InvestHer Directory - FEMALE FOUNDERS Welcome Webinar

So welcome everybody, welcome to all the incredible female founders out there. I'm Anne Ravanona and I'm the founder and CEO of Global InvestHer, and today is an exciting day.

It's our launch party! Yay!

We are launching the InvestHer Directory and I'm so, so happy to have you here with us. I'm so, so happy. Amaka is saying that the sound goes in and out. Amaka, can you just check and see if there's a Wi-Fi issue on your end? Because that'd be cool. Yes, I'm so happy and proud for us to go live. So let me tell you a little bit more about InvestHer Directory. What is this? Why have we done it? And, you know, what's in it for you? Because that's what's important. That's why you're here, and I want to make sure that you get as much value as possible. So before I I start. I just want— so for those of you who don't know me, so I'm Anne Ravanona and I have set up Global InvestHer the past 8 years to help get more female founders funded. And this year during COVID I decided I wanted to take it one step further. So for the past 8 years, I've been building lots of products and services to help female founders. And this year I said, what would really make a difference? How could we help women entrepreneurs through COVID and beyond? And what we've always been helping you with is how to get access to investors, how to become investor-ready. And I decided, well, let's have a look. Is there a global directory out there of women-only businesses so that we can be found? And when I did my research, I found that there weren't that many. I mean, there wasn't any global database of female founders that is targeting consumers and investors, which is what we're doing. There were several databases out there in different parts of different countries or regions, but not a global one. And so I decided that we wanted to do something to help you get, get seen, get found. So I'm going to share my screen with you now to share a little bit more. And as a good Irish woman, I've got to take a sip of my cup of tea. This is part of the launch party, everybody. If you have a drink, have it there with me. And if you want, we can put on the videos if you'd like. I'd love to see you all. So hold on a second. I want to see if you want to, to share your screens and so on. That'd be absolutely cool. Show your, show your screen so that we can see each other. That'd be awesome. Let me just check. A proper cup. Yes, I have a proper cup. And look what it says— Wonder Women. Of course, of course, no better cup for us launching today. So With that in mind, let me just double-check here. Ashley says she doesn't think she can share hers. I'm going to see if I can— let's see, video— if I can let everybody— video settings, just make sure that everybody can. Yeah, okay, so okay, that should be working now. If you guys want to turn on your videos, for those who want to. If you don't, it's no problem, no, no, uh, obligation to do so. whatsoever. So let me just check. All right, can you all see the investor directory in front of you? Please type yes in the chat box so I can—

I know.

So thank you, Garima. So let me take you on a journey. I wanted for us all to be found, and so I decided that we needed to create one global database so that all female founders could be found. And so we're launching today. We've been live since July, since early July, but today we wanted to really make it loud and proud. And today we are launching with over 350 women-led businesses from over 30 countries and 75 sectors.

Yeehaw!

High five, high five! So this is absolutely incredible. I am so, so happy that, that you're all here. So let's take a look. I want to kind of explain to you what this is, and before I do that, I want to explain to you why we're doing this. So This investor directory is part of our overall commitment to getting 1 million women entrepreneurs funded by 2030, and this is what we call the 1 Million Investors Movement. So I created it this year because I decided we wanted to have a big, hairy, audacious goal and help get 1 million women entrepreneurs funded by 2030, in line with Sustainable Development Goal number 5 and number 13, for more gender equality and for equal economic empowerment. And why, why are we doing all of this? Why do we need to get more women entrepreneurs funded? Because today only 2.7% of venture funding goes to women entrepreneurs. 2.7%! And it has not changed over the past 30 years. So I've made a commitment, and early in March I met my friend. I must say I was very, very honored to be invited to a special lunch with President Macron to be able to discuss the Generation Equality Forum that was due to happen this year, and this happened just before COVID so it has to be postponed to next year. But at that meeting, I presented my ideas on women's economic empowerment, what we need to do— France, the G7, the world— to help increase funding to female founders. And so I decided to make— to propose this 1 Million Investors campaign to him and to the other people there, including Phumzile, who is the Secretary-General of United Nations Women. And we made some commitments at that, and at the commitments we, we said that we were going to launch the directory. And it's all part of this 1 Million InvestHERs. So what is an InvestHER? So at my TED Talk, which is me here in 2015 with my little Madonna mic, I shared on my TED Talk that an investor is somebody who invests their time, who puts their time, their money, their effort into something worthwhile for a positive result. That's the dictionary definition of an investor, an investor. And so I decided an InvestHER An investHER is someone who does that either as a woman entrepreneur to serve, you know, to serve a certain group of population with products or services, or it can be obviously an investor, so somebody who puts their money into that female founder, or partners such as accelerators, business schools, and all the rest of the ecosystem. So what I wanted to do is that we create this global movement of 1 million investHERs to get us all on board together to reach that goal of 1 million women entrepreneurs funded, because that's a big hairy goal. So the directory that we're launching today— yeehaw, this is here for you— is a very big step towards that. And I'm hoping that by the end of this webinar today, you will be excited, that you'll be interested, that you'll want to join us on this journey, you'll want to register. But before you do that, you need to understand a little bit more. Now, I do want to say, please do leave any questions you have in the chat box, because that's where I'm going to see them. You have absolutely got the opportunity to ask me any questions you want. So What is this directory? It is a directory, as I said, that is global, and it's all about getting you and your companies visible to both consumers, potential customers, whether it's a product or service you're selling, and/or investors. And that's what makes this different, because what I wanted to do was to make sure that people could find you. So during COVID a lot of businesses have had to go online, um, and not everybody was ready to do so. And I said, well, how have we got to help all those businesses You know, because already women were not accessing the same level of capital as before. And so I said, right, the best type of capital for any company is what? It's a paying customer. So if you can get more customers, you know, you won't need to raise as much money unless you are going into growth mode where, you know, external investment capital is going to be very helpful for you to make you go faster. So let's look at a little bit more detail. This directory, as I said, is all about closing that $1.7 trillion funding gap. It is ridiculous. We have to do something about it, and I want to be able to help us to reignite the global economy and, you know, help us to seize that $5 trillion opportunity that was estimated by Boston Consulting Group that women entrepreneurs— that us, we represent. Did you realize how much power we had? Did you? to actually tilt the global economy, and that was before COVID-19. So imagine now where everybody has more time and people could be more conscious as to what they are buying. Now is a great time for us to launch this directory with you. So this is where we kind of tailored this directory for the 3 different audiences. For you, first of all, the female founder, you are the change, you're building the change, and we want to help you become more visible. So in order to do that, we want to make sure that you can be seen. We want consumers to be able to find you, and we want investors to be able to find you. So the consumers have to buy the change, and guess what? The investors have to fund the change. And we have one wonderful investor, Julianne, who's online live with us at the moment, and she's going to be part of our investor webinar coming up just afterwards because we're going to do a separate briefing for investors as to what they can get out of this. Thank you, Julianne, for being with us. So I've talked to you about the 1 Million InvestHERs, but what's important is anything that you buy— if you become a member of the investor directory and the community, and I'll explain that to you in a little bit more detail in a few minutes— anything that you buy with Global InvestHER, 10% of what you spend with us automatically goes back into the InvestHER fund. So that's money that you're investing in yourself and in other female founders immediately. That's why we're all investors. So 10% of anything you buy from Global Investor, whether it is investing in yourself through putting your company on the directory, through going through our learning programs on Investor Academy, through just being a member on the, on the community, um, whatever it is that you decide to do and engage with us, 10% of what you spend what you invest goes to help other women entrepreneurs. Isn't that brilliant? I mean, I think that is really different. That is the circular economy. What do you think about that? Smile, smile, says Julianne. It's nice, says everybody. And I think that's super important. So let's have a look inside this directory. How is it different? So today, on this version that is live today, we have, as I said, 350 companies from 30 countries and 75 sectors. And that means there's at least over 380 women entrepreneurs who are live on that directory with us today, and there's some of you live. So Rebecca's asking, she's not seeing where to turn on the video. Don't worry about turning on your video, guys. I think I may not have put that on as an option in the end, so sorry for confusing you. So what's What's, what's important for you to know is that we're a team of women who have built this for you. So there's myself, also Tracy Thompson, who is fantastic. She worked really, really hard. She's now doing her MBA at Harvard University in the States. Hi Tracy, and thank you so much for all the hard work you've put into making this directory go live. And I want a big shout out as well to Madeleine Persson. So Madeleine is our directory lead. She's been in the, in the trenches with me as well, making sure that we have everything up and running for our launch today. So thank you so much, Madeleine, and you'll be interacting with Madeleine when you join the directory and the community, so you'll see her inside there. So the whole point of this is to help consumers and investors and you to find the products and services you need by women entrepreneurs. So what's super important is that you, the woman entrepreneur, you're going to be able to show your customers Special offers, so things that you are doing that are just now specific to COVID, you can actually get that in front of your potential customers right now through the directory. Also, let's have a look. I want to show you inside. Are you ready to come with me? I want you to type yes, type yes. I want to see how excited you are because this is the launch party, so I want to see some excitement coming in the chat box because I can only see you in the chat box. So yes, it's Karima. Okay, so what's cool is, as I explained to you, this directory has loads of sectors and so on. So look, we have already— you see this button, Search Directory? Now you can just click on that and start searching, and I'm going to show you how to do that and how consumers can do it. But we've made it easier for everybody. So the first thing is you can search by sectors. So that means that consumers can find you by sectors and investors can find you by sectors. So you can see enterprise, health tech, med tech. There's no pink sectors. It's not only, as I say, retail or cosmetics. Which are very vital and huge contributors to our global economy. And it's important for us to have tech, and I wanted to make sure that we showed a lot of other sectors. So when you click on any of these sectors, you will get the results of female founders, their companies in their sector. So I've just clicked the health tech, medtech. So we're going to see—

woohoo, look at all of them!

