Black Women in Business
This Is What It’s Like To Be The Only Black Woman Founder At A Pitch Event
Entrepreneur Cheryl Sutherland describes her experience of trying to raise funds for her business at an event with 500 mostly white, male attendees.
“When my name was called to go into the investor pitch room, I felt a wave of heat hit my face,” recalls entrepreneur Cheryl Sutherland. “This was the first time I pitched my company, PleaseNotes, to people that could change the course of my business and ultimately my life.”
Sweaty palms and butterflies are to be expected at such a moment, especially in a room holding around 500 other hopeful entrepreneurs jockeying to catch the eye of an investor at a “Founder Meet Funder” event in Santa Monica. Yet Sutherland still felt alone. “I noticed that the majority of people pitching their companies were the stereotypical L.A. entrepreneur: the straight, white male.” Indeed, she remembers that even among the very few female founders present, she was the only African-American woman there to pitch her business.
This is often the case for black female founders. Over the last decade, there was an increase of women-owned firms totaling 3.5 million, according to the most recent State of Women-Owned Businesses Report. A large majority (78%) of these new businesses are owned by women of color. As of 2016, there were an estimated 1.9 million African-American women-owned firms employing 376,500 workers and generating $51.4 billion in revenues. Yet only 4% of female-owned businesses and 13% minority-owned businesses received venture capital funding last year. Part of the reason is that less than 3% of VC funds have black and Latinx investment partners, according to Pitchbook.
Sutherland was no different. She started PleaseNotes with two products–a journal and sticky notes printed with positive affirmations–in 2016 using her personal savings and credit cards. She also launched a Kickstarter campaign. Although the crowdfunding effort successfully met Sutherland’s “stretch” goal of $15,000, a year later she believed she needed an investor to get PleaseNotes to the next level. For perspective, this is less than half of the average amount raised by black female founders, according to research from Digital Undivided’s Project Diane. Yet failed startups (often helmed by white men) raise over $1 million in investment, according to CB Insights.
CONFRONTING IMMEDIATE BIAS
I had one minute with each of the people. As an entrepreneur, you have to have your pitch and your ask, and justify all that, and have your numbers be as tight as possible. I’d been practicing, I’d done two or three formal pitches, and I’d done research, and I was very clear on what it was that I wanted and what the value of my company was. The majority [of advice I’d heard] was that investors don’t only care about what you are saying, they care how you’re saying it. If you have the passion and clarity, then it’s definitely easier.
There was one person of color, an East Indian man, and the [other three] were Caucasian, including one woman. The setting wasn’t ideal. It was very disorganized [because of the size of the crowd] and there was yelling over the table. You couldn’t hear so it felt limited to 45 seconds. I felt like there …
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