Molly Goodson: The Go-to-Market Genius

Molly Goodson, CEO and Co-Founder of The Assembly in San Franscisco

Ms. Goodson on... 

• Her untraditional path to an $800,000 seed round

• Leveraging network effects for a successful go-to-market launch 

• The design trade-offs that create a more human experience 

• How to staff a team to run a thriving hospitality brand  

• The importance of brand guidelines to inspire your team's best work

This conversation took place on April 12, 2019 at The Assembly in San Francisco’s Mission District. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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Underwire: Tell me about your journey to The Assembly. You came out of content world as the VP of Content at POPSUGAR and then co-founded a startup called Spright.

I left my job at POPSUGAR at the end of 2014 and I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I needed a break from the constant content creation world that we live in. I was helping to manage a team of 70 women creating 500 pieces of content a day. The world had changed a lot from 2007 when I started there and 2004 when I started writing online and I didn't quite realize how burnt out I was.

I really wanted to think about health and wellness because what I saw was that women, especially those who are leaders in all things, were really seeking different ways of being talked to about their own self care, health, and wellness. They were thinking about it differently, and that the way that they were being messaged to wasn't really keeping up with the reality.

I knew that there was something there, but I didn't know what it was. At that time I had been approached by two guys, one of whom I'd sort of known and one of whom I was a complete stranger to. And they were like, "Hey, we're fundraising for a health and wellness content startup. We know we need a content person. Do you want to come be our third co-founder?"

The two other co-founders had started down a fundraising path already. They both were well connected to the fundraising world and had a main investor lined up. They just needed the last puzzle, which was me. So my first experience with fundraising was coming along to meetings and answering a couple questions about content strategy and how to think about it, but the legwork had already been done.

Was that for a seed round?

Yes. I was brought in fairly late in the process. I knew going in that I was getting much less equity than they were.

For two years, myself and the co-founders, along with a small team, we built a health and wellness app called Spright. It was in the app store. It was like The Assembly in app form. It was small group conversations. It was trying to make coaching and other sorts of health and wellness type things accessible to groups.

Eventually we decided to wind that down. And we made the decision to shut that down at noon on election day in 2016 when the world felt a little different than it did even that evening.

So we went back to the investors and said, "We still have some money in the bank, but we just don't think...this is not the thing. We'd like to let the team go, give them severance and then there's still some money in the bank which we can give back to you."

And they said, "How about you do the first two things, let the team go, give the severance, and then go take a break. Go walk around for a couple weeks. Think about this, and if you feel like you guys have another thing in you, together, and you want to do it, come back to me and pitch it, and we can talk out it. And if not, sure, let's call it.”

So it was right after the presidential election, and I spent about six weeks thinking this is a wake-up call for a lot of people in this country, myself included, and it coincides with me reckoning what felt like a huge failure. And it was, Spright was a failure. I thought, what does that mean for myself? What does that mean for me as leader? And what does that mean for me as an entrepreneur?

When I was wandering around, I was seeing that there’s a whole world of women moving throughout this city just trying to figure out where they're supposed to be going in the middle of the day.

Women are at coffee shops. I would talk to women who would sit outside their own homes in their cars for hours on end because the kid's inside with the nanny and she can't go inside because the moment she goes inside she can't get any work done. Or there are women who would rent motel rooms for the day just for themselves to have one business call.

I would ask, “Why wouldn't you join a coworking space?” They're like, "That's not for me. I don't need that. I'm a designer, I just have a couple interior design clients. I don't need a space, but I do need a place to get some work done."

And I realized, whatever narrative's existing is not talking to these women, myself included. I went to WeWork, I was like, this is not for me.

And the places where people felt really happy, the yoga studio or Soul Cycle, but those business models are not made for you to stay and hang out there afterwards. They're like a revenue per square foot, butt on bikes kind of thing, like how many people can we cycle through this place within one day?

And so I started thinking, is there a business I could do that brings these things together? Can I do it in a way that feels really good, that's nonjudgmental, that is all the things I dream that a health and wellness space could be, and have a business model that appeals to the woman who just needs a place to go and get stuff done for a couple hours?

So, I went to my co-founder from Spright and said, "I think this is it. I have this vision for this thing and this place." He said, " If you feel that way so strongly you know this better than anybody. You're the customer and you know how to market to women. You know how to do this. Let's do it."

So we went back to the investor and told him we wanted to open a physical building. He said, "That's outside of our purview but you can use this money to get yourself started. We're going to drop our shares to common shares so that you can fundraise more easily in the future. We're not coming in again. We're not giving you more money, but we'll maintain a small ownership in this, and you can use the money for your new thing."

Who was that original investor?

Gus Tai, from Trinity Ventures, which is a big VC firm.

So we used that money to sign a commercial lease. We had no background in commercial leases. We are not people that landlords want to sign a commercial lease. And as far as the landlord to this building saw, he's like, "I see you yahoos over here who have never opened a physical space before, and you're coming off of a failed business. Why would I ever rent this place to you?"

So with the money that we had from Trinity, we paid for a whole year of rent up front.

I bet that was scary.

That was the largest check I've ever written in my life by far.

We signed a three year lease. We paid for a year and he gave us 14 months for the cost of 12. And then all of a sudden we had this building. And it was July of 2017 and we had no money to do the rest.

At the time, the deal that my co-founder, Carnet Williams, and I made was that our partners, my husband and his wife, supported us enough over the past two years and we didn’t want to put in our own money. So we decided to go out and try to raise money elsewhere.

Over the next eight months we raised another $800,000 on the same terms, because technically it's the same entity that we raised for in 2015.

Is that unique? The situation with Trinity letting you keep the money sounds rare.

It is unique. Which is why I told the whole backstory about fundraising. Thankfully the things that Trinity did made it easier for us. Although most companies, when they're at our stage, are doing price rounds.

So, we raised $800,00. That was a mix of one really lovely, supportive micro VC, Charles Hudson, who’s firm is Precursor, and then a lot of hustling from angels. It was me out trying to pitch this dream, to get into an angel community. I was not hyper connected, even though I've been here in San Francisco for a long time.

Pitching to angels

What did you learn about pitching to angels?

I know this is controversial to say... and I completely understand why it is... but when I was going out first pitching to angels, and more seasoned investors, I was told by many people that you're going to have a harder time with women than with men. And I have seen that to be true.

For women I think they're so worried about the standard that they're even being held to that I think that they are, in some ways, more risk averse than men. I've met women who don't want to do consumer stocks because they don't want to be seen as, all women do consumer only, and who just want to stick to really tight guidelines of what they invest in.

Since we've been open that's shifted a little bit. We actually have a probably 10 or 11 members who've become angel investors just because they love what they have here and they believe in it. I think they're inspired by seeing the other female entrepreneurs in this space and thinking about us breaking down the barriers of what you need to do to be an angel investor. You don't need to be anything to invest. You can just be someone who is passionate about an entrepreneur that you meet.

We have work to do on supporting each other, especially when asking another woman for money. What have you noticed about the female-to-female dynamic?

There was one meeting in particular, and, again, I still am very new at this. I still work on my own confidence in these conversations, work on my own abilities to say with a straight face, "This is a billion-dollar company." That's hard for me. At a point about a year ago in an investor meeting, when a question came up about the financials, I let my male co-founder answer. I'm the CEO and I know the answers as well as he does, I sometimes defer to him in those things. Because in our dynamic, yes, he is the one who is sort of managing the financial model. Not that I don't know it in and out, but, you know, that is something that he's doing.

And I got a call from that investor who was like, "I was going to invest in you, but you deferred to your male co-founder on all the financial questions." And she walked.

How did that make you feel?

It made me feel terrible. It reinforced my insecurities in a lot of ways. It made me feel like both, yes, that's a great learning moment, I should be better about that. Since then I've made a point to not bring my co-founder along to a lot of my initial meetings. Not because we don't have a great relationship but because I need to not have a crutch. And as a first time CEO I need to be able to answer those questions. And I can, and I could then too, I just didn't in that moment.

It taught me a lesson about how fragile any of these things are and also that you have to be able to move on. You can't dwell on that stuff. It stung and it was painful, and it's someone who I still have a relationship with.

Why do we feel that imposter syndrome?

It just is so hard to verbalize that billion-dollar thing because I'm so practical and real. I've got a real business that is working and makes, and yet, just getting the words out of my mouth is impossible. I don't know if guys are just conditioned to be slightly better bullshitters or they just don’t worry as much about those things. We'll go into meetings together and he'll be like, "Come on, let's get amped up. It's going to be amazing." And I'm always over here having an anxiety attack.

Because you’re attuned to the practical side of things…

Yeah, totally. And knowing full well that I am running a healthy business. It’s still, to this day, a real challenge to do that sort of big picture thing. Even though I see it and I want it and I can tell you the pieces of it, but still.

Did you open The Assembly while you were still raising?

No, we closed that round before we opened because we felt this place would have more value as soon as we opened, so let's at least give investors some advantage to having gotten in early. We closed the round in the very early days of January 2018 and we opened two weeks after that.

Go-to-market strategy

That is an interesting segue into your launch. The Assembly is a thoughtful, carefully designed place to work, exercise, connect, heal or just hang out. Like the best ever women’s clubhouse. You’ve done a phenomenal job of marketing this business. Did you have a clear plan of attack for your go-to-market strategy?

Thank you. Yeah, I knew that our launch plan was centered around two main pieces.

One was the fitness, health, and wellness part of it. I think that instructors and teachers are incredibly valuable, and even if they don't have giant “followings,” they have an incredibly loyal local group of people. 

That was a strategy that no one else was looking at. So I knew if we had strong classes being taught by strong teachers it would bring people to the building. When people come into the building, they will want to stay in the building. That I know. 

