¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy

¤ Field Notes from the Feminist Economy

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Tag: entrepreneur

Categories
Body, Mind & Pleasure Our Voices

Black Foodie Turns The Table

eden-black-foodie-photo-web

 

It was meant to be a night out of fun dining with the ladies to celebrate Eden Hagos’ 25th birthday. But when she and her friends were ignored and disrespected at a local restaurant, Hagos, a longtime foodie, began to think about how the food industry treats Black people, and how Black-owned restaurants are regarded. And that eventually led her to launch Black Foodie, a blog spotlighting “the best of African, Caribbean and Southern cuisine and foodie experiences” through a Black lens.

On her 26th birthday, Hagos wrote about the incident that inspired Black Foodie’s creation — the blog post went viral. But the degree of online hate it generated shocked her – derogatory comments about her race, gender, looks. “People are telling me, oh Black people don’t tip,  Black people are bad customers, they don’t deserve good service,” recalls Hagos. “They proved exactly why we need this community – living proof that I could screenshot. It’s not even like you could try to say, ‘Oh, this is what you perceived.’ It’s real, and it’s literal, and you can feel that hate.”

For Hagos, the hate not only solidified her belief in the need for Black Foodie but strengthened her resolve to make it successful. In just over a year, she has built up 11,000 followers on Instagram, attracting readers from across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and several countries in Africa. Initially investing her own funds – the low-cost is part of the reason why she started with a website – she has since secured a couple of small business grants, including $1,500 from the School of Social Entrepreneurs Ontario’s Hook It Up program. She expanded from a website featuring recipes and restaurant reviews to a multi-pronged company that sells merchandise, offers brand and social media services to restaurants and hosts foodie meet-ups and events to generate revenue. In the future, once she’s grown her audience, she aims to sell advertising.

Black Foodie’s signature event, Injera and Chill – a play off the popular saying ‘Netflix and Chill’ – celebrates the classic Ethiopian bread injera that Hagos ate growing up. She started it in the fall of 2015 as a pop-up event in Toronto and drew about 50 people, predominantly Millennial Black foodies, to learn about and enjoy a traditional Ethiopian meal and coffee ceremony. Hagos then took the event on the road, organizing meet-ups for fans of Black Foodie in London, England and Atlanta, Georgia. Back in Toronto, she stepped up the summer 2016 event, expanding the celebration of food to a showcase of East African culture with a DJ, entrepreneurs showing their products and filmmaker Messay Getahun premiering the trailer for his movie, An Ethiopian Love. She charged $35 a ticket, and it attracted 150 guests.

Hagos, who was born in Windsor, Ont., credits her love for food to her parents, who immigrated to Canada from Eritrea, then a part of Ethiopia. Her father owned one of the first Ethiopian restaurants in Windsor. When she was growing up, she remembers him often cooking, which is significant, she explains, since in many Ethiopian households men don’t cook. Her parents knew the struggles of entrepreneurship firsthand and, like many immigrant parents stressed the importance of education. She attended both Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan and York University in Toronto, graduating with a degree in sociology. She had planned on going to grad school in the U.S. but when she didn’t have the money or see a career path that appealed to her, her desire for “freedom” pulled her toward entrepreneurship.

She applied for and won a spot in Studio Y, an eight-month fellowship program for innovative thinkers run out of one of Toronto’s leading entrepreneurial spaces, MaRS Discovery District. She says her thinking around education and diversity helped get her in the door. What she appreciated most about Studio Y was the opportunity to earn a stipend while developing and testing ideas. Early on, she considered creating a line of Ethiopian spices; by the time she left, she was on the verge of launching Black Foodie.

“I was encouraged by many of the staff and other fellows to dream big – nothing seemed out of grasp to that group and it was very inspiring to be in a community that valued this,” says Hagos. That said, she was often left thinking, “There are so many other people like me, why aren’t we in here?” She yearned to see more people of diverse backgrounds, as well as more conversations around her entrepreneurial mission to target her own demographic, solve problems within her community and be successful at it.

In the summer of 2015, Hagos attended a pitch competition for Black tech entrepreneurs in New Orleans, Louisiana, connected to the Essence music festival. Being in a room full of powerful, Black investors proved inspiring. Though she wasn’t ready to pitch her company then, the event made her see that the start-up world was not just for white men. She also realized that for her company to grow, she had to think beyond the borders of Toronto and even Canada. She sees more opportunities for Black-owned businesses catering to Black people to thrive abroad. Sheer numbers for one:  In the U.S., for example, there are more than 37,000,000 Black people as of 2010 Census stats; Canada has just a fraction of that.

