Startup interview with Carla Thompson, founder of Sharp Skirts
I recently interviewed Carla Thompson, founder of Sharp Skirts, about her company and about the challenges women face in raising capital with traditional VCs and angels. She acknowledged that traditionally women are underrepresented as entrepreneurs pitching VCs and angels. Her business is actually focused on helping women entrepreneurs be more successful in both raising money as well as facing the inevitable difficult challenges startups face.
Carla pointed out two key challenges for women entrepreneurs as being their inexperience and ability to gain insights into what VCs are looking for in a business and the fact that women typically tend to start businesses that are quite different from standard startups that VCs might see.
Her advice is be prepared to communicate the information that investors what to see in a startup as well as seek out funding sources that are familiar with and appropriate for the type of business you are creating. Certainly this is sound advice for any entrepreneur, whether male or female.
The Interview
Stats
HQ:
Austin, TX
Capital raised:
Friends and family
Next key hire:
COO
Customer:
500+ members around North America
Interesting interviewee fact:
Learned how fanatical geeks can be while working as publicist to Linus Torvalds
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Scott: Hi, I'm Scott Olson with FounderBuzz, and I am here today with Carla Thompson from Sharp Skirts. Thanks for joining us today, Carla.
Carla: Thanks so much for having me today, Scott.
Scott: Absolutely. One of the ways that I always like to start out is why don't you tell us who you are and what do you do.
Carla: My name is Carla Thompson. I am CEO and founder of Sharp Skirts, which is a knowledge network for women entrepreneurs. What that means is we provide online and offline tools and services to women to help them build smarter businesses. Our chief focus is that of knowledge. Everything we do online and offline is toward a goal of expanding the knowledge base of women, in order for them to be more successful in their ventures and in propagating other women's ventures.
Scott: It's a really interesting topic to me especially with it related to venture backed companies. I've interviewed a few women actually just this week. I interviewed some retail entrepreneur in jewelry design and sock selling and other things like that. But one of the areas that I'd be really interested in your insights is in venture backed companies. I would love to hear from you, what do you think are some of the unique challenges of women going to raise venture capital, because it seems like when I look at the venture backed companies it's skewed pretty heavily towards men.
Carla: It is skewed heavily towards men. In all of the statistics around women entrepreneurs, it's one of the worst actually. There are several challenges. I think that one of the key challenges with women in raising funding is, again, that of knowledge. They don't know what VCs traditionally want to hear in a business pitch. Also, it is a little bit of a differing vision when it comes to men and women.
Men and women, very generally speaking, build different sorts of businesses. Personally speaking, my business is one that has a very large vision, and in the current climate, vision is not selling for VCs. It is not an encapsulated product and app that you can buy in the store, which is to my detriment, and frankly it is my problem to figure out how to pitch to VCs. But there is definitely a gap between the conversation that is happening between male VCs and female entrepreneurs.
Scott: If you have some people that come and talk to you and through your knowledge base, what is some of the advice that you give the people that interact with Sharp Skirts about raising money and just going out there and being successful?
Carla: Well, it's funny. It depends on the person I am talking to. There are two ways to go in this type of advice. One way is to advise the person to tell a VC what they want to hear, not in a negative way necessarily. As I was just discussing with Sharp Skirts, it is my job as a person seeking funding to hone my pitch and hone my business pitch and my business plan around what they need to hear. They need to hear how you are going to make them money, otherwise, why would they invest in you. That's one path of advice to follow. Tell them what they want to hear.
The other path is a little more challenging, and that is to be choosier and be more selective in the investors that you are pitching. In my case, for instance, I am starting to focus more heavily on female investors, because they do understand a bit more of what I am trying to achieve with Sharp Skirts. But that doesn't just have to be a gender issue. It could be that you do your research, as you always should when you are pitching a VC, and when you are doing that research, home in on people who are focusing specifically on your space so that you don't have to tell them what they want to hear.
Scott: Right. So that they already get it.
Carla: Exactly. Which is much harder to do, it is a much harder path.
Scott: Are you leaning more towards traditional VCs or are you also talking to angels, and would you recommend any difference between the entrepreneurs you work with on pitching an angel network or venture capitalists?
Carla: Actually, I probably misrepresented a little bit. I am focusing exclusively on angels right now. I'm too early for VCs. That generally would be my advice for entrepreneurs. But I think it shows a little bit the blurring of the lines these days between angels and VCs. They are getting a little blurrier. Depending on your stage and what your revenue is, your intake at the moment, these days I would definitely advise starting out and going with angels for a variety of different reasons.
Scott: Well, I really appreciate your time today, and thank you for sharing your insights.
FounderBuzz is the work of Scott Olson, President of MindLink Marketing. MindLink Marketing specializes in working with startups to provide strategic and web marketing services. Stop by the MindLink site for some great tips on marketing strategy, great marketing content, leads management and more – www.mindlinkmarketing.com
FounderBuzz is the work of Scott Olson, President of MindLink Marketing. MindLink Marketing specializes in working with startups to provide strategic and web marketing services. Stop by the MindLink site for some great tips on marketing strategy, great marketing content, leads management and more – 
