3 Things I Learned from an Equity in Tech Summit
As my first blog, I figured that I’d sit down and talk a bit about what I’m doing out in the community. It’s less nerve-wrecking than trying to find something interesting to talk about out of my brain and expect — “poof”… it’s just gonna sound good and stuff.
So, I’ll start it off with my experience at a recent all-day tech-focused conference, St. Louis Equity in Entrepreneurship Collective Summit.
The summit had a broad focus on providing support for minorities in early-stage, tech-based businesses. The startup world is fraught with key players in the majority, but it helps when the average investment is… oh… about 1 million plus.
I’m not making this up.
Okay. We got the numbers. And we know there’s an issue. So what are we gonna do about it?
That’s where the summit comes in. It wasn’t your typical run-of-the-mill gathering where folks sit down and listen to awesome speakers and come out nodding their heads saying “Yeah, we should DO something about it” before hoping in their car and going back to a 9-to-5.
This conference was like “Nope… you will sit here and help us fix this thing, together!”
Seriously, it was the first question in their FAQ:
The summit had a mix between speakers from the minority entrepreneur community, interactive polls, and breakout sessions. It split each session into troubleshooting goals, with four main topics: Intentional Network Cultivation, Data Transparency & Accountability, Unbiased Concentration & Distribution of Resources, and Coordinated Investment.
During the breakouts, we talked about what we felt the problems were that hindered minority community members from gaining access to/benefiting from that topic, what our three main ones were from that discussion, what ideas we had to resolve them, and what metrics we could use to measure the success/failure rate after implementation.
I dove into the one that focused heavily on “Unbiased Concentration & Distribution of Resources”. I heard how others developed their ideas regarding some sort of business, and the struggles many faced with getting the support they needed to take their developments to the next level.
Our group settled on three main issues in that area. Here’s how they broke down:
We lack mentors to support budding entrepreneurs
Without an abundance of resource people available, entrepreneurs could develop or establish an idea with a relatively small market. This could lead to failure which could have been prevented before the first business plan. Having a mentor, or even apprenticing under one, could prevent a lot of these issues, head on.
We lack safety nets for entrepreneurs taking a huge financial risk
It’s not new that taking any idea from mind-to-reality will involve a certain amount of investment, up front. However, if your main source of income also provides you food, shelter, and the essentials, taking away from that source — especially if you have no extra to give — can cause devastating results to one’s way of life, not to mention their family’s! Creating a pool or fund that specifically is set aside could help make risk less damaging for the entrepreneur.
We have bias within the decision-maker level
As seen in the image above, minority entrepreneurs are often left out of the big sums of money that get thrown at majority ones, even if their products or services don’t work out. They still land with somewhat of a golden parachute of success and safety, and their risk is often rewarded with executive level positions, speaking engagements, or opportunities (lucrative) to share their failures in the mainstream media. Having a more diverse board within the VC (venture capital) or Angel investment arena could give further advantages to the less fortunate, and allow their investors to also see products and ideas that reflect a more diverse consumer base.
Afterwards, there were plenty of occasions for me to converse with some of the big players in the Collective. It consists of multiple organizations who have banded together for the explicit purpose to help change these numbers, demographics, and visibility of minority representation within tech-based startups.
The list includes: Arch Grants, BioSTL, Brazen Global, CET (Center for Emerging Technologies), Cortex, ITEN, Missouri Small Business Development Center, St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, St. Louis Makes, St. Louis Regional Chamber, T-Rex, and Venture Café St. Louis, among many others.
The summit had an additional goal to recruit people, and gather more voices. I joined the action committee immediately, afterwards. Let the progress, begin.