She also sees opportunity in Black Foodie’s appeal to women. Some 70 per cent of her readership – as well as the vast majority of her contributors – are women who identify as belonging to the African diaspora. “It’s crazy to me because we’re the ones cooking. But when you see the ones who are celebrated, it’s usually men. In the Black food world, it’s usually men who are hosting these events.” She also points out that popular images of Black women and food are often associated with racist depictions rooted in an African American context, such as the nanny. “I’m a Black woman, so, of course, I’m drawn to stories of people who I can relate to and I think they’re also drawn to me.”

Indeed, special events coordinator Eden Zeweldi agreed to work with the company, without even knowing how much she’d be paid. She has since planned five events in collaboration with Hagos. “[Eden’s] passion and her excitement for it gave me so much energy,” Zeweldi says. “I could actually be part of a movement that would bring food that my mother makes into the limelight.” Food stylist and photographer If Ogbue also saw the opportunity to work on Black Foodie as “a breath of fresh air.” She sees huge potential in the Black Foodie brand and envisions it evolving into a web series or television show in the future.

That’s exactly where Hagos hopes Black Foodie will be in five years. She would like to develop several Black Foodie branded shows; spearhead a huge Black Foodie festival that brings together chefs, food writers and foodies; and publish a cookbook, perhaps the first of many. Still, Hagos is careful not to get ahead of herself. The key now is that Black Foodie is sparking an important conversation, both outside and within Black communities. “My goal is not just to teach other people that we exist,” she says. “I’m interested in encouraging this conversation to happen amongst each other. Some of the things we talk about in food, you can only understand if you’re a person of colour. It’s kind of like an inside joke, and I don’t always want to be trying to explain that inside joke to other people.”

 

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One of Eden’s favourite things to make around the holidays is sweet potato pie. Here’s her recipe. Give it a try.

sweet-potato-pie-2

 

Sweet Potato Pie 

Filling

  • 1/3 cup of brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup of condensed sweet milk
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 stick butter
  • 2 large spoons cinnamon
  • 1 spoon Vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp of lemon juice
  • 2 large spoonfuls of cinnamon
  • 1/2 spoon ginger
  • 1/2 spoon allspice
  • 1/2 spoon nutmeg
  • 2 large sweet potatoes
  • Brown sugar paste:
  • 8 Spoons brown sugar
  • 4 spoons Butter
  • 2 Unbaked pie shells

Brown Sugar Paste 

  1. Mix brown sugar and butter together to form a thick paste
  2. Spread half of the paste onto unbaked pie shell and bake for ten mins or until it forms a caramelized layer (don’t let the shell get brown)
  3. Let it pie shell cool as the filling is prepared

Filling 

  1. Bake sweet potatoes (or boil) until they become very tender
  2. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into small pieces
  3. In a bowl blend the sweet potatoes, milk and condensed milk
  4. Add all of the remaining ingredients sweet potato mixture and blend until it has a creamy consistency then place the half the filling into pie shell and bake for 40 mins on 350.

This recipe will make two pies. Or you can use the remaining filling to prepare a sweet potato casserole, topping the mix with marshmallows and baking for the same amount of time.

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Related Articles:

https://www.liisbeth.com/2016/11/08/not-incubators-entrepreneur/

Categories
Activism & Action Systems

Why We Need Diverse Approaches to Startup Incubation (Hint: One Size Does Not Fit All)

Ontario has a list of 59 incubators-but the list doesn't include them all.

incubator-part-two

I wear many hats. Journalist. Editor. Instructor. Youth and community program facilitator. Entrepreneur. Of all the titles, it’s the last one that I feel the most conflicted about claiming. Entrepreneurial certainly describes my spirit and journey: Thirteen years ago I incorporated a company, which my business partner and I have been running ever since; I have spearheaded several grassroots community initiatives and programs; and for the last two and a half years, I have been fully self-employed, meaning I pitch and land myself work or I don’t eat.

However, when I think entrepreneur—perhaps because of the magazines and books I’ve read, podcasts I’ve listened to, and representations I’ve seen on the topic—I largely think of a world to which I don’t belong. That world is rich with incubators, accelerators, networking mixers, co-working spaces, venture capitalists, angel investors, and Dragons’ Den-style pitch competitions. It’s not a world I was ever a part of (more on that here). Now, as I’ve aged out of the under 29 demographic and realize many others experience similar challenges to mine, I find myself wondering what it will take to bring more young women of colour in Ontario into that entrepreneurial world.

In November 2015, Ontario announced a $27 million investment in youth entrepreneurship as part of its larger $250 million Youth Jobs Strategy. The initiative includes a youth business accelerator program, which provides training to youth starting technology-based enterprises; a youth investment accelerator fund to provide financial and business skills training for startups; and campus-linked accelerators to help colleges and universities provide entrepreneurship resources for students and youth in their regions. The government is partnering on this project with the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE), a regional network of 90 centres across Ontario that provide in-person and online advice, funding, resources, and programs for people who want to start and grow successful businesses.