So I know Medsaf is, uh, one of our, one of our fantastic female founders from Nigeria, and she's, she's absolutely brilliant. So that's, uh, Vivian Namaka, and Vivian This is— I want to show you inside so you can see what it is that your customers are going to see and what investors are going to see. So let's look inside. This is what somebody can see about you. Now, if you think about the old postal directories, remember those big thick directories, the original directories, those big yokes that we put stuff on and use as shelves or sit on in the olden days, if you're old enough to remember? Well, The difference is in those directories all you had was the company name, their address, their telephone number, and nowadays when you go online most directories just have the name, the website, maybe the sector and the contact details. But this directory is different because we give the consumers, your potential customers, whether they are B2B or B2C, and investors a lot more information. So we break down and do the homework for them so they can find you. So for example, let's look at MedSavvy. You find you have her name, you find out what she does, and when you fill in the directory, we would really consider that you have to— of course my phone decides to ring, sorry, it's now on airplane mode. That's how you know we're live. So when you fill it in, you have to fill in the What We Do section so that companies and prospective customers and investors know about you. And what I suggest is when you fill this in, you wouldn't be using that super marketing language that you've already, you know, the copy you were sweating over to put on your website or your customer emails, use that good copy in here the same way you use it in pitch information. So share about what you do, you can have a photo, you can choose to showcase a photo of your product, your brand, your screenshot of your homepage, which I see a lot of companies doing and that we've done a lot of, the name, and then we start to go into more detail. So we give the founder LinkedIn, which is very important for both consumers because they could see, oh, they can actually look at your professional experience. They could see this is a real female founder, okay? It's not just somebody who's pretending to be one. And for investors, that's important. It's part of their research to, to look at your background and to make sure that you're, um, you know, you, you are who you say you are. So we have the categories. So we would always suggest that you choose a minimum of 3 different categories because that's what investors and consumers are going to look for you for through, you know, here in this case she's a SaaS company, she's in enterprise software, healthcare, and then with the tag words, the keywords, you can go down into an extra level of detail. So in this case she is, it's more specific to healthcare, pharma, medicine, quality control, supply chain, so that's kind of stuff that's not necessarily in the category. So you have the website, we see the type of business, it's a product, we say it's a product or service, and then here for all your consumers you can see all the social media. So they don't have to go looking on your website. Where do they find it? It's all they do is click. These are live links. They can go straight to find it. They can find out the city you are in, your region, and then we get to the special offer section. So the special offer is where you can share something that you're— maybe a special promotion you're doing now, whether you have collections of products that change through seasons, or you're launching a new product. This is the place for you to put that special offer in. Some companies have special offers with regard to COVID where they're changing their products and services for a COVID offering. So that's where you can put that in here too. And then sometimes you want to showcase that you're helping a nonprofit, so that's where you could put that in. So you share your special offers so the consumer can find it. Oh, okay, this is where I can check my special offer or get my coupon code. Here you can fit key company products or video, so you can put in your video, you can put in, or a key link that's going to help people learn more about you. And then your consult— your customers, they can support you already. Do you remember what we said earlier on? An investher is somebody who can give you their support, who can mentor you, who could promote you. So she can— so your consumer, he or she, can already support you by liking your Facebook page, by liking your Instagram, by following you, by signing up for your demo. They don't even have to spend money, but they can already support you with, with that type of support. And I think that's really cool because you can already engage your friends and family who may, may not be the target audience for your product or service, but you want them to feel part of your success and part of boosting you forward. Well, they can share, and then you can tell them, this is how I want you to support me. So this is where Vivian has said these are things that will help support her. Then Promoter is where you can share the shop pages, you can share just specific parts that you want people to use to promote you. So in this case, Vivian wanted to share her shop page because you can find real medicine in Nigeria thanks to what they have done by curating and finding real medicine in Nigeria. That's a really big problem over there with a lot of fake medicine. And then Booster— what can you do to really boost my company? So if this is you filling it in, you'd say, right, Here's where you buy from me, right? That's in the Buy from Her. Here's what I want you— you can promote me by doing this. And if you want to really boost me, well, this is how you could do. So in this part, this is where, for example, if you are looking for to hire people, you can put in the links to your job ads. If you are looking for distribution partners, that's where you put it in. If you have affiliate links, that's where you put it in. So that's the type of information that you can do. So you see, with This directory, it goes way beyond what you would normally get on a normal directory. You can actually give a really rounded picture of your business, of your service, to your potential consumers and to investors, and then they can see that your company has been so many years in business. So here we can see 3 to 5 years in business. So that's what a consumer will see. So if we go then, an investor— so I want to pause there. What do you think so far? Put some types of comments in there. I'll give you time to breathe, and I'm going to take a drink of my cup of tea. So what do you think so far? Let me know in the comments because I want to hear from you. Excellent, love it, amazing, it's great, excellent, oh, that's so wonderful. This looks exciting, it looks great, says Jill. Fantastic. I'm really, really excited because we've done it for you, we've done it with a lot of love for you to help you get your companies, make them more visible. Now, motivational, says Himabindu. Oh, that's nice to hear, Himabindu, thank you. So, as I said, this is what the consumer can see, or whether they are B2B or B2C or D2C. Now, what will investors see? So they're going to see this information, but I'm going to take you— whoops— all the way up to the top, and let's look at Medsafe here. So this is the behind the scenes, and what investors are going to see, which is a bit different, is they're going to actually So we'll know that for this particular company, there's a bridge round. These are the different sources of funding that they have done. The revenue, or the amount raised— I haven't put it in here just for confidentiality reasons— the number of founders, the year founded, and the number of employees. So this is the type of information that's important to investors because they need to see what stage you're at, what level of funding you've already raised, how much you're looking to raise, and what the which valuation is. sources of funding, how many employees you have, so how big is your company, so that they can gauge whether you're interesting and you meet their investment thesis. Isn't that right, Julianne? What do you think? I'm going to revert over to Julianne, who's our VC, who's actually on the live call with us. This is the information that you need. And so that you know, for the investors who, who sign up to the directory, what they do is they get this information, and we have actually gone and do the homework for you. We've gone looking on Crunchbase, on the PitchBook, we've gone to to find out all the latest information from everybody. Julianne is saying, what you have created here is brilliant. Oh, thank you, Julianne, that's really great to hear. And that's a VC telling you live, okay? So she, she would be looking at this live. So let's get back to, to the directory. So now you can see this is the journey that a customer will take to find you. And as I said, to make it easier, they will be able to see search the entire directory. If they want to search, all they need to do is click Search Directory. It brings you to the whole directory here on Airtable. And you don't need to be a whiz. Literally, you need just to filter. So you can filter, add a filter and say, well, I want to look for a sector. Let's be— let's look at our category. And it has anything here. Let's see somebody in agriculture. And let's say we want to do something in a— we're looking for a region. So we're looking for Maybe I am a B2B, um, maybe not country but region. Let's keep it more, let's say somebody in Europe. So we want to look for agriculture or agtech companies. And so these are the agtech companies in Europe founded by female funders, founders. Isn't that cool? So, so this is— oh, thank you, Kasiwa. She's saying well done here. She's saying well done. I'm sorry if I am getting your name wrong. So, so this is a very simple way for your customers to filter. As you can see, it's super easy, and I like the way it's, it's laid out so they can see your products. You see, if we scroll down, they can see very quickly. We even have Global Investor in here, and it literally— look here— Athens, Paris, New York, Boston. You see, I wasn't lying to you when I said it was global. Look, category: health tech, fashion, retail, healthcare. See, so It's super exciting. This, this has something for everybody. And so when people are searching the directory, they can search by sectors. So that could be useful for both your B2B customers and your consumers, also for investors. Again, so here they have 3 sectors, but then we've broken it down into more sectors. Just, we want to make it as easy as possible for people to find you. So in this one, we have other tech sectors. So you have AI, you know, industry, manufacturing, fintech, consumer products. Services, retail, fintech, marketing, business services, healthcare, wellness, family services. So we've tried to make it as easy as possible. So Amy is asking, will you show us how we can make edits to our listing? Yes, Amy, I will show you how to make edits. The easiest thing at the moment, if you want— when you want to make edits to your listing, is you just need to contact us in the community, because when you, when you become part of the directory, you become part of the community. So you just send message to Anne or to Madeleine and we'll make the change for you. At the moment you can't make it directly once you've done it first, but that will be coming very soon. That's a feature coming soon. Does it work on mobile? Absolutely, Himabindu. So this is what's beautiful about this. This is completely responsive. It works on mobile. If you go to— let me— I'm going to grab the link here, thedirectory.com. It is a web app, so it works across mobile, It works on, um, uh, it works on mobile, it works on your iPad, it works on your phone, which is very important of course for those countries and customers who may not have super smartphones. At least they'll have links to the directory. And Airtable is, is a great tool that's easy. So even look, if I do this, see, I can't make it any smaller than this, but just here. But it does have a version for your phone that is even smaller. I'm going to show to you on my Phone so you can see it live. Um, himabindu, one second. So you're going to see this is where it's live. Hold on a second. Enjoy this so far, everybody?

