Tag Archives: startup

Female Founders Perform (reprinted with permission)

Female Founders Perform

This is post #2 regarding raising capital as a Female Founder (you can read my first instalment here). We are targeting raising a million dollars, which will allow us to build out the company infrastructure, focus on customer acquisition, and get to our next key building stage. I noted in the previous post that female founders received about 2% of VC funding, despite owning 38% of businesses (HBR). Fortune says this also held true in 2017 with female founded companies receiving 2.2%. Unbelievably, just 8% of companies funded by VCs have female partners (HBR), while 17% of startups have a female founder (Techcrunch). Yet, in our small startup we have three female founders. Forbes, however, says there was a “silver lining” in 2017: With the exception of 2014, companies run by women received their largest share of VC dollars — 2.2% of the dollars and just under 5% of the deals done. Deep sigh. Not much of a silver lining.

VCs ignore the stats

The numbers are disappointing but not surprising. Data-driven VCs seems to ignore statistics that show that investing in female founded companies leads to positive results. This week, I had a conversation with a man who is well-connected in the NY VC world who offered this insight, “Men won’t invest in what they don’t understand.” Oftentimes, companies with female founders are solving women’s problems. Think bra’s, styling, and companies like Thinx, the bold and unabashed period underwear, or Peanut for mama’s looking to meet their peers, or Thirdlove which sells underwear. Apparently, men turn off quickly if the solution being offered is female gender specific. This explanation makes sense to me, however, there is a deeper issue since the largest segment of female founded companies that received funding are in tech and are gender neutral. On the one hand, this validates the point that men are more likely to invest in something that is gender neutral or that they can understand. But on the other hand, this implies that there are many companies still not being funded if they are led by at least one female founder even in gender neutral businesses.

Yet:

Companies with at least one female founder “out-performed their male counterparts by 63%” creating shareholder value (First Round)
As the chart below shows, “at four out of five high-growth revenue measures, female-founded companies showed stronger overall performance. (Tinypulse)
The fastest growing companies at 200%+ growth, are 75% more likely to have a female founder.” (Tinypulse)
“For profitable firms, a move from no female leaders to 30% representation is associated with a 15% increase in the net revenue margin.”(MCSI)

There is no explanation for why startups with female founders perform better but they often do. “Firms with a woman running the show perform far better than the market.”(Fortune). Perhaps this is due to diversity of thought. Perhaps this is due to the fact that women tend to be more realistic with their projections. Perhaps this is due to the fact that women balance data with intuitiveness or “gut.” Whatever the reasons, I hope that 2018 is the year that the tides begin to shift in favor of female founders.

iSPY is an image tech company, so aside from our founding team and a penchant for punchy, feminine hues of pink and purple, we’re pretty gender neutral in the service our product delivers. We are also part of a slowly growing wave of businesses that are set on disrupting a large industry. Positioned to take advantage of an emerging segment, we sit right between buyers and sellers to create a network effect. After my calls this week, I am convinced that investors like our business model. I am also convinced that most investors will be looking for reasons not to invest. Our team is evaluating everything from location, to tech platform, to business inflection points. Hopefully, these steps will help us become one of the small percent of funded companies run by women. Fingers crossed!

Leslie Hughes is the CEO and Founder of iSPY Technologies, Inc. and iSPY Visuals, an intelligent search tool and workspace for visual content users. Hughes has over 20 years experience in digital media licensing, content production, and distribution, including having been President of Bill Gates’ Corbis Images, and President of the Markets and Products Group for Corbis Corp. She became an entrepreneur 10 years ago. Hughes has consulted or been part of 6 start-ups and 12 acquisitions. She has an MBA from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, is the proud mother of two and lives and works in New York.

Connect with Leslie: Twitter | LinkedIn | Angel List

The Search for Online Education

How iSPY Education came to be.

How did we come up with the idea to build a tool to search for online education? The idea behind the iSPY platform struck me far back in 2005. I had been hired as CEO in a turnaround situation by a UK/US stock photo and film business. They were a public company and had been on a buying spree. The business I inherited was a bit of a mess. The company had acquired 7 businesses and had no idea what to do next. Nothing had been integrated. Each was in a different stage of moving to digital. They were being sued, had less than adequate tech, no idea how to even begin to address the tens of millions of images that needed to be edited, digitized and made available online. So, I hired a small but incredibly talented group who came in, rolled up their sleeves and got to work.

Early into our journey, the Creative Director came to me asking for help. There was no easy way to search our competitors and compare what we had to what our competitors offered. So we created a rough search aggregation tool that allowed us to do just that. However, it did the trick. Our team could search and compare content, look at options side by side and compare with the competition. The tool was useful, saving us time and money, and allowing us to curate content in a much more effective way. A light bulb went off. How cool would it be to make this kind of tool available to customers. They could search multiple image providers simultaneously saving a ton of time, and compare results. But then, life went on.

Fast forward.

Fast forward to 2016, I had started a small market strategy and consulting business. That company, VisualSteam, conducts an annual survey of creative pros on stock image licensing. In 5 years of surveys, the most common complaint was about how difficult and time consuming it was to search for and find images. Clients told us the average search for an image takes 4.25 hours. They generally searched at least 3 agencies. A little over a decade after my original idea, it was time, actually long overdue for a tool like iSPY.

