Podcast appearances and mentions of susan lyne

To find out more about fractional leaders: https://jhammer-edtech.com/Follow Debbie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbiegoodman1/Follow Susan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/slyne/

My guest today is Nisha Dua, a Managing Partner at BBG Ventures, which she Co-Founded with Susan Lyne in 2014. BBG Ventures is an early-stage fund backing female founders with big ideas that will reshape the way we live.  Links https://www.bbgventures.com/  https://ifundwomen.com/ https://helloalice.com/ https://www.strictlyvc.com/  https://www.axios.com/  Join the waitlist for the event connecting thousands of female founders IRL: www.femalefounderworld.com  Shownotes (05:30): Should you actually be raising money for your business?   (08:20): The different types of funding sources for founders.   (10:40): How to get introduced to investors.   (15:30): Financial capital vs human capital and relationship capital.   (17:30): What makes a successful founder.   (20:30): Preparing for a pitch meeting.   (23:00): What startups are hot right now?  

On this week's episode, Liz talks with Susan Lyne – The Career Legend. Susan's resume reads like the magazine cover story of someone who you want to be…. from her early days dropping out of UC Berkeley, to her work on a magazine with Francis Ford Coppola, to greenlighting Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives while at ABC, to being the CEO at Gilt Group (one of the first online shopping and lifestyle websites featuring designer clothing).  But, she says the legacy she leaves for her daughters will be what she's doing today… founding and running Built By Girls Ventures, an early-stage fund backing female founders. And, to top all that off, she's a Forbes 50 over 50 Impact winner! Join Liz for this discussion with the fabulous Susan Lyne.

Thank you Deb Benton for introducing me to our guest today Nisha Dua , co-founder and General Partner at BBG Ventures . BBG Ventures is an early-stage fund backing big ideas that will reshape the way we live. One of the first episodes of this podcast was with Susan Lyne, who is the other co-founder of BBG and Susan graciously accepted to come on the show without knowing who I was when the podcast hadn't even been released yet so I am VERY grateful to the BBG. Some of their investments include Zola, Blueland, Real, and Zero Grocery. Nisha and I discuss the opportunities within health and wellness, climate friendly consumption, and solving problems for the 99%. Some of the questions I ask her: What was your initial attraction to venture capital? How did you meet Susan Lyne? How did BBG Ventures come together? What are some of your themes or areas of focus? How do you evaluate founders and teams? What are characteristics about consumers that might be nuanced or not everyone understands? What are the proof points? How do you think about price in this current market? How do you think about your role as an investor? Has COVID changed any of your thoughts on your investment themes? How do you think about price in the market Consumption change FOMO timelines and price What's one thing you would change about venture capital? I know there are no silver What has been your lowest moment in your journey and how did you get out of it? What's one book that inspired you professionally and one book that inspired you personally? What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?

Presented by Ferret: Ferret is the first relationship intelligence tool for all business savvy investors to know, for the first time, who they can trust Click Here to jump to the top of the waitlist. Presented by Gorgias: Gorgias is the #1 helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce stores, and can turn your customer support into a profit center.If you're looking to increase your retention for your business, mention Consumer VC and get 2 months of Gorgias for free. Head Here to get started. Thank you Susan Lyne for the introduction to our guest today, Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos. Bonobos was one of the first digitally native brands to exist. They eventually sold to Walmart for over $300 million. In this episode, Andy shares the founding journey of Bonobos, how he thinks about the current state of digitally native brands and a clue about what he's up to next. Without further ado, here's Andy. Some of the questions I ask Andy: What was your initial attraction to entrepreneurship? You started Bonobos at Stanford. How did you meet your co-founder Brian Spaly? Did you have other business ideas? How did you land on pants? What was the insight? What was the customer feedback? What was first step for testing out this idea? Why did you decide to move the business to New York instead of staying the bay have access to tech talent? How did you find your first customers and gain early momentum? We talk on this podcast about doing things that don't scale in the early days. What were some of the activities you did that wouldn't have scaled? When did you decide to sell online? When did you decide to raise capital? Who was your first investor? What are the aspects of Bonobos that resonated with them? Who was your target customer? How were you able to get to your customer? Why did you decide to move the company to New York? Why weren't you ready for a Series A? Was it hard to recruit tech talent in New York? How did you approach hiring? How were you able to attract talent? How did you build culture? How did you approach growth vs. profitability? When did you decide (if you decided) to focus on profitability? Didn't know how to build the tech stack? How did you approach hiring tech talent? When and how did you develop the concept for guideshops? What was your omnichannel strategy? What was your approach to leadership? When and how did you develop the concept for guideshops? What was your omnichannel strategy? When was the moment when you knew the trajectory of Bonobos was looking good? What was your approach to leadership? When did you decide to do paid marketing? What were some of the challenges and trials you had to face while you were building Bonobos? What were some of the mistakes that you made during Bonobos? What was the process like selling to Walmart? I know you also invest as well. How do you describe the current landscape of DNVBs?How do you evaluate brands and founders? What's one thing you would change about the fundraising process? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What's one piece of advice that you have for founders currently building? What are you currently working on?