Much more than when I was starting out, the idea of “youth entrepreneurship” is catching on like wildfire. I am excited about this. But, from my own experiences, and those of people in my networks, I know that to ensure that these government-funded initiatives are inclusive, welcoming, and accessible—specifically for racialized women—it will take more than just dollars and cents. To find out what it will take for the government-funded startup space to serve racialized women better, I spoke to several young women entrepreneurs, the same ones from part one of this article, as well as women behind innovative entrepreneur-serving initiatives.

Ensuring Access

The word access comes up again and again in my conversations about what government-sponsored programs must consider when setting up initiatives to help young women of colour entrepreneurs. Doina Oncel, founder of hEr VOLUTION, a non-profit that aims to increase access to innovative education and employment services for young women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), says it’s important for these programs to listen to what young women need. To create hEr VOLUTION’s hv Think Tank Accelerator, which launched this past summer, Oncel drew on her own expertise having worked in social services, as well as her own experiences launching a business while living in a shelter for women and children who are victims of domestic violence. The four-month program, funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, is geared towards young women 15 to 26 years old who are interested in entrepreneurship and face barriers. For example, they may be in conflict with the law or new to Canada or from a low-income household. Topics covered include public speaking, financial literacy, marketing, and business planning. “[Having] worked with this demographic, I understood that they have a lot of great ideas, they just don’t know where to go [for help],” Oncel says. “When it comes to entrepreneurship learning, you have a lot of programs available in the city, but in the ‘priority neighbourhoods,’ there aren’t a lot of programs.”

Aisha Addo, 24, is the founder of the Power to Girls foundation, a non-profit she started at 17 to “empower Afro-diaspora girls in the Greater Toronto Area and abroad,” and most recently, DriveHER, a ride-sharing service that’s like Uber but focused on providing safe rides for women. She points out that because so few programs are offered outside of the downtown core, barriers to access can include things like not having transit fare or the lengthy travel time to get to an accelerator or incubator. She also criticizes many existing programs for not doing enough outreach within priority communities. It’s one thing to have programs available, but the work doesn’t end there. It’s important to ensure that access isn’t limited to a privileged few, especially when government funds and a social justice mandate are at play. “If the people that are actually going to benefit from the program do not know about the program, you’re not really doing anyone a service,” says Addo.

Kristel Manes, director of Innovation Centre at Innovation Guelph, has spent the last three years researching the experiences of women entrepreneurs in southwestern Ontario. The research led to the creation of The Rhyze Project, a women’s entrepreneurship program that focuses on building self-esteem and self-confidence as well as the development of a soon-to-be-released training tool that will better equip mentors to serve clientele at business and innovation centres. She says outreach can be difficult and is a “never-ending job,” but advises other innovation centres to follow her lead. She says Innovation Guelph connects with the community in genuine ways at all levels ranging from sitting on several organizational boards to being present at libraries, community centres, and cultural events. Still, she admits it’s “hard work trying to get to everybody.”

Beyond outreach, making accelerators more accessible means making more options available that consider the varied experiences of young entrepreneurs, Addo says. For example, many accelerators she has come across require a full-time commitment, something she hasn’t been able to make due to her job. Or too often, incubators focus on developing tech businesses, like Ontario’s youth accelerator business program. “What happens if I’m not doing tech?” she asks.

Increasing accessibility also means having women of colour represented among the facilitators, programmers, and administrators of these initiatives. Lamoi, a 33-year-old spoken word artist and founder of Signature of a Mango jewellery from Brampton, Ont., says the number-one way to ensure engagement from women of colour is to have them at the helm of creating and delivering the programs. “We have a whole different life experience, even if we don’t all come from the same place,” she says. “The experience of non-white women is so completely different and especially now at a time of extreme racial tension and micro-aggressions.”

Creating Safe, Supportive Spaces

It’s this sentiment—that representation matters in incubation spaces—that Chivon John saw manifest when she founded Secrets of a Side Hustler (SOSH). It’s an organization that supports people who start and grow businesses while working full-time, a type of entrepreneurship increasingly popular among young people, according to Julia Dean CEO of Futurpreneur (formerly Canadian Youth Business Foundation). John says that about 90 per cent of the audience at her events are women of colour. She did not intend that when she started out, but she’s very proud her organization has drawn out this demographic. She attributes it to the fact that other women of colour likely gravitate to what they identify with. Someone who looks like them and may share a similar story is a rare occurrence in traditional entrepreneurial spaces. “I’ll go to lots of events and I don’t see as much of the diversity,” says John. When she recently travelled to Hangzhou, China, as one of 30 Canadian delegates selected to take part in the annual G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, she was the only woman of colour in the group. “There’s lots of great things that happen within the city, but it’s disappointing when you go and you don’t see somebody that looks like you,” she says.

