Sneak Peek inside the new InvestHer Community

Let's get started. So welcome everybody. I'm so, so excited. I'm so excited to have you join us for this week's peek inside the investor community for those of you who don't know us yet but want to find out more. And Steve, it's for you. Now, first thing in this sneak peek is me. So who am I? I'm Anne Ravanona. I'm the founder and CEO of Global InvestHer, and I'm behind this global community, but I'm only the instigator. The community is us, and it's made up of amazing women entrepreneurs just like you from around the world who all come in together to learn about funding, to help each other, share resources and really move our businesses forward together. Now you may or may not notice, I'm going to push down the screen so you can see, I am wearing my girl power Wonder Woman t-shirt today.

Yay!

Because we are girl power and we are, we are Wonder Women, and I wanted to make sure that you all know I am with you 100% along the way. So I'm going to start sharing my screen. just to give you, um, an overview of what you can expect for today, if that's okay with you all. So one second. Now, all right, so what's on the menu for today? You're going to learn a few different things. I'm going to very briefly tell you a little bit more about Global Investor. For those of you who don't know anything about us, this is going to be a great opportunity for you to learn more. Then we're going to dive into the investor community, a lot more as to why we created this community, What's inside? And then I want you to hear from 2 of our fabulous members. First up, we're going to hear from Wamaka, and Wamaka is just a fantastic lady. I want her— she'll introduce herself. I could see her there smiling brightly with her beautiful clothes on there because the clothes is— of course she has clothes, but there's a reason I say clothes because you'll understand more about her business in a minute. Um, and then we're going to take a sneak peek inside. So we're going to take you inside as if you were a member already to show you what you can expect, what are the different resources, how you can connect with other members, what are the events that we put in there, how we curate special content, all you need to know to see, right, is this worth me having a look and being part of? Then we'll hear from Susan, and Susan's with us too. Hi Susan, it's great to have you with us, and thank you for inviting so many people along as well. And Susan will share her experience of being a member, um, in the community, and then we will wrap up, and we have a special offer. So the special offer, if you want to wait till that, Don't hang up, because if you decide, once you've seen all this and you say, yep, this is for me, I want to join, we have a very special offer for those of you who are joining us live. You're going to get a very special prize that other people won't get, so that might be interesting for you. So let's get started, if you will. For those of you who don't know about Global Investor, who are we? So we're the go-to platform for women entrepreneurs who want to learn about funding in a safe place. Because basically there's a very big issue here. We only get 2.8% of venture capital worldwide. Did you know that? If you didn't, you know now, and it's disgraceful. It hasn't changed in the past 30 years. And when I learned this fact that the funding gap between the amount of money that is raised between men and women entrepreneurs is estimated to be $1.7 trillion, With a T! $1.7 trillion. That actually made my blood boil, and I decided I wanted to do something about it. So I set up Global InvestHer in 2013 to do that. And so we are a global platform, we're online, and we have lots of incredible resources only for female founders and only focused on funding, because that's what was missing when I went out looking to find out about the world of funding and to learn more about this, particularly for female founders. In 2013, there was nothing. Now there's a few more people. I want to show you inside so you'll see why it could be interesting to join us. So why do we exist? Our why is that we want to help get 1 million women entrepreneurs funded by 2030. So we're in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, and that's a very big hairy goal, as we say. Really, my mission is to help get you funded and help you move forward and make progress in your steps in building your business, in understanding how you need to get ready for funding, how you can approach investors. And I basically am thinking, if we want to reignite this global economy of ours— and this is even before COVID-19 hit, I was already saying we need to do this, we need to help get at least 1 million women entrepreneurs funded— because if we get us funded, we create more jobs, and that more money goes back into our community. And that's why I know that we can make a huge difference. realize the power that we actually have. So we're really in this to make it easier for you to do that through what we do. And we see this as kind of a virtuous circle. So you see the woman entrepreneur at the top of this circle, that's you, okay? That's you. And I believe that you're the beginning and the center of all of this. And me too, because I'm a woman entrepreneur just like you. Okay, I'm not out there just doing this theoretically. I'm in the trenches with you. And the way I see it is the more women entrepreneurs like you that we can get funded, the more successful businesses we have and more exits there are. And many of those women entrepreneurs go on to become angel investors or VCs themselves. And in the process, we educate more male and female investors as to what is the value add of investing in women entrepreneurs. So it's this virtual circuit— cycle. The more we invest in female founders, the more investors see, yes, we're not a risky investment. Actually, we make you more money, which is a fact. And then the more we can encourage people to invest in female founders. So that was really the kind of key thing. These are my 2 cool photos, just to show you things that I do. I am a very strong advocate for women entrepreneurs. So I speak on this topic, on funding for female founders, for the past few years in many, many conferences. I did a TEDx in 2015 that you're welcome to go and have a look at. And then recently in March of this year, I was very blessed to be invited to a private lunch with President Macron of France, with 9 other key stakeholders and ministers, to discuss how we can improve things for women in relation to Generation Equality Forum that's happening in France next year. And I was speaking particularly on women's economic empowerment, and I presented to him— and you see in the picture there— I presented presented to him our contribution as Global Investor, which is the 1 Million Investors Initiative that I'll tell you a little bit more about. But really, it's to show that, you know, this isn't just blah blah. I live and walk this every day. I'm in the trenches for you, and I'm with you, and I'm one of you. And, you know, together I really believe we can make change. So that's part of this campaign is all around getting 1 million entrepreneurs funded by 2030. And when I had that meeting with President Macron, I gave him quite a few suggestions as to things that he can do at both a level, a country level in France, but also as a member of the G7. And on our half, what we want to do is to help to get more people to become investHERs. So what's an investHER? An investHER, basically an investor, if you use that word in the dictionary definition, an investor is somebody who invests their— who puts their time, money, energy into a project to get a worthwhile result. And the way I see investHERs and you can become an investHER. It's, it's a woman entrepreneur who invests her time, money, energy into a product or service to serve a community, or somebody in the ecosystem, an investor, mentors, corporates. We're all investHERs, and that's what I want to be able to do. So that's to give you an overview as to who we are, why we exist, and why we're here. And Now I'd like to kind of hand it over to Wamaka because Wamaka is going to tell you about her experience of being inside the community. I'm going to stop sharing my slides because I want to see you full screen, my dear. So Wamaka, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, your business first of all, and what have you learned or what has been useful for you as being a member of investor community? Over to you.