Nisha Dua Takin' Care of Lady Business with Jennifer Justice Episode 003: Raising Money: Find Your Superpower Nisha's career path isn't entirely linear, but she's always ended up where she was meant to be. A former M&A lawyer, and management consultant at Bain, she joined Susan Lyne in 2013 to run strategy & operations for the AOL Brand Group. As her side hustle she opted to run AOL's millennial celebrity gossip site, indulging a passion for content & social. In 2015, she founded BUILT BY GIRLS, harnessing the power of software and the crowd to make professionals in tech accessible to girls all across the country – and along the way, finding inspiration for what would become BBG Ventures.   Listen to this information-packed Takin' Care of Lady Business episode about the challenges that Nisha had to overcome to get to where she is today.   Here is what to expect on this week's show: Ways in which the average consumer profile has changed over the years, and how venture capital is using that information for more targeted solutions Understanding female consumers not as a monolith, but as a complex and intersectional group of individuals What Nisha looks for in a business when investing Nisha's advice for female small business owners The worst advice Nisha ever received   Connect with Nisha WEBSITE: https://www.bbgventures.com/ LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisha-dua-5aa87914/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Nish67 EMAIL:hello@bbgventures.com         Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's show, BBG Ventures co-Founder and Managing Partner Susan Lyne speaks with LionTree & Kindred Media Executive in Residence Ariel Wengroff. BBGV is one of the most active investors in female-founded companies in the US. Susan's wealth of experience in the media and e-commerce space - which spans legendary New York City alt weekly the Village Voice through pioneering roles with Gilt Groupe, AOL and ABC Entertainment - has given her a unique perspective on which businesses and leaders to bet on. Tune in for keen insight on what the post-Covid venture space looks like.Find and rate KindredCast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. For more content, follow KindredCast on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You can hear our radio show on SiriusXM Business Radio, channel 132 and on United Airlines. And you can find all of Kindred Media's podcasts and subscribe to our daily newsletter, “Take a Break with Kindred Media,” here (http://www.kindredmedia.com).Please read before listening: http://www.liontree.com/podcast-notices.html

Nisha Dua is a General Partner at BBG Ventures, which she co-founded with Susan Lyne in 2014. BBG Ventures is an NYC-based seed fund investing in consumer tech start-ups with a focus on women and underrepresented founders. Nisha believes the greatest untapped opportunity for venture capital lies in backing women who are using technology to address common life-challenges and transform daily habits. Women are the dominant users of the fastest-growing mobile and social platforms, and they make or influence 85% of consumer purchases. Nisha has invested in over 70 start-ups, including a few that you may know such as Zola, The Sill, Carbon38, and Lola.In addition to her work at BBG Ventures, she founded BUILT BY GIRLS, a platform that encourages young women to enter tech by introducing them to opportunities, practical skills, and a network of women in the industry. But before all of that, Nisha explored a variety of careers from being a singer, actress, lawyer, and consultant. In our interview, we’ll talk to Nisha about how to make career transitions in your life, incredible advice about raising money for your business and common mistakes too many entrepreneurs make. In this episode, we'll talk to Nisha about: * Nisha opens up about her upbringing with Indian parents & how their expectations academically impacted her early career [2:51]* Nisha shares tips on how to make big career leaps & why she decided to leave law [9:06]* After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Nisha discusses why she had to make a career change & re-evaluate what success looks like [16:12]* How Nisha gained the confidence to take on a new opportunity in business despite having no “formal” experience [23:54]* How a business she was running led her to founding BUILT BY GIRLS [27:36]* How Nisha’s varied career path led her to venture capital and launching her own fund [33:22]* Nisha explains how founders should think about raising money & why venture capital isn’t for everyone [39:07]* After seeing over 7,000 pitches, Nisha explains key themes that make a great founder [44:38]* How to think about storytelling when you’re a founder and why it’s critical in your business [51:22]Follow Nisha:* BBG Ventures Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bbgventures/* BBG Ventures Website: https://www.bbgventures.com/* Built By Girls Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/builtbygirls/* Built By Girls Website: https://www.builtbygirls.com/Follow Yasmin:* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yasminknouri/* Stay updated & subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.behindherempire.com/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman discusses the launch of the mobile-only streaming entertainment platform. She also talks about how media, politics and work will all change as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Susan Lyne, Founder and Managing Partner at BBG Ventures, discusses how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the startup world. She explains why streaming media is doing well and talks about the tech, commerce and services companies in her portfolio. Hosts: Carol Massar and Jason Kelly. Producer: Doni Holloway.

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman discusses the launch of the mobile-only streaming entertainment platform. She also talks about how media, politics and work will all change as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Susan Lyne, Founder and Managing Partner at BBG Ventures, discusses how the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the startup world. She explains why streaming media is doing well and talks about the tech, commerce and services companies in her portfolio. Hosts: Carol Massar and Jason Kelly. Producer: Doni Holloway. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Hosted by Carol Massar and Jason Kelly. Featuring an in-depth conversation with Susan Lyne, Founder of BBG Ventures and former ABC Entertainment President.