Let me know.

So hold on a second. Let me get this for you.

Now, directory.

Here we go. There you go. See, there is the directory.

There it is.

You can see it. And let's hold on. I want to make sure that if we click on it— so I've just clicked on Search Directory. I'm going to say Open in a New Tab.

And there you go.

So there is Metzav. If you can see it okay, there is Metzav. That is on mobile, so you can see the whole entry as I showed you. So there we go. Fantastic. Okay, so that's strange. She's just signed up for mobile, said the link to activate it said it would only work on a desktop. That's very strange. Thank you for that feedback, Hiba Bindu. That's weird because it should work on the mobile. Um, I will, I will. I don't know what, what device are you using? Is it, is it a It might be something to do with the, um, the browser. It should work on all browsers, but if you want to check that on— that's strange. I think, um, message me afterwards. Uh, Himebindu, if you could take a screenshot of the message you're getting, that will help me. I'm going to give you my email here, and if anybody have an issue, just to show you we're very responsive to you here. It's good to hear. If there's some issues, we can solve them right Now, so thanks for letting me know, Himavindu. That's very strange because you should be working. Um, it works on my phone as you can see live, so I don't know what's happening there. But again, you can search by geography. So remember, we started off by looking by sector. Now let's take your customers on a journey by geography so they think they can find you by the region immediately. So that's easy, they don't have to go searching in it. We've done that. So you can see like Oceania, let's look Look at all the companies here. So this is going to be from Australia, from that part of the world. Look, all the companies that are there from Oceania.

Boom, boom, boom.

So, and this is growing on a daily basis. So every day Madeleine and myself are curating and adding more amazing female founders to this list, and more of you are joining on a daily basis. So please do come. I don't know One plus Simabindu. That's a new browser to me, so I'm not too sure. That might be something. That's your reason why it's not working. If you could just try and use Chrome or Safari or Firefox, one of the other ones. It's on the phone. I don't know. Maybe if you can check it on a desktop, but on different phone with a different one. Browser is Chrome. That's really weird. Okay, because I want to show you. Here we are. Here, let's go to Chrome, and I want to click on here. And here we go, there it is, you see? So it's on Chrome here, so it's coming up okay. Yes, I'm on a— I'm on a browser here, you're right. So sorry, desktop, but it's working on Chrome for me. So hmm, that's, that's an interesting one. Don't know about that. Uh, quite interesting. Oh, you're giving me food for thought there.

Let me go back.

So, how does one join the directory? I'm going to cut to that right now. Um, I just want to show you here the other types of diversity as well, because both consumers who are conscious consumers, they want to support you, and particularly female founders or founders who identify as female and as women from different categories and different types of diversity. So again, we want to make it as easy as possible. So what's important is when you are filling in the form to sign up, there is a question with regard to affinity, and you can put in your affinity. So if you are part of these groups and you want people to be able to find you because you identify as one of these types of diversity, fill it in. You don't have to if you don't, so that's completely optional, just so you know. And then for investors to find you, this is search by funding stage. Okay, so I'm going to come to your question now, Garima. How do you get in? I'm glad you asked. So all you do on the Investor Directory website is go to the Founder section. That is for you. So here we say it's your turn to be found. We show you, check out the directory. We've already checked it out. And so we explain why should you list your company. And you're not going to have to take my word for it now. I want Jessica and Amaka to stand on the ready because they are on us, on with us live, and they are 2 members of Investor Community who are also on the directory. And I want them to share their stories with you as to why they've gone on to the directory and why they're part of the community. So why should you list your company? Because you want to be found by other consumers, investors, but also by other female founders. You could actually collaborate with other female founders, partner with them. You know, let's grow, let's grow our community and leverage our power. So what you do is you need to come here to the founder page, and how to join the the directory. It's very simple. Step 1, Garima, is you choose your plan. You're going to see there's 3 different plans. They are subscription plans, and we've done it on purpose, and it's a month-to-month basis, so it makes it easy on your cash flow. We want you to be able to do this. And remember that these plans are— you're investing in yourself when you are investing and putting your company on the directory, because you not only get part— become part of the directory, you also become part of our community. And I'm going to show you that in a minute, but let's get stick to the 1-2-3, which is first you choose your plan. And I want to remind you that when you purchase a subscription to the directory, you can automatically deduct it as a business expense because this is like marketing, okay? So it's not something you have to pay out of your pocket, so that's important. So then number 2, you submit your listing, and submitting your listing is very simple. It's a Typeform, so it's just very easy to fill in, and I'm going to show it to you now. And then step number 3 is share your link. Once your live on the directory, you want to share it, share the directory to other people. So let's show you how to do this. So first of all, you choose your plan. So here is our special launch offers that we are going live today. So this is for you ladies because this is the founding member rates. Now I want you to be able to know too that you can benefit from these rates until the 1st of October. These prices are going up on the 1st of October, so this is never going to be this low again. And as you can see, we have made it as cost-effective as possible. So the starter membership starts at $29.99 a month, $299.99 annually. So that gives you a 17% discount across all of them. If you pay for the annual one, you get a nicer discount. And so what you get is you list your company on the directory, and you're— so in the starter plan, let's start here, you list yourself on the directory, but you're also part of the community. So let me show you what is the community. So this is the community. Investor Community is the place— not only do you list your company on the directory, but you also become part of our global community. And we already have hundreds of members from over 30 countries who are, you know, supporting each other, you know, helping out each other. And here in the directory, you can see there's a whole welcome section that welcomes you to come in. You can see all the members and the different topics. So this This community is to help you connect with other female founders from around the world and learn about funding, just to help you get ready for funding if that's what you want to do. So if you want to be able to do it, you can see live here, that's us. Events are live now, so that's, that's us. We are live now. Let's look at the topics. So here in the topics, you learn all about things. You can meet the members, and we have a weekly members chat every Wednesday. We have a members chat where you get to meet the other members and We actually help each other. So, you know, one member will, will tell us, you know, what's her challenge for the week, and then all the rest of us, we will pitch in and give her some help and some contacts and guidance. So that's what happens on the Meet the Members, and not just have a chit-chat. We actually hold each other accountable and help each other. And if you miss— I'll just show you here— if you miss a Meet the Members, you don't need to worry because we actually So we have video replays, we have them on video and also as audio recording. So it's like a podcast, you can listen in and actually catch up on your commute. Okay, so this is part of the community that you become part of. And the topics that we have here, you can have, you know, how to get ready for funding, your key tips, apply for competitions, accelerators, where to find funding. So all new sources of funding, investor insights. which is, you know, insights from investors from behind the other side of the story. And then podcasts. So I'm—

