¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy

¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy

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Author: PK Mutch

News media entrepreneur, freelance journalist, Canadian Association of Journalists member, former book publishing executive, zine-maker and startup professional.  Marigold Capital advisory board. Recipent of Inspiring Top 50 Women in STEM in 2018. Profiled in Canada 150 Women: Conversations with Leaders, Champions and Luminaries. Founder  and former President of award-winning Fifth Town Artisan Cheese, Canada's 8th B-Corp, which under her leadership received the Premier's Award for Agri-Food Innovation (2009). Petra currently works to advance inclusive entrepreneurship and innovation in public policy and startup ecosystems with a particular emphasis on gender equity.  Petra is the founding publisher of Liisbeth. Follow Petra on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Categories
Systems

The Future of Accelerators and Incubators?

Sean O’Sullivan believes that 90 per cent of the world’s 7,000 incubators and accelerators will fail, close down, or be absorbed by their hosts within the next few years. As someone who has worked in an incubator, this prediction caught my attention.

O’Sullivan, founder and managing director of SOSV, a large venture fund with its own privately run accelerator program, and who has invested in 400 companies over 20 years, gave a keynote speech at Montreal Startupfest’s Premium AcceleratorFest (held a day before the main festival) on July 13. And while bullish on the importance of entrepreneurs in innovation-dependent economies, he did not think the future was bright for hybrid incubators or accelerators in particular. This was not good news for the attendees—the majority of whom manage or work in these organizations—or for the entrepreneurs who depend on hybrid incubators and accelerators to succeed.

But let’s start at the beginning. In order to understand O’Sullivan’s predictions for the sector, it is important that one knows some basic industry terms.

What Is an Accelerator and Incubator?

While their operational practices (length of program, terms of engagement, level of pressure, sector focus, philosophy) vary, they both aim to improve an entrepreneur’s odds of success by providing programming, mentoring, space, and facilitating access to funding. The main difference between the two is in legal form and who pays their operating costs. Incubators are primarily non-profit organizations (or hosted by them) and are funded publicly or by donations and grants. Accelerators tend to be private, for-profit organizations, often backed by a private equity or venture capital funds.

For-profit accelerators or incubators are in business to make a profit for their shareholders or venture fund partners as quickly as possible. Non-profit equivalents are generally in business to diversify the local economy, provide new opportunities for struggling demographics, build out new industries, and create local jobs. They generally take a longer-term view with a focus on social benefits.

So What Are Hybrids?

The hybrids are a combination of incubator and accelerator. They are funded by public money and donations, and are charged with the mission to achieve economic development and social goals for their area. However, they’re increasingly expected to reduce their dependence on public money (and the uncertainty that comes with that) by also aiming to make a profit on the companies they incubate. Many university incubators serve as examples.

And therein lies the rub. Hybrids essentially have two masters and dual missions: serve the public policy agenda, and make money while doing it. In O’Sullivan’s view, it’s like trying to mix oil and water. You can be one or the other, but not both. “Trying to combine social goals with profit-making is very unlikely to succeed.”

O’Sullivan also suggested there was an oversupply of incubators and accelerators generating increasingly mediocre results. High potential startups will gravitate to the best, or not bother with incubators or accelerators at all (like entrepreneurs used to do before they came along) because they will be perceived as either a waste of time or money, or both. This will result in a much needed shake out. “And that’s okay,” said O’Sullivan.

Many in the audience nodded in agreement with the prediction that hybrids are likely the first to go. Those that don’t close down entirely will most likely be absorbed by their institutional or corporate hosts and be re-configured (for example, marginal university incubator programs will be reclaimed by academic councils).

In O’Sullivan’s view, ultimately, only venture-capital-backed programs will be left standing.

But as we consider this prediction, we also need to remember that this “who will survive” divination is coming from the perspective of venture fund managers and venture capitalists like O’Sullivan. Making money for shareholders or partners is what they are paid to do. For them, doing anything else would just amount to a mandate to fail.

 

For more reading on accelerators and incubators, visit International Business Innovation Association or Canadian Acceleration and Business Incubation.

 