Hosted by Carol Massar and Jason Kelly. Featuring an in-depth conversation with Susan Lyne, Founder of BBG Ventures and former ABC Entertainment President. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Founders: Anu Duggal, Female Founders Fund, Banu Guler, Co-Star cofounder, Susan Lyne, BBG Ventures president, KJ Miller, Mented Cosmetics See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Susan Lyne’s career isn’t easy to Skimm. She grew up in Boston, and after going to college for a while, decided to skip school and get straight into her career. Susan was a journalist. Then she switched into entertainment, and even started her own magazine. Since then, she’s been an exec at major companies like Gilt, AOL, Martha Stewart, and ABC. Meaning, yes, you can thank her for “Grey’s Anatomy.” In 2014, Susan made another change: she started her own venture capital firm to invest in companies with female founders. It’s called BBG – Built By Girls. On the couch, she talks to us about networking (cough, stalking) your way to the career you want, prioritizing your time, and why introverts make great leaders.

Susan Lyne and Nisha Dua are the Founding Partners of BBG - Built By Girls - Ventures, A Venture Capital firm that focuses on women founders and women-led startups. Their story truly defies what comes to mind when you think of VC’s. In this two-part episode, Susan, Nisha, and I had so much to talk about. From the unconventional way that their partnership began, to incredible advice about raising money and common mistakes too many entrepreneurs make. Tons of great tips for anyone on how to get out there and crush it like a girl.

Susan Lyne and Nisha Dua are the Founding Partners of BBG - Built By Girls - Ventures, A Venture Capital firm that focuses on women founders and women-led startups. Their story truly defies what comes to mind when you think of VC’s. Susan and Nisha sat down with me this week and we had so much to talk about. From the unconventional way that their partnership began, to their struggles raising capital with a mission, and they gave me tons of great advice on how to get out there and crush it like a girl.

Susan Lyne dropped out of college and lived in a commune. She wrote for magazines and founded her own movie magazine. She green-lighted Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and The Bachelor while leading ABC Entertainment. She led Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia while Martha was in prison. She led Gilt Groupe to financial success during the recession. And she's now helping female founders through a fund called Built by Girls, or BBG. On this episode of "Success! How I Did It," Lyne spoke with Business Insider's senior strategy reporter Richard Feloni about how she's made an impact on a wide range of industries.

