With two years of successful #InvestInWomenFounders Summits under our belt, The Startup Ladies have once again selected nine accomplished executives and exited founders to interview nine women-owned businesses ready to scale at the December 5 half day event at the Delta Faucet Company HQ in Indianapolis.
Instead of pitches, we pair each of the 9 Startup Ladies founders with a seasoned entrepreneur or senior executive from a major company. These proven entrepreneurs/executives will interview the entrepreneurs and ask questions that will allow founders to cover the content in their decks. Conversations are more personal, relaxed, and fun while simultaneously, covering topics covered in a traditional pitch.
It will be the interviewer's job to champion the founder, get to know who is in the room, and ask questions of the investors to ultimately help founders secure investment, be introduced to prospective investors, advisors, and clients.
Understanding obstacles creates NEW opportunities for women founders.
In 2022, U.S. startups with all-women teams received 1.9% out of around the $228 billion in venture capital allocated, according to PitchBook's data. That percentage is a notable drop from the 2.4% all-women teams raised in 2021. There is a reason why male founders win more than 98% of the investment dollars.
Pattern matching prevents investors from investing in women founders. When an investor is judging a founder at a traditional pitch competition, he is assessing her based on a pattern of what he perceives to be an ideal model of a founder. Investors have learned what the ideal pattern is from other male investors. Statistically, the perceived "successful model" is overwhelmingly white, cisgender, straight, and male in his 20s, 30s or early 40s.
Investors proliferate the "pattern matching" by investing in founders who fit the pattern of previous founders who successfully secured investment. The cycle repeats itself over, and over, and over. To begin to end a deeply entrenched practice that covertly discriminates against women, we launched our inaugural #InvestInWomenFounders Summit in 2022.
Change requires different leadership and nuanced thinking.
We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. Unlike most startup events and pitch competitions - this event is led by women and supported by male allies in an effort to eliminate gender disparity in the startup space. Each interviewer goes through extensive training alongside the woman business owner they have been matched with prior to the event. We want these relationships to flourish beyond the December 5 Summit.
All of the men involved (there are a lot of them) in the summit and in our community are staunch allies of women business owners. They want to change the landscape for women so that they can secure more capital so they can expand production and hire full time employees. Most importantly, many of them are modeling the behavior of investing significant money into women founders to other male investors. This encourages more men to get involved and invest in women founders. It's one of the reasons why people of every gender are welcome to participate in our events and become members.
100% of the executive interviewers selected understand the obstacles that diverse women founders face daily and are committed to supporting women business owners in ways they need. That includes: training alongside with them, amplifying their business, making meaningful introductions, and in some cases, investing directly in our women founders - no strings - just deals. Meet our 2024 dream team of executive interviewers:
Teresa Danielson
Teresa Danielson is a Startup Ladies Board member and the owner of T&J Northern Michigan Rentals, LLC. Spanning 30+ years, Teresa has worked in the Federal Tax Credits and Incentives arena serving Fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses. Throughout the years she has also been a state lobbyist and walked Capitol Hill meetings with legislators in support of many valuable tax programs. During her career she’s worked with First Advantage, Ernst & Young, and recently retired from Experian where she held the role of Vice President of Continuous Improvement.
Teresa has been married to her husband Bob Danielson for over 40 years and together they have 3 grown daughters and 6 grandchildren. She splits her time between their homes in Fishers, Indiana and Traverse City, Michigan. When we asked Teresa what executives with disposable income can do to support women founders and help them scale, she replied: “BELIEVE IN WOMEN BUSINESS OWNERS. Supportive investors should help founders formulate effective strategies to help them build a successful, scalable business by being an effective mentor.”
Jon Dartt
Jon Dartt is a Startup Ladies Board member and Westfield City Council Member. After finding success through a 34-year career in the kitchen and bath industry, with 28+ years at Delta Faucet Company. Jon retired two years ago to travel, play more golf and then “rewire” to start a new venture in local politics, but he’s brought his knowledge, experience, and connections — including the team at Delta — into The Startup Ladies fold. Jon earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and is a graduate of the Masco Executive Leadership Development Program. His executive leadership skills, strategic insight, and mentoring have been incredibly valuable to members of our community.
Jon was on the team that created and launched the #InvestInWomenFounders Summit in 2022, and has been a part of it ever since, leading our interviewer training. We asked Jon why he’s excited to be an interviewer once again and he replied: “It gives me the opportunity to coach and mentor founders who have passion for their business. Nothing would make me happier than to see a founder successfully launch and scale their business and then "go public" or partner with private equity.”
Roger Deetz
Roger Deetz is a Startup Ladies Ambassador and VP of Engineering at Blueprint. He’s an experienced technology leader with 20+ years of experience as a software developer, designer, architect, and executive. Roger is also the creator of Indiana Tech for Progress, a non-profit organization whose mission is to organize those within the Indiana tech community to be more engaged politically and to invest in making their communities more equitable and prosperous.
We asked Roger what advice he would like to offer to our Top 9 women founders, he said: “Keep an open mind when seeking advice but follow your instincts. There are plenty of smart people who can provide help, but you are likely doing something that hasn't been done before, and everybody is figuring it out as they go.” Roger currently lives happily in Indianapolis with his wife, Amber, and two daughters. He enjoys cooking, running, cheerleading for the tech community, and traveling the world shooting with his Nikon.
Christi Garcia
Christi Garcia leads recruiting for E-gineering, Inc. Across her 30+ year professional career, Christi has also been a software tester, developer, product manager, salesperson, human resources manager, and event planner, along the way fostering relationships and building strong, supportive networks that have helped empower women to achieve their entrepreneurial dreams. She is excited to use her resources to make the playing field more equitable for women and LGBTQ+ founders by being an interviewer at this year’s Summit.