And then similarly with the artists, the second piece is that we chose to work with women to create artwork for the space, and they in turn shared along the way.

Having it centered around the wellness and the space, that was my strategy to create early buzz, not leading with the co-working.

That is wicked smart to get contributors to share out organically. That’s the benefit of having a content and brand marketing background.

A lot of our earliest press led with coworking because people are going to lead with whatever framework is trendy or feels like it's on point, but I wanted to be sure those other messages were getting out there. 

In our social media presence, we knew that Instagram was going to be our main lever from the beginning. We made sure the images were an equal division of community people, beautiful space design, and movement. The design here definitely brings a lot of people to the door. And it’s important to see all sorts of bodies moving. We keep those three drum beats going.

I also knew there was going to be a newsletter that came from me that was going to have my own voice and vulnerability to it. It is very real and personable and relatable. That is something that has resonated a lot with folks. It's increasingly challenging to get myself to write it, but as, you know, newsletters…

Content marketing

All too well, that makes me ache, it's so time-consuming to do a newsletter. Way more than you think it will be. You have to carve out big chunks of time to write.

Yeah, exactly. But that was a big piece of it. And just thinking of the programming or every event we have here, that's the storytelling part of it, not me out there telling people what we are. Because we are not what we say we are, we're what people experience when they come in here and go out and tell other people. Your brand is not what you say it is, it is what other people say it is. 

So how do we take a month of programming and think of it a magazine? What is your cover story? What is your editor's letter? What are the different pieces of it that tie in? 

Some of them are recurring features that you have every month. You have this, this, and this, and then there's the other exciting things that you put in. So coming at it from that mindset is also different.

I've been in a lot of coworking spaces and hearing your background and how you're treating it like a magazine is really fascinating. I think that's a lesson that a lot of women could use. Even if a tech company were to think about their marketing in that way. 

I talk to a lot of women who open coworking spaces and the work part is fantastic but it more of a byproduct for me. I love that people are building their businesses here, or just working here, or having meetings and all of that stuff. But the actual product is really the design, the feelings, and the experiences of The Assembly.

The entrance to the The Assembly's main room, with original stained glass.

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Investment in design

Hallelujah! We human crave structure, utility and beauty, the essence of good design. I’m so glad you created this and think of the experience in this way. I wish more startups would invest in design. What trade-offs did you have to make, because I know it's not cheap to create a space like this?

We did a lot of it ourselves. The trade-offs that we made, primarily, were we did not try to cram as many seats in here as humanly possible to get as much money out of people as humanly possible. I think most spaces that are work centric, their goal is to get as many people working in there as possible. 

It’s hard now that the space is full, until we get our second space open, that people come in and they wonder, "Why don't you just put more tables in the middle of this room?” Well, we're not going to put more tables in the room. That's been a struggle in trying to get people to understand and it's definitely a trade-off. 

It also is a delicate space. Stuff breaks. People knock over the tiny cactus plants every single day. One of our big, very well-funded competitors, well, all the plants in their space are fake.

I get it. When your business is churning these things out as quickly as possible to get an Instagram worthy vibe, but not have to staff up as much, right? I mean, that's my assumption.

It's a pain in the ass to have literally hundreds of living plants in this place, but I believe that being around living plants is incredibly important and makes people feel healthier. You breathe easier and you feel lighter, and you know, no one else has to take care of them. You don't have to have as many plants in your home. We'll have all the plants here and you can spend time with them.

You were building out the space before you closed your seed round. How did you pay for it? 

We had a lot of money on credit cards.

That's how we do it. We juggle. And hold our breath. 

Juggling, yeah. A lot of money on credit cards, we deferred some payments on those. Definitely by the skin of our teeth. 

Thankfully we had a design team that knew how to make things look nice even if they're not expensive things. The main area is a mixture of things from World Market and others completely made by women artisans in San Francisco. It's a real mixture of things.

The Assembly's main hall. The bar on right was designed and built by a female artist.

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Team structure

This is a vibrant, busy space. There's a full schedule of classes in the downstairs studio. There's a kitchen with helpers. There's an outdoor patio. There's the main space. And I know you do a ton of events. With so much going on, how is your team organized?

Realistically, we are running three different business here in a pretty robust way. We have a fully running fitness studio, we've got a coworking space, and then we have an event business. So it takes a lot of bodies.

We think a ton about hospitality. When we originally made our financial model, we had some assumptions about how much staff we would need in the space, and we definitely have way more people than we thought we would.

Team structure is probably my biggest day-to-day thought exercise. We've experimented with a couple different things over the past year to figure out what's right, and what both sets us up for growth but is also reasonable for us at the current time. We’re running a seven day a week, twelve hour a day operation, and we put on thousands of events last year, literally almost two thousand, including our classes.

So for the operations of the building, we have a general manager who sits at the top. Below her there are four assistant managers, and then there's hourly staff. That team manages everything that happens in the building. That's scheduling the maintenance guy, making sure it's set up for events, all the different pieces of it. Getting the studio ready between classes. We have a cleaning service that comes at night that for day-to-day maintenance of the space.

That's the team that's probably way bigger than we thought it was going to be. They also give tours. They’re also close to the members. So they also do the selling, basically. 

That is a switch that we made halfway through since those are the folks that are having the most front-line interaction. If we arm them with the information to give all the tours and take people who are walking in off the street and all that stuff, they can they be the ones to take it all the way over the finish line. That's the operational side of things.

On the other side of, I've got myself and my-founder, so technically there's really the CEO, COO, and we have a woman who's our chief people officer. She does all the HR kinds of things. She comes from that background but also membership. Like health of the membership. What does attrition look like? What are people saying? What's going on?

Then we have a programming team. There are a couple women who are programming. One is more centered on fitness, one is more centered on the health and wellness side of things, and one is more focused on anything that comes in that feels like a partnership. 

And there's another person who focuses on food and beverage in events or in the kitchen, the snacks, and then any sort of like catering that needs to happen for events. We bring in a ton of food for different things. And also event execution.

We also have one engineer, because we built our entire digital system ourselves. So our booking, our member portal, the sign in you signed in when you came in here, that was all built in house. And we have a product manager who's in Seattle and works remotely.

What about marketing?

We have one woman who just came back from maternity leave who is content with me. She and I worked together in the past. So that's, what is our social voice? What is our newsletter voice? What do the signs say in the building?

We don't have anyone who's squarely on marketing, which is definitely a hole in our business. In the beginning I was thinking I can handle some of this. It's something that as we think about the future, it's definitely about who is the right hire? Is it somebody who is really growth-marketing centric? Is it somebody who's more on the creative side? I'm still figuring that out.

The importance of brand guidelines

And you’re setting the vision and the voice? 

Yes. We've got a pretty intense style guide. Like everything, the more guardrails you put up the more that frees people to play in the middle, and the power people feel when they know they're not going to mess it up because they're all staying within guidelines. I tell that to people a lot. 

I learned that from my content days. If you give people a lot of freedom and then you constantly tell them that they're doing it wrong, it's a really messed up dynamic. Because yes, I have a very clear and precise editorial vision, and it only is detrimental to everyone if I don't express it as much as I possibly can. In a kind and encouraging way of course, but people want the guidelines.

That explains why The Assembly’s brand it so solid from the physical to digital to intangibles. I'm a brand marketer and I preach the power of brand guidelines. That is a discipline I wish more startup founders would embrace.

Totally. You know, we had a guy who sort of helped us build our website and do some initial branding concept where he made the logo for us and things like that, but we didn't go hire some big branding agency.

You don't need it early stage IF you come from a background like yours. Look at what you've created with just your vision and expertise in content. 

Yeah. Sometimes I feel like when I'm listening to other people's stories I'm like, “Oh is that the way to make anything work? You just hire some big branding agency?”

I used to run a branding agency. Even when we would work with startups we would try to find a way to do it bare bones, but to shape the bigger vision of the brand. It’s often hard for founders to link their vision to a higher order purpose, like you have with the emphasis on hospitality. For instance, when I walked in, a lovely woman made me feel welcome by asking in a genuine way about how my day was going. She asked an open-ended question. She embodied The Assembly brand. 

And fortunately we have enough people to do that. We prioritize that. It's in the way that we train, it's having enough people so that someone can walk around and literally touch tables and say, "Hey, do you need a refill?" or whatever it is, to have that feeling of being taken care of.

It's not a luxury country club, but what we've seen is that when the folks here, members or nonmembers or visitors, when they feel like they have that little bit of humanity from us, they treat the space with human dignity. People put their own dishes in the dishwasher. They don't leave stuff on tables. They do treat it nicely because they are free to, like you're walking into someone's home. 

Solidifying our brand of hospitality has been our biggest secret advantage. We don't have a front desk of a woman just sitting on her phone just checking you in. But there's the ask, "How are you?” or "How's your kid?"

I also think that the way you're pulling people into the space from downstairs is revelatory. Frank Lloyd Wright believed that you use architecture to evoke feeling. His spaces were notorious for compression and decompression. Upon entry, he used low ceilings to compress the breathing and help you transition from the outside. Then he’d lead you into a high-ceiled living space that’s open and light for an emotional expansion. You have that going on downstairs at The Assembly. It's a little bit dark, but a lovely neon sign pulls the eyes up, then you wind up the stairs and the space expands. I felt my neck and shoulders release when I walked into the main hall.

The entryway to The Assembly with custom neon design by a local female artist.

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Yeah, you know it's interesting. That was a definite design challenge when we came to the space. We knew that the upstairs was going to be that focal point, that magical moment, but we thought, okay how to we get someone in off the street? There's no place for a desk down there, no one's getting checked in downstairs. They're alone, right? Like, you're alone for a minute there, and you're going to ring a doorbell. 