There’s been a lot of debate and controversy around the lack of women and minorities being represented in tech companies from entry-level to the C-suite and board room. However, what isn’t showcased is how there is sisterhood within tech, where women are helping each other out, and enacting change at every level from schools to the board room. To talk about how women are investing and encouraging each other, I’ve invited Samantha Walravens who is the co-author of the new book Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech. If you’re a woman, minority, or male ally you’ll learn from Samantha how: Women like Maria Klawe at Harvey Mudd have tripled the number of women graduating with Computer Science degrees Women are connecting female founders to female angel investors and influencers to grow their startups Corporations are changing and disrupting the dynamics of the boardroom   This is the last episode of FemgineerTV but don’t worry it’s not the end... After hosting FemgineerTV and listening to audience members like you for the past 2 ½ years, myself and my sponsor Pivotal Tracker decided it was time for a fun format! Starting next month, I’m going to be launching a new show called Build. I think you’ll enjoy the new format for Build. Each week you’ll receive a short video on a topic to help you build a product, company, and career in tech. So stay tuned for the launch of Build :) Want to help us get the word out about Build? Please take a moment to leave a review on iTunes here. If you’ve never left a review, here is a quick tutorial on how to do. -- Poornima: Welcome to another episode of *Femgineer TV*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker, I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker, the founder of Femgineer.                                 In this show, I invite innovators in tech, and together we debunk myths and misconceptions related to building tech products and companies.                                 One of the most heated topics today is the lack of women and minorities represented in tech; from entry level, to the C suite, to the board room. While we all know this is already a problem, in today's episode, we're going to be talking about some of the solutions, and showing how there are companies and organizations enacting these solutions.                                 And to help us out, I've invited Samantha Walravens, who is the coauthor of the latest book, *Geek Girl Rising: Inside The Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech*. Thanks so much for joining us today, Samantha.   Samantha: Thanks for having me!   Poornima: Yeah, it's wonderful.                                 Let's start by talking about why you and your coauthor, Heather Cabot, decided to write this book.   Sharing The Unspoken Narrative of Women In Technology   Samantha: The inspiration for this book was a conversation I had about three years ago with a friend of mine, who's been in Silicon Valley for 20 years. She's a woman, she's the VP of sales in business development, and she's worked in a number of tech startups, and we were having coffee, and she said, "Sam, I cannot tell you what just happened in my performance group review, it was last week, and my manager commented on what I was wearing, the color of my dresses, the jewelry I wore, and he told me that I was too aggressive, and too bossy, and I needed to tone it down a bit." Meanwhile, she is the head of sales, and she was rocking her number out of the park. So she said, "Sam, you've got to write something." She knew I was a journalist. She said, "You've got to write something and you have to talk about this kind of discrimination and this kind of sexism in Silicon Valley."                                 Mind you this is before the *Newsweek* article came out, "What does Silicon Valley really think of women," people were discussing women in technology, but it really was not a top of mind—and so I started to do a little digging, and researching and interviewing women. And what I found was, yes, there's sexism, there is harassment, there's discrimination, there's unconscious bias, it's there, it's a problem we need to talk about it and deal with it.                                 But there was another narrative, another discussion that wasn't being told, which was: these women want to talk about the companies they were building, the technologies they were creating, the women who are supporting them and helping them along the way in their careers. There was this whole other narrative that was missing from the conversation that was happening in the national news media about sexism in Silicon Valley.                                 And I thought, "we have to discuss this." So, Heather Cabot, who's my coauthor, was in New York, I'm in San Francisco, we talked, and she said, "Sam, I've been researching this topic," it was kind of a coincidence, it was like one of those weird moments of weird fate. And she said, "I've been researching this topic, let's work together." So we put our heads together and we just started digging into the topic, and it's been three years now, and finally the book is coming out!   The Sisterhood That Is Supporting Women In Tech in Silicon Valley And Beyond   Poornima: So one thing I experienced early on in my career, and it keeps me motivated, is the women who inspired me. So, early on, when I was a college student in engineering school, I had a professor, and she had twins, and she was doing her research, and she was teaching, and she was leading the department, and I thought, "If she could do it, I could do it." And as I was reading the book, I noticed the theme of the sisterhood kind of coming up again and again.                                 Tell us how you discovered this theme as you started writing or as you were doing your research.   Samantha: Of course. Well, I too had a mentor back in my Silicon Valley days when I worked for a software startup during the dotcom boom in 1998 to about 2003, so I saw the dotcom boom and the bust happen, I was living through it, our company went public, stock went to 130, then went down to two, so I lived and breathed the dotcom boom and bust.                                 My manager/boss at that point was Carol Carpenter, who has since gone on to become—she was the CEO, actually CMO of ClearSlide and then CEO of ElasticBox, so she's a prominent woman in Silicon Valley, and she really pulled me up. She really, when I was lacking confidence, and I thought, "I can't do this," I'd just had my baby, my first baby, we were going public, and I thought, "I can't do this, this is crazy." We're working 24/7 and I have a newborn at home. She was the one who said, "Sam, you can do it, you can do it." And having that kind of mentorship and that kind of woman who was going through it herself pulling me up, really encouraged me.                                 So as we were researching the book, we started noticing these pockets around the startup universe, women who were supporting each other, investing in each other, encouraging each other in their careers and inspiring the next generation of girls and young women to pursue technology and continue their careers in technology.   Encouraging The Next Generation of Women To Consider Careers In Tech   Poornima: Yeah, that's great. I think you're absolutely right, that is a narrative that's missing from the media and more women need to know that that's out there as well, so that they don't feel like all there is is just what the media portrays.                                 Now, the first place that you write about change happening is at the primary school up to the high school level, so walk us through what that looks like.   Samantha: Well, fortunately, before Obama left office, he did create an initiative, a $4 billion initiative called "Computer Science for All" that is encouraging and putting funds towards creating computer science curriculum in schools throughout the country. I was so excited to read about Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, in the Chicago public schools now, computer science is a requirement for all high schools in Chicago. So I think we're going to see more of that.                                 When you look at the numbers, though, we still have a long way to go, cause 25% of high schools in the U.S. offer computer science, I think it's like 22% of girls, of students taking the computer science AP exam are girls, so we still have a long way to go.                                 What we noticed, though, it's sort of this grassroots movement of women who are encouraging the younger generations to start building, to start creating, to start coding. For example, we start our book talking about Debbie Sterling, who's the founder and the CEO of Goldie Blocks, and she's got this great—I have two little girls, we have it at home, it's a great toy that encourages girls to build, and there's a really fun, positive role model, Goldie, who builds a spinning machine and she has all these sorts of engineering—you wouldn't even know it's engineering, it's really just building Ferris wheels and building merry-go-rounds and all these fun things, along with the story, talking about Goldie and her friends, and how she's building these different fun games and amusement park rides. We have that in our household.                                 These are the kinds of things that women are doing to try to inspire the next generation. There is a woman in our book who started a company called Bitcode, she's actually working with the public schools to get them to use video to teach girls how to code. So if you have kids you know that they're on video, they're on YouTube, and they're really tech savvy. I have four kids, they can get around YouTube, and iMovie, and they're all over it. So, this tool is used in the public schools, to teach coding, using videos, to make it fun.   How Colleges Are Changing The Ratio Of Women Graduating With Computer Science Degrees Poornima: It's great, yeah, it's good to see these grassroots efforts, so that even if there is kind of a gap in terms of change for public schools or the school system in general, there's ways in which parents and teachers can supplement that.                                 So, the next place in which a lot of women and minorities drop off is at the college level, tell us who's working on changing that.   Samantha: Well, we had the most amazing experience at Grace Hopper in 2015. I believe you were there, and Heather and I, my coauthor and I went, and just to see, I think it was 12,000 women there in computing, and it is a true celebration. And to see the enthusiasm and the excitement and the bonding between these young women, it was so encouraging.                                 When you look at specific colleges, there's a lot being done to encourage more women in to pursue technology and computer science. I met with Maria Klawe, who's the president of Harvey Mudd, and wow! What a firecracker she is, she skateboards around campus, she's just a really fun, wonderful woman, and she implemented a program along with her colleagues a few years ago, where there are two tracks for computer science, so as a freshman you can take the gold track or the black track.                                 The gold track is for students who have not had any computer science experience in high school; the black track is for students who've had some experience. So, by doing this, the students who have not had experience don't feel so impostered, they don't have the confidence cause no one's had this experience, so they get through this year and I spoke to a couple of students who have taken these classes, and they say that by the end of the year, everyone's pretty much at the same level.                                 So, she, Maria Klawe, and her team has tripled the number of women graduating with computer science degrees at Harvey Mudd in the past ten years, and the number is, I hate to throw in all these numbers, cause they get little mind boggling at times, but 55% of the computer science graduates at Harvey Mudd are now women.   Poornima: That's great, it's a nice change to—the numbers go up.   Samantha: There's also Stanford. Another example of what's going on to encourage women to pursue computer science is Stanford University, of course a top institution, but they have a Women in Tech group called She++, which was started by Ayna Agarwal, and who was not even a computer science major by the way, but she started this group to encourage women and they had a Gala, every year, which gathers all the women in technology, not just Stanford. What they do is they go out into the communities and they take on high school students in different communities around the country and they support these young high school girls to start programs in their communities. For example, I live out in Marin County, and there is a girl who started a robotics happy schooler box program in Marin City, which is an underserved community in Marin County, and she runs this afterschool program in Marin City.                                 