Categories
Activism & Action

The Problem with Bro-preneurship: On Display at Montreal's Startupfest


Too often we talk about entrepreneurship as if it were one community, one culture. In reality, it is a kaleidoscope of philosophies, approaches, and cultures. But the bro-oriented, Silicon Valley tech culture sucks up all the media oxygen and, with it, too much of the venture capital. And the celebration of that narrow aspect of entrepreneurship is getting stale.
Take Montreal’s Startupfest, now in its sixth year. An estimated 3,500 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, accelerators, incubators, policy-makers, consultants, and bankers (mostly from Canada and the U.S.) paid between $300 and $800 per person to attend what were often puerile, shoddily prepared presentations interrupting what seemed to be the main event: big money boys trying to out dude each other on stage and at festival parties.
The event is a marquis summer event for Montreal, a city trying to position itself on the global innovation map as a world-class startup haven. It currently ranks 20th behind Toronto at 17th.
This year, the festival featured 70 speakers and three separate circus tent stages set up in the Old Port of Montreal. Many came to compete in pitching competitions awarding anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000 in seed funding. Apparently, they also came for loads of free drinks (sponsored by Osler and Shopify), and the chance to play with “grown-up” toys such as foosball and snag pink beach balls and free pairs of Parasuco jeans, giveaways by various sponsor booths. The event billed itself as “unforgettable and unconventional.”
Beware: What Sells as Unconventional Is Actually Deeply Conventional
I attended the fest, on the lookout for the unconventional. Other than a pitch judging panel called The Grandmothers (retired women entrepreneurs) and pop-up child care, most of the event was the same old celebration of tech/VC-centred bro-preneurship.
For those who have never been, these conferences work hard to craft a cool, anti-establishment experience. But look beyond the nifty swag, red sneakers, and neon lights, and what you really see is raw, 300-year-old capitalism at work. Large venture capital firms and accelerators, hip as they try to be to scoop up young talent, are really just organizations with age-old biases and management processes, freighted with old-boy politics and rules. Startups that win their backing quickly become traditional corporations. Winning big VC backing requires fitting in and doing things their way. So much for following your own authentic path that fired you up in the first place. So much for rebelling against big money and “the man.”
The speaker lineup was touted as first class, but session topics were narrow in scope and short on depth as well as respect for the audience. There were no sessions on social entrepreneurship nor on the now estimated $3 trillion impact investing space, a scale that surely deserves some attention at an event like this. Several headline speakers tried to come across as unconventional and unscripted but were simply unprepared. A few rogue panelists seemed more interested in using air time to fortify their personal brands rather than sharing useful information. No one interrogated the space itself or asked the audience to reflect hard on important questions such as how many jobs their ventures are creating, where those jobs are located and for whom. Or even how to address growing structural unemployment some new ventures accelerate with next-stage robots and artificial intelligence. But a presenter just showing up and being mildly entertaining was celebrated. The casualty? Audience learning and value for money. Though, sadly, too few bros in the audience seemed to care.
Fuck That: No, I Really Mean, Fuck That
Tech culture tries to pass itself off as unconventional, rebellious, and youthful by celebrating a culture of cussing, but that quickly became old as presenters over 40 seemed in full-out competition to drop as many f-bombs as possible. It must have felt dangerous for them, a little like swearing in front of their mothers for the first time. I can say “fuck” deliciously and often, but when it comes to using the f-word on stage, I take my lead from uber-orators like Tony Robbins who swears, but strategically and not at the expense of substance. Full of dude-itude, these guys dropped bombs as if on auto-repeat rather than using their words to say anything informative.
What’s lost when organizers cuss on stage themselves? Or when a Master of Ceremonies counsels audience members to count the times they hear the word “fuck” and suggests awarding prizes to the speaker who drops the most bombs? Let’s just say it was a distraction from the obvious—that those who used it most had the least to say.
A Chance to Meet “The Man”: But He Doesn’t Care About You
Too typical of the event were speakers like Dave McClure. Now McClure has an enviable reputation as a celebrity angel investor. According to his website, his venture fund (co-founded by Christine Tsai, who is never mentioned) has made investments in 1,500 companies in 50 countries. Not surprisingly, the tent he spoke in was packed with eager conference goers of all genders and ages hopeful to bag some of that venture capital. I hoped he might have something meaty to say. I turned on my recorder just in case.
As he settled into his speaker’s chair, the first thing he told the audience, with a strange pride as if anticipating we would be impressed, was that he didn’t have time to prepare his 30-minute talk. He had planned to write one the night before but he got drunk at the festival party instead. (Everyone laughed knowingly.) So the paying audience would have to make do with festival staffer interviewing him on stage.

A competitive type, he began his talk by reciting comedian George Carlin’s “seven words you can’t say on television“, (circa 1972) and added that he didn’t understand why the last word, tits, was a problem. “Afterall, even girls like tits”. The crowd laughed and followed with a rousing “ya man” applause.

When asked about diversity, he noted that African Americans and Hispanics add up to 30 per cent of the population and were definitely an under-indexed population (people, anyone?). He said he started his 500 Startups diversity program “not because we’re wonderful or good Samaritans but because (and his voice lifted excitedly) we can make a lot of fucking money!” After a few in the audience hooted, he elaborated, “We’re just greedy blood-sucking venture capitalists who just want to make a lot of fucking money…arbitraging racism and sexism for our own selfish fucking benefit and the globe.”
If you can stomach a minute and 20 seconds of his rant, you can listen to it here.
Apparently, being offensive was part of his celebrity shtick for a reality TV show he had been cast in. (It was cancelled before starting.) I questioned whether I was a humourless bitch or had landed in an Animal House full of frat boys. Guess I can ponder the question further as 500 Startups is opening up shop in my home city of Toronto and nearby Waterloo. Can’t wait.
His talk lasted only 20 minutes, thank God. Still, the audience clapped and several even whistled appreciatively. Later, I asked more than 15 entrepreneurs—of both sexes and a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds—what they thought of his talk.  The majority were nonplussed by his shock-jock style. They considered it part of a salable celebrity personality. To them, he was still a hero and model. “After all,” enthused one 20-something South Asian entrepreneur, “he gives a lot of money to entrepreneurs.”
Only one person expressed what I was thinking, that his talk was disgusting and disappointing and you can listen to that response here.
WTF? But the Networking Was Fun
Montreal Startupfest does many things well, especially facilitating networking. There were lots of long breaks, free Nespresso, the bar was open all day, tech demo tents and mentor tents hummed with people, and they rocked social media. Others could learn from them on this. But they blew their opportunity to stand out from other conferences like this by not broadening the scope of topics and by not professionalizing their management of panels and speakers. Positive change might start by choosing speakers who represent where the event wants to go, not where it has been. Efforts to be gender inclusive by ensuring gender balance on stage was actually laudable. You could tell organizers were really trying. But still, the overwhelming majority of attendees were male (by my eyeball count it was more than 80 per cent). Many experts understand that real inclusivity has to address culture as well as rosters, and that means changing the adolescent, bro culture that so dominates the tech/venture capital entrepreneur space, which not only diminishes inclusivity but inhibits real learning and dampens the festival’s potential for growth and meaningful impact.
Thankfully, times are changing. And events like this will have to evolve to stay relevant—or others will replace them. As for me, I love a good time as much as any bro-preneur. On that basis, I would totally go again but next time, I won’t bother with a notebook. I’ll just pack my party shoes—and Tylenol.
 