All right, I'm happy to be here, Anne, and thank you for everything that you do. My name is Wamaka Abakowu. I was born and raised in Nigeria. I have a background in international development, and that's sort of my crossover into fashion. I own MK Curvy, which is a plus-size clothing line, African-inspired clothing line. All of our production is done in Africa through a network of mostly women-owned businesses. And a part of our mission is to empower women in Africa to produce these clothing, so that it's not just aid that, you know, I'm taking into Africa, which is home for me. I started producing in Nigeria because that's where I was born and raised, and I have a big network in that area. Also moved back to Nigeria in 2013 to go work on a development project for a little bit and built this network in that area. I'm looking to start to produce in other places as well because my mission is not just Nigeria, but Africa as a whole. And I'm currently in talks in Ghana and Uganda to start to produce there. Our primary markets have been North America, so Canada and the US, but I'm also looking to build clientele in other parts of the world where I've had business, places like Kenya, places like the UK, but those have not been our primary markets. So I'm looking to move out. And as we scale. I'm also founder for Green Onyx Foundation, which is an organization that supports special needs kids as well as adults living with disabilities in Africa. I started out again naturally in Nigeria because that's where I have the biggest networks. And I'm an adult who lives with a disability which I developed later on in life. I have rheumatoid arthritis. Unfortunately hit my lungs pretty bad, and I need to travel with an oxygen concentrator. And it's been horrendous, I have to tell you, traveling through Africa with this portable because people don't have the awareness. I'm also a special needs mom. My son lives with mild cerebral palsy, and I know the challenges that we faced, that we faced while we were living in Africa, even challenges that we've had living here in North America. And I've lived between Canada and the US in the last 10 years, recognizing my challenges, I realized how difficult it's been as well. And I've been very open about our journey. So I had people start to reach out to me for resources. And so I got involved within the space, supporting a couple of orphanages for special needs children, doing projects with them through the COVID lockdown. Doing drives to enable them live safely and just feel supported. That morphed into Green Onyx Foundation, which I'm building with a friend to provide support within that space. And we're pitching our tents within inclusion for children with education, as well as living needs, just to assist them in living a more rounded, more holistic life. Now, where has Global Investor been supportive for me. I think I've been a member of this group probably a couple of months now, maybe about 8 weeks, maybe. And I am so grateful that I actually found Anne. And I don't even— I'm not even sure I remember how I had found Anne, but I had followed her for a while, got emails, and I'm so grateful that I joined the weekly chats that one day and I just got hooked. Because this group I find so supportive in fleshing out ideas. It doesn't matter if you're a female founder who's at the very start, or you're way advanced where you already have some funding and your MVP is ready and you've taken off. I really love that, that it's a safe space where I can just be me. If I don't know something, I feel very comfortable saying, you know what, this is what I've done. this is what I'm thinking. Can I have ideas or support, or can I tune in or tap into your networks in order to fine-tune my ideas or find a resource that will help me get to the place that I'm getting to? So I really do appreciate that, and I found out about so many events that I feel I otherwise might not have been privy to, and those events around branding, around the way VC funds essentially think, are helping me to refine my ideas and package myself a little bit better. And I know that I'm going to get there. I'm not at the stage where I'm off looking for funding. I'm probably at the— I'm actually at the pre-seed stage, but I know that everything that I'm getting here, the resources that I've been able to get, not just from Anne. And Anne, I'm very thankful for all the linkages that you've basically put through. But I would just encourage everyone who's either thinking of joining this group or is in this group to take advantage of the networks. I think for me, it's been key to go to weekly meetings because Once I've developed a personal connection with someone on there, it's easier for me to go back and say, hey, we talked about this during the weekly chat. Do you mind if I follow up on this? Or can you give me a little bit more insight as to what you were saying during that conversation? And then it's just easier when it's one-on-one. Sometimes you might not be able to hold them— hold up the weekly meetings. They're just an hour. to flesh out an idea, but then you can follow up and then, you know, sort of build on those ideas. So I think that has been key for me. I think it also helps when you read things and comments so that you just feel a part of it. I think when the outside world is open and we're all in a room, it's easy to have follow-on conversations. I think it's much the same thing as the group, where when you comment and— and I love, Anne, that you always ask follow-on questions, because sometimes I'm a bit lazy and I say, oh, this is great, but then you're like, how is that great? So then when you have those follow-up conversations, it's a lot more meaningful and you get so much more out of it. So for me, I think overall these are connections, particularly during this different way of living that we found ourselves in 2020. I think they've just been opportunities where there are no big conferences where I might have met Anne or Susan or Mariesther. I wouldn't have met any of you. But having this forum during this time has been invaluable for me because my work hasn't stopped. I'm refining, I'm building, I'm doing more things, and I feel like I've gained so much in 2020. Whereas if I wasn't a part of this group, I really might have felt at a loss as to how to continue on or continue to build my business. So having said that, I really do thank you, Anne. I encourage everybody to be a part of this group in any way, whether you're a venture capitalist, you're a founder, you're in startup stage, you're a little bit more advanced. I think this is a great place to be as a woman. And as a founder. So I just encourage you to join and to be active because I think that's when you get the most value out of this group.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Nwamaka. And, you know, I'm really glad— I think you can all hear it comes from her heart. And I think that also encompasses a lot of how we do things here. This comes from heart. We, we all look out for each other and we care about each other and about our businesses and You know, when we're having a day which is not a great day, we could say, oh, it's not so good today. We'll say, okay, so how can we help you move on to the next stage? And thank you for saying those kind words, Wamaka. And you're right, it's all about the more you put into any network, the more you get out of it. Meaning the more you interact with other members, the more you join our weekly member chats, The more you, you go on and log on to some of the many events that are happening, the more you chat with each other, share articles, put your comments, the more impact you're going to get for yourself and more benefits you'll get for yourself. And I think what's super important is to— another thing that you said as well, Wamaka, that resonated with me is that, you know, this community, it's— there's less noise because apart from the train at the end of my garden, of course. So thank you, train, for saying that. But there's less noise in the community than as if you were on Facebook or in a different place, because there's no ads, there's no harsh selling to you in any shape or form. And we're really here, we're really women entrepreneurs and investors to come together to help each other and to help female founders get funded and to So there is a focus on funding, but not only, and we do share lots of other resources around building your business. So thank you for sharing, Wamaka.

