I just wanted to meet for coffee to talk about business, but male investors had other ideas.
About four months later, I got a friend request and a Facebook message asking for my phone number saying he lost my card. I didn't accept the friend request but sent him my work email.
Within minutes, I got an email saying he'd "rather keep things offline" so could I give him my number? I reluctantly sent my number.
I immediately got a text: "I'm sorry for the delay in getting in touch with you. I'd really love to meet up to continue our conversation."
I replied, thinking this was our potential golden ticket, "That would be great. How about coffee or breakfast next week at Le Pain Quotidien?"
"I was hoping for something more like an after-work drink," he responded.
I told him I was booked every night for two weeks, which was true, to which he responded, "I was hoping our meeting could be more social than business."
Me: "So sorry if you got the wrong impression, but I'm living with my boyfriend, so would rather keep this more business than personal."
That's when he dropped the bomb. "Obviously you're just young and naive and don't understand that situations change and you should always keep your options open and have a backup plan. I'd strongly suggest you reconsider and meet me for a drink."
I stopped responding.
Admittedly, my company, is my second startup. I started my first business, The Edge in College Prep, when I was 23 after I quit my job and asked my father for a loan. I borrowed $3,500 and bartended five nights a week to get The Edge off the ground. Between 2005 and 2012, the business grew to four international offices and over 15,000 students using the online course.
What frustrated me most, though, was that I was only targeting the elite students who could afford the services of a private tutor or college advisor. That concern sparked the idea for my current company, which is a free online college advisory platform that matches students to an ideal college based on their answers to a series of OkCupid-like questions and gives them access to free college prep curriculum and a mentor network. I knew I would need to raise a lot more than $3,500 this time — millions more actually — and I began attending a slew of startup funding events trying to meet the right investor. This is how I ended up fending off Mr. Keeps Things Offline.
Unfortunately, this was not the only time it was challenging being a woman entrepreneur in the male-dominated venture capital world. When I was part of a New York incubator, I met a well-known investor at a networking event. He had a reputation for investing in female-founded companies, so when he expressed interest in what I was building, I was eager to meet him.
Over email, I suggested my go-to "coffee/breakfast at LPQ" to which he replied, "I was thinking we could do a Models and Bottles kind of night haha." I assumed the "haha" meant he was joking, so I responded, "Haha, probably not, which is better: breakfast or coffee?"
His reply: "No, I'm serious, I was thinking we could make it a 4:30 a.m. kind of a night."
I thought about calling him out, but I was so new to the "game" that I didn't know who he knew or whether he could potentially badmouth me among other investors. And that's not the kind of guy I'd want sitting in on board meetings anyway. I ignored his email.
About a month later, he was in the building where I work and stopped at my desk. Again he asked when he could take me to the trendy club, despite noticing my engagement ring.
Of course even when I got engaged, I dealt with a double standard. At the time, I was about to embark on raising our first seed round of funding, and it was remarkable how inappropriate the reactions to my news were.
"Congrats on your engagement … are you still going to raise a seed round?"
Ummmmm, no, I'm going to spend the year working full time deciding what color tablecloths to have at my reception and just put my company with three employees on hold??! Of course I'm going to raise the round. How is this even a question??!!
"I see you got engaged. When's the wedding? How much longer do we have you before you start having kids?"
A) None of your business, B) why are you assuming I'm going to be having kids right away, and C) don't you think that as a female founder I picked a partner who is just that — a partner, and that we'll be managing kids in the two to five years when we have them, together?
Other female founders have been in similar predicaments. It's not that we sit around swapping these stories — we are busy running companies, after all — but when the subject comes up, there's usually plenty to share.
A fellow female entrepreneur was recently at a tech conference and recalls a rather gropey VC investor who thought it was appropriate to place his hand on her lap for a good 20 seconds during a meeting. Very awkward and clearly a problem. Another female founder told me she was invited to a strip club last year while attending SXSW. She was the only woman among five male CEOS and VC guys and felt pressure to go in order to make a connection with one of the investors who was typically hard to get a meeting with during working hours. As you can imagine, watching the "boys club" get lap dances all night long made for an uncomfortable situation.
This isn't to say it's all bad and ugly. There are many, many men in venture capital who are more interested in balance sheets than silk ones. Plenty of seasoned investors can spot a solid business plan regardless of who's running it and have been incredible mentors along the way. There are also fantastic male founders who couldn't be more supportive of their female counterparts. Recently I was at a 100-person founders event and a male founder friend commented to me, "Do you realize that there are only eight women here?" He said it with a knowing eye, essentially saying, "Get it girl."
But even if the sexism I've experienced only happens every once in a while, even if the men play it off like harmless flirtation, it's still too much. It's hard enough being the CEO of a startup and raising venture funding. It's that much harder when you have to navigate situations like this. This sexism pushes a lot of women to not even embark on the process.
This is a real shame, and there are ways we can prevent these seemingly innocuous occurrences from transforming into an industry-wide plague. Some men may not even realize they're doing it because they're so used to playing in a boys' club, but these occurrences are becoming all too common. Ed Zimmerman, a venture lawyer who founded the tech group at Lowenstein Sandler and who also founded First Growth, a startup incubator, has the right idea. He won't go to a dinner with at least 10 people that doesn't have at least multiple women present, and he also won't speak on a panel with at least four people that doesn't include at least one woman. I would also suggest that VCs make a point to have at least 15 percent female partners, decide that at least 30 percent of the companies they bring in for meetings will be female-founded, host female-founder events to meet more women who are starting their own companies, and do outreach at female-founder events even if they don't have a female partner to send.
While it's definitely a challenge being a female tech founder, it is also incredibly rewarding. Watching an idea that had been floating around in my head grow to more than 115,000 students on the platform in 10 months was surreal, and while I was determined to stick with it, I wish I didn't have to endure such uncomfortable moments to get there. I want to make sure that the industry that I love continues to evolve to create a space where women can thrive, instead of watching small blunders by a handful of men become the norm. If we allow a small number of people to get away with it, it sends a message that this type of behavior is acceptable and even more women may be dissuaded from turning their ideas into a reality.
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