
Fundraising While Female - doppp
http://advice.datingring.com/fundraising-while-female/
======
alexcaps
I wasn't going to respond... But after reading the whole article, the author
really comes across as self-entitled. I fear no one is willing to tell her the
truth. So here are some thoughts:

1\. Fundraising is hard no matter who you are. Stop reading TechCrunch and
comparing yourself to others. You never know what someone's journey is. From
the story the press tells it looks like I've had an easy path raising capital
but that's not true. We've gone 12+ months on a single $50k investment after a
year of no funding. Startups are hard and you need to be willing to deal with
the fact that most companies struggle to fundraise.

2\. I am glad you have conviction, you'll need it, but the dating space is not
as guaranteed as you think. Up until recently, the entire dating market
combined didn't top a billion dollars in the U.S. Companies like Tinder are
probably overvalued and yet they have millions and millions of users with
crazy metrics. Do you have ANY indication you've built the next Tinder?

3\. Investors invest in opportunities they understand. I look at your product
and I ask "what's novel, defensible, unique here?". The design doesn't blow me
away and the model sounds just like Three Day Rule which now has support and
backing by Match.com (note: all founders of TDR are female). What sets you
apart?

4\. Please please please don't think you're hot shit because the press covered
you. YC says to focus on traction because that is all that matters, and
they're right. 60% growth doesn't mean anything. What are the numbers? Do you
have 100k users on track to pass 250k in half that time and 1MM in a year?
Look at Slack or Snapchat or Instagram growth to compare what investors get
excited about it. Be really honest with yourself about whether you DO have
numbers or not.

Look, I understand discrimination and believe you experience it far worse than
a straight white guy, but it really doesn't come across as a compelling
argument the way it's explained here. I'm sure I'll get a lot of hate for
calling you out here, but I feel it would be dishonest not to reply and tell
you what it looks like from the outside. I wish you the best of luck and hope
you build that billion dollar company, but please remember the dating space is
hard, saturated, historically hard to monetize, and filled with tombs of
companies that got millions only to go nowhere.

~~~
cjoh
Fundraising is hard, for sure. You know what's harder? Having investors want
to meet with you, and taking your meeting, not because they see value in your
business, but because they want to fuck you.

Can you imagine how infuriating that must be as an entrepreneur? Imagine that
there's a 50/50 shot that, every time you have a meeting with someone, they're
just stringing you along so that they have the opportunity to fuck you and
have zero interest in actually investing. You'd be outraged not only on the
creep-factor, but also just the complete waste of time. Moreover, these same
people trying to fuck you are also investing in actively shittier companies
than you run.

As people are trying to "focus on growth" every single one of these meeting
invites for investors could be a _huge_ waste of time, and that alone is cause
for outrage. Take the sex out of it -- imagine that for every investor you
pitched, 50% of the time the investor stood you up. That's the baseline of
what's happening here: the investor isn't showing; in his place is also a
dirtbag. That's a _really_ hard fundraising environment.

The only thing I can critique this woman on is why she's not more upset, and
why she's not publishing a list of names.

~~~
GordonS
I'm sorry, but to suggest that it's 50/50 whether potential investors are only
meeting you to bone you is just ludicrous. I find that quite insulting.

You come across as sexist, and with a chip on your shoulder that big (and an
ego to match), _I_ certainly wouldn't want to invest in you.

~~~
woah
What do you base your assessment on?

~~~
GordonS
I base this 'assessment' on the fact that not all men are unprofessional,
drooling apes.

~~~
DanBC
But you are a man and so you don't get to see the vast amounts of sexist
unprofessional behaviour that women have to put up with.

~~~
GordonS
Regardless of my gender, I also know that not every man is a sexist bastard
hell-bent on shagging every woman he meets.

I really do find it ridiculous and offensive (slanderous, even) to suggest
that all men (or 50% of men; it's not clear it the OP meant 50% of _people_ or
50% of _men_ ) are like that.