Thanks, Anne.

And without further ado, I want to take you all inside because I bet you've whetted their appetite now. They're going, okay, let's see this. And I would say that as we're moving forward, maybe I'll just do, you know, as we're moving forward in the chat box, if you think of any questions that you'd like to ask Wamaka or myself or to Susan, who'll be talking afterwards, please feel free to Stick them in the chat box and we'll get to them all. Not to Q&A, because if we're all in chat, we'll see it. And make sure you put— you type to everybody. I love Juliette, that she liked the awesome t-shirt. Thanks for saying that. Okay. So without further ado, I'd like to take you inside. So let me share very quickly. We're going to go inside to the community. Let's go inside. Now, as we go inside, I want you to kind of imagine what a normal community is like for you. What's it like normally on Facebook? What is the usual thing? And then say to yourself, okay, how can I do this differently? Now, of course, my— here we are. Okay, so now you're inside. Can you all see my screen? You should be seeing green at the top and I'm saying invest your community. Can you see that? If you could just put yes in the chat box, that makes me know that you can see okay. I just want to make sure. Yes, perfect. Okay, so when you come into the community, there's loads of different sections, but I would say like any menu, I would invite you to have a look here on the left-hand side. It is your guiding menu for you to see all the different sections in here. A good way to start is to say— is to click on Discovery, because when you look on Discovery, you're going to see all the different parts that are available within the network. So here in the community, there's a welcome section where we, we explain to you how you can get started, why we built the community, and you'll see here there's a section called Member Meetup Replays. So Wamaka was— she was talking about our weekly meetups, which we usually have on a Wednesday, so it's at 9 AM No, sorry, 10 AM PST, 1 PM EST, and 7 PM CEST. And so we do that every week, come rain, hail, or shine, where we come together. So it gives us all the opportunity to meet each other. So it's a meet the members where you can meet other members. And so here in this place you can see the replays. And what's cool about the replays is there's actually a a search box here in the research— in the replay. So you can actually click on this search box and you can't remember, say, well, take me to replay number 1, 2, 3, 4, or take me to Wamaka, and you can put in the search box and you'll find it. So that's just to say. So up here is the welcome section. Here you see top members. So these are the members who are most active. You can see Wamaka and Susan are 2 of our most active, along with Maya, Sarah, and Nina. And also Jill and Jennifer. So that's where you see some of the top members. And again, down here you can see the topics. So here are all the different topics that are available to you. Now you can see them here as an overview, but if you'd like to go into a little bit more detail, let's drill down into them here. So on the left-hand side, as we said, you can kind— you can have a look inside and see the different topics that are available to you. Now What's important to say is that all the topics here have something to do with funding in one way or another, or to do with meeting your members and giving back and being part of this community. Each of the sources that are in here are curated by myself and my team. So we're always looking for you for the best resources that have to do with funding, and particularly female founders, so that you don't have to spend your precious time as a founder looking for this information. We do that work for you. We want to make it easier for you, so we've put it into these chunks, into these categories, so that you can find the information more easily. So we have the Meet the Members section. If you click in here, you'll see all the different topics that come up here. You'll see the Inside the Investor, what we're looking— what we're doing now, what's on this week, the Meet the Members. So you see all the things that are to do with that topic. And here, for example, we have latest funding news, so you can check inside and see what's going on in the funding world. So each topic gives you access to several types of content. You can have articles, you can have webinars, you can have podcasts, and they're all resources that have been shared by myself and the Global Investor team, but also by our members. So you'll find, you know, for example, that Wamaka and others have shared great resources Jill Holt, one of our members, she shared in this section today, Share Your Wins. So let's have a look at these topics. So you have Meet the Members, Member News, so that's where we're going to want to hear from you. The Latest Funding News, so that type of information is where we take latest reports on funding around the world, latest events that are going to be useful for you that you need to know. So that's where you're going to get the latest funding news. How to Get Ready for Funding, these are Key Tips. So these are key tips, webinars, articles, so everything that has to do with looking for funding, how to target the right investor, how to build a relationship with the investor, stuff on all of that kind of practical key tip is here in the Helpful Key Tips. So if we look in there real quick, you'll see, for example, Don't Freak Out, the Fundraising Bible is here. So you've got the Fundraising Bible, How to Do Diligence on Your Investor, Get Around the Venture Capital Cap, You know, how do you— who do you pitch to money for? You know, different workshops and so on. So lots of different resources in the funding tips. So funding tips, like the word suggests, is very practical. Then you have Apply Now. Here you'll find the information around competitions, accelerators, grants, where there's actually a deadline that you need to apply for. Again, all linked to funding. So if we have a really quick look in here, you'll see some of the things that we've done. Here there's a grant opportunity for companies and consumer goods, for example, innovation grants in Europe, you know, all the different startup competitions and so on that you want to find out about