

Ask HN: Any black women founders out there? What's your story? - brewgardn

Today I've read my nth article about gender bias in silicon valley and just realized they've all. been. about. white. women.<p>...Maybe an Asian or Jewish woman thrown in once in a while.<p>Is it b/c there just aren't many? I would love to hear stories from black women founders, as well as their opinion of the coverage on this issue.
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contessagibson
The coverage is certainly less than stellar. I certainly expect to see that
shifting in time--the changing demography of the country demands it.

I run an early stage startup PlusNavigator, Inc. a solution simplifying the
shopping experience for plus size women. Founder Institute alum, cited in the
NYTimes this past summer, I'm Chicago based. I've learned to pitch my little
heart out, and have had favorable interest from respected persons in the VC
community...its now a matter of delivering qualitative traction for the
business.

The process seems somewhat uniform once you're out there and competing with
your fellow peers and their startups, irrespective of race/gender however the
process of GETTING into the active conversations around startups,
accelerators, incubators, and serious conversations about effectively
positioning your company is something that the individual has to own.

My personal path started in desktop support, then enterprise IT sales, and
I've always had a strong affinity for tech. Solving the woes of millions of
plus size women, by leveraging technology seemed immediately viable.

A lovely tech sis of mine Obi is working on PopInGym, another brilliant
idea...and its JOY seeing her at SXSW each year.

While there is a difference between tech enabled companies and tech companies,
I think the future of startups makes that difference close near
indistinguishable, and it turns into solving every day problems by leveraging
tech.

Access to mainstream startup communities makes a difference. Since August,
I've worked out of Chicago's highly regarded 1871 digital startup community,
having to compete against a large pool of applicants, an in-person interview,
and panel voting review for acceptance to work on my startup there. The
programming, education, and network fostered certainly helps to neutralize the
lack of diversity some.

It seems I have an great deal of female, and black female founder colleagues
to name a few Obi (PopInGym), Bolaji (SociaLifeChicago), Feyi (CancerIQ),
Christine (ItsAShort.com) among others.

The news coverage certainly isn't sensationalized. We're out there, we have a
story to tell, and its inclined to empower other women just like us...because
we know there are others out there, waiting to claim their space at the tech
table.

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1123581321
Yes, there aren't that many in Silicon Valley. Blacks are better represented
in the Southeast, Northeast and Midwest of the United States, where there are
fewer high-profile startups.

Also, culturally, black women entrepreneurs tend to pursue things other than
computer science. The following are the business projects of black women
entrepreneurs I personally know in the Midwest:

1\. A music performance/album sales career ( this is entrepreneurship )

2\. Coaching and motivational seminars

3\. A staffing agency

4\. An event planning company

5\. A photography business

6\. A law firm

And to move to black men, even the two entrepreneurs I know who have CS
backgrounds are focused on music production and a culture magazine. I do not
think my experience is atypical.

~~~
brewgardn
So my observation is shared. But you think that it fairly representative of
the actual population, rather than what holds our attention in this
entrepreneurship culture.

Well, your experience with male founders is not typical with where I live
(Richmond). But I do agree that they are much more represented in the media.

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kathrynfinney
There are quite a few. digitalundivided is a social enterprise dedicated to
helping black women create and grow digital companies. Check them out here:
(<http://www.digitalundivided.com>) held a conference last Oct. sponsored by
Andreesen Horowitz, Oglivy, etc and had OVER 45 TECH ENABLED COMPANIES FOUNDED
BY BLACK WOMEN. The keynote was Newark Mayor Cory Booker.

Many are developers as well. Here's a list of companies:
<http://www.digitalundivided.com/alumni-companies/>

~~~
orangethirty
There are a lot of blogs/digital magazines in there. Care to elaborate on
that? Plus I notice a strong interest in the fashion industry. Comments?