------
jenandre
I sympathize with you, having also experienced subtle sexism in both the tech
and investment world (I'm a technical co-founder, and I've fundraised
successfully). Here's a couple of points I hope are helpful.

\- You should look to connect with partners at firms that have female founders
(ideally purely female-founding teams) among their portfolio. There are also a
few female partners out there as well -- get access to them, with your YC
network it should not be hard. Listen hard and press them to get honest,
specific feedback when given "no"s.

\- While the sexism is unfortunate and it's hard not to get frustrated, you
may want to look long and hard at your pitch and company. If you've really
talked to 40 investors and sent out ~500 emails, and this is a hot space for
disruption, it's very unlikely that _all_ of them are dismissing you due to
gender; something isn't connecting. I's very easy to dismiss all feedback
("their feedback means nothing; they are rejecting me because I am a woman")
just because you are soured by your bad sexist experiences.

Ask yourself these questions honestly: Are investors giving the same
criticisms and feedback for saying no? Are there questions you struggle with
in the pitch about your business? Is the value prop clear? Is the product demo
well orchestrated? Try to examine all of the feedback you've gotten
objectively, and see how can you improve the pitch. Find someone who is
ideally involved in the venture community (e.g. as a partner, associate, EIR)
that you can trust, that can give you brutally honest feedback on your pitch
and business.

\- Fundraising is hard for everyone. It's going to be harder for you. It
sucks, but that's the truth of life. You are one of those pioneering women who
are paving the path for others so hopefully in 20-30 years, it's not even an
issue. It would be great if you didn't have to deal with this, but that's not
the reality of the world. What doesn't kill your company will make you AND
your company stronger.

~~~
cant_say_that
> You should look to connect with partners at firms that have invested in
> female founding teams (ideally purely female teams).

Are there seriously investors that only back purely female teams? That seems
ridiculously sexist and financially stupid to eliminate so many good startups
that aren't all female.

> You are one of those pioneering women who are paving the path for others so
> hopefully in 20-30 years, it's not even an issue.

I see articles like this as a small step backwards. I don't know what the
answer is to discrimination (of any kind), but I think complaining about it in
articles like this is not helping to reach equality.

~~~
dantillberg
> Are there seriously investors that only back purely female teams? That seems
> ridiculously sexist and financially stupid to eliminate so many good
> startups that aren't all female.

That would neither be sexist nor would it necessarily be financially stupid.

As for the sexist part, reverse sexism is not a thing -- if the playing field
is so imbalanced, then explicitly favoring the discriminated-against group is
a fair measure to level the playing field. It's the same reason we have
women's colleges and organizations devoted to advancement of women, and why
similar institutions for men would be (generally speaking) incomprehensible.

As for the financial wisdom of investing purely in companies run by female co-
founders, the whole point of investing is to find opportunities for investment
that have been undervalued by the rest of the market. There are certainly some
investors that have discovered that businesses run by women are undervalued in
the market; maybe they have even calculated a rough figure for _how_
undervalued they are, perhaps 15%. They may decide not to even _look_ at male-
led companies, as they would need to find 15% extra hidden value in order to
match the hidden value -- unseen by the rest of the market -- they already
know the female companies must (on average) have.

~~~
mreiland
> As for the sexist part, reverse sexism is not a thing -- if the playing
> field is so imbalanced, then explicitly favoring the discriminated-against
> group is a fair measure to level the playing field.

You're conflating anti-discriminatory with reverse sexism.

Anti-discriminatory is passing a law that requires any company that gets tax
breaks to meet some requirements of diversity.

reverse sexism is coming across a female owner who only hires women (I know of
1 such company).

------
cushychicken
Looking at the comments of this thread, I can't help but see the author's
point, as most of the comments I see in response to this article fall into at
least one of three categories:

1) "Fundraising is hard, suck it up you baby." (Some of which are just short
of "man up!" \- and how isn't that sexist?)

2) "Are you sure your product doesn't suck? Maybe you've bitten off more than
you can chew." (Levels of condescension in those statements vary from none to
overwhelming.)

3) "Yeah, you're right, I'm a female founder/startup employee and have seen
the same sort of thing."

Hell, if anything, the reactions here just serve to clarify her point.