Lack of representation led 27-year-old Alicia Bunyan-Sampson to create the Gyalcast Academy, a new six-week workshop series for young Black women who identify as creatives or entrepreneurs and live in one of Toronto’s underserved or “priority” neighbourhoods. She says it was imperative to build a space that acknowledges the layered experience of being a Black woman, and she grew “tired of waiting for a white guy who doesn’t understand us anyway to make it.”

From what she has seen, most entrepreneurial spaces are not created with women of colour in mind. She is often left thinking, “How are you running a community program for young entrepreneurs and not offering free tokens or food or child care? Why do I have to navigate through sexism and racism in a space that you claim is for me? Why is this space/resource adding more stress to my already stressful life with these unrealistic expectations of me?”

These are all factors she considered when building Gyalcast, a program that combines skill-building and mentorship with a self-care component. The world does not encourage Black women to be soft with themselves, Bunyan-Sampson explains. As someone who struggles with the application of self-care in her own life, she felt it was essential to include it within the program.

Janelle Scott-Johnson, a 24-year-old creative photographer and solopreneur who participated in the academy, says she found the self-care component especially effective. It’s something that was absent from a mainstream campus-linked accelerator she previously attended. Participants have time to speak openly about any negative issues they are facing, she explains, and share tips on how to navigate them through things like meditating or keeping a journal. It’s something women of colour need, Scott-Johnson says. “There are not a lot of spaces like that where you can actually talk about things that are bothering you and have a room full of people that won’t judge and will teach you ways to care for you and your mental and your physical [well-being].”

Gyalcast was an “amazing space” that Scott-Johnson felt she belonged in. “I feel like the people who started that up, they can relate to the participants,” she says. “They are women of colour, they are Black, they’ve been in my position trying to start up, and they provided the key things we need.”

This was intentional in the program’s design. “We need to create our own spaces to ensure they are safe,” Bunyan-Sampson says. “Spaces organized by people that look like you are important, and it’s something not a lot of people talk about.”

Moving Forward

When I look around my networks, I see no shortage of young women of colour with entrepreneurial ideas, spirit, and passion. Many of them have already started one or more businesses. What I do see is a shortage of capital, resources, support systems, and opportunities for growth and sustainability. Ontario is putting resources into youth entrepreneurship, and even women entrepreneurs, with the Women Entrepreneurs Ontario Collective, which is putting forth recommendations on how the province’s economy can be strengthened through strategy focused on women entrepreneurship and innovation.

But it’s important not to overlook systemic racism and implicit bias, and their impacts on the startup space, by taking a one-size-fits-all approach to entrepreneurship. It’s also important to remember that it’s not as simple as throwing funding at underserved communities. As Scott-Johnson cautions, ingenuity is easy to detect. Organizations chasing after funding dollars and setting up programs in communities that facilitators don’t know well simply doesn’t work. “It’s hella obvious when someone’s heart is in it and when it’s not,” she says.

Though the research is non-existent on young racialized entrepreneurs in Canada, we can combine anecdotal accounts with studies from the United States to arrive at some conclusions about possible solutions to this complex problem.

The large incubation spaces that are currently receiving serious money to help enterprises scale up need to improve outreach and access to underrepresented groups such as young women of colour. The key to this is increasing the number of women of colour in leadership roles within these organizations and structures. Remember, representation matters.

At the same time, the government needs to consider allocating funds to support the work that’s already being done by organizations such as Secrets of a Side Hustler and Gyalcast Academy, which are already effectively engaging this demographic. Ontario seems to be doing a little bit of this with its Strategic Community Entrepreneurship Projects program, which offers funding, resources, and training to people 15 to 29 years old starting a business through partnerships with community organizations. Some have specific service mandates, such as the Bimaaji’owin Anonidiwin project in Thunder Bay focused on Aboriginal youth, or the Vulnerable Somali Youth Entrepreneurship Program in Toronto’s Etobicoke area. It’s this type of demographic-specific approach that is more prevalent in the U.S.

Work also needs to be done to bridge the gap between small and large startup spaces. Manes told me that part of Innovation Guelph’s outreach strategy involves being known amongst referral sources, mainly professional services for small business owners (lawyers, accountants, insurance providers). Why not have grassroots, community-specific incubation spaces partner with larger accelerators and incubators and referring participants, sharing resources, and exchanging knowledge?

Emily Mills, founder of How She Hustles, a network of 5,000-plus diverse, social media–savvy women who “hustle,” however they define that word, is positive that there is much to be gained on both sides. A serial connector of people, Mills is interested in figuring out a way to create a meeting of the minds, a space where an older white professional woman can meet with a young racialized entrepreneur and learn from each other. Young women may yearn to understand the business world, she says, while older women may benefit from diversifying their network to remain relevant, find talent, and develop new ways of doing business. “There is a benefit if those two worlds can come together.”

