Calling all #BadMamas

During one of my post-bedtime work sessions last week — you know, the 9pm to 1am shift that starts after you put your kids to bed and unites so many working parents — my brother texted me and asked if I was going to blog about starting a company, raising money, and growing a human at the same time. I told him it’s no big deal; women entrepreneurs do stuff like birth babies and build great companies everyday.

I figured once I’ve successfully raised my seed round, I would share the news about overcoming the biases I know I’m charging into as a non-traditional (female, experienced, non-technical) founder who is also visibly pregnant.

I read Rachel Kaplowitz’s inspiring article about finding great investors at 9 months pregnant, in maternity jeans and Supergas (also my uniform). I sought out networking opportunities for women entrepreneurs via the upcoming WeFestival and its Slack group, in hopes of meeting other founders who have juggled new babies and new companies.

But yesterday, as I was just about to formally kick off the next phase of my round via an email to my advisors and investors asking for introductions, I stumbled across Talia Goldstein’s account of her fundraising process. My heart sunk when I got to this paragraph:

There is a disturbing pattern to who did — and who didn’t — invest. Not one investor who met me in person while I was pregnant ended up putting money into the company. Everyone who said yes either spoke to me over the phone, knew me from before, or met me after I had the baby. It was as if the physical sight of a pregnant woman deterred investors from joining the round.

Even though Talia’s story ends well, I was bummed. For a second I thought, why bother? Maybe it’s time to listen to the world around me, suggesting I just relax, take time off, and enjoy the final months of my pregnancy. Or, as a close family member recently said, see if this “startup thing” still matters after my newborn is here. It didn’t take long for me to decide that I’d rather forge ahead, and that instead of waiting to share my future success story, I could share my real story as it happens.

So what if we flipped the script on the investor who “jokingly” called Talia a “bad mama” during her fundraise, and used #BadMamas to unite our stories? We could debate the pros and cons of hiding, or addressing head on, our pregnancies, postpartum plans, and childcare situations. We could prevent other founders from wasting their time with investors who will never bet on a pregnant woman, no matter how exciting her vision or impressive her numbers.

I know pregnant founders are a small segment of an already too-small segment, but I believe that like Rachel and Talia, there are more of us than we realize who’ve been there, done this, and have knowledge and experience that will make the journey feel less…impossible.

And no matter how few, we are obviously badass #BadMamas of the very best kind — those crazy and committed enough to believe having a baby and building a business simultaneously is not only possible, but critical to making the startup ecosystem more inclusive and successful.