~~~
Dewie3
> 1) "Fundraising is hard, suck it up you baby." (Some of which are just short
> of "man up!" \- and how isn't that sexist?)

Wouldn't it be non-sexist if "man up" is applied to both men and women? What
would be sexist is to only say that men should "man up".

~~~
Hytosys
The implication of "man up" is that anything less than a "man" is inadequate.
It's much like "quit playing like a girl" or "grow some balls".

~~~
apetresc
Except nobody actually said the words "man up" — it was the OP's own
paraphrasing of a general sentiment they observed, which they then turned
around and labeled as sexist for using the word "man", _all in the same
sentence_. I've never seen such an impressive turnaround time on a strawman.

~~~
cushychicken
Perhaps a bit of a straw man, I admit, but since the author mentioned several
instances of men telling her she should toughen up, yet experiencing less
resistance from VCs raising money than she did, I can't help but see the
comments as piling it on just a little bit.

------
s_kilk
> The first investor who tried to invest was drunk at Demo Day and got handsy
> with a cofounder, so he was out.

> One investor took me to lunch, said he wasn’t interested in investing, and
> wanted to ‘test’ the product out by going on a date with me.

> Another investor introduced me to a group of fellow investors as ‘the
> beautiful CEO who has two other beautiful cofounders’.

> Another never followed up with me after our meeting, but a month later
> invited me to an event his VC was holding with a ‘PS – this is a personal
> invite’ (meaning I was invited as a date, not because I was being considered
> as a potential investment).

> Another investor met with my CTO, held off on investing, and then asked one
> of our matchmakers if he could be set up with our CTO, or someone like her.

Shameful carry-on (on the part of the investors).

~~~
dantillberg
Whose actions are you calling shameful here? It's not clear (to me, at least).

~~~
s_kilk
I don't see how it could be unclear. In what way could the shame be on the
female participants in these scenarios?

I've added clarification to my original post.

~~~
dantillberg
Thanks! It was ambiguous to me (and perhaps only me), as one could be saying
that it was "shameful for the OP to carry on about this".

~~~
s_kilk
Ah yes, that actually makes sense, "carry on" is a british saying. It's a bit
like saying "that's shameful behaviour".

------
themartorana
Completely off the main topic, but - $25k/m is great, but growing beyond that
is not difficult per se (when compared to growing any business). I personally
know at least 5 different companies that have bootstrapped to over $1m/yr,
three of those over $5/m year without a dime of investment. (We're in the $1m+
group.)

For us, that's 5 full time people. That's it. One $5m company has grown to 20+
people.

My point is, I wish people would stop with the narrative that getting funded
is the only way to be successful. The idea that growing beyond $25k/m is too
difficult without funding is absurd, because if you can get the money to scale
quickly, you'll find that getting from $1-10m is really difficult. Then
$10m-25m. And so on.

And before you know it, your valuation is 40x revenue and you're kicked out of
your own company without a dime to show for it.

$300k/yr is awesome. It's not hard, trust me, to organically grow that to $1m.
You'll pull a nice paycheck, and those dividends end up in your pocket, not
someone else's.

Edit: if you really have 60% month-over-month growth, you'll break
$83,333.34/m ($1m/yr) in less than 3 months! I'll assume you're not actually
holding steady at 60% m/m... But you can see you're not that far away.

~~~
cushychicken
Just a guess, but since the company in question (Dating Ring) relies on
matchmakers to help make dating matches for people, I can't help but wonder if
they didn't try to grow their employee count a little early. Looking at their
homepage, they have four matchmakers on staff, and from listening to Startup,
I know they have another two people (a COO and a CTO) on board. Guessing they
probably have a few other folks on staff too, and since they're based in NYC,
it seems to me that they likely have payroll expenses well beyond what they're
pulling down monthly.

