Advice from #SGWomen
Here’s to strong women. May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.
During #SGWomen Month we proudly recognize the accomplishments of successful women leaders all over the world. They are founders, venture capitalists, engineers, executives, educators, and leaders who represent our community.
Over the years, we’ve been proud to welcome tech and business powerhouses like Anne Wojcicki, Dr. Fei Fei Li, Lorainne Twohill, and most recently, Stacey Abrams, who taught us:
“Don’t edit your ambition. Believe in as much as you can and reach as far as you can. There is no limit to what you can achieve.
Do the planning. The difference between a wish and an achievement is the work in-between.
Don’t worry. When you fail or you’re afraid, know failure isn’t permanent and fear can be your friend.”
#SGWomen Month is proudly presented by our partners, Silicon Valley Bank and Google for Startups who are dedicated to the advancement of women in tech and business. Throughout May, our community chapters will host events featuring inspiring and engaging leaders. Check out some of the virtual (and in person!) events we have planned this month.
We’ve asked female founders from our Startup Membership to share advice from their own founder journeys. They shined a light on topics such as hiring practices, raising capital, growth strategies, and much more.
Equally Talent
Valerie Lyalina, Co-Founder
Equally is a month-to-month sourcing and recruitment subscription with top-notch coaching for startups.
Recruiting the right team
As a founder of a recruitment startup, my tip would be to stop making very slow or overly picky decisions, — a great talent is hot on the market and they won’t wait. Hiring too slowly can be as costly as hiring too fast. Don’t be obsessed with finding a perfect candidate. Great candidates are those who have the capability and potential to grow within your startup.
On the other side, do not fall in love with your ideal candidates too easily. When you see a perfect Linkedin profile with ideal skills and experience and barely interview the person — it can cause all sorts of problems. So always have a second opinion. Ask your teammates to interview them as well. Have a proper technical interview if it’s a technical position, but also check their soft skills, ask behavioral questions.
Beauty Buddy
Beauty Buddy gathers data through an app that has thousands of engaged beauty consumers, a sort of Tripadvisor for beauty and cosmetic products, we then partner with brands and retailers who pay us to give them targeted product sampling, reviews, market research, and unique actionable insights
Raising capital
Wendy Slattery, Co-Founder & CEO shares that raising investment always takes longer than you plan. The time that goes into raising investment, whilst it is imperative, depletes your time and distracts you from focusing on other elements of the business, which can be frustrating at times but ultimately rewarding. Whilst the human connection is missed thankfully zoom opens new ways of attracting investment from all over the world, with no limits. Make sure you research potential investors who are the right fit for your company. Do not take no personally, you will never be everyone’s cup of tea.
Once you set yourself goals and an achievable strategic growth strategy, do everything in your power to reach those goals, no matter how small or big of milestones they are.
Remember, you can’t do it all yourself so surround the business with a great, solid, dedicated, and like-minded team who have the ability to free up your time, allowing you to focus on the next steps and global ambitions.
Take advantage of business programs, awards, and any funding grants, that are relevant to your business and will aid in achieving your goals and milestones. It is also important to surround yourself with advisors and mentors that are experts in their fields. Reach out to CEOs a few years ahead of you and learn from them, their mistakes, the choices they made, and the opportunities that led to their success.
InstaDeep
Zohra Slim, Co-Founder & Chief Digital and Visualization Office.
As an AI powerhouse, InstaDeep uses advanced Deep Reinforcement Learning and optimization techniques to solve some of the world’s most complicated industrial and consumer-facing problems. Our unrivaled expertise in AI and deep tech has worked on complex issues for global names like BioNTech, Deutsche Bahn, and Total; alongside our ecosystem of Tier 1 partners including NVIDIA, Intel and NetApp. CB Insight also named InstaDeep a ‘Top 100 AI company’ two years running for our outstanding R&D capabilities.
Starting your own company
Starting a company isn’t for everyone. A lot of people try it and fail, not just because they might not foresee what sort of beast it is, but because their motivation for starting it is misplaced: if it’s just money and the fancy title, then you’re not seeing the bigger picture, and you will not be able to weather the storms.
InstaDeep started with two computers and a lot of enthusiasm. We didn’t have a clear picture back then of what it would become. We just knew that we wanted to work together on empowering people who were generally underrepresented in the decision-making process of building an AI-first world that would benefit everyone in all continents, not just the western world. We wanted to be a bright beacon for young people in Africa and in the MENA region, a company different from others, with more diversity and more voices in the mix. That has been our driving force, the thing that compels us to move forward even when faced with challenges.
