. We need to change that ecosystem of investors so that products like we're focused on health and wellness products for women, right? Those products that are being developed are by women who have experienced the challenge and the problem and have come up with a solution. If they can't get funding, 80 percent of Femtech founders are women, if they can't get the funding they need, then all women suffer. Does that answer your question?
[00:22:41] David: I wasn't looking for anything specific.
[00:22:44] Melissa/Elizabeth: And I can share a personal experience, and I've had, I'm a Femtech founder myself. I've been developing a postpartum recovery product over the last three years and pitching to investors who are primarily men. It's really, it's hard because they don't understand the problem that we're solving for. They don't understand the power of the demographic that we're serving. And they just don't grasp the concept that this is a big problem to solve, and it's going to make it worse. Yeah. So because they just don't, I had one conversation with an investor and my market size is just in the United States, over 4 million women deliver babies vaginally. So that's a lot of torn vaginas to address. Didn't think you'd hear that word on this podcast.
[00:23:29] David: That's a first Gary, track that up.
[00:23:31] Melissa/Elizabeth: Don't know.
[00:23:32] Gary: We're both fathers, so yeah, we've heard
[00:23:34] David: Yeah. There's
[00:23:34] Melissa/Elizabeth: You know,
[00:23:35] David: been married a very long time. Yeah.
[00:23:37] Melissa/Elizabeth: And one of the investors was like, I love this idea. I think it's a great brand, but I would invest if you used it as a vasectomy ice pack versus a vaginal ice pack. And when I told him the difference in market sizes Oh, huh. But still I think it would be a smarter play and it just, you know, cause that's what he related to.
He understands that. And that's, again, that's okay. We're not saying there's anything wrong with that. We just want to get more women. Into the investing side of it. And here's the other thing that I think a lot of people don't realize, but women led startups make 78 cents on every dollar versus men who earn 31 cents on every dollar.
So you, you're more likely to make more money on your investment if you invest in women.
[00:24:22] David: So if that is the case, why build this venture studio? Why not just build a venture fund?
[00:24:30] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yes, I think, you know, there's we explored that, right? The reality is that women are, work very differently than men. And if we can create an environment that allows them to have the resources without, you know, having to, you know, have ups and downs, which you'll see a lot. If you look at a female founder's journey, they'll go into an accelerator, they'll do really well.
And then something will happen in their life that, that sort of changes the course, they don't have the backup, the support that they need. And so it might be a couple of years or so before they come back and continue. So we need to maintain continuity so that they don't. Take as long as, you know, it typically might and so we can provide that.
We also want to make sure that they're limiting their mistakes by working with the experts that we have, who have been through this before. We also want to make sure that we can you know, it's a, it's ensuring a level of success, right? If we make, if we're committed to that and we're accountable for that as well, then everybody wins. So for that reason, the studio model I think is really what's needed.
[00:25:37] David: Nice. Okay. Yeah. I just, most of the problems you were trying to solve sounded on the capital side, not necessarily the
[00:25:46] Melissa/Elizabeth: It starts there, right? It starts there. And that's why you see, you know, women going to accelerators and those types of programs. But then they're like hopping from accelerator to accelerator. And that can be expensive. And not only that, you're changing, you know, who's with you through that journey.
And we just think it could be done better.
[00:26:06] David: So I have heard, and I am not an expert by any stretch on this, but I've heard with. Funds and whatnot deal flow is a big deal, right? That it's, there's a billion people, contrary to popular belief. There's a lot of people who are funding startups.
[00:26:22] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yes.
[00:26:23] David: And there was a lot of startups needing funds, right?
And that sounds Oh, easy peasy. But a lot of those, especially smaller funds, they're, they don't, they got pile of money here that they can't give it away. And that's sounds weird, but that's a real thing. So in that market, is that mean it's harder for y'all or easier for y'all? Because half of the founders just percentage wise is probably more than that.
Our men, so their deals don't, they don't count. So that means you're in a much smaller pile, correct? Yeah.