It's a building that you're confused by when you walk in and you walked by it a million times and you've never noticed it and it doesn't have a big sign out front, and so just that experience of sort of like, okay, when they walk in and they're alone for a second, how do we make that a calming moment and not an anxious moment? And how do we gently guide them upstairs, and have them figure out what to do?

And if you choose to linger or pause, you notice little details. That attention to detail often gets skipped in a startup budget. 

There are little affirmations written in secret places downstairs too, if you look close enough.

Our convo ends with the first thing you see at the entry to The Assembly.

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Visit The Assembly’s website to learn more about this unique place.

Weekly Female Founder Funding Updates

WorldRemit, $175 million, Series D, Catherine Wines, Co-Founder and Executive Director
London-based money transfer service that enables quick money transfers from migrant workers and immigrants living in developed countries back home. LeapFrog Investments, TCV and Accel led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

Zyper, $6.5 million, Series A, Amber Atherton, CEO & Founder
San Francisco-based marketing platform that connects brands with their superfans to drive engagement, insights and sales. Talis Capital led the round, joined by Forerunner Ventures and Y Combinator. (Website, Crunchbase)

42 Memory Lane Hail Mary: Month Three

Crush and punt

In this third installment of 42 Memory Lane's Hail Mary Series, Lynne Hannah, Founder and CEO crushes her latest Facebook ad campaign, falls short on email captures, and makes a big decision. 

The journey thus far: 

• The series kickoff, where we learn about 42 Memory Lane's journey to launch Willa, the world's first digital family album. This is a kickass overview on Facebook ad campaign development and the importance of messaging on landing pages. 

• Lynne's update with key insights from running Facebook campaigns on a strict budget.

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Lynne’s dispatch

Milestones

This month, our Baby Boomer ads on Facebook rocked. We doubled our email captures with this campaign, even with running it on a slightly shorter timeline than the other two campaigns combined.

Here are four insights: 

1. The Gin Lady ad that bombed with Moms clicked with the Baby Boomer market, pulling a consistent click-thru rate of 5%. For context, the industry average CTR for tech ads is 1.04%. (Source: Wordstream)

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2. We rewrote the Upside Down Toddler ad with a grandparent focus. It pulled over 6% CTR.

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3. Our star ad was Indiscretion. It pulled 6% consistently with spikes to 8%+.

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4. We updated our Landing Page and increased our email conversions 5x. (Remember what a nightmare our Landing Page conversion rate was in the last update?!?)

BEFORE: More copy, less emotional headline and call to action. Images harder to "read" quickly, leading one to wonder, what is Willa, anyway?

AFTER: Dark background focuses the eye. Crisp, emotional messaging.

Setbacks

• Facebook pulled our Indiscretion ad. We rebutted, they didn’t relent. See below for details. 

• The velocity for email capture wasn’t enough for us to continue the campaign within our budget.

Our rebuttal to Facebook

"Our ad was previously approved, and when viewed along with the ad's message about preserving your photos, this ad is appropriate. This ad's distribution is exclusively to 55+ year old (baby boomer) women who relate to this picture. It is highly successful with a 6% CTR, so the majority of this audience is positively responding to this ad and not offended. As this ad is getting our best results reaching our older female audience, we ask for you to approve it again. Thank you."

Facebook's response

Hi Willa, 

Here's what's preventing your ad from being approved:

Image: We don't allow ads with content that features sexually suggestive positioning or that shows a lot of skin (even if it's for an artistic or educational reason) because of their highly sensitive nature. I suggest that you have a look at our Advertising Policies for more details, including some dos and don'ts.

What to do next:

Try editing your ad by following the policy guidelines mentioned above. You can do that through Ads Manager, here. You can also take a look at Facebook Blueprint, which allows you to go through our self-paced e-learning module on Facebook's Advertising Policies.

Was this helpful? Let us know.

Thanks, Blessy, Facebook Ads Team

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Key Learnings 
Why did our Facebook ads do so well? 

• There is interest in the problem for the Baby Boomer demographic. They have photo albums and boxes of snapshots and slides gathering dust, so they need a better solution. The Facebook image, copy and Learn More button proved to be enticing for this specific demographic. 

• Our photos reflected humor, nostalgia and respect for our customer persona. Running the Indiscretion ad for women 55+ was deeply respectful of the age group, referencing a vibrant, twenty-something time of life for them. I’m consistently astounded at the ads marketing to this age who portray the group as "aged," "weak," and “prudish." 

The big takeaway, and why I’m so excited about our Facebook ad results: 

• We have a potential Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy on the Facebook platform. We have ads that we know can pull. We had over 13,000 hits to our landing pages in a month with a total spend of $3,900. A 1% conversion to sales equates to a 3% marketing budget for us. The math gets even more exciting if we convert 2% or 3%.

• We discovered that Baby Boomers engage with us 2x more than the Moms and Brides audiences. Baby Boomers may be our low hanging fruit when we go to market.

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Going Forward

The Facebook ad campaign did not result in the number of emails required for us to Kickstart. We wanted 13,000 emails, and didn't come close to that. But we gathered data, for a modest investment, that will be invaluable when we have a product for sale. One can never have too much data.

Internally we have debated the pros and cons of attempting a “get the tribe on board” campaign using Facebook ads with videos of me and additional heavy blogging. We decided that the risk of fatiguing our audience with the time it would take to generate emails and launch Kickstarter is too great. We will save this effort for when we have a product.

We’ll continue our posting and presence on our Facebook page. I post great links to all kinds of resources, such as Storycorps, who will record your family story and put it in the Library of Congress for free. I also posted the 2019 Top Ten Digitizing Services.

We’re planning a booth at the RootsTech genealogy conference in February 2020 in Salt Lake City to gather more emails. Ancestry and MyHeritage are sponsors, two companies aligned with what we do. There will be ~26,000 attendees with an acute pain point that we solve. Our intent is to rent a table at that conference with a simple problem-solution concept:

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It has been fun to share our journey through Facebook ad campaigns with Underwire readers. I highly recommend you dip in if you have the budget. 

In closing, I recently got an unsolicited email from a former Google executive telling me why he doesn’t think our product will sell. I have a new response for techies/investors who continue to tell me the only thing the consumer needs is the cloud and their phone: 

“Let me come over to your house and take your Bose speakers and your Beats headphones and dismantle all the music playlists you use… now, go enjoy your music!”

For the millions of families whose lives we can make easier, we continue on our journey to get this product to market.

Love to all the founders committed to making the world a little better! Stay the course, girlfriends! 

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Editorial note: We hope to feature more from Lynne's journey in 2020. Please let me know what you thought of this series. Or if you're willing to run naked through your startup journey and have Underwire follow along. Email me!

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

MOD Super Fast Pizza, $160 million, private equity, Ally Svenson, Co-Founder and Director
Bellevue-based fast casual pizza brand. Led by private-equity investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. The investment will continue to fuel MOD’s growth plans and expansion to reach 1000 locations in the next five years. Including this round, MOD has raised $335 million to date. (Website, Crunchbase)

Notable:

“Consumers are leaning in to brands that are more relevant, that are delivering a product and an experience that’s more in keeping with what they’re looking for today, “ said Scott Svenson, CEO.

Svenson also points to the chain’s commitment to social impact as crucial to its success. MOD recruits workers who might otherwise struggle to find employment, including people who were previously incarcerated. Perks such as higher pay, free meals, and a fund that employees can access during emergency situations help build culture and reduce turnover, Svenson says. (Business Insider)

Modsy, $37 million, Series C, Shanna Tellerman, Co-Founder and CEO
San Francisco-based ecommerce company that creates 3D renderings of customized rooms and allows customers to purchases recommended products. Round led by TCV, bringing Modsy’s total funding to $71 million. (Website, Crunchbase)

Soda Says, $2.5 million, Seed, Grace Gould, Founder & CEO
London-based online marketplace for lifestyle tech products (go-to-market focus on sex tech). Investors include LocalGlobe. (Website, Crunchbase)

Talkspace, $50 million, Series D, Roni Frank, Co-Founder
New York-based provider of therapy via a subscription-based online platform. Round led by Revolution Growth. The New York company’s model involves connecting users with a network of over 5,000 licensed therapists through a web and mobile platform. (Website, Crunchbase)

In memoriam: Margaret Jane Swendson

Margaret Jane (Peggy) Swendsen
Founder 
Stanwood Women's Clinic 
1948 - 2018

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Today is Memorial Day, a date established by the Federal government for remembering and honoring people who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. 

I also take this day to honor loved ones who fought their own battles against inequality and injustice. This year, I share with you Margaret Jane Swendsen. 

Peggy was a nurse practitioner, CEO and founder of the Stanwood Women’s Clinic. For decades, she served on the front lines of the war on women, advocating for what’s best for women rather than insurance companies or the health care industrial complex. 

She was not an impeccable CEO. She had a sliding scale for patient fees. She despised paperwork. She never wrote a business model or conducted market research to segment her audience. Cash flow was always an issue. She was not running a growth company and had zero plans to scale. Patients acquired Peggy, not the other way around. 

What she did was serve women of all ages, shapes, colors and class with respect and dignity. As one of the few nurse practitioner's to serve the immigrant community of Skagit Valley, she was a model for diversity and inclusion.

A visit to the Vaginal Vault Clinic, a.k.a. Stanwood Women's Clinic, always exceeded 15 minutes. Sometimes you’d be there for 2 hours. You’d leave with a healthful recipe, a referral for an energy healer, a reminder to take your Vitamin D, and a new perspective on whatever knot occupied your psyche. 

Peggy introduced me to yoga, taught me how to make mayonnaise from scratch, and anointed me with my favorite nickname — Britt Strongbird. She also got me off the pill to treat chronic migraines, fitted my first diaphragm and saved my life.