Culture, empathy, and trust
One question I always ask people when they apply to join InstaDeep is why they want to leave their current job. It’s surprising just how repetitive the answers are at times: company culture and how people are treated. Sure, no company is without faults, and as the imperfect people we all are, things are not always smooth sailing, but an unspoken pact should always be at the forefront: mutual trust. And I think that trust is linked to the motivation behind the company. If your company’s driver is cold hard cash, it will breed a toxic environment that reflects that value, where back-stabbing becomes the norm.
A culture that’s based on a more empathetic approach usually succeeds better on a long-term basis. Remember, your team is the one building the company, you’re only one cog in a very intricate system. And as people, sometimes, the only thing they want is to be heard.
Instorya
Instorya is a family tech mobile app platform that turns digital photos into photobooks featured with AI and AR. It is the first subscription-based photo book service in the UAE established under Dubai Development Authority.
Starting your own company
Get out of your head and just do it. If what’s stopping you to start your own company are your worries about every single step that you will make, remember that you won’t know all the answers unless you get the courage to start it. Start it, worry later, and enjoy the journey.
Success + failures
Success + failures: The more failures you have the more success you can achieve so keep on failing, trust the process, never lose the fire inside you. You will meet a lot of people along the way, share your knowledge and help them, when the time comes that you’re in doubt they are the same people who will remind you why you keep on doing what you do.
For the young aspiring entrepreneurs, male or female, my general advice is to be passionate, be committed, be resourceful, be flexible, and keep reminding yourself no matter how stressful it will be just keep on enjoying the journey! Always believe in your product/service but never ignore other people’s suggestions and feedback. Best of luck!
SolidBlock
Yael Tamar, CEO & Co-founder
SolidBlock makes property work for everyone. We are building a new asset class based on real estate, combining the stability of the property market growth and the efficiency of blockchain-based financial products. SolidBlock creates tradable digital assets backed by real estate that grant investors rights to revenue, dividends, or interest and allow them to benefit from the growth of their property as well as trade their assets at any time.
Starting your own company
The advice I would like to give to other female founders or women who wish to start their own business is to let go of the fear of failure and try to silence the negative thoughts and worries you have of what might happen if you fail.
If you see an opportunity or a gap in the market and your passionate about the problem, then just go for it. Set yourself goals and timelines and work on your idea in the evening and at weekends until you’ve reached the point where you are ready to launch your business.
You might not have it all figured out before you launch, but, the truth is most people don’t. You will make many mistakes, but, you will also learn the best lessons. I think the best piece of advice I could give is, don’t put it off! Start small and think big about what you want to achieve.
“ IN THE END… We only regret the chances we didn’t take”
Pitch meetings
To some pitching is an extremely daunting task and you may feel like a bit of an impostor, don’t! You are the expert in your business and you know what it takes to steer your company towards success. Be confident in yourself, your mission, your vision and your plan on how you’re going to execute your route to market. The best pitches are presented like a trailer to a movie. Tell a story, make your audience understand the problem you are trying to solve through emotive memories. Make sure your solution is clear and provide key industry facts and stats to support your business viability. Practice, practice, and practice until you can fluidly pitch without sounding rehearsed or monotoned. Above all, believe in yourself and what you are trying to build. People buy into people, and if you can get them to buy into you then they will buy into your business.
Financie.online
Financie.online is personal financial management software. It’s being developed to completely transform the way personal finances are currently being managed and it’s also for financial experts to have an overview of their client’s portfolio. For now, Financie.onine is a mobile app where people can compare different financial products, calculate accurate bank fees, or contact financial experts and decide, what solution is the best fit for their current financial needs. Their Brand Manager, Radka Sokoliova, shares her advice to fellow female founders.
Starting your own business
Regarding the advice I would give to younger students, professionals starting their own businesses is that as soon as you start being overwhelmed with tasks, delegate and hire people to help you. We only started hiring last year, 2 years after being established but we’ve seen a huge improvement in regards to team productivity. Now we’re a team of 7 internal people and workload is being handled more efficiently, tasks are being done and we have valuable feedback on our products so we can improve and better fit to our customer needs.
