Empowering Born Global Startups: What I learned spending 2 weeks at Blackbox Connect
Welcome to the global family!
Last May I was selected to join the Blackbox Connect, Female Founders Edition powered by Google for Entrepreneurs (GFE) as a Partner in Residence. As a new member of the GFE Network, I was very excited to start learning from the best right away; and also, I must confess I was a bit intrigued about the “female edition” part, since I’ve never been part of a program for women only.
blackbox.vc is a two week residential program designed to bring amazing startup founders from around the globe to Silicon Valley, and help them understand its culture and mindset to grow their business.
The curriculum consisted of talks on investment insights and best practices from venture capital funds, angel investors and successful founders; how to build a pitch for different occasions; legal and financial basics for startups in Silicon Valley; individual mentorship sessions; and networking events.
Now, besides describing what you can find on the website, I would like to talk about what I learned spending two weeks with 18 incredible entrepreneurs and a very professional, yet warm, team.
The cohort
18 young entrepreneurs; 16 startups; 14 countries. Although I expected to see good startups, I was impressed by the quality of the selection made by the Blackbox team. Not only the companies and the problems they solve were outstanding, but the quality of the teams was exceptional. From China, to Mexico, Tel Aviv and more; beyond the cultural differences -which made the experience very rich- the common ground in these women is the passion they have for what they do.
Developing solutions like improving farmers quality of life by bringing them relevant data about their crops through technology; helping caregivers learn how to take best care of aging loved ones; or creating the biggest social app for lesbians in China. All of these are examples of the talented women behind these amazing projects. If you want to know them all, click here.
The program
It’s all about the mindset
One of the most important topics is the Silicon Valley culture. On the first day of the program, Fadi Bishara set the mood for the rest of the two weeks by telling us that in the Bay Area you have permission to fail, but also you have permission to succeed; and not only to succeed, but to excel. This was a great way to open the mind of the participants and make them feel welcome and in a secure environment. Great empowerment speech!
The context
The program took place at Fact0ry, a big old house renewed with an incredible design, which definitely creates an innovative and inspiring environment. We all spent day and night there and shared bedrooms with other participants. The guest speakers would go to Fact0ry and give their talks at a very cozy living room we used as a classroom. This scenario is ideal to generate organic conversations among the entrepreneurs, but also invites the speakers to be more open and candid.
The content
The level of the Blackbox network is impressive, to say the least. Speakers from investment funds like Sharon Vosmek from Astia Ventures; Dave Munichiello from Google Ventures; Gretchen Howard from Google Capital; and David Hornik from August Capital shared their knowledge, experience, and sometimes even contacts!- with the group in a very truthful and open way.
Another important aspect of the learning experience is the pitch training.
Bill Joos does a great job helping the teams to communicate their business’ proposition to different audiences (investors, customers, etc) in various contexts (handshake, elevator, and napkin pitch, as well as investor meetings). This helped the entrepreneurs carry themselves proficiently during their conversations on several networking events from day one.
The field visits were also a relevant part of the experience. We went to the Googleplex for 1:1 mentorship sessions with the Google Launchpad Accelerator team; to Rackspace offices to get one-on-one advice from the Blackbox mentors network; and to Eventbrite’s headquarter to have a fireside chat with their CEO and co-founder Julia Hartz. I think that being inside the offices of these huge companies that once started with a couple of persons and a lot of passion gives the entrepreneurs a lot of motivation and inspiration.
The pitch day
After two weeks and long hours of tough work, we celebrated the end of the program by having a demo day with investors and members of the Blackbox network. The objective is not to raise funds, but to create connections that the entrepreneurs can cultivate and grow into business relationships afterwards.
From a female perspective
Besides being for women only, the content of the program is pretty much the same for both the mixed and the women editions. And even though, I learned that the dynamics in both are somehow different:
Women are less competitive
According to the participants, mixed groups show a more competitive dynamic. Women prioritize empathy and sharing their fears or challenges over their necessity to stand out or compete.
Empowerment
It was interesting to see that regardless of cultural background, pretty much everyone in the room was very humble, but also, many of them showed a need for reassurance. I noticed that the inspirational talks were highly valuable for them. Messages from female founders like Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Founder and Chairman of JOYUS; or Ann Winblad, a Founding Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners; left a mark on the participants’ minds and souls.
“Don’t ask for role models, be a role model”
This is the message we received from Sharon Vosmek, CEO of Astia, a fund that invests in exceptional women.
I think all of them arrived to Silicon Valley looking for a role model, and in the process they realized they are role models already. As for me, I definitely was inspired by each and every one of them.
The value for a startup
I think the opportunity to be part of Blackbox Connect is huge. I witnessed how the entrepreneurs changed from thinking of managing a local product to seeing themselves as CEOs of an international company with a long term vision and a global impact by the end of the two weeks.
I’m sure this was a life experience for all of us, and I can’t wait to see my now friend entrepreneurs succeed and go BIG!!
Go #BabyUnicorns!!
The team behind
As it happens in all successful projects, none of this would have been possible without the effort and passion from the team behind. Sanita, Ana, Fadi and Jacob do an amazing job making this happen. It was a privilege working with the Blackbox team for a couple of weeks.
Thank you as well to the Google for Entrepreneurs team for supporting this great initiative. You rock!