As I say - just a guess. But $25k/month serves 5 employees reasonably enough
in NYC, but I wouldn't say more than that.

I really hope they pull through. I anticipate nothing like I anticipate the
latest episode of Startup now that Season 2 is going.

------
scottjad
> [list of three companies in different markets that received funding at
> better terms than hers] The main difference? They were all run by all male
> founders.

Only someone obsessed with gender would ignore the dozens of significant
differences between these companies, their products, and the people involved
with them, and state that the main difference was the gender of the founders.

------
yarper
But.. isn't the dating game actually pretty saturated? OkCupid, Eharmony,
tinder + a million other companies. OP mentions the startup was taking 25k/mo
but needed funding to make a crack against big companies. Surely that was the
exact turn off for investors?

~~~
nailer
Search was saturated once Altavista came out and kicked Yahoo's butt. If
DatingCircle have a significant competitive advantage over the existing market
that may not be relevant.

~~~
Ntrails
Right, so what is the competitive advantage?

She opens saying "Unless I have an absolutely perfect, bulletproof business
(which I do not), I’m easily written off as someone blaming my failures on my
gender" and offers nothing to dissuade me from following that. It seems
entirely plausible she has been marginalised/dismissed - but I'm not sure I
buy into it entirely.

Personally, I'd have thought that, in dating especially, a female founder
would seem like a real strength. I wish the company luck regardless vOv

------
abbabon
I guess many of you already know but it's worth mentioning that the 2nd season
of Startup Podcast is following datingring and their (quite amazing) journey:
[http://gimletmedia.com/show/startup/](http://gimletmedia.com/show/startup/)

------
ramblerman
Finding investors is a weird affair, really. Ultimately you're asking someone
to part with their own money.

Of course you would hope it's based on the merit of your startup, but a lot of
it is also 'seduction' (even for guys). Taking them to golf, dinner, building
a slow relationship - winning them over.

We're not talking about a company's hiring policy here. This is an individual
with a lot of money, and you happen to want it. I do think that warrants a
different set of standards.

You're entirely right to deny the older creepy guys your business, but it's
not a problem in the tech business. People work hard to get these rich people
into one place so they can be swooned over. There isn't much of a filtering
process there except for "they have money".

------
magnetpeep
I am so tired of people complaining about this kind of BS. I'm a short, not
handsome white man who knows fully well he'd never be hired to be the CEO of
any company. Why? because people respond to tall, handsome men and I'm not one
of them. People also respond to attractive women, and I'm not one of them
either. Guess it just wasn't in the cards for me to have an easy life, just
like it wasn't for THE MAJORITY OF US! Some people got lucky and won the
genetic lottery, most of us didn't. End of story.

~~~
ryanx435
just wanted to let you know I agree with you and I'm sick of people whining
about basic human nature. it's not gonna change no matter how much you shame
people or complain about it.

cheers, mate

------
alexc05
How does datingring scale? If you're setting people up on dates using real-
human matchmakers it sounds like you've got a matchmaking agency.

That's unquestionably a good business if you can get customers (I've seen the
millionaire matchmaker reality show and she's got lots of money). What I'm not
seeing is how that business scales to the multi million dollar exit that a VC
is looking for.

For every few hundred customers you need a new "real human" to manage
coordinating the dates. How can you maintain quality across even 100k users?
Obviously, with money you hire more, but what's the "engineer to user" ratio?

Facebook has 1.2million users per. What's app has 14million users per.

How many users can one "dating engineer" handle?

~~~
jrs235
I posted this comment elsewhere here:

Below is from [http://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-
website](http://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website)

"Let’s think about their model again:

If someone joins the site and is unsuccessful, the site loses one customer.

If someone joins the site and is successful, the site loses two customers.

Wait, what?

