Linda Rottenberg: Tell the Stories

Exactly. Alicia. I think trust is another big issue. I would tell the story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and people would look at me and say, how is this relevant to my life? I don't even have a garage. And I think that one of the things we've done is I mentioned wences but so many of our entrepreneurs are running family businesses. We have. One of my favorite entrepreneurs grew up in the slums of Rio. She was a cashier at McDonald's. Leila Velez and her sister in law Zika, you know, the story, was a hairdresser. And Leila got frustrated that there weren't products for curly haired Afro, Brazilian population. And she said, poor people deserve to feel beautiful too. And so she and Zika went to Layla's kitchen and concocted a potion. They tested it on their husbands. The husband's hair falls out, they go back to the sink. We meet them. They have a salon where there are six hour waits because these products were so desirable. And we said, they're onto something. We help them with franchise experts, we help them reconfigure their team and get access to capital. And people say, okay, that's a nice story of micro finance. We said, no, no, no, no, no. There's nothing micro about Layla and Valleison Naturale. It's now this last year generated more than $80 million in revenues. They imply more than 2,300 women. And Leila goes around saying, if I can do it, you can too. That is the most powerful message. And I think telling stories that aren't just in tech and that aren people in all industries really from all walks of life. The more stories we have that people can find relatable, the more people that are going to be starting something.