we're—

I just got to click on podcasts there because our latest podcast we shared was with Julianne Zimmerman, who is live on this webinar with us. So she and her partner Ed Duggar III did a fantastic podcast about reinventure capital because they invest in Black and diverse founders at a growth stage, a break-even stage in the US, and they're doing phenomenal, phenomenal work there. So you can find out about your podcast. So all your stuff— there's groups, there's sectors— so you can actually go in and check, oh, okay, who else is in my industry? I can see the members, I can say hi to them. And very simply, you can just click on anybody. There's Catherine. I can click on her and say hi. So this is a super part of being part of the directory, you also become part of the community. So what do you think about that? I want to pause there if there's any questions so far, as I have my cup of my Wonder Woman tea. So as you can see, the starter plan is listing and the Jill is saying it's a great community. Thank you, Jill. Jill is one of our members. Amy says she's drinking coffee, and I'm glad. You see, I'm not the only one. We need to have our, our sisters to keep going. So that's the Starter Plan, and in that you just, you get onto the directory, you get into the, to the community, and you know, you're going to get curated information so you don't have to go spending time looking for that funding information. We do it for you. Then the Grow Her Plan is for those of you who's in a growth stage and you really want to focus on getting new customers. That's primarily what you want. You're not necessarily on the investing stage yet, but you definitely want to get more customers. So that's where the GrowHer plan is interesting for you. So you list your company on the directory, you become part of the community, so you list and connect, and then promote. So what we do there is we're going to have monthly promotion of your products and services. So you're going to benefit from the global InvestHer network of, of, um, social media. We've over 35,000 followers across the different social media, um, and the people who follow us are female founders and investors and consumers. So we're going to push you out, we'll push out information about your products and services to your potential customers, whether they are B2B or B2C. And how we'll do that, it'll be on our social media, but also we'll be doing founder showcases, a webinar for the general public twice a month. So that's where we're going to connect with our partners to spread the word, to connect with the media, to get the eyes onto your company. And at the Founder Showcases, we will be showcasing some founders. And I want to hint to Amaka and Jessica to get ready because I want to be coming over to you guys in a minute. So just giving them a little heads up that we're going to be moving to them in a minute because you're going to hear from them live, which is very cool. And then The other thing is the last type of membership is the FundHer. So the FundHer membership is for those of you who are actively on the funding trail or you're just about to do it. You're ready to start going for funding, you are already identifying investors, and you want to be seen and spotted by investors. Now what we do is we expose you to investors. We do not promise you the connections. We expose you to them. It's up to those investors to reach out to you, and I want to manage your expectations very carefully. But the good thing is that the The investors who join us and who connect with us are those who actually care about, you know, funding female founders and who want to fund diversity. So we have been working on our connections in the funding ecosystem for the past 8 years. So we know hundreds of investors from around the world. And so we are engaging with them in the best possible way in order to be able to connect them with you. And so how will we do that? So again, for this FundHer pack, you will be on the directory, you're on the community, and then you can pitch to get funded. And this is what's different: there will be office hours with investors on a regular basis. You will have access to our our absolutely exclusive hub. It's called the Roadmap to Funding. We have a special hub of exclusive interviews with investors where we've done the homework for. We've actually interviewed them and asked them what they're looking for, how to approach them. what to do, what not to do. Plus, you also will have the real funding journeys of other successful female founders. How about that? Wouldn't you love that? It would be amazing to find out and learn from the other female founders. Are they angel investors or VCs? They are both. They're all types of investors, all types of funders, Amy. So you would have angel investors, you will have VCs, you will have crowdfunding companies. You'll have other partners in this ecosystem. Sometimes you have corporates who've got special, uh, programs to help female founders, and we're partnering with them to get them to you. Uh, and so we'll be organizing quarterly pitch competitions, so they'll be specific to our investors, where a certain number of you who are ready will get to pitch. So that is the FundHer membership. So if you have any questions about any of those because I don't want to stay on this forever. I want to hand over to our fabulous members to share their experience of the directory and the community so that you understand what you can get and the benefits you can get, if you're on for that. So I'm going to find— let me just find And I find Amaka. So Amaka, I'm going to make you a— let's see, can I make you a panelist? That's in the chat, but I want to hear Bear with me and, and have your questions ready. So hold on a second.

There we are.

Just trying to see now where So, Amaka, I want— I'm going to stop sharing here, and I want to be able to— I think that's why I'm not looking at the right section. Here we go. I need to find you here.

I know where I am.

Hold on a second. Here we are. Okay, so, Amaka, I've promoted you to a panelist.

Thank you.

So you'll be able to talk. And I also— there she is, her picture is arriving. And Jessica, I'm also going to promote you to panelists, so we're going to hear from both of them. So I'd love to kick off— one second, because I can now hear the sound changing. Let's see. Let me see.

Here we are.

I bet you're gonna hear me better now. It looks like better now.

Okay.

Yes, yes. And I had to hop on my phone because I had issues with Wi-Fi on my computer.

So, ah, aren't you looking beautiful, Amaka? Hi, thank you. Thank you.

Congratulations.

I'm so excited and proud of Oh, thank you, and I am so excited and proud of you too, and Jessica, because you're 2 fabulous members with very different companies and very different offers and services. So we would love— I would love, first of all, to invite our other female founders, get your questions ready in the chat box. Okay, I'm going to hand over first to Amaka. Amaka, I'm going to hand over to you, so please, if you want to share your screen, just let me know because I will just— I'm going to make sure I give you guys Well, not me. I need to give them— I don't want to share my screen. That's not what I want to do. I'm being silly billy here. What am I doing? Stop share. That's not what I want.

I think I probably don't have the ability to share.

Let's look at the rights. Share screen. Who can start? Here we go. All panelists. There we go.

Okay, there we go.

You should be able to share your screen. So tell us about you and tell us about MK Curvy.

Okay, one second. Am I sharing now? I'm not sure.

Not yet.

Okay.

Yes, it's coming now.

Okay, great.

Okay, and I'll just go to my email and pull this up.

Thanks for doing it, especially if you're doing it on your phone, you're awesome.

Yeah, I had to switch out, I had to switch out to make sure everybody could hear me. So should I go ahead, Anne?

Please go ahead. So everybody, you're going to hear now from Emaka, and make sure you have your questions ready, just type them into the chat box. Go ahead, Emaka, tell us about yourself, your company first.

All right, great, thank you so much, Anne. Congratulations, I'm really happy to Speak to this directory. My name is Wamakagwakoba, and I'm the founder and chief creative director for MK Curvy. And as you see, this is our logo. The website is www.mkkurvy.com. Our tagline is love your curves in the clothes that you wear. And I am trying— let me go on to the next. Sorry, one second. Okay, there we go. Sorry, I'm doing this on my phone.

Take your time, take your time, Namaka. It's all good. This is, this is what real entrepreneurship is, right? Isn't it, ladies? We know this.

Right, okay, okay, there we go.

There we are.

Company background. So we were founded in 2016. It was a very difficult period of my life. Really sick. I was given about 3 months for my lungs to take me out. Wasn't sure I would make it. But honestly, MK Curvy is one of the things that saved my life. And I have a background in development. I had gone to Nigeria to work a couple of years before. And I had— I met a number of very wonderful artisans who are women who I would design clothes and give to them to make my clothes. Moved back to Canada a couple of years later, and my friends would always ask me, where did you get your clothes made? We would love something like yours. And so when I had to stop everything that I was doing and just found myself staring at the ceilings, you know, most of the time because I was out sick, I started to go back to friends and say, okay, I could do this for you, I could do that for you. And that's how MK Curvy was born. So because it was a very difficult period of my life, I didn't incorporate the business for a while, just essentially tested for a couple of years, and MK Curvy was incorporated in 2019. We're incorporated in Nigeria and the USA. MK Curvy is a plus-size clothing line. Our ready-to-wear pieces go from size 10 to size 22, but we do not want to exclude exclude anyone, and we typically will do the other sizes as a made-to-order, and that's until we reach a critical mass where we can carry a lot more of the extended sizes. We're founded on the premise of self-love. Again, I had mentioned that it was a time I was going through quite a bit, and so throwing on my colorful pieces that would make me look fabulous and sort of give me the incentive to make myself up and show up and show out, you know, regardless of whatever else was going on in my life. It was essentially part of, you know, the foundation block of the business. And we always seek to encourage women, regardless of where you're at in your career, what it is that you're doing, to make sure that you take care of yourself first. And one of the ways that we feel that you can do that is by finding your own style, And just, you know, showing up with a little bit of color, even if it's black that you throw on, if it's a piece of scarf or just the colorful piece of, you know, like a brooch that you throw on, you essentially just add a little extra something to what you're wearing. We have a very social impact piece to our business. And so our pieces are currently produced— our pieces are produced in Africa, currently Nigeria. With a focus on expansion to Ghana and possibly Rwanda. Our supply chain is predominantly women-owned enterprises because we do believe that when you put funds in the hand of a woman, it goes so much further. And this is something that's proven. There's literature that speaks to this. When a woman has a dollar, it goes so much further than when it's in a man's hands. And that's not bashing men at all. A woman will think about healthcare, she will think about school for her kids, etc., etc. And so that's what our business is essentially built on, to serve women, to make women look beautiful, but to funnel that business through women-owned enterprises as a key part of our business. And we also would love to export the culture and the artisanship in Africa through fashion. So that's a very key part of what we're doing.

Amazing.