Peggy diagnosed my advanced cervical dysplasia, which led to a partial removal of my cervix to nip the cancer. At that time, I didn’t have health insurance. I had no symptoms, so no need to go to the doctor. Cervical cancer is a slow, quiet killer that can be hard to detect without an expensive ThinPrep Pap Test. At my annual exam, Peggy insisted that I be tested with the ThinPrep, and then charged me her wholesale rate. I was not a lucrative patient for the Stanwood Women's Clinic. Few were.

Peggy died in 2018 of cancer, which originated in her ovaries. How ironic. Hundreds of women attended her memorial service. 

As the war on women's health intensifies, do not forget that our bodies are big business. As long as our white, conservative power structure works to deny or subvert our right to control our bodies, we are under siege. 

Thank you for your service, Margaret Jane. 

Who is your Peggy?

May Ifs: Happiness Is a Choice

If mood impacts revenue

Do you wake up and greet the day with a quick flip through your email and feeds? 

That ritual could be setting you up for a shitty day and costing your company revenue. 

Mel Robbins says,

“Put YOURSELF first before you let the world in. That means no phone, no news, no TV, no technology, no email. No nothing before you take 10 minutes for you. ”

It not only makes sense, but it’s also science. An astounding 80% of smartphone users scroll through emails and social media first thing in the morning (IDC Research, 2015).

What's that doing to your brain? Research from Harvard Business Journal and the University of Pennsylvania found that even just 3 minutes of bad news in the morning means you’re 27% more likely to be unhappy for the rest of your day. 

And your bad attitude can impact the bottom line. The HBR article linked above goes on to cite an astounding data point from a study Nationwide Insurance conducted on their culture:

The president of Nationwide Brokerage Solutions, Gary Baker, decided to apply positive psychology research to the company’s workday. In particular, employees begin their days with a “huddle,” where they meet to share good news and rally around colleagues who might need some extra support that day. Those positive starts to the day, among other changes instituted based on positive psychology training at Nationwide, have led to an increase in gross revenues from $600 to $900 million and an application rate 237% higher in just one year.

You're the leader. Your mood sets their mood.

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If they can, you can 

A food writer and product manager start a direct-to-consumer cookware company, bake up a $3.4 seed round, and hire Pentagram to do their branding.

Sound like a fairy tale? Pffft, it's never that easy. Thanks to Lindsay Myers for sharing this entertaining journey story that oozed into a deep dive of the Great Jones brand launch.

The ingredients: 

• Two female founders 

• A new idea rooted in an area of passion or previous expertise 

• Connections in that area that opened doors (food industry, product design) 

• Female investors from Away, a recently minted Unicorn (see below!) 

• Commitment to the idea (quitting a job and going all in at the right time)

• A co-founder with a complementary skill set 

• Chinese manufacturing partners aligned on values (willing to innovate on design, respectful treatment of workers) 

• Drooly Insta feed (sexy pots, sexier people cooking) 

• Solid product that solves a need (performance, pricing) 

This quote from Sierra Tishgart, Co-Founder & CEO cuts deep:

“I didn’t realize how much my sense of self-worth and satisfaction relied on my work being consumed by the public. I didn’t know how long it would take until I felt proud of myself and my work again. In darker moments, I wondered what the hell I would do if we failed, as most startups do.”

Mmhmm. Been there.

And a taste of what went into the brand creation:

“All these months, while we worked on our physical products, we were also bringing a living, breathing brand to life. Naming the company was particularly challenging; Great Jones is actually a nod to the cookbook editor Judith Jones, as well as the New York street. (We designed a logo inspired by 1970s New York typefaces.) We wanted Great Jones to feel as warm, nostalgic, and joyful as opening your favorite vintage cookbook—an ode to the past instead of a ‘disruptive’ future.”

You can identify their brand attributes from that paragraph—warm, nostalgic, joyful.

Notice how those attributes permeate every touchpoint:

The homepage.

The packaging. How can you not be happy looking at this?

A packaged set.

The box can be re-used by the chillins of the purchaser. Aww.

The option to personalize the lid with a saucy engraving.

A still image from a photoshoot. Tone-setting.

Urban poster series.

Great Jones likely spent $250,000+ of their $3.4 million seed raise on the branding. I share this not to make you jealous or depressed, but to remind you that you have to budget for branding as a consumer startup. You can do incredible things with your brand on a budget if you know what you stand for. Soon, Underwire will have a product to help you with that 😉. 

Lastly, tits up to Emily Oberman, partner at Pentagram, who led the Great Jones brand development team. Ms. Oberman also recently designed The Wing’s No Man’s Land publication and the Saturday Night Live intro titles. 

Further reading: 

• Pentagram's overview of the full brand launch 

• Great Jones funding info

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If all hail the chiefs 

For the first time in Fortune 500 history, 33 companies are led by female CEOs, the highest total ever. Progress! 

Why? Well, Christy Glass, a Utah State University professor who focuses on gender inequality, says that her research “has shown that when boards are well-integrated with women, women are much more likely to be appointed CEOs.” The push for board diversity, she says, “may be paying off in terms of women appointed as CEOs.”

Here they are:

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If bad is good

Another book recommendation from Lynne Hannah, who says, “This book is so resonant with starting a company late in life and it hits on the theme that, no matter what your age, you won’t be good at anything in the beginning… so lighten up, lose the imposter syndrome and have fun on the journey.”

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update: More Unicorns

Away, $100 million, Series D, Steph Korey, Co-Founder & CEO, and Jen Rubio, Co-Founder
New York-based online luggage retailer Away raised $100 million in funding at a $1.4 billion valuation. Wellington Management led the round, and was joined by investors including Baillie Gifford, Lone Pine Capital and Global Founders Capital. Away, which said its 2018 sales totaled $150 million, is planning to use some of the new capital to expand into apparel, wellness and lifestyle accessories. (Website, Crunchbase)

Nextdoor, $123 million, Series F, Sarah Friar, CEO
San-Francisco-based neighborhood social network is now valued at $2 billion. It’s the company’s first round since Friar took over, with the cash set to fund international expansion. Riverwood Capital led the round, joined by investors including Benchmark, Tiger Global Management and Kleiner Perkins. (Website, Crunchbase)

Core, $4 million, Seed, Sarah McDevitt, Founder & CEO
San Francisco-based meditation experience and personalized wellness company. Spero Ventures led the round, joined by investors including Bolt , Corigin Ventures and Stanford-StartX Fund. (Website, Crunchbase)

Hatch, $5 million, Series A, Ariane Goldman, Founder
New York-based lifestyle brand for women before, during and after pregnancy, raised $5 million in Series A funding. Silas Capital led the round, joined by investors including M3 Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

A Scope of Work Template to CYA with Vendors

The beautiful madre of the mother of Underwire in 1971 (left) and 2017 (right).

Scope of Work 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mary Beth Stromberg!

MB is my original boss lady role model. 

One of the best pieces of advice she gave me is this—

“Don’t get yourself into a situation you can’t get out of. “

At the time of the imparting, I was in college and I think she meant a situation with a guy. As in, don’t drink too much at a party and pass out and have something horrible happened to you. Or don't get into some rando handsome guy's car just because he's got a broken arm (she came of age in the Ted Bundy years). 

Practical advice that's served me well. So practical that it also applies to business. 

A few weeks back I shared a conversation with Nancie Weston about her Kickstarter campaign for the Raiin water pitcher. 

Nancie launched her campaign on Earth day. It was going well, a bit slower than anticipated, but chugging along with pledges. 

And then her team that supported her launch — the college-age team that said they’d do the work for free because they wanted to build their portfolio — they did something cruel that I have not heard of in my 25+ year career.

Nancie’s "team" extorted her. A few days into the campaign, they demanded—by text message—to be paid an exorbitant amount or they would yank Nancie’s content from the Kickstarter. 

Nancie didn’t have a signed agreement with the team stating the project terms or deliverables. Feeling that she had no other recourse, she closed the Kickstarter. 

You can imagine how she feels. 

When we have vendors or contractors do work for our companies, even when they do a trade or gratis engagement, you need to lock down the terms, process and deliverables in writing. To make that easy, I’m giving you access to the Underwire template for a Scope of Work.

Click through the see the full SOW template. Or click here.

This is a standard SOW that's been reviewed by an attorney for use with creative services firms. You can adapt the language to your specific project.

Nancie told me that, "Even with a contract they could have asked for more. It’s all about greed and what they thought they were worth rather than standing by their word. I won’t do 'free' again. If I had been able to afford an agency they would have stood by their word to protect their reputation." 

That team has some serious karma heading its way.

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On the topic of setting fire to that which doesn't serve us....

Applications now open for Ready Set Raise  

Female Founders Alliance opened applications for their second cohort of the Ready Set Raise accelerator. This is a national six-week startup accelerator, consciously created by and for women and non-binary founders. Finally. 

Here is what's conscious about Ready Set Raise:

• FFA's cut is all non-dilutive. They do not take participant equity but request an option to participate in future rounds of fundraising.

• The program is six weeks and structured for family flexibility; the first and last week are immersive in Seattle, the four weeks in between are remote.

• Childcare is provided for participants during the immersion weeks in Seattle.

• Investors invited to the demo day showcase are vetted and have demonstrated track records of investing in women and non-binary founders.

Program details, applications and info about last year's cohort on the Female Founders Alliance website.

The inaugural cohort of the Ready Set Raise accelerator. A powerful sight.