So all of these girls around the country who are starting these programs through She++ gather together for this gala, and I am telling you, if you could be there to see these college women, these high school girls who came, they were dressed to the nines, they were glamorous, I mean, talk about debunking the myths and breaking stereotypes about what a woman in tech looks like, I mean, we could have been in an LA nightclub, not to sound like—but they were so beautiful and wonderful and smart and excited to talk about their programs, and they were so excited to be in technology. And again, this is why Heather and I said, "This is a story that no one sees," you don't see this kind of enthusiasm around technology, you see, "Oh, it's so hard, numbers are dropping, it's all doom and gloom." And so we really wanted to tell that other story.   The Angel Investors And Others Who Are Supporting Female Founders   Poornima: OK. That brings us back to industry, and I know there's a lot going on at the corporate level, as well as startups. I'm of course partial to startups, so let's start there and talk about how the ecosystem is changing for women and minorities.   Samantha: There's a lot of momentum behind supporting female founders. For example, there are accelerator programs like the Women Startup Lab, which is down here at Menlo Park; there's MergeLane, which is in Colorado; there's The Refinery in Connecticut. These programs focus on female founders, and really giving them the tools, the skills they need to grow their company into a venture, fundable company. And they give the tools to learn how to pitch venture capitalists, and we all know the venture capital world is very male dominated.   Poornima: Yeah, it is a challenge. I know I've had my fair share of doing the fundraising.                                 So, there's a very common problem around women and minorities getting up and pitching their business to VCs, either male VCs not getting their idea, or they don't think it's a big enough market, or there's a lot of unconscious bias around it, so how are women getting their training to get over all of that?   Samantha: Well, you've started a company, so you know what it's like. The founders that we've met, that I've met in my journey with this book, are so passionate about their idea. But you can have an idea, and it's not going to go anywhere—you have to have the product market fit, you have to test the idea, you have to build your team out—and so these programs are really teaching women what they need to do to get to that level, to actually pitch to investors. But when you look at the numbers, I think it's 10% of the venture funding, globally, goes to female founders—it's still a really small percentage.                                 We've also noticed that there's women who are angels. So angel investors who fund companies at the early stages—for example, Joanne Wilson, aka Gotham Gal, who has a tremendous momentum in New York City, who has invested in a number of really great companies; Caren Maio, Nestio, Shanna Tellerman, Modsy—she finds these women, who have ideas that are big, that are scalable, and she nurtures them, and she's like the fairy godmother to these women. And there are other women that we talk about, we'd had to read the book to learn about all of them, but there are women who really take these female founders under their wing and support them on their journey.   Poornima: I think it's great that there are women like Joanne Wilson out there. Do you have a sense of how many companies she's invested in?   Samantha: Joanne Wilson has invested in around a hundred companies, and they're doing fantastic. One of them, Shanna Tellerman, started the company Modsy, which is an immersive, 3D environment for home décor, home design, and she told us that she created this project called “The Pinnacle Project,” at Park City, Utah, and it was Wednesday through Sunday, I think. And she invited Joanne, and Susan Lyne, and a bunch of angel investors, as well as a number of female founders, to come gather, network, ski, and have fun, and she said it was funny, because all the women were thinking, "We should be home, we should be working, we should be with the kids, we have so much to do," and she said she had to tell and remind people that, "This is what the guys do. They have a boys call and they pick off and it's all about business, whereas women don't have that sense of, “Let's go out to ski, or golf,” and that kind of networking, so it was an example of this pinnacle project, which is going to happen recurring every year, of, "OK, women, we can get together, have fun together, network, introduce each other to investors and influencers, and have fun while we're doing it. It's OK."   Poornima: Yeah. That's fantastic. And I think another thing you had mentioned pipeline ventures, or pipeline angels?   Samantha: Pipeline angels, yes, yes. Natalia Oberti Noguera is a force of nature and she started this angel investing group for women and I went through it and Heather went through it. I did it in San Francisco, Heather did it in New York, and basically it's a training, it's a bootcamp or a training program for women who are credited investors, to learn how to invest in female and minority-led companies. So it walked us through the process of how do you set evaluation on a company, what do you look for in a startup that you're investing in, what kind of traits you want to look for in the team, what's going to make this a good investment. So it trains women to invest as angels, and then you actually make an investment at the end.                                 We made an investment in a great startup—which I believe is still hush hush, underground at this point—but I believe we made a great investment and we're following the course of these early stage female founders, and it's really her goal to change the face of angel investing, to increase the amount of money going towards these early stage female founders.   Poornima: As we were doing research for your book and when I was reading it, I noticed that there was some astonishing findings, like only 11 companies that were founded by African-American women have received funding over a million dollars. So walk us through who is working to change this.   Samantha: Well, that number has actually increased, it's now 13 companies that have received more than a million dollars, but the numbers are still really low. One woman who is really on top of this problem is Kathryn Finney, who is the founder of DigitalUndivided, which is an organization whose main purpose is to increase the number of women, minorities in the tech world, latino women, and black women founders, and she just recently launched an accelerator, in Atlanta, Georgia, called the Big Innovation Center, and I think their first cohort is gathering this year to help skill up and prepare these minority founders to raise money.   How Tech Companies Are Growing Up And Changing How The Nature of Work   Poornima: So let's switch gears, and talk about corporations. We previously had Lisen Stromberg on the show, talking about the changes that were happening for parents—what have you seen?   Samantha: Well, what we've noticed is that Silicon Valley is growing up. They are trading in their ping-pong tables and foosball tables for nursing rooms, which is inspiring to see. When I started out, I had my Medela Pump in Style in a cold bathroom out of the courtyard of our startup, so it wasn't pretty, but we spent a day at Eventbrite not too long ago, and Julia Hartz, who's now the CEO of Eventbrite, it's very focused on woman, developing women in leadership positions and allowing for work-life balance. And I say that word, “work-life balance,” a term that is loaded, what she's trying to do with that company is focus on the whole person, not just the employee self.                                 For example, they have a program called “Take the time you need.” So if you need time to care for a child or to care for an adult, you can work from home, you can take time off, so she's really interested in her employees, and telling her employees, "You can do what you need to do, so you can live a life and you can be an employee."                                 And she also tells the women who are having babies at her company, she says, "You know what? You can get through the first six to nine months," it gets a lot easier, because a lot of women when they have their babies early on, they think, “I can't leave this poor creature alone with a daycare with a babysitter,” and she says, “If you can just get through that”—she's got two little girls herself—”If you can just get through that time, stick with it, come back, and we will support you while you're doing it,” which is fantastic.   Poornima: You also showcase companies like Power to Fly. Walk us through what Power to Fly is.   Samantha: Yeah, Power to Fly was started by Milena Berry and Katharine Zaleski. Katharine actually wrote an article apologizing to all the mothers out there. Before she had children, she was a little bit judgemental of mothers taking time off and having to leave work early, and then she had her first baby and she thought, "Oh, my gosh, this is really hard," so she and Milena got together and started this company, Power to Fly, which connects women with remote and flexible job positions, so they can actually care for their family and pursue careers in technology. The great thing about technology is that it can be done remotely. Especially if you're in coding, you don't have to be in an office 24/7, so Power to Fly works on that.                                 Another great program is Tina Lee started a program called MotherCoders, and she's based in San Francisco, a fabulous woman, her program retrains mothers in tech skills, so they can go off and they can—either they've taken time off or they have background in some other field, they can skill up in technology, and go out and get the tremendous amount of jobs that are available in technology as they get back to work.   Disrupting The Boardroom   Poornima: Well, that brings us to the boardroom, so walk us through what changes are happening there.   Samantha: The number of women holding board seats in our country is still very, very low, I think the number is 18% of board seats at Fortune 500 companies are held by women. So we still have a long way to go.                                 One real pioneer in this area is a woman, her name is Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, she's fabulous, she is the CEO and founder of a company called Joyus, a tech company, and she, a few years ago penned an article called "Tech Women Choose Possibility." And she really wanted to profile the women in Silicon Valley, in the startup world, who are doing great things, just founding great companies. There was a lot of positive response to that article, and so she created an organization called #choosepossibility.                                 Part of that organization is a group called, or an initiative called "The Boardlist." And basically it's a matchmaking tool that matches qualified, board-ready women with startup, tech companies, looking to fill board seats with women, so she made that happen, and they placed three women on the board, which it seems like it's very low, but what they're doing is they're connecting the VCs and the startup companies with these women, and a lot more placements have been made not directly through the platform, but just through the connections that have been made on this platform.   Poornima: OK, great, so it's good to know that there is some change happening at the board level as well.                                 Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Samantha, I know our viewers out there are going to enjoy reading your book, *Geek Girl Rising*. And for our viewers who are women, minority, and allies, is there anything else you would like to share with them in terms of resources?   Samantha: Yeah. I would love to see everybody come to our website. We have a gazillion resources on how you can join the digital revolution, just take a peek.   Poornima: Thanks for tuning in today and special thanks to our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker, for their help in producing this episode of *Femgineer TV*. If you've enjoyed this episode, then please be sure to share it with your friends, your teammates, your boss, and everyone so that they get to benefit from all the great resources, and subscribe to our channel to receive the next episode.                                Ciao for now! -- FemgineerTV is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.