and know about and that have a particular focus on female founders, we find them for you. And if you find an event that you want to share, just, you know, ping me a message because that's the only section is the events that we don't allow members to post to, but you post to everywhere else, just to be clear. All right? So that's the topic area. COVID-19 resources. So like the name indicates, this is where you can find some information from different governments. You'll find information from different corporates and other accelerators and so on who are doing things to help founders during COVID-19. So we wanted to have a separate section for you to have resources there. Investor Insights is behind the curtain, so everything to do with investors, any art— any articles about them, whether they are angel investors, crowdfunding, whether they are venture capitalists, whether they are, um, whether they are, um, podcasts or live webinars, you can find everything to do with investors here. Looking For is— this is kind of a notice board, so this is the opportunity for you to say, I need help on this, I need help on that, I'm looking for interns, I'm looking for this, that, or the other. That's where you could share that kind of notice, a notice board. Um, Show Me the Money. I love Tom Cruise when I was a teenager, and I love the Show Me the Money. So Show Us the Money, this is where you find the latest information on sources of funding. So here, like, 19 investors and VCs fueling SaaS, okay, in Australasia, the top 25 VCs in SaaS, etc., etc. Sector, edtech, and so on. So these are different sources of funding, whether they're VCs, lists of angels and stuff. Everything that we can find for minorities, we put it in here. So that's where you find— you want to look for information on Show Me the Money, you go into— on different funding resources, that's where you go. And then we have a whole section on Get Your Pitch On. This is where you learn how to pitch. Great articles and resources here. And for example, next week we are starting, we're kicking off with our Practice Your Pitch sessions within the membership. So we have one of our members, Maria Esther, who's online with us now, and she'll be pitching live and getting feedback from all of us. So those who are there live will be able to give her feedback on her pitch to see what are the messages that land, which messages are maybe not clear, how she can refine it. So it's all about getting constructive feedback on your pitch. And remember, a lot of our members are very experienced entrepreneurs, judges in pitch competitions like myself. There are other members who are too and who love to do that and give back, so they're here. So we have some members who are investors and who also like to give back and give their pitch advice. So that's what you do in the Get Your Pitch On section. And then the other 2 sections that we have here in our topics is Share Your Wins. So that is very much you tooting your own horn, and we want you to share your wins. So this is, for example, where Jill, she shared today about how a very good article about her and her company. So that's where we do it every Friday. We kind of ask, what's your win of the week? Because we want to know. And then we have one other section on How She Does It. So this is where we have inspiring women entrepreneurs, where you want to hear those stories of other female founders who've raised a lot of money, who've been successful in their sector, or women leaders. This is the section for you to get inspired and to learn from their journeys. And finally, and last but not least, not least, we have a whole section called Show and Grow Your Business. Now this is where you're absolutely not only allowed, but you're also encouraged to share about your business. We want to know what are the things you're doing. So share about new launches, about your product, your service. This is where you can share all of that with the other members in this community. And like, you know, feel free. This is where you can show off in the nice sense of the word and share the great work that you're doing. So for example, we had Anina who's based in China, and she has— she was doing a live event called Diversity Summer. She did that not long ago, and she was delighted to announce one of the speakers on her event. So that's the type of thing we want you to share. So all of that's in the topic section. So we'll come back here. So I think you— I hope you'll see that there's a wealth of information here, and as Womeka said, you know, it's up to you to kind of go in and say, right, what do I feel like now? What's on my menu here? Have a look inside, Or if you're specifically looking for the latest grants to apply for, or latest competitions, or latest funding news, go into the separate sectors, what I said. And please post when you find great articles. You can post, and it's super easy to post. So for example, let's say you found an article on how to pitch, or just how to get here, a key tips article. Let's say all you need to do Is you need to press create and you say quick post, and you can just copy post the link in here and it will show up. So that's how it's done. It's very, very easy to use. It's like what you use in your other social media, okay? Or when you're using Medium. So it's a very easy platform to use. So the other thing I'd like to show you, which is super important of course, is the members. Now this is where we differ from a Facebook. Here you get to see all of the members. You can reach out to them directly. You don't have to wonder where are they, where the hell are they, if you will. You can find the ones who are nearest to you. So these are the ones who are nearest to your city. So these, for example, are the ones who are nearest to me because they're close to my city or close to a country near to it. Here are our newest members. So we have a list of our newest members here. The hosts and online now. So at any one point you can see who's online and you can have a chat with them. So this is where you can find your members, but also here on the left-hand side if you click on industries. So in industries, that's super important. Like when you create your profile, and you will find all this information on the, on the platform, when you create your profile, for example, it's super important for you