That’s right. Making you successful can be bad for them. Now obviously, they
need success stories to promote and recruit new customers but too many success
stories and.. they lose."

~~~
stillsut
Except for the "craigslist early adopters", almost everyone who has done
online dating has done so based on word-of-mouth recommendation from people
they trust.

    
    
      Success = recommend to friends; Viral.

------
moe
The groping and stuff is of course unacceptable.

But I don't understand what they need an investor for if there is 60% MoM
growth from $25k/mo? Why give a large chunk of the company away when you're on
track to push $1M/mo in revenue within 8 months?

~~~
pja
Because it eliminates uncertainty? To sustain that 60% MoM growth rate, you’re
going to have to recruit staff to match (this is a relatively high-touch
company by the sounds of things - no scaling out your staff to millions of
users each!) What happens if growth stalls for a few months just after you
recruit a bunch of new staff? Oops, cash crunch: you fail to make payroll &
the company goes bankrupt.

On the other hand, if you play it safe & employ the minimum number of staff to
make payroll even under conservative MoM growth predictions, you risk poor
service killing your word of mouth under an influx of new users.

Either of these outcomes could bite you at any point: if you’re re-investing
your income straight back into the company in order to get the maximum growth
rates then your exposure to short term user volatility is very high.

------
Htsthbjig
"The main difference? They were all run by all male founders"

I know in Spain and Europe the founders of 10 different teams, all of them
trying to disrupt dating. Rarely one succeeding, only after pivoting.

It is very easy to compare yourself only with the successful people, and
forget all the people under them, and worse underestimating your competitors.

It is also a self fulfilled prophecy. I have seen bald founders get nervous
with investors, getting too nervous, making a bad performance, then blaming it
on being bald.

People do not care you are bald on a business, but if you are nervous they
sense it, and start thinking there is something fishy about you.

Investors smell weakness and self doubt. If you doubt about yourself they will
never invest on you, obviously, if you doubt about you nobody is going to
trust you.

I created a company while traveling around the world. EVERYBODY BELIEVED I WAS
CRAZY. Everybody. My parents, my girlfriend at the time...

I made it anyway but it was not easy and it worked pretty well in the end. If
someone told me that I made it because I was a "white male" I would feel
tremendously disrespected. It takes for granted all the incredible hard work,
the difficult decisions, people around you feeling sorry for you, losing all
your money, your girlfriend...

I got to met people tens of thousands of times more successful than me. If I
made money in my twenties, I met people that become rich on their teens.

I know nobody that had success without hard work but there are people that
work very hard that did not make it. I meet Rafael Nadal when he was a kid
because I played tennis and played tournaments. I meet dozens of kids as good
as him or better too.

It is so easy to put excuses when you do not make it, but there are that, only
excuses.

But excuses are very dangerous. If you believe someone success because he is
white and male, you wont be able to really see what REALLY makes them
successful, and you won't be able to learn from them. Your competitors are
your main teachers.

You have to use the fact that you are a woman as your advantage.

Sending hundreds of mails requesting meetings? Stop doing that, you are
looking desperate male or female if you do that, that you need them more that
they need you.

I created my company without external funding, lots of people were interested
in investing, mostly because I didn't need them. Those that got in got a good
deal.

~~~
Hytosys
Despite your hopeful anecdotes, there are plenty of stories that involve women
in tech being overlooked and harassed. By these metrics, and those in the
article's linked study, it's hard to deny that women have it much harder in
this field.

There might be the successful female underdogs who will claim to follow your
mantras of confidence and overcoming excuses, but overwhelmingly this is a
problem with our culture. You absolutely cannot expect a woman in this field
to bear the load of constant misogyny.