[00:26:52] Melissa/Elizabeth: don't know how that math works out. Yeah.
[00:26:55] David: If it was 50, 50, right? If 50 percent of all great ideas were women, that's still, you're down 50%.
[00:27:01] Melissa/Elizabeth: yeah. And only getting 2 percent of the funding. Yeah.
[00:27:09] David: guys to be a big venture studio, as it were, it's harder, to say,
[00:27:13] Melissa/Elizabeth: you know, I think the other thing to take into consideration is that Yes, we're going to build a fund, but we may not do it in traditional ways. For example, you know, our first fund may be a combination of family office and angel investments through an SPV. And you know, then, you know, we have ideas of how the studio itself can generate revenue that supports our operating expenses outside of funds.
So we're actually. Avoiding the route of, you know, exactly what you're describing and finding creative ways, or as Trevor, our fund manager refers to it as novel, which I love ways to ensure that we have what we need to at least get off the ground.
[00:27:59] David: What is your
[00:28:00] Gary: sell out to the man.
[00:28:01] Melissa/Elizabeth: What's that Gary?
[00:28:03] Gary: I said, don't sell out to the man. Do it your way.
[00:28:05] Melissa/Elizabeth: Listen, you know, we have a campaign that's men who invest in women and it's actually kind of eyeopening how many men out there actually are very interested in investing in women and making sure that they're getting the right deal flow. So
[00:28:20] David: I think the whole thing is fascinating. I think. What I tell startups all the time is niche wins. And so I don't have a problem with this, even at the, doing what y'all are doing. And you're a startup for all intents and purposes. There's a million, like I was just saying, there's a million places that you can go get money from, but the, what makes someone different is the niche they've, they follow and what makes them succeed or not, because very few companies succeed when they're going broad.
It's just really hard to do. And it requires enormous amounts of funding. Funds, which is why there are five or six tech companies that just dominate because they're the only ones who could do it. And so when you niche down, you're more successful. So I don't, I just consider what you guys doing exactly that.
And but I just, I know those are gotta be questions. People are asking you, it's half the deals, there's half the guys. You don't want half the deals. So you're not going to, you're going to be half as successful. I can totally see some jerk saying that, so I might as well just be that jerk for a moment.
[00:29:17] Melissa/Elizabeth: We've certainly heard things like good luck with that. Yeah. And you know, it's why'd you take the call? Don't, why are you wasting my time?
You know, it's not, yeah.
[00:29:28] David: So what is your timeline? You guys are a year in, are you where you wanted to
[00:29:33] Melissa/Elizabeth: Not even a year in.
[00:29:34] David: quite a year. Are you where you wanted to be after around a year? And where, how long do you think it'll take to hit that happy path that we talked about earlier?
[00:29:44] Melissa/Elizabeth: mean, we wanted to be building at this point and we are. Yeah it's so strange because you know, yes, of course, here this time I thought for sure we'd have a lot more money in the bank, but I also didn't understand you know, the challenges that we would face going into that. And what I think is pretty phenomenal is this, the fact that we've been able to build a team of individuals who are not only, you know, signed on to support each of those stages of the studio, but have made the connections necessary for us to be having conversations with the right people for investment. We've actually accomplished so much in less than a year and literally, or we're working like a fully functioning organization. On no money. Do you know what I mean? Like it's kind of mind blowing that that we've been able to do as much as we have. So while it may not look like what, you know, I pictured it in January of this year and what all of us were expecting, it still is something really phenomenal and continues to motivate us to keep moving forward.
I don't know. I think that is something to be really proud of. And I think we knew we were building something new and novel to use Trevor's vocabulary, but I don't think we realized how new and how novel it is. And so building something that doesn't exist, we've learned a lot and we've had to make changes and evolve in a beautiful way, but yeah it's pretty wild.
