Cheryl Contee
CEO & Co-Founder of Fission Strategy
Cheryl is the award-winning CEO and Co-Founder of Fission Strategy, which helps the world’s leading non-profits, foundations and social enterprises design digital ecosystems that create change globally. She is also the Co-Founder of groundbreaking social marketing software Attentive.ly at Blackbaud, the first tech startup with a Black female founder on board in history to be acquired by a NASDAQ-traded company.
Connect with Cheryl on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
What’s a challenge you’ve faced, and how did you get through it?
Attentive.ly was one of the first tech startups with a Black female founder on board to raise over $2mil. Even though I was a successful entrepreneur who had generated millions of dollars for the digital agency I co-founded with Roz Lemieux, I found it difficult to raise our initial seed funding. I was used to having my calls and emails returned at least, but I had to knock on a lot of doors and face down a lot of people who would say things (if I was able to get to a demo finally) like: “Wow, this seems like a great product idea but I don’t know if you or your team are really the ones who can make this happen.” They would say that to my face.
But I never gave up. Roz and I believed 150% that our product could make a big difference in the nonprofit sector’s ability to do 21st digital engagement, and I kept knocking on doors. Finally, I ended up sitting on a park bench for two hours with the angel investor who would ultimately become our best champion. Josh Mailman told us he believed that minority and female investors are consistently undervalued and that he believed in us. Once we were able to secure initial funding, build out our team and produce strong traction, raising capital became easier.
What’s something you’ve done that you’re really proud of?
I’m proud that we were able to demonstrate with Attentive.ly’s acquisition that you can invest in a minority and female-led tech startup and experience a strong ROI. We’ve also been gratified to see tech similar to what we created at Attentive.ly be incorporated into most of the major CRMs that focus on nonprofits. Finally, Fission (my digital agency) created source code for Crowdtangle, a social media meme management platform, earning sweat equity. We were thrilled to participate as minority shareholders in Facebook’s acquisition of Crowdtangle in early 2017, which is now free to everyone as part of Facebook’s Journalism Project!
What’s something that’s been on your mind this Black History Month?
This is a challenging moment in American history. It’s imperative that we continue to build for a future in which opportunity is available for everyone, no matter the color of their skin, including the world of technology.