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Daye, $5.5 million, Seed, Valentina Milanova, Founder & CEO
London-based femtech company. Their first product is a tampon that uses CBD tp help tackle dysmenorrhea, raised $5.5 million in funding. Investors include Khosla Ventures, Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. (Website, Crunchbase)

LunaPBC, $4.6 million, Dawn Barry, President & Co-Founder
La Jolla, Calif.-based provider of a genomics and health data platform. Investors include ARCH Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Illumina Ventures and Osage University Partners. (Website, no Crunchbase listing)

Vice Media, $250 million, Debt Financing, Nancy Dubuc, CEO, Anne Gaviola, Founder
Brooklyn-based a global youth media company, engages in print, event, music, online, television (TV), and feature film business activities in the United States and internationally. Investors include 23 Capital, Soros Fund Management, Fortress Investment Group LLC and Monroe Capital. (Website, Crunchbase)

Techstars Accelerator

One way to take your company to the next level of development is to join a startup accelerator. These organizations, with mentor networks and financial contributions, help young companies leverage initial successes, fine tune business models, and demo their products for potential investors.

If you’re considering an accelerator, here’s a helpful tool for understanding your options:

Seed Accelerator Rankings Project

Also known as SARP, this group is led by researchers from Rice University, the MIT Innovation Initiative Lab for Innovation Science and the University of Richmond. They track quantitative and qualitative factors like startup outcomes and founder interviews with the intent to encourage research about the seed accelerator phenomenon, its effects, and its prospects for the future.

Encouragingly, SARP is led by two women—Yael Hochberg and Susan Cohen.

One of the top accelerators on SARP’s list is Techstars. Samantha Bell from the Techstars Seattle team wrote the article below, and conducted a short Q&A with two female founders in the 2019 Techstars Seattle class— Surbhi Rathore of rammer.ai and M.H. Lines of Automaton.

Read about their Techstars experiences here:

• Surbhi Rathore Q&A

• M.H. Lines Q&A

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Techstars Seattle x Underwire

Comprehensive support. Investor access. Accelerated knowledge. These are the three main reasons why startups choose to exchange 6% equity of their company (issued as common stock) for $20,000 when joining a Techstars accelerator. Upon acceptance, every company is offered a $100,000 convertible note.

To date, out of the 3,315 individuals who have gone through a Techstars Accelerator and self-selected their gender as male or female, 477 of those individuals, or 14%, identified their gender as female.

Though today’s startup ecosystem is predominantly male, research shows that companies with female founders often outperform their male peers. Through its network of hundreds of companies and startup programs worldwide, Techstars hopes to influence this on a large scale.

In 2015, Techstars launched the Techstars Foundation, a non-profit created to improve opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities in tech. So far the foundation has supported 15 non-profit organizations and hundreds of underrepresented entrepreneurs.

Roots of Techstars accelerator programs

Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Since its founding in Boulder, Colorado in 2006, Techstars has expanded to 150+ countries with 10,000+ mentors in its network. To date, Techstars has invested in 1,700+ companies and has raised nearly $7 billion in funding. With the addition of the Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator, Techstars now has 46 accelerators to consider when applying.

Do more faster: In 3 months

Techstars helps startups do more faster, every day, by surrounding them with people who will mentor, inspire, and challenge them. Within the first month of the three-month accelerator, startups begin growing their network during Mentor Madness week. From these hundreds of interactions, companies select three to five lead mentors who help with product development, market fit, and provide valuable introductions.

In addition to working with their lead mentors, startups work with the Techstars Managing Directors to hit their milestones and gain traction. Over the course of the program, startups will determine their fundraising strategy and prepare to meet with investors, allowing them to accelerate their business.

So what does all this hard work lead to? At the end of the program, companies can show how much progress they made at a culminating demo day. The startups spend the last month of the program crafting and perfecting their five-minute pitch to investors, family and friends to present at this celebration.

Techstars doesn’t stop once the program ends. Companies can leverage the network post program through events and access to a deep well of resources for life.

Want to submit your startup to Techstars?

Application periods vary for Techstars’ different accelerator programs. Information around what programs are accepting applications, and when, can be found on the Techstars website.

After applications close, each program spends about seven weeks getting to know more about the applicants’ ideas, teams, and market progress. The final group of companies accepted into each accelerator is typically notified within eight weeks from the application closing date.

Make sure you pick a program in a location that will give you the best opportunity to build the right network with the right mentors. Who knows - you may end up relocating your company there once the program ends!

For a full list of programs, click here.

For tips from Techstars’ Managing Directors, click here.

Preview application questions here.

Techstars Seattle Accelerator

Techstars launched Techstars Seattle Accelerator in 2010 with ten companies, five of which went on to be acquired. Of the Techstars top 50 companies, six went through the Seattle Accelerator, including Zipline, Outreach, Remitly, Leanplum, Realty Mogul, and Skilljar, with the latter two having women CEOs.

Combined, Techstars Seattle Accelerator alumni have raised nearly $900 million, and now employ thousands of people in the Pacific Northwest and around the world.

The Techstars Seattle Accelerator receives hundreds of applications based on the opportunity to build the right network with the right mentors, and female founders are highly encouraged to apply. There have been 29 founders who identified their gender as female that have come out of Techstars Seattle.

Techstars x Underwire: Surbhi Rathore

Surbhi Rathore is the CEO and Co-Founder of Rammer.ai, a technology company focused on conversational AI and business outcomes. Surbhi was a participant in the 2019 Techstars Seattle class.

This Q&A was conducted with the help of Samantha Bell from the Techstars Seattle team and has been edited for brevity.

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Surbhi Rathore, CEO and Co-Founder of Rammer.ai and 2019 Techstars Seattle participant

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In what ways did the program differ from your expectations? What did you have to change and adapt to get through this? 

The Techstars program is a milestone in my journey as a founder. I knew that the program would help us fill in the gaps, but it has been so much more than that. In the past two months it feels like we’ve built our own founder/mentor family who are, and will, continue to support us beyond the program. 

We have a team in India, so I was overseeing a lot of decisions until now. With the schedule of the program, I am taking a step back on day-to-day activities, and I think that has really helped everyone on the team step up and own the territory of their roles.

What have been your top 3 highlights of Techstars Seattle?

1. The Techstars network effect is phenomenal. We’ve been able to access a network of mentors, alumni, investors, customers, and partners that would have been extremely difficult to access outside of the program. This has helped accelerate our company faster than we could do on our own.

2. I always look forward to “Mentor Thursdays,” where we spend the whole day with our lead mentors.  

3. Connecting with the other startups and the Techstars staff. I always look forward to “Highs and Lows” on Fridays. It’s where we literally talk about anything and everything from the week over drinks and snacks. I also loved the Founders Retreat, where we spent three days in a remote location focusing on leadership workshops and connecting with our peers. 

What experiences have you seen that set female founders or CEOs apart from their male counterparts?

I think women look at work differently than men. In addition to being great at understanding and handling finances, we connect with the customers and our team on a different level. Not that male founders don't, but I have seen this connection in a lot of female founders throughout my journey so far.

What gets you excited about the start-up scene around Seattle?

We are headquartered in San Jose, so we’ve experienced the startup scene in the Bay Area. Seattle has been amazing. The people here, especially Techstars alumni and mentors, have a give-first attitude towards the new community that I love. It’s great to feel like we are a part of this big startup family here in Seattle.

Why did you apply for this particular accelerator program?

Seattle is the center of technology, and there are super successful companies that have come out of here, especially in the space we operate in—AI in conversations.

Plus, after talking to Chris Devore and Aviel Ginzburg, the program's Managing Directors, we were convinced the Techstars Seattle Accelerator was where we wanted to be. Those two are amazing! They’re always around and have such deep insight into what we do. Working with them has been just phenomenal.

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Thanks to the Techstars’ Diversity and Inclusion team for supporting this collaboration. Learn more about the Techstars program.

Techstars x Underwire: M.H. Lines

M.H. Lines is the CEO of Automaton, a development ops platform for marketing technology. She was a participant in the 2019 Techstars Seattle class.

This Q&A was conducted with the help of Samantha Bell from the Techstars Seattle team and has been edited for brevity.

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M.H. Lines, CEO of Automaton and 2019 Techstars Seattle participant

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In what ways did the program differ from your expectations? What did you have to change and adapt to get through this? 

Honestly, I didn't have many expectations. Of the programs I've really found value in, from getting my MBA to Women in Cloud, I've been able to really just let go and trust the program. That’s the same way I approached Techstars.    

Throughout this program I learned that I can’t show if I’m having a bad day or even a bad moment, since it has a lasting negative implications on our business. I remember after one meeting feeling defeated and I whined to Aviel Ginzberg one of Techstars’ Managing Directors, “So I don’t get to have bad days anymore?” He responded, “No, you don’t.”

What have been your top 3 highlights of Techstars Seattle?

1. By far the people in the 2019 class. They're truly A-players. That kind of lovely and giving but hard-charging environment really gets you through. 

2. The mentors. These are people I would never have access to before who have been critical in helping to figure out what we are doing.  

3. The forcing function of a compact time period. Let's be honest, I'm running a venture backed startup, so the time crunch is my daily life, but having everyone exposed to it is helpful.

Any "oh crap, that didn't go how I expected" moments?  

I didn’t take advantage of Chris Devore and Aviel Ginzberg, our Managing Directors, as much as I should have. I only saw them during structured hours, and they individually don't have as much of our backstory as other mentors or investors. Towards the end of program I worked to spend more time with them.

What experiences have you seen set female founders/CEOs apart from their male counterparts?  

In this environment I don't think there is a major difference with the exception of women being better at multitasking, which is so critical for a startup and has positive and negative implications.

I think multitasking is a superpower of mine, more even than most women. I understand switching costs and when the rubber really hits the road, I give myself the gift of focus.

We are getting to a place where I can only focus on fundraising, marketing, sales, and general leadership and direction. I'm not saying that in an ironic way, either. I've got amazing, smart leaders who have taken other major things off my plate, and that list does feel focused.

