female founders

Molly Wood breaks down some shakeups in the self-driving space: TuSimple fired its CEO and is being probed by the FBI and SEC (1:40), and Argo AI has shut down after raising ~$2.6B. (8:50) Then, Divvy Homes CEO Adena Hefets joins the podcast to break down the state of the housing market and share thoughts on last week's hit piece. (14:09)

(0:00) Molly tees up today's segments!

(1:40) TuSimple CEO fired, company probed by FBI, SEC

(8:50) Argo AI shuts down

(12:45) Lemon.io - Get 15% off your first 4 weeks of developer time at https://Lemon.io/twist

(14:09) Adena Hefets joins Molly Wood to discuss the Fast Company article covering her startup Divvy Homes last week

(25:17) Grammarly - Sign up for a free and get 20% Grammarly Premium at https://grammarly.com/TWIST

(26:49) Operating a business where the stakes are high (homeownership, healthcare, etc)

(31:17) Adena breaks down the state of the US housing market

(35:14) Athletic Greens - Get 1 year of Vitamin D free and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase at athleticgreens.com/twist

(36:34) State of debt markets, operating in different interest rate environments, different capital structures, taking advantage of low-interest rates

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We're taking a look at some our favorite moments from last year's innovation festival. Here’s a conversation about closing the gender financing gap with Allie Burns, CEO of Village Capital; Shruti Chandrasekhar, head of Startup Catalyst and SME Ventures and the Africa regional lead at the International Finance Corporation; and Odunayou Ewaneeyiee, cofounder and COO at Piggyvest.

The story of how Anne built her business is a genuine blockbuster of entrepreneurship and perseverance. Starling is one of the biggest FinTech companies in the world, with billions in deposits, but after listening to this you’ll be amazed how it was possible. When her co-founder walked out of the company, and took the funding with him, Anne walked in to an office where she was the only employee on the books, and had to start the company she’d built all over again. Little by little, she came back, and a year later landed a mega investment deal in one of the most incredible stories we’ve ever had on this podcast. What really shines about Anne is the clear sense of mission she’s infused her company with. Anne really cares about doing right by the customer, and cleaning up an industry that historically doesn’t have a record of giving people a fair shake. Anne is in business to make the world a better place, and we think after listening to this you’ll agree that Anne’s story shows business success can come from the most unlikely places. Topics Humble beginnings Entrepreneurship Starting Starling bank & clashes with Tom at Monzo Raising funding What have you learnt about raising investment? Managing your emotions when running Starling Work life balance - maintaining relationships Key advice you would told your younger self Our last guests question Anne: https://www.instagram.com/anneboden/ https://twitter.com/anneboden Anne's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BANKING-How-I-Disrupted-Industry-ebook/dp/B084H6N2GS Our Episode with Tom from Monzo: https://g2ul0.app.link/d0u5WwlOmlb Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/StevenBartlettYT?sub_confirmation=1 THE DIARY OF A CEO LIVE TICKETS ON SALE NOW 🚀- https://g2ul0.app.link/diaryofaceolive Sponsor: https://uk.huel.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Roxanne Petraeus, co-founder and CEO of Ethena, a modern compliance platform for businesses. Roxanne’s background is pretty incredible, before starting Ethena she was a Rhodes Scholar, served in the US Army, and worked at McKinsey. In our conversation, we cover the lessons Roxanne ported over from her military career to building a business, how she’s trying to make compliance training not suck, and the woeful state of funding female founders in VC today and what can be done about it. Far from a boring conversation about compliance, this was an incredible discussion with one of the best founders I’ve met recently. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Roxanne Petraeus.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo. Klaviyo is the ultimate marketing platform for e-commerce. With targeted segmentation, email automation, SMS marketing, and more, Klaviyo helps you create your ideal customer experience.    See why Klaviyo is trusted by more than 50,000 brands, like Living Proof, Solo Stove, and Nomad to help them grow their business. For a free trial, check out klaviyo.com/founders.  ----- This episode is brought to you by DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean provides founders and creators with the platform they need to get their website and apps off the ground, all with low-bandwidth pricing to save them money over other cloud providers.   If you are looking for the best place to build web apps or API backends on robust infrastructure, DigitalOcean is the place for you. They provide a fully managed solution that handles your infrastructure, operating systems, databases, and other dependencies on their new App Platform product. App Platform makes it easy to build, deploy, and scale apps. Get started for free at do.co/founders. -----   Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:03:29] - [First question] - What Ethena does [00:06:31] - Lessons from her military career [00:09:13] - Good and bad elements of leadership training from the military  [00:11:35] - The problem of what sucks in compliance training [00:14:33] - The enablement of bad behavior among people with power [00:17:56] - The original idea for Ethena and bringing it to market [00:21:15] - Determining who is the right person to serve first  [00:24:03] - Lessons for building good software  [00:26:21] - How they have adapted to working in and around regulation [00:29:31] - Getting other companies to buy into the product [00:34:45] - Creating effective content and measuring that effectiveness [00:38:13] - Darker sides of growing the business and raising money [00:39:57] -  How ‘the Motherhood Penalty’ Plays Out for Startup Founders [00:43:12] - Fixing the problems with bias in venture capital investing [00:46:57] - What is the outlook and long-term vision for the business [00:50:38] - What has her most excited for the future [00:51:53] - Most interesting about the Rhodes Scholar program [00:54:02] - Kindest thing anyone has done for her