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BlackGirlsCODE
This conversation thread is always an interesting one that surfaces from time
to time, disappears, then resurfaces again. For me I think the issue is really
one of access and exposure. Black women have been at the helm of technology
companies as either CTO's, CEO's, C-suite executives, etc for several decades
(see notables such as Shellye Archambeau, Ursula Burns, etc). Yet we still
rank VERY low in terms of the number of black female founded startup companies
which receive venture capital (less than 1%), thus the media coverage for
black female founders is likewise sparse. This is probably why we appear
nearly invisible in the articles you may come across but it does not mean
there are not many new enterprising young women led startup in the space. It
just means our voices are not often heard. I personally believe as more women
of color enter the technology space and build businesses which will scale at
the level of tech behemoths such as FB, Twitter, etc we will change this
dynamic. There are many promising and talented young women currently in the
space moving in that direction and certainly many even younger codenistas from
programs such as Black Girls CODE that I certainly feel change the future.
Then hopefully this discussion will finally go away. For good... ;-)
~Kimberly- BlackGirlsCODE

~~~
blackfemcoders
Here here. It's not that we don't exist: we do and we always have. It's that
the problem is two-fold: 1) we don't get the access and resources needed at a
young age to encourage us to pursue STEM fields and succeed/achieve in that
realm and 2) for those of us who choose to pursue that route anyway, we don't
get the exposure later on once we have achieved. The positive is that I see
change happening, even if it's not as quickly as I would like, but it's still
an issue that will need to be continually acknowledged and addressed by all
until it is (ideally) not an issue anymore.

\--<http://blackfemalecoders.tumblr.com/>

~~~
brewgardn
So how to fix the exposure problems. Are media outlets like Inc, Forbes,
Techcrunch making a good enough effort to cover stories like this?

~~~
ggreenlee
I think it's going to be more organic. This is the age of the internet. The
internet is media therefore we have the best outlet possible to get the word
out ourselves. We can do this by supporting each others causes. People have
already laid the ground work, so support them. As numbers increase the
visibility increases and all these other outlets will follow not because they
want to it'll be because they have to. Think about the Negro Leagues. It's a
perfect example of something that grew organically and made such an impact
that it couldn't be ignored. Now there is no Negro League, just Major League
baseball.

Greg Greenlee Founder of Blacks In Technology
(<http://www.blacksintechnology.net>) Founder of BIT Tech Digest
(<http://www.bitdigest.net>)

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blackfemcoders
I'm a black female developer who founded BlackFemaleCoders
(<http://blackfemalecoders.tumblr.com/>) as a way of building a community of
us out there. I've found it difficult both throughout my CS studies and while
working in the field to find other women like me who can share and relate to
my experience and I noticed that there wasn't really a strong presence out
there for those of us already in the field to connect with each other. I'm
hoping my blog can help fix that.

In terms of my experience, I can count on my hands the number of other black
women developers I've encountered thusfar. Whether it's at conferences, in my
classes or at work, I'm often one of a couple or the only black woman around
(and oftentimes black person in general). I'm not happy about it and have
become an advocate for getting more women of color (and women in general!) in
STEM fields, specifically in computer science.

I've shared more on my experience as being a black female coder here in this
post: <http://blackfemalecoders.tumblr.com/about>

I encourage you all to check it out and please get in touch with me if you are
interested in sharing your experience! (twitter @lifeissweetgood)

~~~
brewgardn
I think it's awesome! Good code has no race or gender! :)

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AmaM
Hi, I am a black woman and the founder of Airfordable
(fly.airfordable.co)based in DC. There has been an increasing number of black
woman founders in the startup space. They are very much vocal about it. I
guess because I seek out to find them and associate myself with the programs
they organize. For example, www.DigitalUndivided.com/ @DigUnDiv brings
together 100 black women founders in tech startups every fall in NYC for
workshops, pitch competitions etc. They also host events during the year in
cities like Mountain View, Detriot, NYC, chicago ATL etc. They are very active
on twitter as well. There's also www.Blerdology.co/ @blerdology (a movement of
Black Nerds) that hosts hackathons to target black techies among other
programs. I actually won first place and best startup idea at their very first
hackathon in ATL that landed an investor meeting. Both groups had events at
SXSWi last week. So, Im Not sure why there are claims that there are not much
coverage. Either way, folks like DigUndiv and Blerdology are changing this!
Check them out.

~~~
AmaM
I also got interviewed by Techcocktail and tech hustlers at sxswi to share my
story!

~~~
brewgardn
Do you have a link? I'd love to read/watch. Thanks for turning me on to those
groups!

------
kathrynfinney
Also, I think a major issue is that startup eco-system is very much geared to
specific gender, class, and race, which causes a series of institutional
barriers. The system is based on how much you raise, versus how much you
actually make. Remember it wasn't until the last few years (2-3 years) that
women led startups were even covered.

If you expand the definition of a "startup" to include tech-enabled companies,
you will see a large number of companies backed by Black women, many of whom
are making millions.