Also, please, try new things and don’t be hesitant. You have (almost) nothing to lose but only gain, when you experience and go outside your comfort zone. Before the pandemic hit, I used to visit many speeches in universities, attend professional events and conferences, different talks that took place across the entire city of Prague. This makes you not only establish your presentation skills, enrich your professional network but also being recognized amongst other startup founders. Please, take the initiative and be proactive more. These days you can access a lot of events online — take advantage and use your free time efficiently.
Fastbag
Safak Erkol, Co-founder
Fastbag, a Berkshire-based start-up that is a new player in the on-demand grocery delivery market offering 15-minute delivery through its app and its hyperlocal dark stores with a dedicated delivery team.
Safak Erkol, the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Fastbag. Sarak’s experience as a marketing consultant to both global brands and high-growth start-ups in the UK coupled with her passion for business led her to launch Fastbag in the last quarter of 2020. Following their success in Maidenhead, they’re currently planning to expand in other towns across Berkshire in the next few months.
Vision, experimentation, mindset, and mentors are all key elements of starting your own business.
The first step of my journey was finding my ‘why’, why was I setting up a business? My vision was to address a gap in the market. The majority of on-demand grocery delivery companies are only available in London and many of them use gig economy drivers. I wanted to do things differently. My business partner also shared the same vision and had the technical expertise to help us drive the idea forward.
Once you’ve established your business proposition, it’s important to start testing different avenues and ideas. When you build a business from scratch, every day is a learning day and you need to embrace this ‘can do’ mindset. Some days, you may feel a bit unsure about your next step and how to keep your business moving forward but that’s part of the journey. It’s your passion and motivation that will keep you going.
Growth strategies
When it comes to testing ideas and developing growth strategies, I cannot emphasize enough the need to talk to your customers from the get-go. Truly understanding a customer’s problems and needs is not just marketing advice: listening to your customer and carrying on a lot of experimentation to get better at finding the sweet spots can significantly impact how your business evolves.
Your mindset is also vital. Learning to be comfortable with uncertainty has been immensely helpful to me. Hurdles and setbacks are part of the game and learning to respond to them with resilience and patience is a skill I’m working on improving every single day.
Last but not least, making a conscious effort to build and grow a trusted network is extremely rewarding; do not hesitate to reach out to mentors and founders and ask for help. They will guide you by posing the right questions, providing valuable feedback and connections to shape the future of your business.
Destination Everywhere Accessible Travel
Destination Everywhere was created in 2018 to support the travel industry in catering for travelers of all abilities. People who have a disability or a medical condition are generally excluded by the mainstream travel sector and are either explorers who dare to open the way for others or rely on specialized tour operators that know how to cater to their needs. Either way, the number of travelers with a disability could be so much higher, if the travel industry recognized the business opportunity.
Eleonora Censorii, Founder & CEO, says her goal is to make the world a better place by helping the travel sector become a driving force for inclusion.
Starting your own business
Having created my own company from scratch in Belgium, I must say I was very well supported from the start by a number of regional administrations and organizations that support entrepreneurs (not necessarily female ones) — which were run by women. I found that it was easier and more natural to talk to women when discussing my business and that my potential was not doubted, especially by people who got to know me with an open mind and growing (mutual) respect.
So during the first phase of the construction of the company I really had great support from other women working for entrepreneurship organizations. However, having also been in more male-dominated spaces, I noticed that I was faced with more doubts, and less support and recognition. Apparently, my competence and potential in a male-dominated context was a conquest that required double the effort. My best advice is: seek support and mutual exchange with men AND women but do notice the difference and realize that sometimes it is harder for women because recognition can be heavily gendered biased. So if you do notice that this is the case, do not be afraid to follow your gut and go elsewhere. When in an acceleration process, you will be faced probably with many different people and potential gender bias: follow your instinct, because you know your market and product. Take the good tips and the contacts but let go of negative feedback if you feel it is not motivated by a genuine and not biased opinion of you as an entrepreneur. Ask more people: get second, third, and fourth opinions from both women and men.
Raising capital
Same thing when raising capital: if you feel you are undervalued, walk away, there will be better evaluations for you elsewhere. It’s the same in job interviews: I have been in a wide number of interviews and if you feel that you are not being valued for your experience and what you are demonstrating you will bring to the table, believe me, it will be their loss and not yours. Imagine having to fight every day to demonstrate your worth to a boss that already has downgraded you due to a gender bias. Not worth the effort and gastritis.