I incorporated iSPY in 2016. In 2017, we launched our prototype. This was followed by our beta site, and then in 2018 we launched our SaaS platform solution for visual content called iSPY Visuals.

The pandemic accelerates online education.

Two years later, the pandemic hit. Our team, like many others, struggled with the new Zoom schooling. The quality of online education varied and parents began looking for alternative options to keep their kids engaged. Our teammate, Karen, asked why there wasn’t a tool like iSPY Visuals for education. (To read Karen’s story, click here) We loved the idea. We started to explore what existed in the edtech space, and if there was a need for a search tool for online education programs. We were surprised that there are no real education aggregators, let alone with the tools that we are building. So the idea of iSPY Education was conceived.

We are passionate about wanting to make the world of education accessible to all. The pandemic has not created online education. However, it has certainly accelerated it. There should be a tool that allows students, parents and teacher to search for and find great resources for education programming.

If you build it.

We are building just such a tool with iSPY Education. Search for online education programs like 6th grade math or language classes for your middle schooler. What ever the need, you will be able to come to iSPY, search, compare and share what you find. You will be able to use the tools to manage your options, get feedback, even share with a counselor or advisor. We hope and expect that teachers may also see iSPY Education as a resource to find online programs — to help supplement their in school education or to help a student find online education. We see schools that have cut funding being able to point to or offer online education in areas like music and art, for example. Last but not least, we also plan on partnering with companies or foundations to help underserved communities (but more on that in another post).

Next Steps.

We are building a prototype now and yes, we are looking for funding. Our hope is to find funding in early 2022 to build and launch our site. We are excited begin the journey to disrupt education and to help make education accessible to all.

So, that’s my story. I appreciate the tremendous support we have received from our early investors who supported iSPY Visuals. We love our small but mighty team. And we are eager to begin talks with the many people interested in what we are doing and willing to give us a try. It has been a fun ride so far and we are just getting started.

Leslie Hughes is the CEO and Founder of iSPY Technologies, Inc. which first launched iSPY Visuals, an intelligent search tool and workspace for visual content users, and iSPY Education. Hughes has over 20 years experience blending content, creativity and technology. She was President of Bill Gates’ Corbis Images, and President of the Markets and Products Group for Corbis Corp. She became an entrepreneur 10 years ago. Hughes has consulted or been part of 6 start-ups and 12 acquisitions. She has an MBA from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University, is the proud mother of two and lives and works in New York.

Connect with Leslie: Twitter | LinkedIn | Angel List

Women raising startup capital (Reprinted with permission)

Raising capital as a woman founder is tough.

According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), women raising startup capital are getting about 2% of the VC funding, despite owning 38% of businesses. According to Fortune (Fortune), in 2016, 5,839 companies with all male founders received venture capital funding compared to only 359 with female founders. Men received 16X more funding than women raising capital. In 2016, women led companies represented nearly 5% of VC deals, up from 10 years ago when women led companies represented less than 3% of deals. While this was a bit of an improvement, sadly however, the average value for women led companies was down 25%; $4.5 million compared with slightly over $6 million in 2015.

The numbers vary depending on the source, but in no case are they any good for women entrepreneurs.

I am glad I didn’t know these numbers when I became an entrepreneur. They certainly would have given me pause. However, progress is made by the fearless. Being a woman in business means there is often a reason to pause, and we mustn’t. My company is hoping to raise $1 million in the next year, so while the numbers above are daunting, we move forward… fearlessly.

iSPY is a technology used to search for topics across platforms.

[iSPY Education will use the same technology to allow users to search education programs. This article was written for iSPY VIsuals]

The core of what we do is simultaneous search. We save our users a lot of time. In addition, we are connecting our users to legally, licensable content, unlike Google and other more general search aggregation tools. Creative Pros can search their favorite image sources, or find new creative resources. In addition, we offer our users a creative workspace full of collaboration tools to make the journey from concept to campaign far easier. Not only can they collaborate with team members, but through iSPY they can gain direct access to the image providers; making requests for similars or variations simpler.

Users are able to manage projects, all from their iSPY dashboard, including uploading documents, project briefs, storyboards, and image licenses. Also, companies are able to manage teams with administration and enterprise rights. In addition, we offer access to resources with one click that the user might not know existed. We offer advanced search to aid in finding the best content that meets the users needs. In the end, we are a tool but also a creative resource.

To date, iSPY has raised $150,000.00 and we are in beta. We expect to begin generating revenue in the coming months, and are positioned where we can start raising growth capital in a Series A round. I know that we need to grow quickly to be able to cement our position in the industry. To do this, I will be seeking $1 million.

So, in light of the statistics above, how do we move forward? By using our network, connecting with clients, and proving that we are meeting the needs of a dynamic marketplace. Proving we have a good product, however, may not be enough. It is difficult to understand why women founders are so underfunded. But, I am not sure it really matters. As women, we must deal with it. The question I am more interested in is how we change it.

One way is to get more women involved in investing. I am pleased to say that of 7 early investors in iSPY, 4 are women. I am looking for funding from investors that see the value in what we are doing and aim to support a more diverse entrepreneurial environment. So, while raising money as a woman founder is tough, it is a challenge I am tackling with enthusiasm and confidence.

Stay tuned as I will be documenting this journey; sharing the trials and tribulations of raising money as a woman founder. We may or may not succeed but I will be sharing it all – what we do right, the misses, and in the end, if we accomplish our goal.

(For the follow up post, click here.)