 
Follow up readings:
Another good article about the impact of bro talk:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/how-wall-street-bro-talk-keeps-women-down.html?_r=0
The Best Presentation?
By Ooshma Garg, founder of Gobble, prepared and amazing, instructive story.
Other perspectives and articles about Montreal Startupfest:
http://montrealgazette.com/business/local-business/montreals-startupfest-is-all-grown-up
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/nathon-kong-wins-cbc-media-pitch-at-the-international-startup-festival-1.3158246
http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/startupfest-connects-entrepreneurs-with-investors-1.2987132
https://ludovicdumas.com/2011/07/19/montreal-international-startup-festival-2011-bubble-talk/
About the founder, Phil Telio:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/telio
 

Categories
Activism & Action

The Problem with Bro-preneurship: On Display at Montreal’s Startupfest

Too often we talk about entrepreneurship as if it were one community, one culture. In reality, it is a kaleidoscope of philosophies, approaches, and cultures. But the bro-oriented, Silicon Valley tech culture sucks up all the media oxygen and, with it, too much of the venture capital. And the celebration of that narrow aspect of entrepreneurship is getting stale.

Take Montreal’s Startupfest, now in its sixth year. An estimated 3,500 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, accelerators, incubators, policy-makers, consultants, and bankers (mostly from Canada and the U.S.) paid between $300 and $800 per person to attend what were often puerile, shoddily prepared presentations interrupting what seemed to be the main event: big money boys trying to out dude each other on stage and at festival parties.

The event is a marquis summer event for Montreal, a city trying to position itself on the global innovation map as a world-class startup haven. It currently ranks 20th behind Toronto at 17th.

This year, the festival featured 70 speakers and three separate circus tent stages set up in the Old Port of Montreal. Many came to compete in pitching competitions awarding anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000 in seed funding. Apparently, they also came for loads of free drinks (sponsored by Osler and Shopify), and the chance to play with “grown-up” toys such as foosball and snag pink beach balls and free pairs of Parasuco jeans, giveaways by various sponsor booths. The event billed itself as “unforgettable and unconventional.”

Beware: What Sells as Unconventional Is Actually Deeply Conventional

I attended the fest, on the lookout for the unconventional. Other than a pitch judging panel called The Grandmothers (retired women entrepreneurs) and pop-up child care, most of the event was the same old celebration of tech/VC-centred bro-preneurship.

For those who have never been, these conferences work hard to craft a cool, anti-establishment experience. But look beyond the nifty swag, red sneakers, and neon lights, and what you really see is raw, 300-year-old capitalism at work. Large venture capital firms and accelerators, hip as they try to be to scoop up young talent, are really just organizations with age-old biases and management processes, freighted with old-boy politics and rules. Startups that win their backing quickly become traditional corporations. Winning big VC backing requires fitting in and doing things their way. So much for following your own authentic path that fired you up in the first place. So much for rebelling against big money and “the man.”

The speaker lineup was touted as first class, but session topics were narrow in scope and short on depth as well as respect for the audience. There were no sessions on social entrepreneurship nor on the now estimated $3 trillion impact investing space, a scale that surely deserves some attention at an event like this. Several headline speakers tried to come across as unconventional and unscripted but were simply unprepared. A few rogue panelists seemed more interested in using air time to fortify their personal brands rather than sharing useful information. No one interrogated the space itself or asked the audience to reflect hard on important questions such as how many jobs their ventures are creating, where those jobs are located and for whom. Or even how to address growing structural unemployment some new ventures accelerate with next-stage robots and artificial intelligence. But a presenter just showing up and being mildly entertaining was celebrated. The casualty? Audience learning and value for money. Though, sadly, too few bros in the audience seemed to care.

