A Black founder needed 140 conversations to close their first funding round. The speaker and founders like Brandi Andrews wrote to the SEC about accredited investor rules that lock out most people. Beyond policy, Black founders have to de-risk their ideas, models, and themselves to convince investors.
I'll be honest, I talked to more than 140 people before we raised our first money, and that's really tough, and it's a lot of nos. But I think the challenge is that as you acknowledge that there's, you know, the friends and family round is very, very difficult for Black Americans and underrepresented groups normally across the board, it's that, okay, and now what part of it that we have to address? And so one part of it is making sure we're taking up issue with the ways these regulations have been written. And to Mariah's point, I've written, written along with Brandi Andrews and several other founders, letters to the SEC to ask for not only for the investment limits to be increased for investors, but also to change the accredited investor definition because of all the things that Mariah said. So not only do we need to make sure we're working on the policy side that's specifically holding us back from an infrastructure standpoint. But we also, as the founders who are now making micro decisions to try and do our own thing, figure out how we navigate the space given that. And I think ultimately it's being able to create this level of confidence in you and your business. So de-risking the idea, de-risking the business, de-risking you, and understanding that there is a lot of, you know, a lot of heavy lifting you have to do to kind of accomplish that. And unfortunately, That's the way the state of the world is.