to share What's your sector? So let's go here. Let's see, Maria Eva, she put in her introduction so we know what she— where she's in, what sector she's in, business services and so on. So you can find each other. So this is how in industries you can find each other very easily, those of you who are in the same industry. Okay, and if there's an industry or sector you don't see you'd like me to add, just let me know and I'll add it. So the other thing we have are groups. And these are special groups. It depends on the type and level of membership that you want to have. If you go back to the main website and you see community.buildinvesther.com, you'll see the 3— these different groups that are available to you. So I don't want to go into detail here because I just want to show you all the things, and you can uplevel, upgrade your membership as you want. What's important here is for you to see what's in here. So that's really the key thing. But last but not least, I'd like to show you the events section. So here's where we share upcoming events that we think will be useful to you as a female founder with, with relation to funding or growing your business. So here you can see literally a list of events that are coming up over the next few weeks that we have, and months that we're putting in. Now these events are not only events by Global Investor, these are events Also by great organizations in the ecosystem. So we share our partner events. What we do is we curate this list for you. So we go through what's happening and try and put as many great quality events in here for you so you don't have to go again looking all over the place. Get it, get your information here. So you'll find all the information you need about an event. You can just click on the event, you can learn about the event. You'll find out when it's on and you have a link to sign up. And what's super important is there is an RSVP, so you can click and say that you're going or not. It doesn't mean you signed up, okay, because a lot of these events are external. So you'll see there's a link here to an Eventbrite application, so you need to sign up and get your free ticket. And the majority of the events that we post are free. Again, we want to make sure that they are accessible to everybody, all of our members. And if they're not free, we make it very clear so that you know. So here you have a list of all the upcoming events that we have. So you can see learning— this one would be great if you want to learn about raising seed funding with a deep tech company. That's coming next Monday with our friends at Awaken Hub. I would really suggest you check that out. And this Saturday, if you've got the chance to do it a Saturday, there's a great webinar coming up. It's a 3-hour workshop by INSEAD, which is one of the world's top business schools, and all on venture capital startups and so on. So this is just the type of quality information that you can expect here. And what's very important is in the events you'll see we, we mentioned what are the, the weekly events. So every week— I've got to click here on pass because I need to post for next week— once every week we have what we call the Meet the Members weekly chat. So this is where we can all just come together and chat, get to know each other, and help each other. And it's amazing. I just love— we had a great one yesterday again where we had Jill, the Wamaka, Jill Wamaka and Susan, and we were just sharing information. We were able to give each other, you know, contacts. And Susan and Wamaka have had their conversations offline. Other people have stuff offline. So It's a great way to meet the members and bring the human contact back into a network. Okay, it's not all just looking at a screen and scrolling. You get to chat with your members and set up your own private chats, share your links, and do your own Zooms, and do it all here. And this is where— this is your funding friends, your funding family. That's what we want to become. So I'm going to pause there. And I'd love to see if anybody has any questions. Uh, with regard to here, what you're seeing. Oh, there's one last thing I wanted to show you, which is super cool, which is up here, the search bar. So this we don't have in Facebook. You know the way you have to scroll down and down and down to find an article on VC, an article on angel investors? We used to have our group on, um, Facebook. We had a Facebook group there for many years, and when I saw this platform and said, I want to be able to do this and offer to our members a much more convivial, cool way of connecting. So here in the search bar, you can just type in and you can say like, let's like, we'll do anything. We'll just say angel, angel investing. Let's, you could type anything. You could type a member's name. And if you look here in, in under angel investing, you see everything, my activity, near you, groups, members. You can actually check within different segments. But here you see everything that's to do with, with angel investing. So people who made comments about it, um, articles and so on and so forth, that, that's all here. So super easy to navigate. Um, and I would just love to, to hear from you. And the last thing I would say about this community is that the cool thing, the reason why I'm looking at my phone and I want to show you is that there is— we're part of the Mighty Networks. This is the technology we're using, and it's an app. So all you need to do, you can have your community with you everywhere you go. You don't need to be looking online on your laptop or on your iPad. You have it in your pocket. So if you click here on that black logo, sign in with your membership, and here you'll start to see— boom, there you are. You have everything you need. For your community, we're here. So we just want to make it as easy as possible. And I'd love to pause and answer any questions you may have just now because I want to hand it over to you, and then we're going to go and listen to Susan. So yeah, I'd love to hear from you. Would anybody have a question? And if so, please just raise your hands so that I can I can see, and I'm going to stop sharing for a second. Yeah, so I can see you all. That's better. So Juliette, would you like to ask a question? And I'm asking you to unmute if that— if you would like to, because I see your hand is raised.