Fuck That: No, I Really Mean, Fuck That

Tech culture tries to pass itself off as unconventional, rebellious, and youthful by celebrating a culture of cussing, but that quickly became old as presenters over 40 seemed in full-out competition to drop as many f-bombs as possible. It must have felt dangerous for them, a little like swearing in front of their mothers for the first time. I can say “fuck” deliciously and often, but when it comes to using the f-word on stage, I take my lead from uber-orators like Tony Robbins who swears, but strategically and not at the expense of substance. Full of dude-itude, these guys dropped bombs as if on auto-repeat rather than using their words to say anything informative.

What’s lost when organizers cuss on stage themselves? Or when a Master of Ceremonies counsels audience members to count the times they hear the word “fuck” and suggests awarding prizes to the speaker who drops the most bombs? Let’s just say it was a distraction from the obvious—that those who used it most had the least to say.

A Chance to Meet “The Man”: But He Doesn’t Care About You

Too typical of the event were speakers like Dave McClure. Now McClure has an enviable reputation as a celebrity angel investor. According to his website, his venture fund (co-founded by Christine Tsai, who is never mentioned) has made investments in 1,500 companies in 50 countries. Not surprisingly, the tent he spoke in was packed with eager conference goers of all genders and ages hopeful to bag some of that venture capital. I hoped he might have something meaty to say. I turned on my recorder just in case.

As he settled into his speaker’s chair, the first thing he told the audience, with a strange pride as if anticipating we would be impressed, was that he didn’t have time to prepare his 30-minute talk. He had planned to write one the night before but he got drunk at the festival party instead. (Everyone laughed knowingly.) So the paying audience would have to make do with festival staffer interviewing him on stage.

A competitive type, he began his talk by reciting comedian George Carlin’s “seven words you can’t say on television“, (circa 1972) and added that he didn’t understand why the last word, tits, was a problem. “Afterall, even girls like tits”. The crowd laughed and followed with a rousing “ya man” applause.

When asked about diversity, he noted that African Americans and Hispanics add up to 30 per cent of the population and were definitely an under-indexed population (people, anyone?). He said he started his 500 Startups diversity program “not because we’re wonderful or good Samaritans but because (and his voice lifted excitedly) we can make a lot of fucking money!” After a few in the audience hooted, he elaborated, “We’re just greedy blood-sucking venture capitalists who just want to make a lot of fucking money…arbitraging racism and sexism for our own selfish fucking benefit and the globe.”

If you can stomach a minute and 20 seconds of his rant, you can listen to it here.

Apparently, being offensive was part of his celebrity shtick for a reality TV show he had been cast in. (It was cancelled before starting.) I questioned whether I was a humourless bitch or had landed in an Animal House full of frat boys. Guess I can ponder the question further as 500 Startups is opening up shop in my home city of Toronto and nearby Waterloo. Can’t wait.

His talk lasted only 20 minutes, thank God. Still, the audience clapped and several even whistled appreciatively. Later, I asked more than 15 entrepreneurs—of both sexes and a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds—what they thought of his talk.  The majority were nonplussed by his shock-jock style. They considered it part of a salable celebrity personality. To them, he was still a hero and model. “After all,” enthused one 20-something South Asian entrepreneur, “he gives a lot of money to entrepreneurs.”

Only one person expressed what I was thinking, that his talk was disgusting and disappointing and you can listen to that response here.

WTF? But the Networking Was Fun

Montreal Startupfest does many things well, especially facilitating networking. There were lots of long breaks, free Nespresso, the bar was open all day, tech demo tents and mentor tents hummed with people, and they rocked social media. Others could learn from them on this. But they blew their opportunity to stand out from other conferences like this by not broadening the scope of topics and by not professionalizing their management of panels and speakers. Positive change might start by choosing speakers who represent where the event wants to go, not where it has been. Efforts to be gender inclusive by ensuring gender balance on stage was actually laudable. You could tell organizers were really trying. But still, the overwhelming majority of attendees were male (by my eyeball count it was more than 80 per cent). Many experts understand that real inclusivity has to address culture as well as rosters, and that means changing the adolescent, bro culture that so dominates the tech/venture capital entrepreneur space, which not only diminishes inclusivity but inhibits real learning and dampens the festival’s potential for growth and meaningful impact.

Thankfully, times are changing. And events like this will have to evolve to stay relevant—or others will replace them. As for me, I love a good time as much as any bro-preneur. On that basis, I would totally go again but next time, I won’t bother with a notebook. I’ll just pack my party shoes—and Tylenol.

 

 

Follow up readings:

Another good article about the impact of bro talk:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/how-wall-street-bro-talk-keeps-women-down.html?_r=0

The Best Presentation?

By Ooshma Garg, founder of Gobble, prepared and amazing, instructive story.

Other perspectives and articles about Montreal Startupfest:
http://montrealgazette.com/business/local-business/montreals-startupfest-is-all-grown-up

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/nathon-kong-wins-cbc-media-pitch-at-the-international-startup-festival-1.3158246

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/startupfest-connects-entrepreneurs-with-investors-1.2987132

https://ludovicdumas.com/2011/07/19/montreal-international-startup-festival-2011-bubble-talk/

About the founder, Phil Telio:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/telio

 

Categories
Our Voices

Amy Brings LiisBeth Inside The Tent

For savvy corporate intrapreneur and author Amy Dorn Kopelan, entrepreneurship wasn’t a choice. Amy’s conference planning and executive coaching enterprise, Bedlam Productions Inc., is the producer and creator of The Corporate State Summits (US and Canada) and The Executive Studio. Amy is working to ignite a “Davos for Women Only” environment where the conversation is about leadership, business trends, and ensuring that women seat at any table and their voices are heard.