Susan Lyne has had one of the most extraordinary careers of anyone in corporate America in the past 30 years. Currently the founder and President of BBG Ventures (more on that below), Lyne served as CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia during the time Martha Stewart was in jail. Before that, she held various positions at the Disney and ABC, including President of ABC Entertainment. Lyne gave the greenlight to shows like Desperate Housewives, Lost, Grey’s Anatomy and The Bachelor, but was fired from ABC before any of those huge hits made it to air. In this episode of Fortune Unfiltered, Lyne discusses her public dismissal from Disney, losing her husband to cancer, the key to starting over in her career (many times) and her current endeavor, an early-stage investment fund for women-led startups. Funded by AOL, BBG Ventures sprung out of the #BuiltByGirls movement, which - by the way - Lyne helped launch as CEO of AOL’s Brand Group.

Susan Lyne has been on the front end of consumer trends in media since the early days of her career. From starting a magazine about movies when VCRs first hit the market, to giving Shonda Rhimes her first nod at ABC, to taking the helm at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia at the time Martha Stewart went to prison, to leading the rapid rise at Gilt, and now making investments in women-led startups with AOL's BBG (Built By Girls) Ventures. How does Susan stay relevant and ahead? We would be surprised at the amount of TV she watches, she plays games when they come out, she works with 1-2 young people who keep her up to date on trends, and she spends 30 minutes a day alone with pen and paper thinking strategically. Awesome candor and self-awareness from Susan about her extraordinary journey.

