Show up in a red dress

“I do a little bit of angel investing or impact investing and was chatting with a VC last week. And he is super passionate about getting more women involved and asking me about my experience. I’m asking him if there are angel groups here in the area that are more open to women. We had this great conversation where he recognized like, “Sure it might be a weird experience being a woman, being younger, to go into some of these more established boys’ clubs.” And it just happened that a man who is part of these angel groups was meeting with this guy after me, so he introduced us. And this man’s first inclination was to offer me an internship. In no way was it assumed that I’d be coming to the table as an equal. Which is flattering, I probably look really young but it was an interesting first assumption. So I followed up and I went to a couple of their meetings and just never mentioned the word “intern” ever again. I was like, “Hey, I would be super-psyched to bring in a more youthful and feminine perspective to your investments.” Now they’re super on-board to offer me a spot if I want to come join them and I just embraced it. I showed up in a red dress and I was the only woman there who was a potential member. I had to sort of reset. I thought that I’m here choosing whether I want to join you guys. My perspective’s going to be super valuable to you. I use these apps, you have to talk to your grandkids about it.”

This is one of my favorite stories so far during my project of interviewing women on women’s rights. She’s an inspiration to me and I’ve learned more about business from just meeting her. Perfectly she practices the concept of answering the question you wanted to hear asked to you. This, among other things, I think is one of the reasons she is who she is.

A companion essay to the Beautiful Army story: http://beautiful.army/post/143439274541/i-do-a-little-bit-of-angel-investing-or-impact.