As one of our new contributors, we wanted you to get to know Amy a little better. Here is an excerpt of our interview.

LiisBeth: Amy, tell us your entrepreneurial story. Why did you leave a successful career in corporate television for the uncertain world of entrepreneurship?

Amy: Why does somebody jump the fence from corporate to entrepreneur? In my case, it wasn’t so much a choice. More like an unplanned push out the door!

LiisBeth: After 20 years of moving up the corporate ladder, what happened?

Amy: I was essentially what we now call an intrapreneur in a company that ultimately didn’t know how to support that. I saw market opportunities others didn’t. I recognized the need to work fast to respond. But corporations tend to make decisions about new things s-l-o-w-l-y. Management became uncomfortable with my pace, even though they applauded the vision, energy, and creativity. Ultimately they created an elite sort of “skunk works” team of five people to look at some new ideas and invited me to join.

LiisBeth: That sounds like it should have been an ideal outcome.

Amy: Well, there was good and bad. The good? I was in a fish bowl and people were very aware of what I was saying, thinking, and doing. The bad? You get a lot more scrutiny. At a certain point the COO of the company called me to say: “You have a way of thinking, a way of moving people, a way of seeing the landscape, and a way of making things happen that don’t necessarily work in a corporate environment. So young lady, it is time for you to leave this organization. It’s time for you to go out and change the world.” I’ve got to tell you, the jolt of that is huge.

LiisBeth: No kidding! What did you do next?

Amy: [Laughs] I first tried to get another job. And soon found a job opening that seemed like a perfect fit. But in my heart, for a lot of reasons, I knew I wouldn’t get the job. They gave me a lot of feedback and affirmed some things I felt I knew about myself, but was not so sure about. That third-party, objective feedback opened up my eyes and many other doors.

LiisBeth: So from job to no job, how did you come to start your now very successful, 14-year-old business, Bedlam Productions?

Amy: It wasn’t really planned. It came about as a series of steps and opportunities. The year before I left my corporate position, I had been loaned out by ABC to Fairchild Publications to launch a conference series. I would truck daily down town in New York to their facilities to help them develop a conference division. They needed my producing skills because they were publishers and they didn’t have producers on site. So after having a year of that experience, I suddenly realized that that was probably an opportunity I could build on.

LiisBeth: Did you ever attend any incubators or startup weekends?

Amy: No! I think there was less scripting around that than what exists now. I primarily got to where I needed to go by leveraging and building networks. One person introduced me to another. I also invested in research and started to go to conferences where I thought that I could see more and learn more of what mirrored what I had in mind. I recognized as I went along that one of my special skills was that I really knew how to initiate and manage partnerships well.

My networking efforts took me to Deloitte, coincidentally at the very time they were looking to launch a women’s conference. I sat next to a woman at a symposium who asked about my business plans. I explained what I did, and she suggested that the timing was uncanny. Deloitte wanted to launch a summit for women leaders, but did not have any idea how to produce it. They did have the money, though. I knew how to produce and of course needed a sponsor. The gal, who was with Deloitte in California, suggested she make an intro for me. It was her idea that Deloitte should fund me and that I’d have a corporate partner. That’s exactly what happened.

LiisBeth: Why did Deloitte want to create a women’s conference?

Amy: They wanted to create something different for women in leadership positions and not just another report. They wanted a conference designed to explore critical global trends. There wasn’t anything out there like this. We all felt strongly that this new conference couldn’t be just one more “women’s conference.” It had to be about global issues, and to get in the door you had to be a woman leader.

We had a very deep belief there was room in the market for a “Davos” for women only. Many times, I must be candid, people would say: “Oh, I don’t want to come to that. That’s a women’s conference.” The stress on the word “women’s” was distasteful, as if we were going to discuss “how do you colour your hair?” We had to show that this was a summit, not just another women’s issues event. And that’s what we’ve been producing for the past 16 years.

LiisBeth: Wow. Sixteen years! Has anything changed?

Amy: There have been many changes. But I’ll mention this as distinct. In 1998, there was an acceptance of the idea that women were global leaders, but somehow many women still saw themselves as being a good “guide on the side.” They would never admit to having husbands at home who took care of the children. And they would duck the idea that they made more money than their mates. Now, those walls are gone! Now, there’s a tremendous shift in women’s roles in society. Now, more and more women want to lead loud and proud, not just quietly guide.

LiisBeth: Are there too many women’s conferences these days?

Amy: No. I think women, globally, really are tapping into the idea that being in a room full of women leaders, discussing world issues, educates you differently.

LiisBeth: What advice do you have for fellow entrepreneurs?

Amy: I think to start any business you need a very strong board of advisers. I can’t stress that enough. Nobody on that board should be a significant other in your life, but instead people who have very specific skills to advise, guide, and help you make critical decisions about your company. Secondly, be in a business you love. And thirdly, be in a business where there’s a need for the service or product.