Does unconscious bias affect the language we use when talking about startups and founders? This week on BroadMic Bonus Cuts, listen to Heidi Messer & Susan Lyne about… Their fascinating (and different!) takes on Reid Hoffman's quote about what he looks for in an entrepreneur: “I look to see if someone has a marine strategy, for taking the beach; an army strategy, for taking the country; and a police strategy, for governing the country afterward.” Their practical tips and inside info on what they look for in an entrepreneur’s pitch deck Susan Lyne's view on the critical difference between thought leaders and influencers. Notes Tomorrow's Advance Man by Tad Friend, The New Yorker LinkedIn's Series B Pitch to Greylock: Pitch Advice for Entrepreneurs, Reidhoffman.org Quantifying Silicon Valley’s Diversity Issue by Jessi Hempel, Wired These 10 Male Executives Are Committing to Reach Gender Parity in 5 Years by Valentina Zarya, Fortune Additional Reading Startups Serving The 99 Percent Will Be the Next Billion-Dollar Companies by Hans Tung, TechCrunch Lessons From The Early Pitch Decks Of Airbnb, BuzzFeed, And YouTube by Linda Dishman, Fast Company Marc Andreessen: How to address diversity in tech, Fortune video The Network Man: Reid Hoffman’s big idea by Nicholas Leman, The New Yorker Lessons From A Study of Perfect Pitch Decks: VCs Spend An Average of 3 Minutes, 44 Seconds On Them by Kim-Mai Cutler, TechCrunch 8 things you should never, ever include in a pitch deck by Scott Gerber, TNW Positioning Your Startup is Vital — Here’s How to Nail It by Arielle Jackson, First Round Review How to Write a Great Business Plan: Competitive Analysis by Jeff Haden, Inc. The Official Definitions of Seed, Series A, and Series B Rounds by Jason Calacanis Guest bios & transcripts are available on www.broadmic.com.

