Get Sh*t Done - International Women's Day
Last Friday, International Women’s Day Eve Eve, Monica and I were fortunate enough to attend the 2020 Female Founder’s Forum hosted by PS27 Ventures. Now, let me start by saying that i’m not usually super stoked on things that require me to be up and out the door before 8 am, but Monica assured me that this was an experience I wouldn’t want to miss … and she was right!
There’s just something about being surrounded by a group of female entrepreneurs. The sense of community, strength and dedication radiates around the room and is immediately contagious. In fact, I think the energy in that room did more for my wake up process than the multiple cups of coffee - and THAT, my friends, is saying something.
We spent the first part of the morning milling about the room and visiting some of the booths which included some familiar faces like Rethreaded and Kendra Scott as well as some new friends like FreshJax and Abel Bean Law - who won the whole day with their helpers, two Irish Setter puppies! We met and chatted with our table mates and got ready for the speakers - although I don’t think I could ever have been fully ready for what I was about to experience.
If the energy in the room wasn’t enough to wake me up, Melissa Fulmore-Hardwick certainly was! Talk about an explosive personality! Melissa, current VP of IT at Acosta, shared her impressive background which included the military, accounting and a shift into IT - a field which she continues to climb in rank. While 56% of the professional workforce is made up on women, only 25% of IT job are held by women and only 5% (FIVE) of tech startups are female founded. It’s stats like these that can be a bit disheartening, while also giving us overwhelming sense of pride while listening to women like Melissa, who have proven that the tech world doesn’t have to be a “boy’s club”. As if her professional resume wasn’t enough, in addition to raising her son, Melissa has found time to give back to the community through the creation of Brown Girls in the Boardroom where she hosts workshops to help young women get excited about their career!
Next on the agenda was our keynote, Suneera Madhani - the Founder and CEO of Fattmerchant, a subsciption-style merchant service designed to save business owners money on their payment processing. As a member of a founding team myself, I found Suneera’s presentation particularly moving. I’ve mentioned in countless other blog posts that working for a startup company is not for the faint of heart. It’s freakin’ hard. There are countless late nights in the office, days when you doubt yourself and wonder if this is even going to work, nights where you lose sleep thinking about all the things that need to happen the next day. You get the idea. Suneera reminded us that we aren’t alone and there is a light at the end of this startup tunnel.
One of my favorite parts of Suneera’s presentation was about Steve Case - the founder of AOL. Ya’ll, he basically invented the Internet. Suneera talked about his struggles when starting AOL. His problem? Convincing people that they needed the internet and personal email accounts. Can you even imagine?! He had to convince people that they needed something that we now can barely live without and if that isn’t enough to keep you going, I don’t know what is.
My second favorite part? Her reiteration that we are all given the same 24 hours in each day and it is up to us to decide what we want to do with them. “Start saying no to shit you hate” is a quote that is now in block letters on my bulletin board - to serve as a constant reminder that you can’t please everyone and if you spend your whole life trying, you lose the hours that you could have spent making your dreams come true and doing the things that truly bring you joy. It was this attitude that paved the way for Fattmerchant, which has has grown exponentially in the last five years, attaining triple-digit growth year after year.
Suneera reminded us that none of this happened overnight. She faced countless rejections and struggles that only fellow female founders would understand (i.e. including her maternity leave in an investor deck). However, she stuck to her goals and refused to quit on something that she knew would change the landscape of payment platforms. At the close of her presentation, she left us with the three most important things to remember:
Get Shit Done.
Create Joy - Remove Toxic People
One Team - Team > Self
I hope that my synopsis of the Female Founder’s Forum left you feeling as empowered and motivated as I felt walking out of UNF last Friday. Huge thank you to PS27 Ventures for putting on such an incredible afternoon. If you are still looking for some motivation in the way of the #GirlBoss - check out Time Magazine’s 100 Women of the Year.