A Man at the Female Founders Conference
On Monday, I attended the Y Combinator Female Founders Conference. The event is designed for startup people who identify as female. As one of a small handful of men in attendance, I’d like to share my unique perspective.
First of all, wow. What an amazing experience. Every speaker inspired me personally, and I learned so many useful insights that will apply to my startup endeavors. But more importantly, my worldview is expanded.
The media writes a lot of stories about the struggles female founders face. And at the Female Founders Conference, I heard quite a few stories of scrappy founders overcoming challenges with perseverance. But the most surprising thing to me was how relatable every story was. They weren’t just stories about women. They were, first and foremost, stories about startup founders.
I learned something really valuable from this event. No matter who you are, where you come from, or what your skills, there are people similar to you who have created and cultivated a crazy successful endeavor. You just have to be invited to take a look.
One of the best examples of this is Urska Srsen, founder of Bellabeat.
She is an artist. She went to school to study sculpting. She’s from the small, little-known country of Slovenia. And she founded a hardware technology company that helps women track their health while looking beautiful. Since half of all people are women, this is a pretty large market. When coupled with their excellent product design, their growth is off the charts.
The best way to fix problems is to quietly succeed and be a beacon for others.
However, it’s not obvious to most of us that we fit the mold of startup founder. After speaking with some of the other attendees, I realized that it’s too easy for your perspective to be clouded when the people around you are all similar to each other, and not necessarily similar to you.
Some attendees, living in the Bay Area, work with a group composed mostly of men. It’s only natural that they might feel a bit out of place, even if the only reason there aren’t more women than men has to do with centuries-old social norms, rather than the qualifications of individuals. They told me it was a refreshing experience to see so many successful and inspiring women just like them.
But you shouldn’t have to attend a conference to know that you are perfectly qualified to start something. You should be able to hear from the media that people like you are doing so all the time.
You shouldn’t have to attend a conference to know that you have a supportive community behind you. Your friends and coworkers should tell you that.
Now, I don’t work in the media, and I don’t know if there’s a perfect answer to the first issue. Perhaps I’m mistaken about its complex nature. But I’d like to propose a call to action to help address the second. I write this for myself, but I hope it inspires others as well.
I want to seek out people who are not just like me. Sometimes you can be successful working with a person who shares your perspectives. But therein lies a danger that both of you are wrong. I want to collaborate with people whose perspectives are much different from mine. People who will challenge me every day and offer me a new take on the world, rather than always nodding and saying “We’re on the same page.” That’s the fastest way for all of us to grow and find the best answers together.
In the closing discussion of the conference, Jessica Livingstone said, “In ten years, I want there to be a ton of unicorns founded by women. When people think of the next Google or the next Facebook, they should be thinking of woman founders.”
Whoever you are, the world needs you. Keep building awesome things.
I’d like to challenge all of us, especially those of us who find their collaborators to be rather homogenous, to find people with different circumstances and perspectives, and to discover what plans they have to disrupt a multi-billion dollar industry you’ve never heard of.
Who knows. You may end up boarding their rocketship and blasting off with them.