[00:31:16] David: Blazing trails is never easy. It's always easier to be the second mover, not the first. And that's, it's a lot easier. I was just seeing a thing. Mark Zuckerberg came out with his glasses, right? That they're not come out with, but the Orion glasses that he was showing off. And they have spent, I think those glasses, the R and D is north of 5 billion
[00:31:36] Melissa/Elizabeth: Oh my
[00:31:37] David: to put these glasses on.
And he was saying very transparently, we thought other people would be running this race with us and they all bailed. And so we're having to break these walls on these technological scientific breakthroughs to new technologies, to put them in glasses that they're doing by themselves. And there's, and the podcast I was listening to was talking about, Only someone like a Zuckerberg or someone like that could do that because.
He owns and controls the company. He can say, I'm going to burn five billion to the ground and no one can fire him. If Tim cook did that, he'd get fired. And even though he's Tim cook, it's so it, but that blazing the trail is so hard. That's an extreme level, of course, but when you're the only one digging the, I live in North Carolina and I always I'm amazed when I look around, this whole place was a forest.
So the only places where people live, someone had to work really hard because this place is densely wooded. And so it's I'm going to live here while I've got to dig out all of this. To build my house and that's first mover, right? Cause that second mover comes in and is sweet, I'm just, I'm going got my house right here.
I'm good to go. And so first movers are a special breed. So congrats on having the gumption and grit it takes to even blaze that trail. So
[00:32:57] Gary: a question.
[00:32:58] David: yeah, I'm going to shut
[00:32:59] Gary: Speaking of the gumption to blaze the trail, was there a deciding factor when you guys were thinking about doing this and putting it together? Was there a deciding factor that kind of just solidified it for you? We're like, yes we're doing it. We're starting this. We're going.
[00:33:13] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah, I think it was maybe a little bit before. There's a couple different moments in time. So when I approached the board of our nonprofit and I was like, hey, what do you guys think? Okay, everybody was yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and then there were a couple weeks of you know, I'm reading books about studios I'm like doing all this research and I come back and Nobody else really kind of did anything. It was like just me. And so I went back to my husband and I'm like, I think I have to like, lead it. I think like it can't just be all of us like, yay, this is a great idea. And so I went back and I asked, I said, would you mind if I like basically said, I'm going to be the CEO and I'm going to, you know, forge ahead. And everybody was like, yes, do it. And I was
like, really, I don't want to You know, everybody wants to be a part of it, but nobody wanted to take the lead and nobody was saying anything like that. And so it was like, it was a moment it was like, okay. And for me, it was like, great I'm going to hit the ground running. And then the third part was like, when Elizabeth came on board. And then we had another person who came on board and it was just like, Yes, we'll do anything to make this happen. And it was the people. You know what I mean? At the end of the day being able to connect with Elizabeth and know that no matter what, we weren't going to stop. You know? So stubbornness. Yeah.
And, you know, I.
[00:34:32] Gary: like you found a good fitting team that you
[00:34:34] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah, it's it's crazy. There have been a lot of moments in my life where I've wanted to take the lead on things. And I basically bowed out as a lot of companies. I wanted to start that. I basically was like, I don't want to do it alone. This is the first time I've, I said, I'm doing this and, you know, kind of just put everything into it.
And everything came into place, right? Meeting Elizabeth and knowing that, Oh my God, we're doing the right thing, you know, and having that validation. To what, you know, was an idea that it could actually happen. It's crazy how, you know, when you make a decision, things fall in place. And I was really motivated as a founder myself, especially being raised in the South, a Southern woman, who's also in the women's health, trying to innovate in the women's health space from a state like Arkansas having the opportunity to bring my experience. experience as a founder with the lack of resources, the lack of capital, the lack of mentorship, having access for those types of founders to the resources that are on the coast and kind of like spreading the, I don't spindles, that's not the right word.
I don't know what I'm trying to say there, but I think there's just a lot of power and coming together, being able to touch and work with founders who are in some of these like flyover states and these gap states and be able to provide these big city resources to these parts of the country that are just so vastly underrepresented is really motivating.