LiisBeth: Are you coming back to Toronto next year?

Amy: Our last Corporate State 2016 Summit sold out! So yes, we’re back on May 17, 2017, in Toronto.

Links:
Bedlam Productions Inc.
Corporate State 2016 – Toronto
Corporate State 2015 – Montreal
Corporate State 2013 – Vancouver

Publisher’s Note: For more information about the Toronto Corporate 2020 Summit 2017, or how to get involved, please check out Bedlam Productions.

 

Categories
Activism & Action Systems

Confronting Gender Inequity And Inclusion in The Innovation Space

Innovation Innovate Invention Development Design Concept

Many people seem to believe that innovation capacity is any economy’s secret sauce. The more of it, the better. According to many experts, achieving top tier results in the innovation race is as simple as focusing on getting more business owners and entrepreneurs innovating. In other words, it’s a numbers game.

If this is truly the case, then surely solving Canada’s innovation under-performance is a cinch. Just offer relevant support for ambitious, talented women in the innovation space and the number of entrepreneurs and businesses innovating could increase by 30 per cent overnight. The economic impact would be seismic.

Yet the $200-million-per-year innovation strategy now being touted on the conference circuit by Minister Navdeep Bains, which highlights many ways to drive more innovation output, says nothing about gender parity, let alone mentioning it as a big opportunity. Additionally, the documents circulating online about the initiative also gives no indication that it is even a priority.

Improving on Canada’s glacial innovation advancement record is an important pursuit but so far, this new plan isn’t hot enough to unleash its benefits, especially if it continues to leave female innovators chilly, and potentially out in the cold.

Are Today’s Incubators and Accelerators the Solution?

The Bains mandate states “expanding effective support for incubators [and] accelerators” as a key solution. But how well do today’s incubators and accelerators serve women?

Let’s take a look at an example up close.

One of the most prestigious, well-resourced, young talent–seeking incubators in the country, The Next 36, proudly announced on June 15 a new venture capital fund led by BDC Capital in participation with Globalive Capital and private investors. While this may sound like good news for innovation, one must ask why more money is being spent to support a program run by a 92 per cent male leadership structure?

A closer look at the organization’s leadership (as advertised on its website) finds that men make up six out of seven of its founders, 13 of its 14 board members, 13 of its 14 faculty members, and 19 of its 22 mentors. And the number of female innovators selected annually to participate in this elite program ranges from five to 11 out of a total of 36 per session over the past four years. Go a level deeper and look at seven of the companies that the current board members of The Next 36 work for as their “day job” collectively. The boards and senior management of these companies have just five women in a total of 48 positions (that’s just 11 per cent).

It doesn’t seem to get any better when it comes to the leadership of the principal partners involved in this newly announced fund. Government-owned BDC Capital lists eight men and just one woman on its executive team. Globalive Capital and Alignvest, both self-described “world-class” investment management firms, are made up of 100 per cent men in their partner ranks.

Gender inequality at work in this incubator is more than skin deep. Sadly, The Next 36, an idea with exceptional potential, is starting to look more like The Past 36 at a time when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-declared feminist, managed to achieve gender parity in cabinet in one fell swoop.

Moreover, The Next 36 example is not an isolated one. Here in Ontario alone, many regional innovation centres themselves acknowledge and report sub-optimal performance in the gender equality department with participation level ranging from a low of four per cent to a high of 25 per cent.

The innovation eco-system has a long way to go to meet Kathleen Wynne’s and Justin Trudeau’s standards of gender parity.

Back to Canada’s Innovation Strategy

If we truly believe gender diversity has a business case when it comes to realizing enhanced performance, then we must also believe that gender diversity matters in innovation policy.

Solutions

LiisBeth has four ideas to offer:

  • First, government-funded incubators should be asked to pledge to achieve gender parity within management and mentor ranks by the end of 2017 and be given one year to get there.
  • Innovation policy should encourage and support the creation of autonomous, women-led, female founder–focused incubators and innovation programs. It’s nice to think a gender-blind approach is a pinnacle of form, but if we are honest we know it typically means a male-led and male-centred approach to a masculine culture environment that—by the way—also welcomes women. The research is clear. This works for some, but not many.
  • Unleash innovation at the margins by developing a complimentary demographic-based incubator strategy. Innovating something new and forgoing income to do it is scary enough, let alone trying to succeed in a space that doesn’t make you feel like you belong. Many talented innovators simply do not feel comfortable or motivated by being a part of a culturally or socially alien space, including Indigenous, trans, new Canadian, or age 50-plus entrepreneurs. It might be interesting to note that other nations seem to have figured this out. For example, Israel now has an ultra-orthodox tech incubator. If we want more business owners and entrepreneurs innovating in Canada, we cannot arrogantly insist that they all participate in an environment “we” think is best for them. A little support for demographically specific incubators would go a long way.
  • Finally, we should also require all private venture capital firms seeking government-matching funds to disclose their gender equity and diversity state, and submit plans for improving them within 18 months if they are below the water line. We all know this: equal access to capital is absolutely critical if we are to truly leverage our talented female and other marginalized innovators.