Related Reading: “Not Your Incubator’s Entrepreneur (And That’s Your Loss)” by Priya Ramanujam

 

Categories
Activism & Action Our Voices

Small Business Owners Need To Shift Their Attitude Towards Maternity Leave

Couple knitted bootees to newborn and ball of yarn isolated on white background. Hand-made socks for the baby.Couple knitted bootees to newborn knitting needles and balls of yarn isolated on white background. Hand-made socks for the baby.

My son was born when I had been running my business for almost four years. I was not going to walk away from it so that meant finding a way to navigate my own maternity leave. I had a business partner, which gave me some needed flexibility. The legal time allowance for mat leave was irrelevant given I was the boss; I had to figure out how to make it work.

What my own experience taught me was the value of flexibility. If I hear anyone complain that the one-year maximum for maternity leave permitted in Canada is overly generous, I have to keep myself from attacking. It’s particularly hard to hear a woman say that she doesn’t like hiring women of child-bearing age because “then you have to deal with them having babies.”

Recently, a woman with two school-aged children said this. Sadly, she’s not the only narcissistic ignoramus who thinks that way. The truth is, taking a year maternity leave is terrific for everyone. It’s wonderful for the new mother and baby, of course. But it can also be an easy opportunity for your business to expand its skill pool.

Consider the challenge of accommodating mat leave in positive terms

People who wanted to work with us saw “filling in” for a mat leave as an excellent resume builder. Usually, they had slightly less experience than the person on leave, as most with equal experience won’t make a lateral move for one year, unless they’re out of work and really seeking permanent employment. Then you risk losing them mid-contract if something better comes along. But for someone more junior, filling a mat leave provides new, increased responsibility and exposure. We had terrific interim hires, and broadened our circle of supporters for those who moved on.

Once or twice, a new mom decided not to return. That gave us the opportunity to train and test her replacement for an entire year. By the time we knew the job was open, we knew whether that person was a good fit. How often do you get to audition someone for a year before offering a permanent position?

Allow flexibility that will keep women in the workforce — and help everyone function better

Your business can accommodate more flexibility than you realize. That’s where having a positive attitude starts. Let go of thinking that employees will take advantage of flex options, and you’ll discover just how much flexibility you can build into your business — and how appreciative people will be in turn.

Step one. Ask your employees to tell you what is important to them. They might ask you to put a comfy chair in the washroom so a woman can pump milk comfortably. Or to come in at 10 and leave at 4 for six months, which might enable a woman to return to work sooner or shorten her commute time dramatically. Or, take two hours at lunch so a woman can go home to feed her baby.

Many women on mat leave want to remain involved and engaged with work, and may also need to earn more than employment insurance (EI) pays during their leave. I always encouraged people to take the maximum amount of time off allowed but in the early years of our business, we were too small to top up EI, making it hard for some to afford the time off. Job sharing can be a brilliant solution when the employees propose it. I’ve seen situations in which two women, recognizing their similar situations, set up a job-sharing arrangement that lasted through the births of five children. One had a baby, then the other. It went back and forth for years and worked for everyone — including the business. Though neither earned a full-time salary, they both maintained their experience and currency in the workforce.

View mat leave as an investment in yourself — and your business

My own mat leave was successful for a few reasons. I lived close to work so I could go home at lunchtime. I returned to work three days a week until my son was six months, then four days for the next six months. I could also afford to hire a nanny as I had a partner who worked. My income was modest at the time, and I paid Emily my entire salary, which matched the rate for full-time nannies.  I viewed employing her as an excellent investment in my business and myself. She cared for my son five days a week, which meant that during the one or two days I was home, I could work or take a nap or make dinner — all in a relatively relaxed frame of mind. That helped me perform better as a mom and a business owner. On the days I worked in the office, she brought the baby to me twice a day, allowing me to nurse for 13 months. That was important to me and helped me create balance and feel good about it. When you’re building a business, sometimes that type of investment will help you be successful on both the home and work fronts.

Create family-friendly policies to make a workplace family

Because of my experience and positive attitude towards flex options, women in the office who wanted to have children knew we would be open to their requests for accommodation. Others benefitted as well. We established a policy that gave every employee 40 hours of personal time off a year, no questions asked. Parents could use the time to be with their children for illness, class trips, doctor appointments — without having to dip into vacation time, or worse, lie and call in sick. Other employees could use their personal hours for doctor’s appointments, moving days, or even recharge their batteries by taking in a movie. No one had to ask permission to take the time; everyone used it, as they needed it.

We also instituted a phone call policy that supported parenting. Anyone, at any time, would be interrupted by a call from a child, or the school. No questions were asked except, perhaps, do you need to go home? As a result, parents were more relaxed and the atmosphere was welcoming to kids. They sometimes hung out at the office when they had a stomachache (though nothing more serious). They dropped by after school and curled up somewhere to do homework or nap. They played with the office dogs – and there were a bunch of them, but that’s another column.