Hi.

No, sorry, I don't know why it was raised. No, it seems pretty straightforward.

Great, fantastic. Okay, so if anybody else— Kenyatta, Christina, Maester— if any of you have a question, shoot. You can type it in in the chat box while we're waiting. Christina has a question. Yes, Christina, you're unmuted, off you go. And if you want to share your video, you're more than welcome to as well, up to you.

Hi, Anne. My question is around the investors. So I saw that you've got a list full of investors that are investing in minorities and women and so on. Have you got contacts within those networks and investors, and do you provide introductions as well, or is it a case of just finding the right person to connect us with them?

So, very, very good question, Christina. We have investors, and I'm creating a separate section for the investors to be able to do that matching. that you're, that you're looking for. When it comes to doing direct introductions, that's a bit tricky because we need to kind of know you before we can really, you know, promote you forward to an investor. But that's certainly something that is coming in the near future. But I want to show you something that's going to show you that is— that's actually— we've built that we're launching, um, very, very soon that you're kind of privy to first. And I want to show you now if you want. And you're going to see what I'm talking about. So basically, let me just move this screen. I want to show you something that we've created to make you visible, Christina, to investors. And so this is called the InvestHER Directory. It is basically a global directory of fantastic companies created by women that we want you to become visible to both investors, but also to consumers. And this doesn't exist anywhere else. So we want to become like the female Crunchbase or the female PitchBook data, whatever. So this is only female founders, and here— and it's a global directory. So we have companies at the moment, we have over 250 companies and growing, growing, growing. So by the time we do our full launch, we should be at at least 500, and then to thousands and thousands. That's where we're going. And So what we do, Cristina, is we showcase you to investors and to consumers. So in this directory, we have, as we said, at least 30 countries, 230 companies— we've gone beyond that— 75 sectors. And basically, you become visible to potential consumers and investors. So people here can search the directory just generally by sector, so according to your sector, They can find you by geography. They can find you by diversity. So if you have a, you know, if you're part of a different, um, um, part of, of a diverse group of people, they'll find you here. And by funding stage. And you'll notice that I've also put in acquired, IPO, because I want to show investors and the media, um, all the great companies that exist out there who've already made it, who've IPO'd, and so on. So what makes it different in our list is, for example, each of our profiles. So if you sign up for this, Christina, and this is one of the, the packs that we have, which is called the Starter Pack, whereas you join the community and the directory here, you get a directory listing. Um, basically here, your, your listing gives all your information, goes to a lot more detail than, um, other directories do. Other directories usually just give a link to your website, maybe a bit of social media That's about it. We go way beyond that. So we give your categories, your LinkedIn profile, all your socials. So that's particularly for consumers or businesses who need to find you, or specific partners. Then you can give your special offers. So if you've got any special offers that you're giving during COVID and beyond, this is where you can share the links. You can share videos to your— a key video, corporate video about your product or service. This is where you can share it. And then you say, okay, how best to support me? Well, you can follow me on Twitter, follow me on LinkedIn. If you want to promote me, this is the link you need to do to promote me with. If you want to buy from me, go straight to here. So we, we break it down, make it much easier for a consumer to find you. And then for investors, they can find you through the company stage, the funding stage, the number of founders, employees, the different sources of funding, and so on. So this is a very, very comprehensive database that doesn't exist anywhere else. And we've been showing it to a couple of investors already, and they're like, oh my god, this is incredible. So we're very excited about this, Christina. And this is basically step 1 of our, of our offer to help get you connected with investors, because basically you'll be found by consumers, by investors. And so investors, what we want to do is partner with them to bring them in to do office hours. So one of the, one of the key offers that we have is called FundHer, and I'll show you here. If you go to the founder section on the directory, I'll put the link now in the chat box so you can have a look. Here you can basically say, okay, I want to be on this directory, I want to be found. So it says, why should you list your company? You can take a look aside, you can search the directory. And when you join, you choose your plan, submit your listing, and then share your link because you need to share it to everybody. And so here we explain the different, the different plans that are available to you. And this one called the Fund Her plan, I'm just going to pop in the chat box here what I'm sharing with you now. So this is the link to the Directory of Founders page. So if you want to have a look at it, please everybody have a look there. The Fund Her package is where we go much more into giving you introductions to specific investors. So that's where we would have private pitch competitions with the women who are ready. That's where we're going to be setting it up. So we're in the building stages of this, Christina. And yeah, very excited because this is what's coming. It's literally in the works.

Yeah, this is brilliant. I actually— I was talking to somebody from SAP I think a couple of weeks ago, and they were looking to invest in female founders, and they were asking me, you know, where could we find them and how do we go about it? And this is something that they would really, you know, love to see this type of directory as well.