Optimism?

There is room for optimism. For example, the Bains Ministry’s recently published backgrounder states: “Only by mobilizing every sector of society to do its part will all Canadians have the opportunity to participate fully in an innovation economy.”

In addition, Bains’ mandate letter from the prime minister says expressly that the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development is expected to “help ensure gender parity.” As his mandate marching orders—and common sense—dictates, Bains must work to correct a no longer acceptable gender gap in the innovation space.

How much he has taken to heart in this arena is unclear. Bains’ recent eight-minute speech at Canada 2020 covered the usual: the importance of tech; being kinder to failure; his father’s $5 self-made entrepreneurial journey; the value of universities; and how to become a global innovation leader. But there was nothing said on the issue of gender parity in the innovation space.

If Minister Bains wants to succeed where others have failed, and if indeed, winning at innovation is a numbers game, then fostering gender equality and broader inclusion overall are two significant opportunities that should not be overlooked.

Want to write to Minister Navdeep Bains to voice your opinion on his innovation strategy? He is looking for input. Details on how to contribute to the discussion have not yet been announced, but in the meantime, you can email him at [email protected]

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Our Voices

Meet Mithula Naik: Feminist Designer, Latent Entrepreneur

Mithula Naik

Mithula Naik

Mithula Naik was studying industrial design in Chennai, India, a city of eight million, when she observed that women roaring around town on motorcycles and scooters were wearing bulky, ill-fitting helmets. As the daughter of entrepreneurs, she immediately saw an opportunity to capitalize on her interest in gender and design. “I didn’t just want to take a pink-and-shrink approach to designing a new helmet line for women,” says the now 26-year-old. “I wanted to see how I could enable a better riding experience by designing a better fit. So I researched the particulars of how a woman’s head shape and size is different from a man’s and came up with a better helmet that is ergonomically suited.”

Convincing manufacturers to buy into her idea was not easy. “I had to go to several manufacturers. At first they didn’t think a different helmet for women was necessary, let alone sell,” she says. Eventually, India’s Vega Helmets decided to give the idea—and Naik—a try. And the product took off, launching in 2014.

Naik identifies as a feminist and a feminist designer. LiisBeth recently interviewed her to chat about growing up in India, feminism and how we can redefine entrepreneurship:

LiisBeth: What did your father and mother do for a living?

Naik: Both my parents are entrepreneurs. Both of them work in business. My mother runs a primary school and day care centre. It is based on a Montessori model of education, and goes from preschool/day care through to the fourth grade. Her school is now 35 years in operation. It’s not a large school; it has about 100 students. She prioritizes maintaining quality instead of franchising and expanding the school. My father runs a business for flooring and interiors, so he does granite, marble and interior-related work.

LiisBeth: As a person who’s growing up in an entrepreneurial family, what’s your perception of how entrepreneurship is viewed in India in general?

Naik: Entrepreneurship is understood in two very different ways in India. Firstly, there’s micro and small businesses, the mom-and-pop-shop kind. This kind isn’t considered so special and is often taken for granted because it’s what everyone does. It’s mainstream. A lot of people are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial because they have to be. It’s needs based and a well-known way of life.

The second kind is medium to large businesses. More recently, with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promoting “Make in India,” there came a new kind of entrepreneur. FlipKart’s largest ecommerce chain competes with Amazon. Ola Cabs, India’s very own online cab aggregator, competes with Uber. These are the newer more aggressive and high-growth-oriented entrepreneurship ventures.

But back to the small business world, the influence of family expectations plays a big role in how young people consider entrepreneurship as a career. Your grandfather had a shop. Your father expanded it to two shops, and now as the next in line, you’re taking it to the next level, either developing a third shop or looking to expand internationally with a higher growth mindset. This is the mindset maintained by many of my friends from India. Many go abroad, get international business degrees and then come back to manage and grow their family businesses.

Growing up I believed it was, in fact, harder to get a corporate job than start a business. The entrepreneurial family and the life that goes with it were familiar enough to me that I didn’t really think of it as a desirable career option. There was a certain amount of predictability to it. Also, there is a profound sense of responsibility of a different kind, in that you have to carry the foundations of what your parents have persevered for. I feel extremely fortunate because my parents never placed any expectations on my brother and me to take their businesses forward. They wanted us to dream our own dreams.

LiisBeth: I want to explore this idea a little bit more because I find it intriguing. You grew up in an entrepreneurial family, in an entrepreneurial culture, yet you thought a job would be a great idea.

Naik: Yes.

LiisBeth: [Stunned] Why is that?

Because entrepreneurship, as any career would, comes with its constraints. Just because you are the CEO doesn’t necessarily mean you will be making as much money as you could be working for someone else. A lot of Indians return to India after spending time in the west earning more working at a job than their families ever did owning a small business in India. But this is common as well, immigrating to the west for a higher socio-economic standard. Entrepreneurship is also a deep commitment and responsibility like I mentioned. Personally, I couldn’t see myself putting all my energy in my early 20s in building one business, in the same city I grew up in and having to stay on to build it for the rest of my life. And although that is an equally joyful and challenging journey I personally wanted to travel and experience what was out there, and I was very fortunate to be able to. The world is a smaller place these days.