~~~
ryanx435
there are countless stories about men being overlooked or failing, you just
never hear about them because it doesn't make a good story.

~~~
Hytosys
Of course. Men are overlooked for many reasons, some reasons unfair as well.
However, men are rarely overlooked because of their gender, and that's what
this discussion is about.

------
solve
The biggest disservice that YCombinator and other famous top-tier investors
have done for entrepreneurs is to somehow convince us that the typical
investor is a good person who will support you through good and bad.

They're not. Typical investors turn out to be horrible, lazy, horrible people,
versus what you expect from them initially.

Keep that in mind from the start, no matter your gender, and you'll manage far
better.

------
JustSomeNobody
Sounds like a business opportunity. Have a site that rates investors. And of
course, as part of the rating, include which ones hit on the females asking
for funding.

Well, maybe it wouldn't be such a good business as it would likely get sued
out of existence fairly quickly.

Another tack may be to send letters the wives of said investors. :)

Seriously though, as a man, I find it very disturbing that there are men who
simply cannot conduct themselves respectfully in front of a woman.

~~~
mkr-hn
> _And of course, as part of the rating, include which ones hit on the females
> asking for funding._

Or anyone, really. I don't mind being flirty with a guy once I know him (as I
am with most of my male friends), but I wouldn't get that way with strangers
at a professional event. Any man, woman, or otherwise who did that at an event
like this would get a bad review from me.

------
silverlake
The title should read: "Fundraising While Not an Ivy League White Male". I
believe everything she says. I agree that we should call out sexist behavior
to stamp it out. However, I hope she doesn't wallow in how unfair this is.
Nearly everyone has to face unfair bullshit in some aspect of their lives.
Frankly, dating sites are a cesspool of people making superficial judgments.
Fat people, short men and black women have a terrible time getting dates
because of that same "pattern matching" investors do on founders. They
probably have a harder time fund raising for their startups, too. So, you
really have no choice but to persevere against sexist asshats in SV.

I heard about the dating ring from the Startup podcast. Checked the site out,
but how is this different from It's Just Lunch? For $80/month I'd rather your
matchmaker run my OKCupid account. Writing a hundred messages that get no
response is a total waste of time, but OKC and Match is where people are at.

------
jongraehl
Whatever disfunction exists in VC (I'm sure some does) is an opportunity for
funders who specialize in funding women. They should obtain better deals than
those who are for whatever reason only capable of correctly judging and
interacting with male founders, especially if they can develop a reputation
for it.

Best wishes to the founder here, who took positive action by starting a
business that seems promising enough (I agree with the premise that there are
still opportunities in online dating). I'm not a fan of scolds with no skin in
the game and outrageists who make every 3rd anecdote into a 'trend', but
relating true experiences is surely good.

Interpretations of social-psych-science studies (as opposed to the actual
[reproduced] experiments) should be taken w/ huge lumps of salt.

------
astannard
I can see why you're annoyed and have every right to be at investor behaviour.
Lack of investment though, could that be due to scalability of the product?
Reading between the lines as you take on more users will you need more staff
to be matchers? This seems to put off some investors looking for a unicorn.
It's a shame their are not more female VCs around. Hope it all goes well

------
pron
> It’s easy to spot direct sexism, and to react to something like an investor
> getting handsy. But the subtle sexism that hinders women goes ignored and is
> often denied.

The first kind is better called misogyny; the second is sexism. It is often
denied not because it is subtle -- a quick look at the statistics, any
relevant statistics, would show that it's far from it -- but because it's
unintentional, sometimes seemingly benevolent, and often invisible unless
you're trained to see it or directly suffer its consequences.

I think the first step is to understand that being sexist is to be expected --
it's like doctors infecting patients with germs on their hands before the
discovery of microbes and disinfectants -- you can't _not_ be infected unless
you understand how the mechanism works. The next step is to learn what sexism
is, how it works, why it feels "natural", and why fighting it may feel
strange. Like with any mechanism that we can't easily see with the naked eye,
coming to terms with its reality and its very visible effects is a process.
It's OK to grow up sexist; if our current theories are correct, almost all of
us do whether we like it or not. It's _not_ OK not to learn about sexism and
try to fight it now that we have a much better sense of how it works.