So I would love— because I know you and I were due to talk anyway, and I emailed you just before— but I would love for us to pick that up offline, Christina, because I know a couple of people in SAP and love to see who you would talk to and see if we could help. Because I said from the very beginning, this is, this is about us helping each other. I want women-owned businesses to get the visibility and the funding that we deserve, full stop. And to do that, we need to create a tool to make it easier. So that's why we've built this. So, um, I would love to help them, Christina. And, uh, thank you so much for for sharing that. So that's, uh, yeah. So, and this is so for the investors, you see, they will be able to do female founder office hours because exactly like you said, investors want to find the right female founders and we become the pipeline for them. Okay, so we will say, okay, here are the ones that you should be looking at. We can have pitch, you know, office hours per sector. We can showcase 5 or so at a time. And what I want to do with them is Slightly do it differently. It's pitch conversations instead of actual pitch competitions. So what I mean by that is like the pitch, the whole pitch situation has been built by men for men. The 3-minute, 5-minute, 10-minute pitch doesn't really work for women because our brains are wired differently, and I don't need to explain that to any of you here who are live with me here. So we want to do things differently, and so we want to be a resource a pipeline for those investors to find you, basically be a bridge. So we're building the bridges, Christina and everybody. And I'm so glad you asked that question because it's, as you say, it's here. You can have a look already. It's live. So you can already share the link. I'm gonna, I'm gonna share the link and also a little bit more about The 1 Million Investor, what we're doing about that. So just gonna get this the whole— I'll give you the directory link here. So any other questions before we hear from Susan? Because I'd love to, to hand over to Susan, who's waiting patiently in the wings. So if you have any questions, please do stick your hand up so I know who to, who to invite. Juliette, would you— your hand is still up now. I don't know if you still want to talk or not, otherwise if you could put your hand down. Yeah, okay, she's taking her hand down. Kenyatta, would you like to ask a question? If you are, you're more than welcome, and if not, no problem. Just want to make sure we can get everybody to, to be part of the conversation here. Okay, so let's hand over to Susan. Susan, I would love to, to allow everybody to hear from you. Do you want to share your video so I can— there you are, there's wonderful Susan. Now let me see if I can— if I stay quiet then you speak, you're going to be big screen, so let's do that. Over to you, Susan.

Thank you so much, Anne. I loved your tour because Even though I've been with you a while now, I learned something new. It's like when you travel international airports, when you see someone else's platform, it's like, oh, a new country. And so there's always new things to learn in the culture of the community. So thank you so much. It's been fun. I've been following Anne for 4 years. Her title, Global InvestHer, has always appealed to me. So I've been watching her newsletters. I've been watching her introductory notifications and the different events. And I came to a situation in my life where I go, I am certainly in a small pond of individuals and it's not providing for me what I wanted. So I reached out to Anne in a moment and said, What are the possibilities of investors interested in edutech for women in leadership? I couldn't believe the response. It was so amazing because she jumped on board. She gave me access to all these investor lists and said, Susan, check this out, do this. And then she connected me with people who might have a similar interest. And I go, wow, what a connection. There was no reason for you to choose me out of a group of Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women to help, other than the fact that I reached out and asked you. So, isn't that amazing that we can actually reach out and ask a question of someone in a group of women and they're there and responding just with a plethora of information? So, when she offered this small group connection, I jumped on board and said, yes, put me in there. So, I do show up almost every week when I can because it's It's so valuable to me. And the value is like, Wamaka and I will, will chat with Anne and we'll go over some of our challenges, and it's instant reflection and even maybe not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. And it's done in a caring way that moves us to the next level. So I think that's invaluable. among women. And Wamaka, I want to say you're just so beautiful on camera, so your design and everything is just—

Thank you.

It shows everywhere. I'm a professor. Don't let that turn you off. I am. I teach. I'm a doctoral chair for education at Grand Canyon University. I also teach psych. However, it's not clinical psych. It's theoretical side. So I teach transpersonal skills, I teach existentialism, so we go into very deep territory. I love what I do, and the interesting thing about it, even though I'm an academic and use my head a lot, I'm really truly an entrepreneur at heart. I've been in education almost all my life, and even when I was in business and marketing and management for a very large firm in the US, I always taught, and many of the things that I taught was around women in leadership. So having the concept of women entrepreneurs being able to lock arms together and create a platform for exposure to the money— we all know that there's money out there. Often it's shared among those that know and have and do and can. And so let's create that for ourselves. That is an important piece to why this is magical. We are more than 50% of the population around the world, so having that opportunity to unite in an effort that moves us all forward is, is what I'm about. So I left education at one point in my career, and I was very frustrated because the higher up I went in education, the more I saw that it was not responsive to people who were creative and entrepreneurial and not necessarily feeding education in its essence. So I left, I traveled around the world, and I actually taught in universities in China, went to Korea. I spent time in Asian countries learning technology from a different perspective, and then came back to the United States and created World Connections Foundation. So that is where my heart is because it's an educational platform. Currently I'm working on a documentary of how women in leadership move through their learning process by identification through the feminine archetypes, and that is a documentary which is actually promotion to a film, As I Rise. And this is a big heart passion for me, but it doesn't actually pay the rent. So that's why I still teach. In the process of my exposure to some of the activities, I've also joined up with Global Women's Peace Network, Women's Federation for World Peace. These are all very large organizations which involve women stepping up into leadership roles in various areas around the world. And because I teach globally as well as across the United States, I teach a lot of people who are women passionate about education. So right now I'm expanding into more leadership training programs for women who are in education and What has been powerful is Anne has connected me with several people in edutech, which they're already exploring those areas. And while I had felt that I was alone in the world, sort of a maverick in education, I've discovered there's other women out there like me who want to change the face of education. The United States has become a very powerful country based on 2 very important factors. One is the face of education, K through 12 and beyond, and the other is government loan for middle-class people to buy homes. Those are 2 very important factors that happened after World War II. Well, as we've moved and gone through history, we've eliminated the benefit of education, and now we have really no respect for it at all in the American culture as other nations do. And other nations that are moving into global marketplaces want to emulate the American education system because there are some benefits that they just find amazing, but they also want to improve on it. And I've just discovered those leaders in those arenas, and I, I have to thank Anne for that.