Can everybody give her a big clap while she's— I know you're changing the slide, so can everybody just say amazing because it's beautiful. Cosima was saying that they love your logo, says it's a lovely logo. And Aisling was saying exactly, imagine what we could do with 50% of VC money. And Jill is going big clap to you as well. Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

So, I'm going to quickly move into why the InvestHer Directory. It's a global platform that provides visibility to my mission. I do think that our missions are actually— it's a different offering that I have from what Anne is building. But I think there's a real alignment of our visions because it's really focused on putting the power and the funds in women's hands, which is something that my business believes in. And we're also working towards. And I can't talk enough— this is probably the second time that I've spoken in a gathering about Global Investor. I can't speak enough about the amazing network of female founders. The network essentially has women who are, you know, on the funding side, women who are still in concept stage with just an idea, to women who, you know, have already passed the pre-seed stage, and, you know, they've built something a little bit more tangible. So there's something for everyone within the network. And if it's your product that you're looking to refine, if you're looking to refine your ideas, and the women within the network are so good about thinking about your concept, thinking about what you're doing, and just figuring out pieces that could help you. It's like, oh, I know this person, perhaps you could connect with her and see what's going on with her. I also love how real this network is because there's no such thing as a stupid question, or there's no such thing about hiding the road that you've been on, because success looks, you know, success sounds very amazing, but oftentimes you don't hear the stories that, you know, led to that path of success. And what I love about this network of women is that we talk about what, what went on 5 years ago, the road to what has led to the success now, what we could have done different, what we should be doing different. And I've seen over the past few months that I've been within the Global InvestHer community, I've seen so much growth. I've gotten so much ideas. I've gotten, you know, just so many things that have helped me to refine the way that I you know, my worldview, the way that I view things, and it's such a diverse group. There's people in Asia, there's people in the UK, Anne is in France. I know that there's someone on here who's from India, there's people in Nigeria. I'm in the US, and there's, you know, just so much diversity going on within the group that it helps to learn and to know what's out there. And I also need to talk about the amazing events that are typically posted within the group. There's things that speak to branding, there's things that speak to just breaking down the language of seeking funding, etc., etc. So I think it's, it's just an amazing difference, a vast difference as well from other directories where, you know, you're plugged in and you kind of still need to fight for visibility within that. There's so much more support that comes with the investor directory. So I would encourage everybody to join this directory, and not only join, but make sure that, you know, you remain active within the group, because you become a part of a vast network of female founders. So speak up if you have a product offering. I know Anne is always saying, you know what, when there's a new collection on your website, talk about it. You know, she's constantly asking, you know, asking about your win for the week.

Yeah.

It could be something as little as, I just finished a collection, it just shipped this past weekend, I did a photo shoot. It's something that, you know, Anne would encourage us to share within the larger group, and then when it's up on my website, come back again, talk about it. So I would encourage you to do the same thing if you do decide to join it. And lastly, you know, just wanted to end with a quote. A girl should be 2 things: Classy and fabulous. That's from Coco Chanel. So I think that the days of sort of being trapped in the idea that you do need to kind of be like what other men, you know, men who are typically who you find in the corridors of power should look like, I think those days are over. You can carve your own niche. You can decide what you want to look like and, you know, Just find your own style. That's pretty much it for me. Thank you.

Oh my gosh, can everybody give a huge round of applause to Amaka because that was just beautiful. And let us see you. Can you show us your collections? Because I'm not too sure if you even want to show your Instagram so that people can see your beautiful clothes. Because I'm— every time I look, I'm like, I'm following you and I'm like, oh my God, that's beautiful, that's beautiful. That's just like— it's drawing joy. It's still streaming. Sorry, it's still sharing.

Yes.

All right.

Okay.

So I am trying to go—

let's see.

There we go.

Okay.

All right. So, okay, so zoom in on some of the photos so we can see.

All right. So, oh wow, pieces that look beautiful.

So beautiful.

So we have, we have so many different pieces. We have pieces that you can wear to work.

Stunning!

Thank you so much. We have pieces that you can wear on a daily basis. You know, it could be to a party, it could be to an evening event. We have skirts, we have tops, and you know, we just try to do a little bit extra. And our pieces are unique as well. You typically will not find it on another website. So We just have things for all different occasions. That's me and my son, and that's a jogger. Is it Kim C?

Yes.

You're gorgeous.

This is another piece. Thank you so much.

This is another piece.

So we also dress people for events. You know, it's all different things that we do, but it's all with the notion that every woman, your curves are beautiful. Flaunt them.

Don't hide them. Yeah.

You might be on your way to a size, you know, 0, and you— like, I fluctuated anywhere from a size 10 to a size 22. So at every given point, it's just, you know, show up as yourself, show out, be beautiful, and just love yourself.

Oh my gosh, what beautiful— let's see you now, Amaka, because I just want to say huge thank you. Isn't she stupendous, everybody? I mean, there's no other word for it. And if we— I really— if you want to stop sharing your screen now, you can, Amaka, just for there. But I do want to see your video. There we go. Um, I mean, look, look how beautiful she is inside and out, and she has the biggest heart. You have the biggest heart, Amaka. Thank you so much for sharing and showing what you do, and with heart. And I love the way you say that even though, like, we are aligned in mission, even though we do it very differently, we are about empowering women and getting money in and, you know, economic power to those women. And I mean, did you see those beautiful designs, everybody? If you are looking for, you know, formal wear for— and if you've got any friends who— and as you heard, she does every size from 10 upwards. So, you know, there's something for everybody. There's no excuse. And you will have A garment for a lifetime. You know, I'm just waiting, Mecca, for the time that we meet, and I will want to choose live with you because my daughter— so my daughter is studying fashion design, she's starting this year, and I mean, she loves print. And I mean, I was showing her your stuff and she's like, oh my God. So I'll probably have to bring her with me for a girly shopping spree at MK Curvy.

Yes, please.

She's going to be on the smaller side, but I'm on more of a normal size. And so yeah, But thank you so much, Amaka. What do you think, everybody? Isn't she incredible? Jill is saying, well done. Amy says, wonderful, self-love is so important. Absolutely. And if you have any more things to share, please do. So on that, thank you so much, Amaka. And I want to— inspiring, says Amy. And I'd love to hand it over to Jessica who's been waiting in the wings. Julianne says, beautiful. There you go, Amaka. It's all— I hope you feel the love because the love is coming your way. Thank you, I do.

I I really do. Thank you.

Hi, Jessica.

Hi. Hi.

So I'm going to keep it a little bit short, but my story is a little bit different than Namaka because I came into Investor having zero expectations. I honestly went in and I had no idea what this places. I had not done my research. I literally came in, it's like, oh great, it looks like a support network for women, let me join in. And that was like the main reason why I was in. And then as things started progressing in my business and I started looking for partnerships, I started thinking, oh, like, where can I find partnerships And I put on, you know, on the, on one of the groups that we have on the community is like, hey, I'm looking for partnerships, particularly property management partnerships, because my business is a tech system. So we facilitate address management. So whenever a person moves from point A to point B, we allow the user to update their address across all of our accounts. That way they don't have to do it one by one. It's not cumbersome. You're not leaving like a paper trail behind. And the environmental impact is real. I have all of these mail posts from a person that does not live here anymore. And I had, you know, met to solve a problem. And that is my entrepreneurship journey. So it's like, how can we best solve this problem? And the more that the business now is getting more attention, we're getting users. I was like, all right, it seems like we are in a good place to start getting partnerships. And I posted, like, do you know, like, can we, you know, is there anybody that can help me connect with property management companies? And Anne, like, very kindly came up. And I think like a couple people came up. And they started opening my vision. So like, here I am thinking my business, because it's about moving and relocation and admin management, requires a certain amount of partnerships for this track, for the property track. And then I start finding out, like, hold on a second, this is a really good opportunity. And this is via suggestions. This is a really good opportunity for you to connect with perks networks or benefits networks. Have you thought about employment relocation from corporates? Have you thought about like agencies and relocation agents? And there were like all of the suggestions that I had not even come like, you know, physically come across on. It was more about like my single-mindedness into this direction. And now I'm able to connect with other people from the directory that Anne shared like earlier today. And it's all great people that I am starting to solidify like partnerships with. But beforehand, there was like that thinking was not there. So I think it's like the more that I shared and the more I came to these sessions as well. So on the Wednesday calls and the more I got involved into the community, I started to see when you give in, the community gives back to you. I was for some time, I was in the sidelines, just not really communicating. I was very much taking, you know, a mention or like hearing what's going on. And now it's really opening the world for me and for my business. So I'll share a little bit of what I found. And there's a beautiful quote that came from one of our conversations, which was, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness. And this is something also that I heard from one of the conversations that I had an investor. But my product as a whole is a management tool to take care of admin whenever a person migrates. And my immediate thinking was like, there must be a way of like how we can go, you know, like solidify the way to go to market. And these conversations are amazing. Like the opportunities, the amount of opportunities are huge. So I basically redesigned the partnerships page. This is the conversation that we had. And I put like some facts and then I started like putting like different companies, things that I could partner with because those were not there before. And these all came from investors. So like it comes from a place where I feel like I can make an impact and my business can make an impact in different places as opposed to be like only in one place. I would say even if you come in with like the lowest expectations or you don't know what you're gonna get from it. It's all about the engagement. So as long as you engage and you're able to participate and share and you're open about sharing what you're working on, people will come in and provide you with some feedback that will be valuable, that will give you a better eyesight as to where you can go to next. And it doesn't matter if your question is concrete or not. The important thing is to ask the question. So that's me.