[00:36:01] David: All right, Gary, it's your turn. Grab it up.
[00:36:03] Gary: Now, with all this newfound knowledge you have a unique experience here and I would like you to answer this question kind of from a woman's, from a woman to a woman's perspective. If you can, what are the three pieces of advice that you would give any new entrepreneur startup, especially since that's kind of the business you're in.
[00:36:20] Melissa/Elizabeth: I, I think we,
[00:36:24] Melissa/Elizabeth: I mentioned earlier that analysis paralysis, like if you have an idea and you've done just like the basic research, you think it can be successful, have faith that you can actually do it. You have resources like ours to make your vision come true. So don't over analyze. It's an idea, it's probably a really good idea. Explore it until it's not viable anymore, but there's a good chance that it's viable.
[00:36:52] Melissa/Elizabeth: Trust your instincts and move forward if you think you should be moving forward with an idea. Yeah, you don't need all the information. You don't have to know everything.
This is, you know, this is, Right here you're looking at someone who knew nothing about, you know, studio models did the research and was like, I don't know, can I do this? But basically was like, we're just going to do it. We're going to go, we're going to, we're going to figure this out as we go. And had I waited to get all the education I needed, we wouldn't be here today. So my, I always advise, especially female entrepreneurs, don't wait. You have the idea, get out there, start working on it, and if you're not able to do it, then it's not the right idea. So if you gotta go, just do it, start making it happen. You don't really feel like you can and then find a different idea. And.
[00:37:46] Melissa/Elizabeth: If it doesn't happen, it's not a failure. No! You just learned. It's a learning opportunity. Failure is not a thing. It's all growth and it's all knowledge.
[00:37:56] Melissa/Elizabeth: Yeah, that took me a long time to get over like I'm gonna fail. I'm gonna let so many people down No, you're not going to.
I love to fail. I love making mistakes because then it's oh my god Look what we just learned like that's like it's a valuable moment and then.
[00:38:12] Melissa/Elizabeth: Really female to female, another piece of advice that I give female entrepreneurs is to understand your cycle from a performance standpoint. We have a cycle.
Everybody knows that. Most women track their cycle on an app and it's I got my period this day, whatever. I had headaches this day. You can go in and put your symptoms in just to make sure everything's okay and keep track of things. Keep track in there I killed it in that meeting today.
Where was I in my cycle? Because You could schedule that meeting that you're so nervous about killing it at that point in time. I'm telling you, as someone who does this, it makes a big difference.
[00:38:52] Melissa/Elizabeth: In, you know, how you can feel really good about the work that you're doing and have the results that, that you want at, it's at an optimal level.
Yeah.
[00:39:03] David: Nice. Was
[00:39:04] Gary: the first time we got that. Yeah,
[00:39:06] Melissa/Elizabeth: No, I think that's two.
[00:39:07] David: Was that two or
[00:39:08] Gary: that was two. That was two.
[00:39:10] David: two.
[00:39:10] Melissa/Elizabeth: part, this might be kind of similar to what Melissa just said, but prioritizing your mental health is so important. I feel like we as women feel like we have to work extra hard. And we do. The research shows we have to work harder than our male colleagues in many instances. But being giving yourself a break, a mental break, recharging, rest. sleep as part of your mental health. Meditate. You're so good at meditating. I need to do better at that. We have a lot on our plates when it comes to running businesses, raising kids, being taken care of other family members. Yeah, absolutely.
Mental health, prioritize mental health cause it's not, your work is not worth you having a mental breakdown or being unhappy. Yeah, we beat ourselves up a lot too. So that advice is good for men and women, but I think women especially have a tendency, especially as an entrepreneur to, you know, you know, beat themselves up and this would, you know, prioritizing mental health helps get through that. does for me.
[00:40:10] OUTRO: Hi, I'm Christy Pronto, Content Marketing Director here at BigPixel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the BizDev Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email, hello at thebigpixel. net.