So, Kudos.

And I will, I will leave it at that. There are many things that individuals can find in this group, not just education, but that's where my heart is. And I've seen some amazing platforms for kids' products and clothing line, and it's, it's endless. So whatever your interests are, you can find it here. Thank you so much.

That's wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing, Susan. And wow, I didn't know that you were so well-traveled and lived and worked in all those countries abroad. I was like, whoa, that's very impressive, very, very impressive. And it's always a pleasure to have you with us on the weekly chat. So thank you very much for sharing your experience and how the community has been helpful to you. So as we wrap up, everybody, I would love to kind of just Finish off by saying we have a very special offer for those of you who are still with us. So that's thanks to Omaka and to Susan. So for those of you who are with us live, this is a special offer for you. So the normal price for joining Investor Community is $19.99 a month, and because you're here live with us and for the next hour— Keep it coming. You can join us through this link here that you see on the screen. So the Bitly link, I hate community for invest her community friend. That's what you are. You're a friend. So you get the friend rate of $10.99 a month instead of the normal founding rate of $19.99 a month. Now these rates are super, super low. They're actually going to be going up in September because we know the value of the community. We just want to help get as many of the fantastic women who you may know and you say, this is something I want to be part of. So we want to make it easier for you. So I hope that you have found this to be very useful and informative, and I would just love to kind of leave it open now to see if any of you have any questions. If you have any questions, please do type them in the chat box or just raise your hand. I'd be very, very happy to answer them. Thank you, Anne. Thank you for, for being interested in funding and women entrepreneurs in this network, and I hope that you see the benefits that could be there for you. If, if you think it's interesting for you, come join us. If it's not for you, that's perfectly fine too. I'm glad that you spent the time with us today and that you got to know us a little bit better. And if you feel it could be of benefit to others, please share this video. Thank to you. someone else that you know, please do share if you do, if you feel so. So I'm going to leave the link up there now live and just want to check and see if any of you would like to— if there are any questions. So if there's any questions, just let me know and I'd be happy to answer them, or just any comments if you'd like to say anything just before we sign off. So I'm stopping that here so that we can see each other, and if there's any— anything you want to say, that's great. I would just like to thank, first of all, our members again. Thank you so much, Wamaka and Susan, for sharing your experience. Any last words you want to share? Wamaka, I see you've unmuted yourself. Please go ahead.

I actually wanted to ask if this recording would be available to share outside of the community, um, to people who may not have been able to attend, um, after this.

Absolutely. So I am going to upload this into YouTube now. Um, just give a little while to upload. I will let you know. I'll send you the link in the community for those of you who are part of the community. If not, I'll be sharing it across our social media. So go to Global Investor Twitter, to our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. I'm going to be sharing it so that you can all have a look. For those— basically, it's in the next hour if you want to take advantage of that special price. So if you have friends who want to be part, give them that Bitly link now because it won't be on forever, and we'd love to have them join. So yes, recording is coming out to you now in the next few minutes that it takes to get it up into YouTube.

Excellent, thank you.

Excellent, yes.

Wonderful. So, Kristiina, any other last thoughts, comments, questions before we go?

That was really good, actually, and it was brilliant to actually see the power of the network the way you explained it as well, because I know there were a lot of other, you know, attempts at building these type of networks before that didn't necessarily work, but I can definitely see the value in what you're building. So thank you so much, Anne. That was really, really good.

Wonderful. Thank you. So thank you all for being with us today. As I said, I'm very grateful to have you with us. If you want to know more about Global Investor and all the services and partnerships that we provide, check out globalinvesther.com. You get all the information there. If you're a founder and you want to get straight to the community, go to the founder section on our website and you'll find the community. If you want to get access to the special link, go now. It's the Bitly link that I shared, so it's bit.ly/ihcommunityfriend. Okay, I've put it in the chat box for those who are live, and I will I will share it again. Let me just put it— I'm going to share my screen so you can see it again live one last time, and I'm going to say goodbye that way. So thank you everybody for being with us. Have a great rest of your day, and if you like what you said, share it, and let's get funded. Yes, we can. Yes, we will get funded. Thank you, ladies. Delighted to be with you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks everybody. Take care.

Bye now.

Take care.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bye.