Some quick examples are Marve Frazier at Moguldom Media (Bossip, Madame
Noire), Natasha behind YBF, and even myself. Some of us have investment,
including traditional VC firm/PE, like Heather Hiles of Pathbrite, Zuhairah
Scott of Kahnoodle, and some of chose not to go that route.

~~~
happycloset
I do think it has to do with class more than anything.

Education coupled with social norms (hence the lack of female founders from
every ethnicity)is really the issue.

If you would poule together all the succesfull white tech guys and combined
them into an average. Using education, upbringing, basically soc-eco
background. You would get a very different guy if you compared it with the
average white male in america.

Its about exposure troughout your youth especially into the STEM areas.

Also are you the Kathryn Finney ? I actually bought your book: TBF in high
school I really liked it and still have it. Someone in this thread said they
noticed a lot of black women (but I think women in general) are into Fashion
oriented start-ups.

And that really is true ! Girls are more exposed to beauty related things and
guys are more exposed to technical stuff because I guess that is what society
still values.

------
blackfemcoders
Also, thank you for making this post, as this is a topic that I strongly feel
needs to be addressed. I think there is coverage on the issue from the
standpoint of other black founders advocating for more (BlackFemaleCoders,
Blerdology, DigitalUndivided, BlackGirlNerds, etc) but outside of that
community, I find the issue doesn't get addressed nearly as much, if much at
all. This isn't just a "black" issue or a "women" issue, it's an issue in the
tech community at large that applies to and affects the whole community. It
requires everyone to at the very least be more aware and communicate openly
about it so that we can all work together towards positive change.

------
citizenkeys
There's a whole accelerator of startups for under-represented demographics,
including women and minorities: <http://www.newmeaccelerator.com/>

~~~
brewgardn
Sweet. I figured there were programs for under-represented. I was wondering
why there wasn't as much coverage on blogs, twitter, editorials, etc. I bet
you will see 20-25 stories come through your feed about the struggles of women
founders today. I doubt any of them will be about black women. Full
Disclsoure: I'm not a black woman.

~~~
citizenkeys
I've had this discussion before: One reason you don't frequently hear about
founders that are women and minorities is that journalists don't go out of
their way to point out the physical characteristics of people. To do so would
itself be potentially prejudicial.

To use your example, if a company is run by a black woman, no responsible
reporter is going to put in their article "Oh, and by the way, this company is
run by a black woman." Just think of how negative that sounds.

~~~
brewgardn
You're right! But most articles have photos, so do blogs, so do twitter
profiles. 99% White. I'm new to startups, but I can think of at least 50 women
founders/cofounders, many are household names, none are black. I'll put it
this way. Who is the most well-known founder you can name? I'm going to tweet
at @blackgirlscode to get some input.

------
booruguru
You raise an interesting point. I've seen plenty of white female entrepreneurs
and plenty of black male entrepreneurs, but I can't recall any image of a
black female entrepreneur (or any other woman of color) asides from Oprah :p
and a few women who appeared on Shark Tank.

I get the sense that they are lots of female entrepreneurs of colour, but
largely invisible for some reason (self-imposed or otherwise).

------
runjake
A good person to ping about this would be Scott Hanselman:

<http://www.hanselman.com> and @shanselman

He knows of quite a few and can help you.

~~~
shanselman
Sure, we should bring in @tiffani, @xianamoy, @lynneluvah, @contessagibson,
@KathrynFinney to the discussion. That's just off the top of my head but I'm
AFK at the moment.

~~~
lynneluvah
Similar discussion was had on Quora back in 2010 - 2011 there's a list of
names there [http://www.quora.com/Who-are-some-influential-black-women-
te...](http://www.quora.com/Who-are-some-influential-black-women-tech-
entrepreneurs)

This 2011 article on 10 Black Women In Tech will also expose you to the women
who know the women, if they aren't the women themselves
[http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2011/11/10-black-women-in-
tak...](http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2011/11/10-black-women-in-taking-the-
tech-world-by-storm/)

------
ggreenlee
Tiffani Bell from PencilYouIn. Sian Morson from Kollectiv Mobile, Hadiyah
Mujhid was once involved with a startup, Ama Morfo, Janelle Jolley, The ladies
from Techturize....

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ertehsrfd
Women are women. Why separate ?

~~~
booruguru
Please don't downvote ertehsrfd. I want this preserved for posterity.

~~~
brewgardn
He's got binders full of women founders.

