Underrepresented #womanintech: Is It Attitude or Culture?
Insights into the status of the tech scene in Berlin from a startup CEO: “We need more women in this space to end the under-representation.”
One of guiding principles of SAP.iO Fund and Foundry is its focus on Inclusive Entrepreneurship — which is about empowering women and minority entrepreneurs to build successful businesses around SAP. We’re proud that more than 30% of SAP.iO’s startups are founded or led by women and/or minority entrepreneurs.
But recent reports show that despite the best efforts, the ecosystem in Europe as a whole is still lagging behind.
Whilst most of us were busy with holiday shopping and wrapping up 2018, an alarming report was released on Dec 6th — to remind us of the urgent work ahead in 2019. Venture Capital Firm Atomico found that 93% of all of the 2018 funding for European tech start-ups went to all-male founding teams. Citing, “nearly 90 percent of respondents said having a diverse team benefits company performance”. The report points out:
“There's a huge vacuum of European voices stepping up into the discussion with most coverage on diversity and inclusion in the European tech news sources being driven by US tech companies.”
We asked Anna Ritz, CEO of weview (2018 SAP.iO Foundry Berlin Alum — watch her live demo day pitch here), about her experience as a #womanintech to find out the realities directly from the source.
Q. Why do you think we (women) are under-represented in the Tech scene in comparison to our male counterparts?
It’s an attitude issue — that might arise from our culture. It is about self-awareness and risk-awareness and giving yourself permission! My experience has taught me that women tend to be more risk-aware and also overly analytic of an opportunity.
Risk awareness + Self awareness would be a strong qualifier for a good founder.
Risk-awareness plus self-awareness would be a strong qualifier for a good founder. We as women need to stop disqualifying ourselves by being too critical of an opportunity and too harsh on assessing our own talents. We will not have more female founders if we don’t shift this mentality!
Q. Why do you think women get less funding from VCs?
I think it is a matter of the insidious combination of semantics and sentiment. Women shouldn’t allow semantics to shape their sentiments. Risk-averse semantics induce risk averse-sentiments and vice versa. In this famous Ted Talk, Dana Kanze highlights how asking women risk-averse questions trigger risk-averse answers — thus creating the feel of a risky start-up.
We are planning to raise funds at the end of 2019, and I am already preparing myself mentally to fight this bias — by actively reframing any risk-averse questions as suggested by Dana in the Ted Talk. The bottom line: if you want VC money as women, answer any question with a positive outlook that focuses on growth and market-potential of your business rather than the risks involved.
Q. Can you describe the female-founder experience? What difficulties have you personally faced and how did you overcome them?
My experience so far is a positive one. I can be myself: open, curious and cheeky. Coming from a background in finance, I had to learn how to be heard in rooms full of ego — and how to earn respect. I had to be more empathetic than the men in the room, in order to avoid being perceived as arrogant. In finance, I had to act tough, because otherwise I would’ve come across as naïve.
It’s not about being the smartest, it’s about being the fastest — you have to learn, develop, and grow fast if you want to succeed.
However, as a woman in tech, it’s almost the inverse situation: a certain degree of naivety is healthy to get stuff done. It’s not about being the smartest, it’s about being the fastest — you have to learn, develop, and grow fast if you want to succeed. You get used to being in rooms where most people are smarter than you and these are exactly the rooms you want to be in. In my SAP.iO cohort (2018 Berlin Foundry), somebody described it as taking ‘time’ out of the equation of fear. Do not give fear the time to grow on you.
Do not give fear the time to grow on you.
Q. What is the value in joining an accelerator program?
The value lies in the SAP client network. If you’re developing an enterprise solution, then SAP is the ideal partner to ensure you get it right.
You are being deconstructed and reconstructed as a start-up. And somehow the magic happens in that painful process. You gain clarity — and clarity is what you need to be able to create in a world of constant ambiguity. You get to learn from your peers — simple lessons on how to avoid common pitfalls, especially of that of trying to reinvent the wheel! The volume of insights and the feedback speed is so much faster because of the dedicated mentor network!
Q. What lessons did you encounter as a founder, as a woman, as a leader on the program?
As woman, I learned to always keep up the spirit — even if I’ve made a mistake. As founder, I learned the value of being fully transparent and honest with my team, and as a leader, I’ve been humbled by the power of listening — especially to your team, regardless of rank/position.
As a leader, I’ve been humbled by the power of listening — especially to your team.
Q. What did the weview team accomplish during the 2018 SAP.iO Foundry Berlin Program?
We secured financing for the next six months and developed our go-to-market strategy. We also validated our product-market fit and that’s just the tip of the iceberg — and what I’m currently at liberty to reveal!
Q. Who you think should join future SAP.iO programs and why?
Passionate women, who aspire to build first-class AI-powered SAAS Enterprise Solutions and who want to end the gap! We need more women in this space to end the under-representation.
We need more women in this space to end the under-representation.
If you think you have what it takes, then apply to be part of the Foundry Berlin program.