The office wasn’t overrun with children. No one complained because we normalized and integrated children and parenting into our workplace practices. For those who didn’t have children, “the kids” simply became part of our culture. We witnessed children being born to co-workers, watched them grow up, invited them to watch the Santa Claus parade as our office had the perfect perch, and eventually even gave some of those kids their first summer jobs. They did good work, too. Real work, and we paid them fairly. We were proud of them. Our company did what we could to make the divide between work and home easier, more fluid. We didn’t just talk about work/life balance; we did what we could to help people achieve it. Now some of our “work kids” have children of their own, and they tell stories of when their moms or dads worked with us, how they loved coming into the office, and how special they felt. That makes an impression on employees, a pretty nice one, I can assure you.

The approach and attitude worked when we had four employees and when we had 40. It allowed us to retain a superbly talented and committed team of professionals. People wanted to work with us for many reasons, but this was among them. No one left because we were unwilling to try to accommodate change, and everyone knew that they might be the beneficiary of that attitude, so everyone worked to help each other. We had full-time and contract workers who moved across the province and across the country and continued their association with us because we were determined to make flexibility successful. Today, electronics makes it easier to do than it was in 1986.

I’m going to continue to focus on flexibility in a future column by shining a light on policies that help keep women in the workforce that also create the best, most productive workplace for everyone. Stay tuned for my thoughts on vacation time (hint, two weeks is not enough), sick leave, caregiver leave, sabbaticals, telecommuting….

 

Categories
Featured Our Voices

Don’t "Think" in a Vacuum: Create a Decision-making Framework

Establishing a framework for decision-making isn’t meant to put you in a straightjacket; it’s intended to help you stay focused on the purpose that you’ve set for yourself — to create a successful business. Most of the time, there are alternative solutions to problems; the challenge of choosing the right one will force you to dig deep into your goals, motivations and values.
A decision-making framework guides your response to problems and solutions. It’s how you live the values that you determine are important to you, your business and even your product; and it ensures that those you do business with adhere to these same values. You will need to constantly test decisions against the values you want expressed by your business. It may sound like a lot of work, but we do some of this naturally all the time. Our values guide us instinctively.
What if your only goal is to maximize profits?  
All businesses need to make money, but having that as your singular purpose would guide your decision-making framework. You would pay the lowest wages possible and rent the least expensive space you could find, regardless of its comfort for employees. You would escalate pricing and source the least expensive materials available, regardless of their impact on the environment. You would locate your business in the least expensive jurisdiction available. Indeed, you would make all your decisions to ensure one thing only: the best profit margin. Your employees and the quality of your product would be secondary to making money. You would not think about your clients and suppliers as partners, nor consider how your business impacted their business or your community. For most of us, this is an extreme example.
What does a sustainable business decision-making framework look like?
LiisBeth founder Petra Kassun-Mutch launched the first Platinum Leed certified dairy in Canada in 2008, to produce award-winning, cave-aged cheese. Petra decided her company — Fifth Town Artisan Cheese in Ontario’s Prince Edward County — would not only make excellent cheese but also be a sustainable business, applying a sustainability lens to every aspect. She aligned her personal values with her business goals in her framework for decision-making, and those guided her every step of the way.
Petra partnered with all of her suppliers, learning enough about the business of supplying goat or sheep milk to understand what she could and could not ask of her suppliers. She understood the seasonality of milk production, how farmers built up supply and what it meant if their milk wasn’t purchased. She didn’t ask farmers to do things that would hurt their business for the benefit of her own.
She not only made the manufacturing process sustainable, she also sourced sustainable, organic, raw product, and extended that to elements not obvious to clients and consumers such as the cotton in staff uniforms (organic and sourced through fair trade suppliers); and the packaging, wrapping paper and containers (organic inks and labels adhered with environmentally safe glue). For every aspect of the business, Petra considered and found the environmentally sustainable solution.
What was the impact of her approach? Fifth Town became the number one destination for tourists in Prince Edward County. In its first full year of business, sales hit $1.2 million. People loved the cheese, but they also travelled to experience the entire operation and environmental commitment that Petra had made.
There was a time when sustainability in business was a fringe concept, dismissed as unnecessary or unaffordable. That’s no longer the case, but Petra was ahead of the curve, and she had to keep herself on track, as there was no established path to follow. Creating a decision-making framework ensured everyone who worked with her knew the direction they were going and that taking shortcuts was not acceptable.
Can Feminism be a decision-making framework?
If we recognize that there is now greater comfort in embracing sustainable business practices, what can we extrapolate about embracing equity in the workplace as a decision-making framework? Is it just a matter of time until businesses realize the need for it? Would avoiding the misunderstood and maligned term “feminism” help more businesses adopt the framework for decision-making that could help them achieve more equitable workplaces?
There is no question that feminism is a more difficult decision-making framework to develop and apply, as it’s not simply a matter of sourcing different glue for labels. In fact, it is the glue. It will advance cohesion in the workplace and ensure the greatest contribution by everyone to your business and the economy. Why that isn’t the primary goal of all business, especially those that want to maximize profits, is confusing. Happy employees are the best employees. Happiness comes from having some autonomy in your work, being respected, treated equitably and seeing that the people around you are respected and doing work that is meaningful.
So why is there resistance to even talking about feminism? Perhaps it’s because people think of feminism as an ideology. But wasn’t environmentalism once considered an ideology? Today it’s understood as a practice. Would it really be that difficult for principles of equity to become universal practice? Perhaps there are other barriers to change that we’re not willing to call out. For example, feminism politicizes the process of gender analysis, and politics has yet to become a comfortable and inclusive domain for women.
Plus, applying an expressly feminist lens to your thinking makes you think harder about everything. Next time you make a decision, ask yourself if that decision impacts women differently than men? Is the price of the haircut in your salon higher for women than for men, for a similar cut? Is the cost of a massage the same? Is the cost of tailoring the same for a woman’s jacket as for a man’s? In fact, are alterations included in the price of a suit, as they typically are for a man’s and rarely for a woman’s? Are dry cleaning costs the same?
These are obvious consumer-based examples, but considering them will lead you to more difficult issues, such as pay equity, access to advancement, and mentoring, to name some of the most obvious that we need to discuss openly. Is the government supporting economic development practices that ensure women and men have equal access to capital, for example? Are government programs designed to advance the types of business that attract a higher percentage of men? If so, why? And what can be done to provide equitable support to the business initiatives of women? What’s driving the decisions that lead to inequity?
Learn to question assumptions. In this era of hi-tech, certain kinds of businesses are privileged as being more scalable and global and therefore more valuable. In that environment, how would a disposable diaper be viewed today or maybe a new girdle for women? Spanx, anyone?
Once you’ve put a framework for decision making into place, you’ll discover yourself using it for all sorts of things beyond business. I warn you, though, that will open your eyes to social, economic and political patterns that you probably won’t like. But as a citizen, you’ll then want to push others — government, organizations, and families — to develop an equity decision-making framework too.