What saddens me is that sometimes the very people who are usually most curious
to learn how the world works turn willfully -- sometimes proudly -- ignorant
when it comes to social mechanisms. It's OK to disagree, but at least everyone
should be familiar with the core principles. Sometimes arguments about the
subject here on HN or elsewhere sound like people arguing with Quantum
Mechanics not because they think the Newtonian model provides ample
explanation, but because they insist Zeus is ample explanation, or, worse yet,
because we have no business trying to understand how things below a certain
size behave because it's just not important enough.

~~~
mkr-hn
Dealing with internalized homophobia as I came out to myself and others was
eye-opening. The number of unfortunate things we internalize and perpetuate is
amazing.

~~~
pron
What amazes me is not only how much crap every one of us -- no matter how
scientific or skeptical otherwise -- internalizes, but the kind of excuses we
come up with to deny the reality of the evidence presented to us, or, better
yet, the excuses we come up with so we don't even have to _look_ at the
evidence.

Contrast that with how some people respond to news about nutrition, true AI,
and cryonics -- all far less scientific than the study of sexism and racism --
and explain that even though the science isn't rigorous yet, we must consider
the "results" on the off chance it will make the world a better place. But
trying to reduce proven, pervasive sexism or racism? That's just
unsubstantiated "ideology" (all without even a cursory study of the findings)
and an unimportant/impossible (take your pick) undertaking.

------
danielbnelson
I'm really enjoying listening to you on the podcast - I want you to succeed
and I know many others do to. Keep your head up high and keep at it.

Is sexism a problem in tech and venture capital? YES. But don't focus on it
and don't let it stop you. So you've gotten lots of rejections. If something
isn't working change your strategy. You don't have to raise money to build an
awesome company. If you are out of cash take on part time jobs but don't give
up.

This line really concerns me:

"You need tens of thousands of users to prove what we’re trying to prove, and
it acquiring users in this space is very costly"

Any business is about math. What's your lifetime value of your user? What does
it cost to acquire them? Do do you do it cost effectively at scale?

------
jfe
there are two issues: one cofounder was being "man-handled" by an investor,
and their product received little support, allegedly because the author and
cofounder was not attractive, white, male, etc.

i think everyone here agrees being "handsy" with anyone in a professional
setting is not the right thing to do. it's certainly not punishable by death,
but it's socially uncouth. that being said, the author acknowledged that it's
common for sales pitches to be misinterpreted as sexual interest, and seeing
how women _generally_ like aggressive men, it's not hard to see how an
investor would interpret such a situation as a cue to get "handsy" with the
cofounder. again, not excusable in a professional setting, but you can't
lambaste a man for his own biology.

which brings me to the second issue. if men are biologically predisposed to
choose male leaders over female leaders and we want women to have an equal
opportunity to be funded -- _provided_ their product is actually as good as a
man's -- then women will gain better traction by offering incentives for men
to prefer the female leaders over the male leaders, rather than trying to
change biology so men "work correctly".

------
DiabloD3
What I don't get about this is why she just doesn't name names. I'm a white
attractive male, however, I don't want to ever accept investments from
investors that do not share the same values as I do, such as women are a vast
untapped skilled workforce and treating them as anything less simply isn't
profitable, and pretty ignorant.

I mean, hell, sure, lets say for the sake of argument, "women belong in the
kitchen, pregnant, and barefoot" (the single most classically sexist thing I
can think of at 6:30 in the morning), women raise our children, both boys and
girls: if you truly believe this, why didn't you marry a woman with multiple
PhDs and a high IQ, so a much more intelligent forward-thinking educated woman
is raising your children, thus giving them a better chance in life and thus
spreading your genetic legacy more favorably (the driving force behind 99% of
human culture and society)?

Seriously, sexism just doesn't logically make sense. If you're sexist, and a
CEO or a major investor, please drop out of the game and let someone more
efficient than you take your place.