My guest today is Joanne Wilson, a New York City based angel investor, writer, podcaster, trend spotter, and self-described “woman around town.” Joanne has had a multifaceted and winding career, and began angel investing a decade ago when she put money into NYC-based media company Curbed media which we discuss in detail. Since then, she’s invested in more than 90 companies and been pitched by countless more. She is an instantly likeable person, you can literally tell in 10 seconds you are going to have a great conversation, so it’s no surprise that part of what makes her unique among angels is a very close relationship with many of the founders she backs. We cover a lot of ground. We talk about the personality traits of entrepreneurs, Joanne’s evolving investment style, her focus on female founders, fashion, business models, restaurants and a lot more. Please my conversation with the Gotham Gal, Joanne Wilson.   For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. To get involved with Project Frontier, head to InvestorFieldGuide.com/frontier. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes 2:12 - (First Question) – How does Joanne orient herself towards what’s new, in the context of food in New York city 4:10 – Can that mindset of forward thinking be cultivated 5:18 – Latest thing that got Joanne excited before everyone else 6:57 – Why the new frontier is going niche and local 10:23 – Joanne’s first investment 11:48 – Why do VC’s typically stay away from media 12:55 – How Joanne got into her first investment as a customer 14:11 – What is the skillset of making money that Joanne as 14:45 – Can you sense if a founder has that innate ability to just make money 17:04 – Are there common traits in founders 18:07 – Joanne’s progression into angel investing after her first investment 19:58 – Red flags when looking at investments 20:40 – Impression on growth without goals 23:30 – Trends among Joanne’s investments 25:56 – How much knowledge is transferrable between different industries that Joanne invests in 27:06 – The dichotomy and unique challenges between raising capital with female founders vs male founders 29:07 – How does Joanne balance her time and stay engaged with all of her investments 30:50 – Time when Joanne has helped a founder side step a pothole 31:35 – Most memorable first impression Joanne experienced 35:05 – How often does someone not have the right idea but is still worth investing in 37:19 – Why Joanne won’t start a fund 38:22 – Data on female founders returns and time 40:38 – Criteria for identifying emerging trends, especially in the more creative/artistic fields  43:29 – The changing costs of launching a brand, in the contest of fashion 47:11 – What has Joanne most excited right now       48:11 – Interesting facts about the fashion business  52:01 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Joanne   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag