A Letter to Women of Color Founders During Uncertain Times

If not us, who? If not now, when?

It has been a decade since I started my journey in “digital health” inside an academic and traditional health system environment, not just resistant to change, but unaware of the need for it. Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced healthcare systems to adopt innovative tech-enabled solutions with a sense of urgency. Those of us who have been working hard to transform healthcare from the outside in and the inside out are seeing the fruits of our labor. This is not how we wanted this change by any stretch of the imagination, but we have been called and we are ready.

As I have said for the last decade, health innovation must be made for and with communities of color who are experiencing the most health inequities in this country. The COVID-19 pandemic is showing us the ugly underbelly of structural racism and bias in healthcare. We need the data and we need solutions.

So, I’m working to get my start-up off the ground in the middle of a pandemic and I know I’m not alone. I know several women of color (WoC) founders who are doing the same across multiple industries.

My Twitter timeline would tell me that might not be a good idea. It’s no secret that VCs and angel investors are being cautious — focusing on their existing portfolio companies and going with investments in “known entities.”

Here’s the thing though

For me and other WoC founders, those realities have always existed. We expect that we will need to bootstrap our companies. We know we will be held to a higher (often unrealistic?) standard of proven revenue to attract investors. A “back of the napkin” idea would never be sufficient for us to get a million-dollar or $500K pre-seed round. When I made the decision to begin the journey of entrepreneurship, my mentor was honest. He said, “This will not be easy. You don’t look like the typical start-up founder. You will have to do more. You will have to prove more.” He didn’t sugarcoat it.

This is our truth. Yet, we don’t and won’t run from the challenge.

That’s why I want to encourage WoC, particularly my sisters in the digital health/healthcare innovation space.

We were made for such a time as this! And our communities need us in the fight more than ever.

Let’s Look at the Numbers

Harlem Capital recently released its 2019 Female Founders Report. I applaud them for their work and thank them for providing specifics by race/ethnicity. I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to see, yet I couldn’t wait to get this report and let my inner data geek go crazy analyzing the numbers. Here’s a breakdown of how they structured the report:

• began with a pool of over 2,300 female founders that have raised 1mm+ of venture capital funding
• narrowed the list down to the top 200 female founders overall that included 13 Black and Latina founders
• added the top 100 raises by Black and Latina founders to allow them to assess key trends.

To be clear, there are many founders who didn’t make this list. This is an amazing group of women who all deserve recognition.

And what is clear is that there is so much more work to do for Black and Latina Women Founders.

Despite the fact that African American women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in this country, White and Asian women raised almost 15X more than African American and Latina Women.

Yet, 66% and 78% of Black and Latina women founders in the group, respectively had some level of graduate education compared to 50% and 60% of Asian and White women. Likewise, HBCUs received, comparatively, a fraction of the capital raised.

To be clear, these numbers were a reality before the pandemic. What is different now?

Positioned to Win

Here are a few thoughts on why I think Black and Latina founders, particularly those in health tech — because that’s my lane — are well-positioned to lead, and some tips to stay the course in trying times.

1. We know what it means to survive and thrive with less. I didn’t grow up with an abundance. We lived month to month for most years of my childhood. We learned to do with less and prioritize. Take a hard look at your business. Where do you need to focus? What is essential? Take the time to do the projections of what you need for 6, 12, 18, even 24 months of runway for your company. Check-in with your customers. How are they doing? How does that impact your plans?
2. Necessity is the mother of invention. We are seeing the rapid adoption of telemedicine across healthcare to support our need for social distancing to flatten the curve of COVID-19 infection. We are also seeing our communities of color have worse outcomes from infection with COVID-19 because of pre-existing conditions that are often the result of health disparities, institutional bias, and racism. We have a greater incidence of the very conditions that put people at greater risk for death — diabetes, hypertension, obesity, etc. Yet, there isn’t always trust in the health systems that we must rely on for care. We are more likely to delay seeking care. We are less likely to follow public health guidance. (How many have had to convince our moms to not go to church?) Now is the time to develop new solutions/products to address these needs. What can we do to create solutions that reach our communities? Build trust. Provide care. Identify people who are at risk earlier and get them to needed treatment.
3. Double down on investing in our community. When I was growing up, the weight of my family’s personal struggles didn’t feel so heavy because our community invested in me. From the firefighters who let me sit in the firehouse and asked me about school while I waited for the bus to the orthodontist who gave us an extended payment plan for my braces — they invested in me. During this pandemic, we have seen long-time leaders like Kathryn Finney, Founder of Digital Undivided supporting Black Female Entrepreneurs with the Doonie Fund. But the truth is that we ALL have something to give and it might not be dollars. In our family, we think of giving in three ways. You can give of your time, your talent and/or your treasure. Spending time with family on Zoom happy hours or watching TV has been great but giving of my time to support fellow Black female entrepreneurs refine their business model or think of a new product opportunity brought on by COVID-19 or just to be a listening ear when times are stressful also brings me joy. We all have something to give. Double down on that!

Time to Regroup and Get Focused

When this season is over, we will be different, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. As we figure out what the new normal is for our families and communities, we will have to figure out what each of our roles will be and how we can contribute. What this pandemic has made painfully clear is that we are all interconnected and something that happens half a world away can turn our lives upside down. Let’s use this time to regroup and focus on helping our most vulnerable AND the innovators and entrepreneurs who are working to support them. If what I have seen working with many WOC entrepreneurs over the last several weeks, they are well-positioned to move us forward. Investors get your checkbooks out!

My mom taught us that whether you have little or much, you always have something to give. So, in this time, my commitment is to double down on our community by giving of my time and talent.

Over the next two months, I will have office hours each week to support Black and Brown women entrepreneurs in the health tech space with their business model and/or clinical strategy. Please, no pitches.

If this sounds like you, please complete this Google Form so I know a little about your company and how I might be able to help. I will send a link to my calendar to as many folks as possible. Depending on the response, I will see about extending the time.

READY. SET. GO! — Let’s do this!