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Activism & Action Featured

Queer to their Boots

Black and white photo of founder, Niko Kacey, a queer, asian fashion footwear designer
NiK Kacy is the Creator and Executive Producer of Equality Fashion. Week, the 1st LGBTQ+focused Fashion Week in LA, as well as the Founder and President of NiK Kacy Footwear. Photo: Kacy Footwear website.
Black and white photo of founder, Niko Kacey, a queer, asian fashion footwear designer
NiK Kacy is the Creator and Executive Producer of Equality Fashion. Week, the 1st LGBTQ+focused Fashion Week in LA, as well as the Founder and President of NiK Kacy Footwear. Photo: Kacy Footwear website.
Toronto’s Kensington Market has long been the landing site of many of the migrant groups that help make the city one of the world’s most vibrantly multicultural. On a Sunday in May, the funky market threw out the welcome mat to pioneers of a different kind—six innovative fashion companies producing lines that defy gender stereotypes. Women belonging to the LGBTQ community as well as fans of gender-neutral attire eagerly flocked into a pop-up retail store in the Supermarket restaurant to browse a rack of masculine-cut dress shirts from Kirrin Finch. A queer teen accompanied by her mom cracked a wide smile as she tried on a pair of NiK Kacy’s agender desert boots. It’s clear that both she and her mom are delighted to finally find footwear suited to the daughter’s taste. “It shouldn’t matter if you’re identifying as a man or a woman, cis or trans,” says 41-year-old NiK Kacy, founder of the self-named shoe line that puts an androgynizing twist on men’s wingtip shoes and is made for feet ranging from a petite 3.5 in women’s to size 14 in men’s. “If you want to dress up and you want to wear a high heel, you should be able to. If you want to wear a wingtip, you should be able to,” says Kacy. Kacy, a transman who identifies as masculine of centre/gender fluid and uses the pronoun they, flew in from Los Angeles to participate in the two-day Superbutch event, which included a fashion show the night before, pop-up retail shop and a panel discussion on what it means to identify—or not—as butch. Organized by musician/model Dinah Thorpe, production manager Heather Blom, academic Zoe Newman, and fashion designer Jack Jackson, Superbutch threw a spotlight on a growing number of local and international clothing lines catering to a vastly underserved market of LGBTQ people looking for designers who understand their identities and body types. As shown in a recent street fashion spread in The New York Times in which men donned hot pink blazers adorned in flowers and paired with shorts, people beyond the LGBQT community appear to be looking for fashion that messes with the gender binary. “When I got here, I was running a few minutes late and there were already customers waiting to see my shoes, so that was awesome,” says Kacy, who sported blue jeans, a button-down grey and white pinstripe with sleeves rolled to the elbows, a two-tone grey scarf, and a pair of their own wingtips to match.  