Edit: I don't care if you downvote me, sexism is still wrong and needs to be
called out as much as possible so we can exile people who are abusing their
power to promote sexism.

~~~
mrweasel
Naming names are generally a bad idea, because you don't know if the person
really was a sexiest sleazeball or the person making the accusation is just
angry that that person just didn't want to invest.

I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to exclude someone for being a
woman (or an Eskimo, handicapped, from Belgium or pretty much any other
reason), if that person has the qualification you're looking for. In theory
the companies that discriminate should suffer from a lack of talent or have to
pay more for their workers, because they're recruiting from a smaller pool. I
don't know if we want to wait for them to bleed to death, but eventually they
will go away.

You're absolutely right that sexism doesn't make logical sense, I'm completely
baffled when I hear stories about someone being rejected for being a woman.
The sad part is that many of the women who step forward behave like self-
entitled spoiled brats, so it becomes hard to tell if they where reject due to
gender or personality.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'd agree, but its so very, very common to mansplain womens' complaints as
trivial ("self-entitled spoiled brats") while men in the same situation would
have their response interpreted with some kind of respect.

~~~
mrweasel
>but its so very, very common to mansplain womens' complaints as trivial

I'm still undecided as to how I feel about that logic, it's something that you
hear rather often. It's also, to some extend, claiming that I don't understand
the problem, because I'm a man. That's really a bad starting point for getting
male involvement in womens issues.

Mostly I try to avoid getting into arguments about sexism in IT. It's hasn't
been productive in the past and I often feel attacked for being male. I get
the impression that women, and some men, want me/us to take action while being
extremely vague about what those actions might be. For now I've decide that I
don't care about women in IT. I won't discriminate, I won't create a hostile
work environment, but I won't be doing anything to actively help either.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I am with you on that. Its hard to say anything without criticism.

I believe the problem is, its a cultural difference. Some women have a
different setpoint when complaining, which men are uncomfortable with. That
discomfort is louder than the message.

Now, we could either ask women to learn to argue like a man. We could ignore
them and hope they go away. We could try to speak for women, (mis)translating
their message. Or we could get over it, and just address the message.

------
smoyer
I generally think of the whole dating web-site vertical as a bit sleazy. I'd
be interested to know what percentage of the investors they pitched outright
dismissed them on these grounds (psychologically it may have happened before
even hearing the pitch).

~~~
smoyer
EDIT:

I should also mention that the behavior these ladies were subjected to is
completely unacceptable. My comment above wasn't in any way condoning the
investors but rather trying to point out that it may (in general) be harder to
get investment in a dating application. It may also be true that it's harder
to get investments as a female founder (I suspect it is) but we're talking
about a single instance.

As YC grows the number of female-led start-ups, they should be able to slice
this data multiple ways - by vertical, male/female founders, etc.

------
dylanjermiah
I've heard if you have real (how do you define real?) traction, no matter what
you'll get funded. Is there any truth to this? Or in other words, would people
actually pass on an investment on a purely physical basis?

------
andy_ppp
I am amazed at how quickly this article dropped off the front page...

------
mahouse
You can also send a "white, attractive male" to the VC interview, and be a
ghostwriter of the startup.

~~~
gtf21
Which is awful! A founder should not have to send a "white, attractive male"
because she is female and investors refuse to take her seriously. The culture
clearly needs to change.

~~~
mahouse
If you think you can fight prejudice... think again.

~~~
vacri
Most of the 20th Century was an ongoing war against prejudice in one form or
another, with prejudice constantly losing ground.

------
rurban
So how did Jessica Alba did it then? She's not the typical startup geek, and
her roles definitely defined her on the sexy side only. She managed fine. She
pitched by herself, and finally found the right partner and investor. E.g.
[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jessica-albas-tears-
he...](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jessica-albas-tears-her-
way-736714)

~~~
mehwoot
Gee, I'm not sure, maybe there is something about being a very famous movie
star that would help open doors to getting investment. Possibly?

~~~
facepalm
Because she is a movie star investors are not interested in having sex with
her anymore?