There were a few male mentors who obviously had some unconscious bias issues (but surprisingly good intentions). With that exception, I'm just a person doing something exceptionally hard in the company of exceptionally smart, hardworking individuals.

What gets you excited about the start-up scene around Seattle?   

Coming from the South/East Coast, I'm just really excited there is a startup scene here, and that it is as “buzz-y” as it is. The access to brilliant investors looking to write deals is amazing.

Why did you apply for this particular accelerator program?  

Techstars Seattle, by global reputation, is a top accelerator. Being selected to participate alone was traction in and of itself.

I like that Techstars is a measured way to focus on what matters most and get super important work done rapidly.

You are married with three little ones at home. It must be hard to leave your family every morning. How are you able to take care of yourself over the course of such a demanding, fast-paced accelerator? 

It’s easy to forget to take care of yourself in this environment. When I start to get tired, or things get really hard, all I want is to go cuddle up on the couch with my people. There are times I don’t feel like I have the luxury of doing anything other than simply pushing forward, both at work and in my private life. 

My husband does more than any other father I've known—he participates, he cleans, he does laundry. He pays all our bills and sets up the college-savings accounts. But the mental work is still primarily mine. I book activities and camps, I get the Easter eggs, and I schedule the au pair and sitters.

On my desk sits a candle that reads, "Girl, you need to calm the f down." That pretty much sums up my life.

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Thanks to the Techstars’ Diversity and Inclusion team for supporting this collaboration. Learn more about the Techstars program.

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Mejuri, $23 million, Series B, Noura Sakkijha, Co-Founder & CEO
Toronto-based fine jewelry brand. New Investors include NEA and Imaginary, as well as Felix, BDC, Incite, and Dash Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Zum, Undisclosed, Follow On to Series C, Ritu Narayan, CEO & Founder
Redwood City-based logistics platform offering child transportation for school districts, raised funding of an undisclosed amount from Citi Ventures. The investment adds to its existing $40 million Series C round. (Website, Crunchbase)

Other Funding Updates

New VC Fund
Serena Williams formed a venture firm called Serena Ventures, which invests in early-stage companies that “embrace diverse leadership, individual empowerment, creativity and opportunity.”

Crunchbase Q1 2019 Diversity Report — Female Founders Receive 17% of Q1 Funding
In Q1 2019, $8.1 billion went to companies with at least one female founder in the first quarter of this year, representing 17% of venture dollars. Of that, 2% was invested in only female founders, and 15% went to companies with male and female co-founders. (Read the report)

How to Produce a Weekly Newsletter

Illustration by Venetia Berry

Body of Work 

Last week, to celebrate my own birthday and the one-year anniversary of the Underwire newsletter, I took myself to the Olympus Spa. 

Legendary in the Seattle area, the Olympus Spa is a Korean-style jimjilbang, or women-only bathhouse. This spa is known for two things—full nudity and the body scrubs administered by Korean ajummas, the “aunties” with the no-nonsense warmth and authority.

At Olympus Spa, the heart of the experience is the bathhouse with soaking pools, a sauna, and steam and scrub rooms. This is the place you go to level set and reconfirm that despite how fucking hard it is to run a business and do anything different and worthwhile, you're probably doing just fine.

While you’re soaking in the pools, you pretend not to notice everybody else. This is hard to do because it's ALL on display in the bathhouse. Full nudity is the great female equalizer. It's comforting to notice that even the tautest twenty-something jiggles on the scrub table. 

Just as there is no “perfect” body, there is no perfect business. 

Remove the armor of clothing and identity and we are all lumpy, droopy, soft and tender.

That founder that gets all the media attention and seems to be everywhere, all at once? Probably has saggy ops. 

The bootstrapper with a steady revenue stream? Yeah, she’s got killer upper arms AND her boobs still skim her belly. 

You are where YOU are with your business. Hang in there. And remember, it must be jelly cuz jam don't shake like that! 🤣

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Naked 

Since April 24, 2018, I’ve produced 37 issues of Underwire. From the outset I wanted to use the newsletter format to find my voice as a feminist businesswoman and determine if there's a business model in here (working on that for year two). 

I’m proud of this body of work. I didn’t grow my subscribers as fast as I wanted. But I nailed my goal of consistent production. I went weekly in September. 

For your content marketing efforts, I thought it might be interesting to read about the tools and process I use to produce Underwire.

Content Production

• Every issue begins in Bear, a note-taking app that collects my ideas, links, screenshots, etc. I pay for Bear because of the interface and organizational structure.

This how I track the funding. Throughout the week I add updates in the precise format they’ll appear on the newsletter and website. This was last week's update. This info also gets tracked in a Google Sheet.

• Each day I read the Crunchbase, Term Sheet and GeekWire newsletters for funding announcements. I verify funding updates in the Crunchbase app on my iPhone. 

• I track all female-founded VC fundings, as well as exits, in a public Google Sheet. I have not seen another comprehensive listing like this that’s free. Frankly, it’s a pain in the ass for me to do this, super time consuming, but it’s important. If one woman gets VC funding because she sees an investor on this list, or makes an important connection, then it’s worth it. 

• I also read widely across mediums for issue inspiration. One of my favorite places for inspiration is the Everett Public Library. They have an impressive array of periodicals and art and business books. I regularly sit myself in their gorgeous barrel-vaulted reading room with a stack of materials and plan future “Ifs” issues. 

• Every Monday morning by 8am I open Mailchimp, copy one of the custom templates created by the incredible human Hannah Templer, and write the words that appear in each issue. I often create a first draft in Word, but I always finish editing in Mailchimp. 

• While writing each issue, I listen to my Mellow Groove or Underwire Spotify playlists, cranked loud, especially when this song comes on. Somewhat of an anthem. 

• For graphics, I use Canva. Their paid version allows you to create a Brand Kit with your fonts, color palette, logos and other core graphics. Canva isn’t as robust as Adobe Photoshop (very expensive) but it’s fun to use and works just fine for now. 

• Prior to hitting “schedule” in Mailchimp for 11:45am Monday delivery, I upload the issue to Squarespace. I moved away from Medium for issue archiving at the start of 2019 to improve my SEO. This was a key lesson from Ren and Will at Otis Solutions, who are helping me with a new offering for 2019. BTW, Medium sucks your SEO juice. 

• After an issue is live, I cross post to LinkedIn (usually on Tuesdays) and Instagram (throughout the week). I’m not personally on Facebook, so I’m sporadic on posting Underwire there. LinkedIn is the best channel for direct engagement with readers.

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A few more of the generous and talented people who helped to create the Underwire brand:  

• Stephanie Mennella designed the logo and pushed me to find my unapologetic voice. 

• Gabrielle Goldman built my visual identity and brand style guidelines, which were the best early investments made in helping to bring consistency to everything I do. 

• Kate Reingold took Gabrielle’s work to the next level, refining the website and interpreting the brand into illustrations and Canva templates. 

• Nicole Proctor inspired the Polaroid style for the CEO photography and shot most of the profile stories.

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The moodboard that jumpstarted the Underwire visual identity.

The one-page Underwire style guide that I use all the time.

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Top Issues by Open Rates

1. Retail therapy — 70.6% 

My “mad as hell” moment. The most emotional issue, by far, which is not easy for me because I’m private and generally believe that my white privilege isn’t all that interesting in the grand scheme of things. From this I learned that the stronger emotions lead to better engagement with readers. 

2. Vacation — 63.4%

Fruit of our labor, also happens to be my favorite issue because it features the Peach Madre CEO and it's when I connected in my own head how many of us there are out there. 

3. Tits Up — 60.3%

Part 2 of asking for help, wherein I detail HOW to flex the Ask muscle, in addition to quoting Twyla Tharpe and correlating our work to that of Midge Maisel from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. 

4. Bumps — 61.6% 

The pregnancy issue featuring the Zephyr Teachout ad from the 2018 New York Attorney General primary race. I broke down how to create a brand that stands for something. 

5. Aretha — 58.9% 

An obituary for Aretha Franklin, wherein I learned that she always got paid upfront before performing. I will never forget that. Not all of us are in a position to demand that, but I will continue to push myself and others to ask for what they deserve.

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Final Insight 

The CEO Profile open rates are far lower, averaging 35%. I keep doing them because I believe we're going deeper with their stories than other media coverage. 

I think these issues are lower performing because of the high word count. Tons of wisdom if you take the time to read them. I'll eventually get all of these on the Underwire website and SEO the shit outta them to help with long-tail visibility. 

I’m astounded by what I’ve learned from these conversations. Look at the incredible women I talked with last year!

Clockwise from upper right: Kristen Miller (Stylyze), Laura Clise (The Intentionalist), Richa Prasad and Lucy Liang (Coach Viva), Nancie Weston (Raiin), Michele Mehl (Excy), Dani Cone (Cone & Steiner), Jana Kleitsch (Wanderlust Society) and Sarah LaFleur (MM. LaFleur)

Nancie Weston: The Crowdsourcing Rainmaker

Nancie Weston, CEO, Founder and Inventor of Raiin

Ms. Weston on... 

• Building a consumer hard goods company, twice

• The aha moment at a Goodwill store that sparked Raiin

• The three things you need for a successful Kickstarter campaign

• A side hustle that netted her over $20k last year

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Underwire: Give me the quick spiel for Raiin.

Nancie Weston: Our first product is a water filtering purifier pitcher that takes out germs and toxins in seconds. With all the problems in the world, water shouldn’t be one of them. At Raiin, we design products which protect people and our environment.

Raiin is your second startup in the consumer products industry. How did you get started the first time around with Grayl?