Ideas Born of Frustration

Kacy, who previously worked as a senior interactive producer/project manager for an in-house creative agency at Google, had zero fashion experience when they started their line. Their idea was born from the frustration of never being able to find masculine-looking shoes that fit properly. In mid-2014, after quitting Google and recovering from surgery to transition, Kacy travelled throughout Europe, visiting factories and attending international shoe fairs seeking a manufacturer. People didn’t want to give them “the time of day” though. Kacy’s lack of fashion experience was only half the battle. “The way I present myself is masculine presenting, trans, gender queer, and they don’t know what to do with me,” Kacy says. “The shoe industry is very traditional, very archaic. They’re mostly older, European men who have been in the industry for generations.” They simply didn’t understand Kacy’s vision. “No I don’t want a man’s shoe in a woman’s size,” Kacy would think. “I want to get rid of that whole mentality.” Eventually Kacy found a shoe factory in Portugal to make prototypes. They then launched a Kickstarter campaign in March 2015 to raise money for production. The effort attracted 267 backers from around the world who pledged $47,542—160 per cent of the original goal. The first collection featured what Kacy calls “masculine-of-centre” wingtip shoes and derby boots. The second collection will feature “feminine-of-centre” high heels.  

Opportunities Ripe For Picking

Kacy says the queer fashion scene is begging for new entrepreneurs to enter the market. In the last few years, a number of apparel lines have taken advantage of the void to launch and, recently, another gender-neutral footwear company called Matriarch used Kickstarter to raise startup funds. While that competition would be cause for concern for some, Kacy feels differently. “I’m just excited that we’re having more options. Competition is healthy because it inspires us to do better and it inspires more people to do more things like this. We’re so underrepresented.” Like-minded entrepreneurs such as Laura Moffat and Kelly Sanders Moffat are helping to build a welcoming, close-knit community. Last February, the Brooklyn-based couple ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to launch the debut collection of Kirrin Finch, a menswear-inspired line designed for women and genderqueers who want to sport a dapper look. “I don’t feel like there’s this secretive, competitive nature,” says Laura of the LGBTQ fashion community. “NiK [Kacy] has been an amazing supporter for us and now we try to be supportive to new businesses that are joining. If we can be better together, then it can only benefit everybody as opposed to being petty and scrambling for opportunity.” Neither of the Moffats have a fashion background—Laura used to work in marketing, Kelly as a teacher. Like Kacy, they launched their business out of frustration. Both were drawn to menswear, but were never able to get the right fit buying off the rack. Their own line of eco-conscious fashion (button-ups and T-shirts made from recycled plastics) are designed to accommodate a woman’s bust, hip, height, and arm length. The pieces range in price from US$45 to $145. Queer Fashion Show2

Toronto Superbutch Fashion Show

A Need For Mentors

To gain mentorship from seasoned fashion-industry professionals, the Moffats joined the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator. Living in one of the leading fashion cities of the world provides daily inspiration and is what Laura calls “super energizing.” Sourcing buttons and fabrics is often just a subway ride away and they can get their shirts manufactured locally. What’s lacking, though, is queer-specific resources. “There [are] no queer-based incubators or accelerators that I know of, or any associations that, from a financial perspective, support us,” Laura says. It’s a gap that the organizers of the Superbutch fashion event and retail pop-up says needs to be filled. Jack Jackson, who identifies as non-binary trans and uses the pronoun they, launched the Toronto-based bowtie line alljackedup in 2014, but has yet to find a mentor to guide the venture into its next stage of growth. While Jackson did tap into events like a three-day entrepreneur/startup hackathon to soak up knowledge from “brilliant” minds, something was always missing. “These events don’t cater to what we’re trying to do,” Jackson says. “It’s difficult to promote yourself at the best of times, but when you’re trying to speak to someone who doesn’t have an understanding of our community like we do, it makes it really difficult.” The wider fashion community appears to be catching on to androgynous wear, which is starting to appear on runways and in major retail outlets like Zara. Jackson says this is “amazing” for breaking down the gender binary, but it needs to be recognized as more than a passing trend. Permanent options must be made available for people like Jackson, who “just don’t fit into mainstream stuff.” Laura agrees. “It’s not really about trends. We would have worn these clothes five years ago, and we’ll probably wear the same clothes five years from now.” Jackson encourages consumers to pay attention to the smaller startups that the big designer brands and retailers are borrowing inspiration from. “I think more support needs to be given to the designers who are from that world, who understand what the community needs, rather than to major corporations.” Kacy wants to see businesses like NiK Kacy, Kirrin Finch, and alljackedup become a viable part of the mainstream fashion industry. “I would love for one day, it to be no longer a queer business,” Kacy says. “One day, hopefully, it’s just going to be a business.”    
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

 

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