We asked Christi why she thinks it's so important to move more money into the hands of women business owners, to which she replied: “Empowering women entrepreneurs by investing in their businesses not only addresses the longstanding issue of gender inequity in the startup ecosystem but also fosters economic growth and innovation. Women-led companies have proven to generate higher revenues and create more jobs, ultimately contributing to the overall prosperity and diversity of our communities. It is time we close the funding gap and unlock the immense potential that lies in supporting women-owned businesses.”
Jon Gilman
Jon Gilman founded Clear Software, which he built and sold to Microsoft, where he now serves as a Director. He is also an invaluable member of the Startup Ladies community, serving as a Startup Ladies Board member and sharing his knowledge and expertise by leading both Startup Study Hall and Startup Investing 101. Jon has also made more financial investments in women-owned startups than any other individual in our community; we recently recognized Jon as the recipient of our #InvestInWomenFounders Award for his commitment to equitable investment in women. When asked why he thinks it's so important to move more money into the hands of women business owners, Jon replied: “Female entrepreneurs consistently outperform their male counterparts — it's just smarter investing.”
Currently, Jon is focused on developing technology that will help founders manage their mental health—a crucial aspect of sustaining both personal and professional well-being. His work in this area reflects his holistic approach to supporting entrepreneurs, recognizing that success in business is deeply intertwined with mental and emotional health
Mike Hatfield
Mike Hatfield is currently the Chairman and Co-Founder of Carium, delivering the next
generation of advanced virtual healthcare technology. The Carium platform provides an
end-to-end care journey that is person-centric, proactive, and efficient for care teams
and the people they serve. He has co-founded four successful tech ventures over the
past 20 years: Cerent, Calix, Cyan, and Carium. Mike enjoys building high-performance
teams that create disruptive and beneficial technology.
Mike holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Mathematical Economics from Rose-
Hulman Institute of Technology and an M.B.A. in Finance from Indiana University. He
lives in Northern California. We asked Mike why he thinks it’s so important to move more money into the hands of women business owners and he said “Last year, female founders generated 35% higher return on investment than their male counterparts. If that isn't reason enough, we have important problems to solve and we need to unleash more women to solve them. We all need the help they will provide.”
Eric Prugh
Eric is a Startup Ladies Board member and former founder currently serving as the Chief Product Officer at Authenticx. Before Authenticx, Eric co-founded and was CPO at PactSafe, which was acquired by Ironclad in 2021. Eric has been involved in high growth companies for 15 years, with expertise in go to market strategy, product strategy, product management, and solutions engineering. He’s worked building teams and companies from the ground up in both the US and Australia, where he spent 2 years building ExactTarget’s APAC business in Sydney alongside local leadership. Across the various roles he's played over the years, he believes every product should tell its unique story to customers who have the right problems that need solving.
Eric loves music, movies, TV, and all things tech. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife, 3 kids, and their dog Hershel. He thinks it’s important to move more money into the hands of women business owners because “women trying to get important ideas off the ground have not been given the time, attention, and resources they deserve. We need more women to startup scalable businesses because it will ignite the development of networks of women founders, investors, and further development of new businesses that continue to level the playing field.”
Doug Rammel
Doug Rammel is Founder & CIO of Abstract Reality Ventures. He’s an angel investor, serial entrepreneur, business executive and academic who has worked with startups, Fortune 500s, and a variety of healthcare and service organizations establishing brands, building operations and systems, and investing and raising capital in his 30+ year career. Since 2008, Rammel has worked with and invested in a variety of entrepreneurial efforts in the technology, services, consumer goods, and retail industries. Specific brands and companies have included: All In Team Sports Hub, Roka Farms & Trofi Essentials, MarketWagon, Suavecito Tequila, SEETtek / BackJoy, Sigma Micro / Fifth Gear, Bluelock, Didgebridge, The Feinger, WhatFriendsDo, and Social Net Watcher. A self-proclaimed “accidental venture capitalist,” he helps turn visions into reality, and is excited for the opportunity to meet and support new and interesting people.
Most recently, Doug has been working with startup organizations in the areas of investment, corporate development, product development, sales management and growth. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, with his wife, Chantel, and two daughters Alexis and Eliza. In his spare time, Doug likes to read, reflect and write poetry and is an active participant, coach and fan of multiple sports. One piece of advice Doug would like to offer to this year’s Top 9 women founders is “Build through your Village. Might be your Family, your Network, your Friends or your Partners. Business is the ultimate social science. The ultimate Team Sport. No one does it alone.”
Travis Tucker
Travis Tucker is the Executive Vice President for Meyer Najem Development and has 20+ years of experience in development and the commercial real estate industry. He is responsible for the strategic direction of the company, which entails identifying new business opportunities, overseeing customer relationships, and directing the sales, leasing, and marketing efforts. With experience in all facets of the industry, Travis’s primary focus is on the development, leasing, disposition and acquisition of commercial properties. His leasing expertise also includes pre-development, pre-leasing, market analysis, leasing, and owner and tenant relations and he excels at creative financing and deal structure. Additionally, Meyer Najem is one of the leading construction managers and contractors in the region and has been recognized as a Top Workplace by the Indianapolis Star for the past three consecutive years.
When we asked Travis what executives with disposable income can do to support women founders and help them scale, he replied: “Executives with disposable income can do more than just write a check—they can write women founders into the success story. Invest in their businesses, mentor them, open your Rolodex (or LinkedIn), and offer guidance. Basically, be the wind beneath their wings—not just the wallet in their corner.”corner.”
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