I was working around water, always something to do with water—I worked with water filtration purification and waterproofing companies. In 2011, I had this idea about how to filter water a lot faster and easier than what's out there for the outdoor industry.  I put together a business plan, rough sketches and started doing the research. Then I found a business partner. One of the reasons I wanted a business partner is because I had never done a startup and I didn't believe in myself. I really didn't believe that I could do it on my own, so now, eight years later, I've learned a ton and realize it's no problem to do it on my own.

It's actually easier without a partner. You don't have to argue, explain or teach someone. But as women we don't believe in ourselves, we don't believe we can do it on our own. 

That said, I hired all male employees except one, and hired an all-male board. I wish I would have hired at least half to three-quarters female for the board and team.

I'm sure you didn't say, "I'm going to hire an all-male board." It happened organically? 

It was organic in that investors who invest a lot of money won’t invest unless they get a board seat, and they happened to be male. We also needed experts in areas like finance. There are more men in those higher up positions than there are women.

Product Dev

While you were building the board and hiring employees at Grayl, you were also building the first product. How long did that take?

It took us 18 months to get to market with the first Grayl product.

And you got it into REI?

Yes. I had a sales background in the outdoor industry so it was easy for me to get into REI. They knew me, I had invented a firestarter in the category for them, and they were doing well with it.

What were other key milestones from Grayl?

Grayl won the Red Dot award, which is a prestigious award, one of the highest awards you can get for innovative products. We got the most innovative product award at the International Housewares Award, which is huge. They tend to give that award to large companies, and so to get the innovative product award was a big deal for a small startup like Grayl. We also got recognized as one of GeekWire’s top ten startups.

Origin of Raiin 

How did Raiin come about? 

 While I was still at Grayl, our team was trying to figure out our next products. My business partner, the marketing team and my board really wanted to do a bottle which was bigger. My vision for that company was to bring the bottle to market and, if it was a success, invent a filter purifying pitcher to go in every home. Unlike a Brita, which only filters odor, flavor and some lead, our product would filter and purify germs and toxins, as well as odor and flavor. After introducing that product to the market, I then wanted to invent a product that would help developing counties, and millions of people around the world, to have clean water to drink. 

But that's not what my business partner and my board wanted to do, so I said, "Alright you guys do that, keep doing what you're doing, I'm going to start a new company."  I knew I wanted to do a water pitcher but I couldn't make it the same as Grayl. I didn't want to go up against my former company, and so I thought about it for a couple years. And then out of the blue I was walking through a Goodwill store, of all places, where I saw a drinking cup and thought, "That's it!"

I woke up the next morning, and I was like, "I know how I'm going to do it." That's literally how it happened. It's funny, people ask me, "Oh, so you're an engineer?" And I'm like, "No. My degree is in Parks and Recreation and Art." It’s fun to see the look on their faces when I tell them that. 

Art school! 

Yes. Grayl is one of those utilitarian products that’s also artistic and well-designed. That's why I won quite a few design awards. 

The prototype for Raiin is beautiful. The lid, the handle, the soft body, it all feels thoughtful. I could see that product sitting on my countertop. It’s the kind of utilitarian product like my Alessi Lemon Squeezer that gives me joy to use it for a mundane task. Tell me about the design.  

My whole thing is to make beautiful and functional products so I'm stringent on making sure that Raiin works, beautifully. It needs to pass drop tests. It has to pour beautifully. It should feel good in your hand. All of that is super important. The fun part is when I show it to people, they can’t keep their hands off it, they have to keep touching it.

Raiin prototype

Fundraising...or not

What's fundraising been like for a consumer hard good?  

I made a prototype and I took it to investors thinking that I already have a successful company under my belt, this should be a no-brainer for investors to invest. Wrong.

I pitched maybe 15 investors. I’d be in a room full of startups here in the Pacific Northwest and they'd all be apps or software, every single one of them. I did get in with one angel group, and I showed it and they said they don’t do consumer goods, they only do electronics. So I thought, “Now what am I going to do?"

One time, I was actually told by an investment group that I needed a male business partner for them to even consider me. It’s sad that we are still stuck as women and seen as less-than or weaker. 

After trying to fundraise that way, I had to do a total shift very quickly because I was running out of money, which is really, really scary. I have one month left, I can pay my mortgage next month and that's it, and then I've got to either dump this whole idea and put it on hold and go get a job. I even tried to get a loan for my house and the bank said, "Well, you don't have a job." And I only have $30,000 left to pay on my house. I've got over $350,000 in equity on my house and they wouldn't give me a loan.

That’s when I thought about Kickstarter. 

I ended up at Western Washington University talking to the entrepreneurship program. I said to a class of students, "All I need is a marketing and video person for Kickstarter." I had eight students come up to me after. One person shook my hand and said, "I've got 10 people for you on my team, I just started a business and I've got two video people for you, I've got a photographer, I've got a graphic arts, I've got a PR, I've got a social media, I've got a makeup person, lighting person, I've got someone to do your website." They had it covered, graphics, animation, they had everything. And he goes, "By the way, we'll do it for free because we need this on our resume. We need to show people we can do this."

It's divine intervention.

Yeah, exactly. I totally believe that. The universe throws me some walls, tough situations  to make me really want it, but I definitely think that people cross your path for a reason and if you stay open you'll be lead down the right path.

(Here's the Raiin Kickstarter, which launched on Earth Day.)

Kickstarter Lessons 

What have you learned about Kickstarter campaigns that might tip other founders to try crowdsourcing?  

One, you have to have passion for what you are doing or it will never fly. There are so many times I wanted to give up but it was driving me crazy how many water filter pitchers are out there not telling the truth about what they filter out. If I didn’t have the passion for bringing clean water to the world, it would have been easy to give up. 

I've actually done two other Kickstarters and an Indiegogo. So the second thing is that you've got to have a following. People don't just come to Kickstarter, you have to get people to go look at it, you have to be on social media months beforehand and you've got to be all over social media and develop an extensive email list. 

Lastly, you need about 6 months worth of money to live on to do Kickstarter. Plus, you will need money to promote Kickstarter. For example, you need money to produce a video, run social media and advertising, and people to help you, etc. 

What kind of following are we talking about to run a successful Kickstarter? 

It’s all about your friends and family. They are the core of how your product will spread and they are the most passionate about helping you. 

The press is also extremely important. Find your tribe who is passionate about your product or cause and they will shout you out to the world with enthusiasm. Your story about why you are doing your product is so important. People have got to trust you, so you need to get people to believe in you and the product so they'll buy it.

Is a sustainability message going to be part of your marketing?  

Yes, definitely, I believe in sustainability. We will be made in the USA, I don't want all the carbon emissions that come from shipping products from China. Same with packaging, I don’t want any plastic on the packaging, I want it to be sustainable. Our filters are small and thin compared to the huge plastic filters of the competitors.

Self Care

How are you're taking care of yourself?  

You know I try and be disciplined but….well, let's put it this way, since I don't have any money, it’s hard. I don't have a social life right now, so I'm not going out with friends. I'll invite them over for wine or cheese and crackers and things. 

I jog every other day, and do yoga and yard work. It’s super important to stay fit, it keeps your mind clear, calm and gives it a break that keeps you from getting into any kind of anxiety or depression.

Also living in the present is a huge help. I work really hard at not thinking about the past or worrying about the future, but getting done what needs to get done right now, at this moment. Be thankful for what you have achieved so far, and the support you have at this moment from friends and family. I take walks to free my mind and just look at nature in the present moment.  

I've got a 17-year old hot tub. And I like to cook and eat healthy. I like to hike, although I haven't taken a full day off to hike in a while. A day off…what's that? 

Here’s something interesting…do you know what I'm doing for money?

Uh oh, what are you doing? 

I rent out my home on Airbnb and I go stay at my best friend's parent’s house. I made a little over $20,000 this year doing that.  

The things we do for our companies. 

Yeah, really. I clean the house, pack up my stuff and go live at my friend's parents. It's humiliating at 55 years old, but hey. You've got to do what you've got to do to survive.

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Carrot Fertility, $11.5 million, Series A, Tammy Sun, Co-Founder & CEO, Dr. Asima Ahmad, Co-Founder, Medicine, and Juli Insinger, Co-Founder, GrowthSan-Francisco-based provider of fertility health plans to companies. CRV led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

EverlyWell, $50 million, Series A, Julia Cheek, CEO & Co-Founder
Austin-based digital health platform that provides at-home health tests and lab results. Investors include, Goodwater Capital, Highland Capital Partners, Next Coast Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners, and SoGal Ventures. They also announced a partnership with Target to roll out its tests in more than 1,600 stores. (Website, Crunchbase)

Kids on 45th, $3.3 million, Seed, Elise Worthy, CEO
Seattle-based e-commerce reseller of gently used children’s clothing. Interesting, the company originated as a beloved brick-and-mortar store in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. Two years ago it was purchased by Elise Worthy, who also founded Ada Academy. Investors include YesVC, an early-stage firm co-founded by Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake; Maveron, SoGal Ventures, Sesame Street Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Liquid 2 VC, and Brand Foundry Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

MyVillage, $6 million, Seed, Erica Mackey, CEO & Co-Founder, and Elizabeth Szymanski, Co-Founder and CFO
Bozeman, Montana-based childcare system that works with a community of in-home childcare programs. Investors include Red Sea Ventures, Acumen, Better Ventures, and Kairos. (Website, Crunchbase)

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April Ifs

If interviewing VCs

Make them squirm for a change. Serial entrepreneur and investor T.A. McCann offers insider gold with the five questions you should ask at the beginning and end of your VC meetings. 

Hold their gaze and demand an answer to this question:

“Based on what we discussed today, on a scale of 1-10—with 10 being that you’re going to give me a term sheet with no questions on valuation—how would you score this opportunity?”