I love it. Congratulations, Jessica. Thank you so much for sharing. Tell— I want to hear from everybody what they're saying, like what they're saying in the chat. Great to hear this. Jill is saying, great to hear investors can network too. Type in the chat box too, Jessica, what you thought about her experience. What I love is how both of you have gotten different things from the directory and from the community. And I absolutely love— like, I was so excited just watching it. And I'm not gonna say— Marcus just said, love it, Jessica. I was so excited watching how you changed your partner's page and how the conversations in the community had helped to kind of open up your mind, as you were saying, because like, she hadn't— you hadn't told us that yet, you know. So that was something you could probably share on the vid, like this week as You know, so I'm so happy to see that, and thank you for sharing your perspective. And I love the way you said that, like, you came in with very little expectations, and that you would— your key message for what I heard is like, the more you give, the more you get back. The more you open up, the more you get back. And I think that really summarises beautifully what we are and who we are at Build Invest Hear, because we're really here to help you and And we care about you. Like, I eat, sleep, and drink this. Like, I always say, if I had a magic— like, if I were Wonder Woman, right? And if I had a magic— oh, I've got— oh, look at this! This is the real Wonder Woman with loads of lipstick on her teeth. I've been doing it the whole time. You didn't see that. This is live. I've just seen it now. Anyway, if I had a magic power, my magic power would be to download all the knowledge about funding and about marketing your business and selling your business and be able to share with the maximum number of women so that we can own our place in the world and really take on our equal space in the world and own it. So thank you so much. And Amy is saying, I love the redesign of the partners page on your site. Partnerships are so important. Absolutely, absolutely, Amy. Thank you for sharing that.

And if I may add, the directory is gold. I had— when I came in, I had no idea that the directory existed. Whenever I saw the link and I started finding how many female-led businesses there are in it in different parts of the world, it was amazing. It was like, whoa, like the opportunities are incredible and we can support each other.

Yeah.

So for me, it's the most collaborative space that I have entered since I started my business.

Yeah. Oh, I'm so happy! And that's testament to all our members. That's testament to Amaka, to Susan, to Jill. I can't mention everybody who's there. To, um, oh, I'm trying to see all the names. They're all kind of flying by me. But all of you who are there on a regular basis at the member chats, um, you know, I, I just love how we also support each other. And thank you for sharing that, Jessica. And I want to, um, I'll share my screen just to show you where— what Jessica was saying— where exactly you can find stuff. So when you're in the community, just so that everybody can see it, when you're in the community, let me move over here on the left-hand side. So this is where we're all at. Here you have the link to the main Global Investor website, but here you've got the directory immediately from within the community. You don't have to go somewhere else, you can just click here And you're at the, you're at the directory. So if you're doing, you want to do some competitor research, or if you want to do some partner research, then you just go from one to the other. See how, how seamless that was? It was literally from here, from inside the community, boom, just here, investor directory. And I love the way you were saying how, how, you know, it's been gold for you to find those other women because all To be honest, I have loved every second of the research with Madeleine, the two of us, and I have to mention Madeleine and also Tracy, who've been incredible in helping bring this to life, to those first 350 companies who are there live. They're absolutely incredible, and thank you so much to those wonderful women. They have made a huge difference to the directory and helping to build what it is as well. But what I love is, like, I get so excited every time we find another fabulous woman. I just get so excited to put her in there and say, right, how's the best way, like, in this promoter section, what's the best piece that I can— we can choose out of her website to promote her? And I just feel as if like I'm sharing a sister. And one of the things that was fun is I discovered a hair company in America called Briogeo, and it's created by an African-American woman. I don't know which city she's based in, and she uses beautiful natural products All beautiful, natural, healthy products for naturally curly hair. And my daughter has very curly hair, and I was so excited. I was into Sephora, or Sephora as we say in France. I was in Sephora like a couple of weeks ago, and I suddenly see a whole stand of Briogeo, and I'm like, oh my God, I had just entered them into the directory like a couple of weeks before, and there they are in Sephora. And I was so excited. I bought a bottle of conditioner for my daughter because her curls were very dry and and she wants to kind of— she's got beautiful long curly hair, a bit longer than yours, Amaka, but just as curly, just beautiful. And so I bought— look at your hair, oh my God, it's spectacular. So I bought her the shampoo, and when I was going to pay for it, there was this lovely lady at the cash register, and she's a woman of colour. And I said, did you know that this shampoo is made by a woman of colour in America, and it's all natural products?

No.

And she looked at me and she goes, no. I said, it's for hair that's naturally curly. You might want to check it out for yourself. And she was like, that's brilliant, I didn't know that, I'm gonna check it out. So I think we made 2 sales that day, you know. So that's what I think is important. It's like all about helping each other and meaning in it. And Amy is saying her daughter has curly hair too. It's so hard to find something that's natural. There you go. I'm going to put the Briogeo Bryogeo. Here it is. Oops, Bryogeo. And there's a reason why it's called that. They explained it on their website. And there we go. So I just wanted to say thank you again to both Jessica and Amaka for sharing. You can, you can leave your screens on because we can see you, and that's always much nicer. And what I'd love to do now is, with the final people who are with us, is to invite you all, if you want, I would love to kind of Allow you all to put on your videos if you would like to. I'll give you the option, you turn it on and off if you want to, so we can see each other and just, you know, actually chat while we're live if that's something that you want to do. There is absolutely no— there's no obligation whatsoever, okay? So just to reassure you, if you don't have your favourite hair on or whatever we say, like— That's all good, no problem. Hold on, I'm just gonna do this here, promote to panelists so we can all see each other because it's nicer. So okay, now you should be able to— there we go, there's Aisling's photo at least. There we go, I think I've got you all there. Yay! Hi!

Hello!

And we have a man with the name Anthony. So Anthony is joining.

So I'm Yeah, I was going to say one, one other thing. You know, I really thank you for this, uh, because even in these times that we haven't been able to travel, typically we would have seen a period of slow— slowing down rather than building up within all our respective businesses and lives. And I just really thank you for this because at this time I've met you, I've met Jessica, Amy's on here, um, I've met Susan. There's so many beautiful, amazing female founders that I've met who have helped me to grow as a person. And so I haven't felt like I've missed out, even though most of the time we've been locked down. And it does seem like this might stretch on for a while. So thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of our hearts, and congratulations.

Thank you. Unmute yourselves, everybody, so we can hear you if you want to say something. This is now a free-for-all because we've kind of gone through it You've seen now what the directory is. I hope you like it. You've heard how it's connected with the community because we want it not just to be you list your company on something and that's it. We wanted to bring you into the sisterhood here of fellow fabulous female founders. So if you want to say something, please feel free. Aisling, Amy, it's lovely to see you live.

Yeah, hi. I might just jump in. Anne, thank you so much for setting this up. I saw you speak at the Dublin Tech Summit a few years ago and we I was so inspired from day one, and I never kind of thought I'd actually be a founder at that point and raising money as well. And I think I started very early on with this notion in my head that was like, I know that female founders don't get as much money, so I'm just gonna go out and do this the whole way.

Love it.

I think one thing that's been so nice about InvestHER is I've been sharing it with everyone I can. Is that actually getting to meet the community, I think it feels way less intimidating as well. I think sometimes when you start your funding journey, it's like this idea that, okay, I know a lot of other people feel like this, and I know it's really difficult, but you are still just seeing like really glossy programs that you can join and kind of networking events. And then I think when you just kind of get to be in a group of people telling their story, It takes away a lot of the— I don't know, everyone just feels like they're on the same footing, and I feel like I could ask questions to anyone in the network. And it's like, it's been really great. I think that you— like, a testament to you and the whole team of just building that feel of authenticity and just a real kind of safe space to both share the challenges and the successes of fundraising as well. You kind of feel like as you see different people succeed, you could really just go to them for advice. And I think that's a really, really lovely community to feel like you're a part of.

That's fantastic, Ashley. Thank you so much. So tell us a little bit about the company you're building so that everybody can hear from you.

Oh yeah, so I run Nu, which is a social network to share and swap your clothes. So essentially we set this up to try and tackle waste in the fashion industry and make it a bit more accessible and affordable to be able to access fashion in a more sustainable way. So yeah, really where we're at now is we're doing a crowdfunding campaign and we're looking to grow. And we kind of— we've released our product on the App Store now and we'll hopefully raise a larger seed round in 2021. So that's kind of where all the really heavy fundraising has started. So yeah, that's a bit about us. And we've been, I guess, trying to pivot slightly over lockdown as well. Pre-loved clothing and thrifting and everything is on the rise and sustainability thankfully has stayed a really core focus for a lot of our members. So it's been a journey so far, but just delighted to actually run a business and it's been so inspiring hearing everyone else talk as well, especially about fashion. I was like, yes!

There are quite a few members who are fashion designers.

I will connect. I'd love to see that.

I'd talk about it on the directory as well because there's quite a few fashion and fashion tech on the directory. Yeah, yeah, and I'm so glad. And just if you want to see Aisling's campaign, Aisling, share it with us on the community.

Share your crowdfunding link. I'll pop it in the chat as well, just because, yeah, just with crowdfunding, as many people, as many eyes as possible, and Obviously, if there's any connections that anyone has, like, always so helpful to just get them.

