EVOLve_21: Tiffany Patterson [8/1/2022]

Tiffany Patterson, Founder and CEO of Cowrie

This interview is part #EVOLve Series with one of our @posi2ive community members — in partnership with Responsibly Ventures. Interviewees have been active in our weekly *VC Impact* community roundtables on Twitter Spaces [each Friday 3:30pm PT]. In each self-paced and self-authored interview, we ask impact Founders / Investors what they are doing to change the world, and why they’re motivated to focus on their area of impact. Hope you all enjoy!

“As a general community builder, I’ve had some success with creating a following within corporate and social impact spaces. However, building a community around a product/experience that doesn’t yet exist is undoubtedly much harder.”

Twitter: @DatGyalTFiyah

The Interview

Top Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):

• 3: Good Health / Well Being
• 5: Gender Equality
• 8: Decent Work / Economic Growth

Impact verticals your venture focuses on:

• Diversity / Equity / Inclusion (DE&I)
• Financial Access / Democratization
• Social Impact

Please share what you’re building, your professional background, and what inspired this venture.

I’m building a mission-driven platform for seamlessly connecting BERGs and other DEI-centered groups to underrepresented and underserved founders building companies they want to support. As a BERG (Business Employee Resources Group) leader and member, I was inspired to devise a way that’ll scale internal buying programs aimed to support specific affinity groups, despite leaving and starting anew at another company.

After 2020, BERG initiatives became increasingly taxing — responding to both the pandemic and social injustices — without pay. While we aim to have an impact, how can we continue to do so without voluntarily spending just as much time on DEI efforts as the full-time job we were hired to do?

What’s the impact focus of your venture? And how do you plan to measure impact?

I plan to measure impact through platform impact reporting. First-hand experience and feedback have led me to devise ways companies and BERGs can be transparent about where they are with putting their money and numbers where their mouth is. The focus of my venture is to help these entities benchmark where they are in supporting their communities and have conversations about how they can be better.

What’s driving your impact focus?

Having colleagues who identify as underrepresented Founders and falling short of access, or funding to thrive, and experiencing manual and disparate processes for leading company BERG engagements. I wanted to find a way to scale our efforts as impact groups supporting small businesses and emerging founders who are often overlooked.

What are some obstacles standing in the way of the impact you have planned?

A dedicated team or resources, including funding, to help launch an MVP. While I’ve partnered with a fund and there’s interest in also supporting this venture, finding an inexpensive way to launch an MVP has placed me in a chicken-and-egg situation.

How do you stay motivated?

I try to network, share more about what I’m doing, explore potential partnering opportunities, and join virtual spaces that can help me stay up-to-date with my prospective user base’s needs.

Tell us about your market, customers, and team.

Right now, my team consists of myself with interested volunteers. However, my market consists of corporate companies and organizations that currently spend $8 billion in DEI training alone. This doesn’t account for the roughly $400,000 spent yearly in non-training DEI initiatives. My users would be the employees, specifically BERG leaders and members, within these companies and organizations.

How do you keep yourself healthy — e.g., mentally, physically, emotionally?

Affirmations have been vital, exercising and acupuncture to ground me, and keep me healthy. Living with a disability can pose various challenges, so I must learn to gain as much control as possible.

What are you currently educating yourself on?

External community building and building marketplaces. As a general community builder, I’ve had some success with creating a following within corporate and social impact spaces. However, building a community around a product/experience that doesn’t yet exist is undoubtedly much harder.

What books, podcasts, or newsletters should our community read — to better understand your area of impact?

I’ve found Signal’s NFX Community newsletters and The Community Club newsletters incredibly insightful.

Of course, Jason Calacanis’s podcast is helpful whenever I have a moment to listen.

I try to keep reading the books I do to foster imagination. It’s important to me that I can think about ways to solve problems using everything at my reach, in or outside my subject focus.

What do you do outside of work, that you like to brag about?

As a founder with a disability, I have to preserve my energy. I volunteer with an organization dedicated to supporting creative technology Founders part of the Caribbean startup ecosystem. This is where my family is from, and, as a first-generation Caribbean-American, I want to do whatever I can to support my community, especially during this time.

How can the @posi2ive community support your efforts? (*Not public solicitation, nor securities offerings)

Recommending any social impact-driven and DEI groups, or individuals to provide feedback on the prototype I built would be helpful, along with any introductions that could help me grow my company’s community or support its growth.

Copyright 2022, all rights reserved. No financial advice nor any offerings made in this post. If you’re a Founder / Investor focused on VC Impact, we’d love to invite you to share your story here (#EVOLve) with the posi2ive community. If you’re an LP or GP in venture, we’d also love to have you apply to our private VC Impact Capital Community.