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If considering a female-forward accelerator 

The WIC: Microsoft Cloud Accelerator Program (WIC:MCAP) opened applications this week. This six-month accelerator propels cloud and AI innovations to the forefront with co-market and co-sell readiness. A.k.a. thick, juicy enterprise CONNECTIONS. 

A number of Underwire readers participated in the first WIC:MCAP cohort, covered here. Applications close on on May 15, 2019. The accelerator kicks off on June 3, 2019.

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If in need of a headshot

Get thee to a Tara Gimmer Photography studio. Tara regularly offers quick, professional headshots for $129 in her Seattle and Madison studios. As of this writing Tara had slots available on May 6, but she frequently sells out. Sign up for her emails to be notified of upcoming dates.

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If SEO is low on the to-do list

Here’s a practical overview of five SEO mistakes many startups make. Number one, get off Medium. The other recos are things you can do yourself to establish good SEO practices until you can hire a pro.

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If seeking diverse stock photos 

Two options to get accurate representation into your marketing imagery—Tonl and Broadly.

Seattle-based Tonl was co-founded by Karen Okonkwo, who recently won the peer-award at the Female Founders Alliance Champion Awards.

For trans and non-binary imagery, there's The Gender Spectrum Collection from Broadly (owned by Vice Media). The collection represents members of these communities in careers, relationships and home lives.

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Props to The Bent's Insta feed for the clever use of illustration for daily affirmations and storytelling.

If barely managing the management of people  

Since managing is such an important part of building a startup, check out The Bent, a weekly newsletter that will make you a better boss. It’s produced by Andy Anderegg and Emma Thesenvitz, who've managed and built teams into the hundreds at Groupon, zulily, Julep, Reviews.com, and more. This newsletter is funny, conversational and useful for leading teams with empathy and authority.

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Illustration by Cari Vander Yacht

If cheap, culty food sparks joy     

Get on the waitlist for the Rancho Gordo Bean Club. Once you're in, you get four shipments throughout the year with six bags of heirloom beans. Cook up a pot of beans every Sunday to fuel your lunches throughout the week. Here's The New Yorker's article (and audio version) about Rancho Gordo, which doubles as a case study in using scarcity to create brand loyalty.

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

BentoBox, $16.4 million, Series B, Krystle Mobayeni, Founder & CEO
New York-based service that helps restaurant owners build mobile-friendly websites. Threshold Ventures (formerly DFJ Venture) led the round, joined by Bullpen Capital, Haystack and Female Founders Fund. (Website, Crunchbase)

HiMama, $5.4 million, Series A, Alana Frome, Co-Founder & CTO
Toronto-based early childhood technology startup. Round 13 Capital led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

ShopBack, $45 million, Series B, Josephine Chow and Lai Shanru, Co-Founders
Singapore-based affiliate marketing startup offering cashback and consumer rewards in Asia Pacific. Rakuten Capital and EV Growth co-led the round. (Website, Crunchbase)

42 Memory Lane Hail Mary: Month Two

Wobbly landing

Welcome to month two of the 42 Memory Lane Hail Mary Series with Lynne Hannah, Founder and CEO. 

This series documents 42 Memory Lane's journey to launch Willa, the world's first digital family album. 

If you missed it, here's Lynne's last update, and an overview of the series. Last month dealt with the details of Facebook campaign development and the importance of messaging on landing pages. 

As you'll read below, Lynne and team have reached the point where a startup realizes that just because they built something doesn't mean that it will be easy to get people to buy it. Or even give up an email address to say that they're interesting in maybe one day buying it. 

Nothing about acquiring customers is easy. Never ever ever. 

You test. You tweak. Words. Colors. Design. Fonts. Images. Boldface. Exclamation points. All caps. No Caps. Words, again. More white space. Larger point size. 

You do this dozens, if not hundreds, of times to dial in the ONE call to action that tips a customer to type their email into an empty white box and click on a brightly colored button, giving you hope to keep going. 

That empty white box. So cruel. 

Now we're getting real with the insanity that is early stage customer acquisition.

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42 Memory Lane: month two

Milestones

Our Facebook ad campaigns have been in market for a little over two weeks. Campaign details: 

• We have two ad sets: Moms and Brides, with filters in each set to narrow our key demographics

• Our call-to-action (CTA) is an ask for an email address to receive more information when Willa launches on Kickstarter

• Our click-rate cost averages .29/click

In the first 16 days of the campaign, we had over 144K impressions, with a 4%-5% conversion rate to the landing pages, equally spread between the two markets. Sounds good right?

Setbacks

• One of our co–founders left. More to come on that in a future update. It’s a nuanced subject with angles about life balance, obstacles, speed and expectations. 

• Our biggest surprise, however, is that we are not converting on the landing pages. People are clicking through from the Facebook campaign but we aren’t getting email addresses. Not even close to what we need.

Key Learnings 

Running a Facebook ad campaign is not intuitive. We were lucky to have an advisor with experience in Facebook ads who stepped in to help.

Here are the highlights of our campaign:

• Our daily ad caps are $60/market/day for the two markets, Moms and Brides. 

• We set the Facebook algorithm to benefit us, not Facebook, by not putting in a total campaign spend.  

• The first 24 hours are crucial for learning about ad bids. We started with .50 ad-bid caps. We removed the caps in the first couple of hours to learn where the floor was and where we could cap in a meaningful way. 

• Our advisor continuously monitored the ups and downs on bids for the first day.

• We found that weekends are especially inexpensive for us. 

Overall, our Facebook ads have been performing well and our conversion to the landing pages is good. 

Here's a look at some of the ads...

These two Facebook ads far outperformed the others in driving clicks to the landing page. We believe it's because of the humor, and that these are the kind of moments you most want to save and remember.

These ads did not do well. Too generic? Too weird? Who knows.

We had two Bride ads from the beginning. The other one didn’t pull at all and this one is doing so well we never launched another to try and beat it.

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And now for the maddening part....

We're missing the goal on our landing pages. We have thousands of landing page hits, but only 30 emails. Arghh!

We’ve tested different headlines, different graphics, different order of graphics, different CTAs, (I love this…I want this…Sign up for a huge discount…Get $50 off… be the first to know when we Kickstart…).

We’ve tested clean and minimal designs, and designs with more detail. 

Despite all the iterations, it's been crickets.

I even called the tech guys at Wix (our landing page host) to make sure the contact form is working.

There have been so many tests on the landing pages that it's hard to choose which ones to share. Here are a few of the most recent...

Messaging around saving time with a CTA of HUGE discount.

Messaging around ease, also with a CTA of HUGE discount.

Messaging around saving your sanity, CTA of $50 off upon launch.

For Brides we anchored on adding video to their wedding album.

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So why aren't the landing pages converting?

Willa is an entirely new product category with a multi-pronged solution. We knew we would have a challenge messaging what the product does in a concise, easily digestible way.

Our experience in testing and focus groups has always been: 

Woman Tester,  “Does it do this, this, this, this and this?"

Us, "Yes, it does all that. And also this." 

Woman Tester, "OMG I want it!” 

It's never been a quick, one line benefit payoff. It takes some explaining.  

We look like “another device to be managed” when the user doesn’t have the benefit of a direct interaction. We’re a left turn into a world that’s easier.

It may be that the immediacy and single dimension of a landing-page experience just can’t convey the benefits to a harried mom or bride.

Google Analytics furthers the mystery showing a bounce rate after spending 1:30 minutes on the landing page. So visitors are looking, and watching the videos, but the CTA isn’t compelling to them. 

Next steps. 

Because we aren’t hitting the desired metrics, we’re pulling the Mom and Bride campaigns and plan to test our third potential market, Baby Boomers.

The Baby Boomer demographic needs a place and a way to organize newly digitized content (old photos, albums, film, slides etc.) to tell their life story, organize old memories, etc.

We’ll give the Baby Boomer Facebook campaign one week. If its crickets like this campaign…time to pivot to another strategy (or retire 😬). 

Ask. 

Underwire encouraged us to reach out to readers. If you have an idea or thought about how to optimize our landing pages, please email me.

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Catch up on the beginning of this series here. Lynne talks about setting up the Facebook campaigns (and their pesky algorithms), team assignments and the challenges of landing page messaging.

Weekly Female Founder Funding Update

Blume, $3.3 million, Seed, Bunny Ghatrora and Taran Ghatrora, Co-Founders and C-Level Execs
Vancouver, B.C.-based female hygiene and wellness subscription box service. Felicis Ventures led the round, joined by investors including Victress Capital. (Website, Crunchbase)

Cora, $7.5 million, Series A1, Molly Hayward, Co-Founder
San Francisco-based women’s wellness brand delivering organic tampons and elegant accessories. Harbinger Ventures led the round. Notably, Cora has 80% female board representation. (Website, Crunchbase)

Elvie, $42 million, Series B, Tania Boler, Co-Founder and CEO
London-based health and lifestyle brand developing technology for women (breast pumps). IPGL CEO Michael Spencer led the round, joined by Octopus Ventures and Impact Ventures UK. (Website, Crunchbase)

NextGen Jane, $9 million, Series A, Ridhi Tariyal, Founder
San Francisco-based women’s health tech startup. Material Impact led the round, joined by Access Industries, Viking Global Investors and Liminal Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Nutrafol, $35 million, Series B, Dr. Sophia Kogan, Co-founder, Chief Medical Advisor
New York-based health and beauty nutraceutical brand that aims to improve hair growth performance. L Catterton led the round, joined by investors including Unilever Ventures. (Website, Crunchbase)

Good Dog, $6.7 million, Series Unknown, Lauren McDevitt, Co-Founder, Chief Experience Officer
New York City-based marketplace to allow people to get a dog from a breeder, shelter or rescue. Investors include BoxGroup, Felicis, Slow Ventures, Fuel Capital, BarkBox, and SV Angel. (Website, Crunchbase)