My core skill is design, and I need to grow as a designer. I thought I could best accomplish this by working with a large company where I would have the opportunity to collaborate with talented people from multidisciplinary fields. Working in an organization and in teams to solve problems seemed to me to be a more attractive idea than jumping on one “big idea” I might have as an entrepreneur.

LiisBeth: Are women entrepreneurs respected in India?        

Naik: I’d say the idea of women entrepreneurs who are in business for themselves in India is not as common as it is in North America. A lot of Indian women pursue business training (MBA) but then are weighed down by family expectations to work in their family’s business or join the corporate workforce. The idea of an Indian woman having her own business where she has 100 per cent autonomy is something rather recent. However, the stereotype of Indian women entrepreneurs being married women who work alongside their husbands, or daughters working with their fathers, is slowly changing.

The changing scenario can be seen by looking at the many young Indian women today using the internet and social media platforms to start their own autonomous businesses. Facebook for Business, particularly for small and medium enterprises, I believe is thriving in India. Start-ups from women entrepreneurs seem to be currently concentrated in traditionally women-led industries such as cosmetics, accessories, fashion and confectionery, but I definitely see that women in India are waking up to starting their own enterprises in other areas.

LiisBeth: Are you a feminist?

Naik: I would surely consider myself a feminist.

LiisBeth: What does that mean to you?

Naik: I guess it’s just the radical idea that women and men are equal! [Laughs.] But seriously, if you have a belief in fundamental human rights, you need to be a feminist. I really loved this new idea I read about, where we should stop asking people if they are feminists. We should ask instead if they’re sexist because really, you’re sexist if you’re not a feminist. Unfortunately, people, including many women, don’t understand the true meaning of feminism. There are too many negative connotations people associate with it, which takes away the basic meaning of feminism.

LiisBeth: Tell us about your final master’s major research project.

Naik: My project is titled “Beyond the Economic: The Influence of Women Entrepreneurs in Canada.” In an exploration of women’s entrepreneurship in Canada, my project seeks to re-examine the stereotype of the male as the prime entrepreneurial role model. It does this by uncovering the distinct experiences of women entrepreneurs for the expansion of both economic growth and social impact.

LiisBeth: What did you find out?

Naik: My research shows that Canadian women entrepreneurs have a lot of experience negotiating between the two complex entrepreneurial systems of for-profit entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship to reveal a middle ground. As a result, they are quicker to adopt a vision of Canadian society wherein businesses do not act in conflict with the good of the people, but rather alongside it. Think, hybrid enterprises. However, my study calls for more research in the subject, as there’s still a lack of available data on women’s entrepreneurship when compared to men.

LiisBeth: Why study women entrepreneurs in Canada?

Naik: Initially, I wanted to learn about how women entrepreneurs work in a first world country like Canada compared to a developing country like India. I thought I might come away with a sense of the ideal Canadian woman entrepreneur archetype that might be useful, motivating and instructional when comparing them to other women entrepreneurs in other countries. Instead, I came away with a much more interesting finding. It turns out Canadian women entrepreneurs have had a long history of fusing social benefit with business—a little known fact from what I could see. That experience and knowledge seems to be highly undervalued here. They could serve as a role model to so many others around the world.

LiisBeth: Can you discuss one of your project’s recommendations?

Naik: My first recommendation is that we begin to understand “impact” in more ways than merely financial and fully value the contributions made by women-led ventures. Many of their ventures not only contribute to the economy in the form of jobs created and supplies purchased, they also lead the way in running enterprises that measurably improve society and the environment. More progressive enterprise valuation formulas based on a broader definition of economic contribution could lead to new funding mechanisms and unleash a horde of financially oppressed but growth-minded women entrepreneurs.

LiisBeth: Any ideas on how to measure the value of social and environmental contributions?

Naik: Sure. We can start by carrying over new and now generally accepted “social impact metrics” and put a dollar value to social benefit outcomes. The social finance space is pioneering new ways of measuring social value. And the non-profit sector has also developed many new methods for assessing social impact and converting them into monetary terms. All we have to do is carry this concept over into the for-profit, commercial-lending and investment spaces so that a blended value enterprise can gain access to higher levels of funding since their balance sheet would include these other assets. I think government banks like BDC (Business Development Bank of Canada) could play a lead role in this.

LiisBeth: Being new to Toronto, and Canada, what strikes you as the one thing that sets us apart from other countries?

Naik: Inclusivity. I know diversity is emphasized in many places, but you can be in a highly diverse space that is largely segregated and less inclusive. From what I have experienced, Canada as a country emphasizes inclusivity to a great extent. It allows people from all over the world to come together to produce great things regardless of their differences. This has surprised me on many occasions. In my experience so far, Canada looks at people’s inherent capacities, what they bring to the table and not the colour of their skin or where they come from.

LiisBeth: What’s next for Mithula?

Naik: I have been working with the Central Innovation Hub at the Privy Council Office and definitely looking forward to working on many more exciting projects. I’m using the tools of design thinking and social innovation to solve policy and service delivery challenges in the public sector. Can’t wait!

 

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