Our guest today has a “golden” resume, notably for the ease with which she crossed the Internet 2.0 digital divide, while at the helm of some of the largest brands in media, commerce and consumer products - Disney, ABC, Gilt and AOL. Susan Lyne is now founder and president of Built by Girls Ventures, aka BBG Ventures, a corporate VC fund investing in early stage, female-led businesses with consumer, tech-enabled products. In this fireside chat, Susan talks about “why the time is now” to invest in female founders, a conviction born out of decades of observing women’s powerful role as consumers, yet she points to a disturbing disconnect: the still “shockingly low” amount of VC $$s being invested in female-led companies. You’ll hear what she has to say about... how to look for mentors, whether it makes sense to go for VC $$s or not, and why you may be shooting yourself in the foot if you are a solo founder. Listen if you want to hear Susan Lyne’s unique blend of inspiration and practical wisdom for today’s “happy warrior.” Notes Female Founders Outperform Their Male Peers First Round Lola Tampons Media Redef NYT Morning Briefing Re/code theSkimm The Wright Brothers by David McCullough, iBooks Cheerful Money by Tad Friend, iBooks Additional Reading Why Women Entrepreneurs Need to Be More Cocky by Susan Lyne, Inc. The F-Word: What Chelsea Handler and I Have in Common by Susan Lyne, LinkedIn Why The Force Will Be With Women Entrepreneurs In 2016 by Geri Stengel, Forbes Two Women Bosses Reveal the Most Insane Things Said to Them at Work by Betty Lui, Inc. The Growing Trend of Firms Investing Only in Women Founders by Steven Loeb, Vator Female founders grab record VC deal share—but still just 18% by Joanna Nolasco, Pitch Book Guest bios & transcripts are available on www.broadmic.com.

Thank you so much for joining us during the first season of Radiate.  We’ve had so much fun producing it and we’re gearing up for an even better second season featuring more big name guests that have enjoyed an immense amount of success.  Before we dive into new guests, we wanted to present you a special best-of episode from the first season with some our favorite pieces of advice and stories, along with some content that never aired during our regular season.  You’ll hear some more laughs and some controversial comments that didn’t quite fit into the original episode.  Including Andrea Jung, Steve Schwarzman, Jay Margolis, Sallie Krawcheck, Charlie Rose, Trevor Burgess, Daniella Yacobovsky, Susan Lyne, Robert Wolf, Ben Silverman, Kevin Ryan, George Zimmer and Alan Patricof. 

A very special episode featuring two amazing guests for our first live panel, which was held at the flagship retail store of a fashion startup called Of Mercer. Joining us was Susan Lyne, founder of BBG Ventures, the venture arm of AOL that backs women-owned companies. Also, on the panel was Daniella Yacobovsky, the co-founder of BaubleBar, the online jewelry retailer. Both women offer their unique insights into what it takes to build a new generation women leaders and what challenges they faced on their way to the C-Suite.

Bloomberg news anchor Betty Liu author of 'Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need to Know to Get Ahead ' shares what she learned about career success from speaking with CEOs including JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon AOL's Susan Lyne and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Susan Lyne ( https://twitter.com/smlyne ) is the co-founder and Managing Partner of BBG Ventures ( https://www.bbgventures.com/ ) , a fund that invests in visionary entrepreneurs building the next generation of market-defining consumer products and services. Every company in their portfolio has at least one female founder. Some of their investments include Zola ( https://www.zola.com/ ) , Blueland ( https://www.blueland.com/ ) , Beautycon ( https://beautycon.com/ ) , and NextGenVest ( https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/commonbond-acquires-nextgenvest-to-fuel-expansion-and-provide-ai-powered-financial-advice-to-generation-z-300759407.html ) (acq. by CommonBond ( https://www.commonbond.co/ ) ) Susan began her career in the magazine industry, where she founded and led Premiere Magazine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiere_(magazine) ). She spent almost a decade at Disney ( https://www.disney.com/ ) , rising to President of Entertainment at ABC ( https://abc.com/ ). She was the CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart_Living_Omnimedia ) ; CEO and then Chair of Gilt.com ( https://www.gilt.com/boutique/ ) ; and she led AOL ( https://www.aol.com/ ) 's Brand Group, overseeing such brands as TechCrunch ( https://techcrunch.com/ ) , Engadget ( https://www.engadget.com/ ) and Moviefone ( https://www.moviefone.com/ ) , immediately before launching BBG Ventures. A couple of books that Susan recommends are The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company ( https://amzn.to/2Yg48Ql ) by Robert Iger and Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century ( https://amzn.to/2RkpUAR ) by George Packer You can follow Susan on Twitter Here ( https://twitter.com/smlyne ) @smlyne, where she posts lots of great content on startups. If you would like to follow your host, Mike, for updates on the show, you can follow him Here ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) on Twitter. New episodes released every Monday and Thursday. If you would like to *follow along* you can *click “Subscribe”* on the *Apple podcast app or whichever platform you are listening on*. If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to also leave a review. In this episode, you will learn - 1. Why Susan decided to leave her prestigious career in media, television, ecommerce and as an operator for some of the world's biggest companies to start her own fund?Her mission when founding a venture capital fund and some of her learnings as an operator. 2. Does she think venture capital is moving quickly enough to bridge the gap between the number of women founders that are able to fundraise compared to male founders that are able to fundraise? What are some of the things that need to happen to help empower women entrepreneurs? 3. When should startups optimize for profitability rather than growth? How does she think about price and evaluation in today's climate? 4. In her due diligence process when evaluating startups, how she knows if the startup is solving a real consumer pain point? How she thinks about founder-market fit? How she thinks about online customer acquisition today given the rising prices? 5. How she thinks about time allocation and cadence of communication amongst her portfolio companies. Consumer trends she is most excited about and some of the differences between millennials and Gen Z.