I mean, even if contributing to it financially is not a possibility now, share it. Share it with people you know, because that is so helpful. I mean, this is about gaining— helping to get traction. I've shared it on LinkedIn.

Absolutely, thank you so much.

On the Twitter, I need to retweet. But that's part of the things that— this is— we need to support each other, exactly like you were saying earlier, Jessica, and also Maka. It's all about supporting each other. And thank you, Aisling. I'm so glad. Like, it's so great to hear from you.

It's amazing to see what InvestHER has become. It's just amazing that it's a real thing. And I feel like I'm, like, obviously using it.

So that's— yeah. Fantastic. Amy, do you want to say hi and welcome? Because Amy is one of our newest members. Welcome.

Hi, thank you so much, Anne, and it's so great to meet all of you beautiful, wonderful, inspiring women. You know, it's interesting that Ashling— I'm sorry, Ashley or Ashling?

Yeah, you got it right, Ashling.

Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to make sure that I had the right pronunciation. She was talking about crowdfunding for her application because I was wondering if, you know, like, because I want to do crowdfunding for my business, for my application Mood Connect as well.

Great.

Yeah, but I was wondering, well, what kind of platforms work best for crowdfunding for an app? Because, you know, like Kickstarter, it's more like products, you know, that you see, or concepts and, you know, things like that that get funded. But I don't see a lot of applications, you know, on that platform. So interesting to see because I'd never heard of Seedrs. I guess it's called Seedrs.

Yeah, so this is a UK-based one. What country are you in?

Oh, I'm in the US.

I'm in Phoenix, Arizona.

Okay, because I know with the US there's different regulations around financial promotions, so that can sometimes mean the difference between crowdfund investing versus Kickstarter, which is pre-buying the product. But I'll just pop my email into the chat if you want to catch up, and maybe if you check out some research on your side about What crowdfunding platforms are available in the US and if you can use one more internationally and share. And then I've basically, I've kind of had the warts and all story of like what, how you need to get it right. So like happy to just share everything we've learned on making a plan. Oh, that's so cool. And yeah, like, because I basically just contacted another female funder this morning being like, what do I do? And she ran through her whole plan and it was just really helpful. So happy to just like share anything we've learned.

And I love that.

I think that would be a cool thing for us to do.

I know there's been a request within the community to talk about crowdfunding. Um, I've just shared in the chat, we actually have on the academies— that's something else we have as part of Global Investor, which is an online academy with courses and masterclasses. I'm just going to share my screen because we actually have a course on Crowdfunding 101. For those of you who don't know the first thing about, or who have just started, okay, crowdfunding, this is a course to help you understand from A to Z, like everything you need to know, the key tips, what you need to do before, during, and after a crowdfunding campaign. And we've done it as— this is for any of you who are starting out a course, a campaign, who've maybe done a first one that wasn't successful and you don't know why it didn't work. It helps you to kind of understand what are the different types of crowdfunding, because Aisling has just mentioned There's reward-based crowdfunding where, you know, you put your money in, you get a reward, a product that the person is making or a service. But there's also equity-based crowdfunding, which is the seeders where you get part of the company. And there's like donation-based crowdfunding where it's your donation, giving a donation to a cause that you believe in to help a product or service come about. So those are kind of 3 families of crowdfunding, and each of them have their own directory, their own crowdfunding platforms. And so this course is really useful because it helps you to understand what are the different types of crowdfunding, the different resources, what are the right tech, how to get organized on the campaign. And what I love about it is like you'll see that there's loads of stuff. It's all exclusive. The person— I want to go straight down to the person who's done it, which is here, Benita. She's a funky haircut. She's super awesome. But she's actually done 5 successful crowdfunding campaigns. She's done donation, reward, and equity. And in the UK, she was one of the first, the first companies to exceed their crowdfunding objectives when Crowdcube first came out over in the US. So she's run 5 successful campaigns. You see, it was the first, first in the world to reach 304% of its target. So she has done crowdfunding inside and out, and I love it because she tells you exactly what you need to know. So like, you learn here about you know, the big picture. And in each of the sections, there's like, you know, watch, take action, and download. So you have the link in, you can find out, but it tells you about the tactics. So that's super important. Like, what are the key tactics you need to master for your campaign? The tips and tricks to take your campaign to the next level, the communications, the tech, and then the actual final results and the final key tips for success and the next steps. And so it's full-packed of videos and cheat sheets and links to it. And afterwards, like in the bonuses, we give you, we give you access as well to the different sources of crowdfunding in different parts of the world. So it's a really good kind of general course. And I just want to— I know I'm doing up here, but it's, it's $197. For all of that in one thing. Like, it's a really good investment. So you can go in, learn it, and it'll save you a lot of pain because she tells you what to do and what not to do. So it's something to consider if, if that is useful to you. You know, just know that that's available to you. And if you need to find it, it's on the Global Investor website in Academy. But I've given you the link directly to that course there because, like I said, wow, if we need to do it, we need to do it. So, Amy, I just wanted to put that in there. And Amy, tell us a bit more about Mood Connect.

Yeah, no, so Mood Connect is a mood media app. It's— and mood media is an emotion-based type of app. It's the application, it basically asks Asks the user, "How are you feeling?" And and then and and brings up a mood wheel that then the user can select from a core group of of moods or feelings how they're feeling, and then and then you know and then that will branch out to children type of like emotions or feelings, and then and then the user can have the choice to either. Connect with another user to have a communication either via text or audio anonymously, or they can have access to articles or resources or exercises that will help them to better process the emotion that they're experiencing. This is a very useful application for For people who are feeling isolated, you know, like in the midst of this pandemic or even before the pandemic, you know, people were kind of feeling like isolated and alone, you know, like whether they're elderly or homebound for some reason or another. You know, also it can help people to better understand how their feeling. It's very often that we kind of try to avoid our feelings and not really even think about, well, checking in with yourself. How am I feeling? You know, like I'm responding in ways that are maybe perhaps like angry or, you know, or sad, you know. And it allows the user to be more in tune with themselves. And then, you know, understand ways to take action to help them to process those emotions and feelings so that they can lead a more healthy, you know, life and also connect with others. There's some interesting studies that I did research on that showed that actually strangers are more apt to help each other than people who we know in our own lives. A perfect example is that before we came on, before we connected on the Global Investor Community, we were all strangers. And we all came together and started to help each other. And then through that, we developed relationships. and connections. So, yeah, so this— we are in the pre-seed stages of funding and working to develop an MVP so that we can, you know, sort of do a little bit of testing and, you know, see how we can better develop this application. And I'm in the process right now of having— getting investor feedback of how I can improve my pitch deck and how I can improve some of the other materials that I'm processing and putting out there. One of the things that I'm kind of struggling with, I tend to be a very creative person. I have a background in marketing and design. One of the struggles that I have is in better understanding how to have a more sound business plan and the financial ends of running a business and being a founder. So I'll be looking for those types of resources as well in this community, you know, in all of the resources that we have. Great.

And I'm glad you say that, Amy, because there's one of our members, Shama Rahib, who does— she does financial literacy classes and courses for women entrepreneurs, particularly in Bangladesh. But I mean, they're financial literacy courses, so it's pretty awesome. And I think that that could be useful, you know, to get her to do something on that in the future. So, and I'm glad you brought that up because that's a big thing that we need to kind of tackle. I want to hand over to Radhika. Hi, Radhika! I don't want you to be left out in your corner there. You're not left out. How are you? If you want to unmute yourself and say hi.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm fine, thank you. I'm sorry I'm cuddled up here because it's autumn. It's now autumn in Oslo, so I'm just—

Wow, what's the temperature over there?

Well, today was not too bad. In fact, it's about 15.

15 degrees.

I thought it was fabulous, and I think it's well needed, and I love the spirit and energy of— I think Amy expressed it very well when she said that, you know, we were strangers but we just come together. And I think it's wonderful to have women supporting each other. I think inherent in all of us is They need to see each other successful. And so I think this website would enforce that. And so I think it's fabulous.

Fantastic. Well, I mean, we'd love to see you. We'd love to see you on the other side. Like you could see on the directory, you can be part of the starter plan. But if you say, actually, I don't need to be on the directory yet, there is also the— I just put Shamma's name there— there's also the option of being just only on the community. You could start off then and kind of build up, but I think it's always— it's just going to be a better bundle. I'm just putting in the— for you here.

Here we go.

Is this place ideal also for webshops? Like, I have a webshop that sells silk and wool underwear.

Yeah, absolutely, because it's services as well. So on the directory, there are other consulting services or business-to-business So you can absolutely promote your workshop, and then you'll be able to put it under fashion and underwear, etc. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. And to be found, because that's important. That's very nice.

But I'm really a financial consultant, so I can help with business plans and all that. So I would read up about it, in fact, and see if you can post more More than one thing, I assume you could sign up for?

Yes, you can. So I've just put in the link to the community. I'm going to put in the link to the directory as well. And we're going to kind of wrap up because it's a, it's a good hour and a half and you've been all with us so far, which is absolutely amazing. And I'm like, talk about— this is a— for me, this is a real launch party. It's a party because it's celebration. It's celebration of us all coming together, and thank you for being here with us and celebrating. And thank you so much to Wamaka and to Jessica for sharing their stories, and all of you— Aisling as well, Radhika, Amy, and all of you as well, Julianne, who participated earlier, and Jill. You know, I think it's really, really important. Anthony, he's a guy, as you can tell. Anthony is really cool, and he's our new intern. He's working with us on social media, so you're gonna be hearing more— you'll be seeing more of his posts from about the community in the directory in future. So thank you, Anthony. I know he's listening in, and I think he's being shy, not wanting to put on his picture, that he's the only man in the room. But there you go, it's a lucky place to be. So on that, I just wanted to wait and see if there's any final questions that you have that I can answer for you now before we kind of wrap up now.

And, um, uh, do you have any like accelerator programs, I guess? I mean, it's something I see a lot of in other, uh, in other community groups, you know, for entrepreneurs like this, right?

Yeah.

If you have anything like that that allows, um, entrepreneurs to get a— get an opportunity to pitch to investors. That's what a lot of the accelerator programs do, I think, right?

Yeah, they do. But again, accelerators are not for everybody. You know, it depends on the stage you're at. It depends on your company, your product, because some accelerators kind of push you through a 3-month program that they want everyone to go through at that pace, and they push you through modules to work on your business, different parts of business, and you may not be ready to do that. So it just say a rule of caution. One of the accelerator programmes that's fantastic is Techstars. I mean, they're one of the best in the world. Obviously Y Combinator, but that's really, really difficult to get into. But Techstars are absolutely fantastic, and 500 Startups. And InvestHER, yes, we are going to be working on developing our own accelerator programme. It'll all be online though, to facilitate, to make it easy for all of us. And that's going to be called the Roadmap Accelerator.

Fantastic.

for funding. So that's, that's going to be coming out soon, but that's, you know, on the journey after, after we, uh, we finish this launch. Because after this launch, what's super exciting, next month, this day in one month's time, we'll be doing our first live virtual summit called Boost Her Biz. And that's where we're going to be featuring and celebrating Black female founders in honor of Black Lives Matter. I wanted to start off with Black female founders first, because I didn't want to just issue a statement as to how important that is for us at Global Investor and to me as a person. For me, there's always— there's never been any question about it. My father-in-law is Black. I, you know, I have Black friends, and it's never been a question for me. And so I said, okay, how can we help Black female founders at this crossroads and help them get visibility for their products and services and funders. And so on the 22nd of October, we'll be doing our first virtual summit, which will be global. So it'll be a 4-hour summit. First part will be all for female founders. So we will have Black female founders who have raised money. They're going to share their funding journey. So you're going to get inspired and hear from them about how they did it from different parts of the world. And then we're going to have a showcase. You'll hear from other Black female founders from different industries who will just showcase their businesses like Amaka did, like Jessica did. So that they get visibility, and we will, you know, be featuring founders from the directory. Already, if you go on to the directory now and you click on the Black section in our diversity section, there's over 60 Black female founders out of the 350 already there. So there's quite a few. We've really made a point of making sure that we're inclusive. And so part 1 will be around celebrating the female founders. We'll be launching a global It's a funding competition. So when you sign up for this funding competition, it's to actually get funded. So it's not to get $10,000 or $5,000 or prizes, which are all fantastic and do help businesses. I'm not saying that. What we've decided to do is to partner with investors who actually want to invest in Black female founders. And so we will launch the Global Pitch Competition a few weeks before we go live. Okay. And we will have a global pitch competition. at the summit. And at the summit, we will, you know, do a lot of communication around it, and it'll be open then for a couple of months because it takes months for the— we'll have a professional jury, and then the companies will have to go through due diligence with the respective investors who are interested in them. So we already have commitments of $300,000 from different investors towards funding female founders, and I'm hoping to have a lot more before we go. go live. So that's very exciting. And the second part of the summit is showcasing those investors. So Black investors who invest in Black female founders, or, you know, diverse investors who want to invest in Black female founders. So we're going to showcase those investors who are actually walking the talk. So those who have committed either money or resources towards helping Black female founders. So I'm really excited about that. So wait, you'll be hearing more in the community. you know, online. And the whole point will be, by the time the summit goes live, I want thousands. I would love to have at least 1,000, if not more, female founders on the directory and just make it explode. Because that'll— then we'll start, and the first summit will be on Black female founders. We will have LGBTQ+ founders on another one. We'll have Latinas. We will have Indian, etc., and then sector-based. So this will be the start of a series where we will partner as well with corporates, accelerators, and so on. So that's part of the showcase, Amy, to answer your question. And yes, in the autumn, so towards the other— I'd say probably after the Black Female Founders Summit, we will then work on our accelerator because I already have the bones of it ready. Just, um, small team working to get this all done, and so bit by bit. So hopefully by the beginning of next year, Amy, we will have our accelerator. But in the meantime, When you go on to the directory, if you choose the FundHer pack, that's where— it's $99 a month— that's where, you know, we will accompany you, introduce you to— we will expose you to investors. I want to say that carefully, expose you to. It doesn't mean that there will be a formal introduction. You'll be exposed to them, you'll be able to pitch to them, they'll be able to mentor you, etc. So that's, that's part of the service that's in there now, and that's being built now. But of A full accelerator is going to come soon. So I want to say thank you to you all. And Radhika says, absolutely wonderful. I feel energized and happy we have a man with us. There you go, Anthony, you got special kudos. That's excellent. I love it. So if any of you want to say last final few words, you can unmute yourselves. Anthony, you can talk as well if you want. If you don't feel like putting on your, your image, you should say hi if you feel up to it. But in any case, if you'd like to have a few final words, I'll leave the floor over— there he is! Hello! How are you, Anthony? How does it feel to be surrounded by fantastic female founders?

It's great to hear all the different projects and organisations that you've created. It's very inspiring, especially for a young person like myself.

And Anthony is awesome. He's always worked within social enterprises. He's been supporting women in different aspects, haven't you, Anthony, in the past in other nonprofits?

Yeah, yeah, so I've worked for the Social Innovation Fund Ireland, so I've worked on a Women of Ireland fund, so I've seen a lot of different projects around Ireland that have been trying to improve women and their social situations and their professional situations around Ireland, so it is inspiring to see this globally.

Fantastic. So thanks for being with us, Anthony. And as I said, you're going to hear more. It's lovely to put a face to Anthony. You're going to hear more from him across the social media in the coming months. He's going to be helping us get the word out about the directory and the summit. So you'll start seeing his great work in the next few weeks. Ladies, any last final words? Because I do want to wrap this up because I have another session coming on now on the hour with investors. I'm going to brief them about the directory and then another one after that with consumers to say thank you. This is why you should come and look at the wonderful women. So I want to wrap this one up and get ready for the next 2, if you don't mind. So any kind of final feedback or words you'd like to share with each other here?

Congratulations, Anne. Really proud of this. I'm so happy to be a part of it. Lovely to meet everyone. Amy, I'm actually going to connect with you because I have a question regarding whether you have thought about the— because Because it's an excellent app. I think it would actually be helpful to kids as well. I have a child who has special needs, and some of the things you were talking about is what we're trying to teach him. So I'll connect with you privately to ask a question.

Look at that! Look at the beauty of that!

Yeah, lovely, lovely to see everyone. Anthony, kudos on the work that you've done. We're happy to see your face here.

Anybody else want to say last few words? Jessica's smiling in the corner. I'm handing over to you.

Oh, I just wanted to say I put my email in the chat, so if you wanted to, like, you know, contact me, I'd love to hear from you, all of you.

Well, so you're in the— all of them are members. Radhika, are you already a member of the community? Not yet, but okay, so you have her, you have Amy's email here in the chat, so you can catch it there. For the rest of you, Aisling, Jessica, and Amaka are all members, And Anthony, I'm going to be letting him in as well very soon so he can also be part of it and see we do have some good men in the community. They're all men who are, you know, helping and working with us, so we're not exclusive only 100% women, but kind of 99.999%. There we go, there's Jessica, she's sharing her email. Thank you, Jessica. Okay, so with that, I want to say a huge thank you to Thank you. Thanks for being here right down to the end. Really, really proud and happy to have you all with us in the community. And for those of you who are watching us live or who are watching the replay, have a look at the directory. As soon as this closes, you will be redirected to the directory website, so you don't have to worry and scramble, where is it, where is it? You're going to go straight to it. If you're not part of it, check it out. Hopefully you'd like to join us, and in any case, I wish you so much success with your businesses, and thank you for doing what you do. And let's keep doing this. Yes, we can. Yes, we will get funded, and we're going to change and rebalance the world. So thank you, everybody. Take care.

Bye.