Even though there are countless books and resources on starting a business, we still found ourselves floundering when starting our first company: "What do I do first?" "Am I doing anything right?" "Is this even a good idea?" It seemed like most of the support out there was for people who were already well on their way to building their companies, and we were still exploring our business ideas. In talking with hundreds of first-time founders, we learned that this resource gap wasn't unique to our team.
In addition, we heard from the directors of several well-known startup accelerators that many of their portfolio companies had to spend valuable time going back and redoing the groundwork, often pivoting in the middle of the program. Similarly, we heard that their founders were ultimately unsuccessful because they spent all of their time and 💸 advancing down the wrong path, having missed key learnings important in the earliest stages of company building.
Moreover, unfortunately, and for a variety of reasons, not everyone has equal access to the resources that enable startups to get off the ground successfully. There are clear divisions in who traditionally benefited from the existing startup infrastructure based on specific demographic characteristics, including race, gender, geography, and socioeconomic status. For example, in 2018, the investor group #angels found that women account for only 13 percent of startup founders and, even worse, own just 6 percent of founder equity (article link).
For these reasons, we built the Female Founder School. Starting a company is indisputably hard, but we want to make it easier for anyone to start a company anywhere 🌍. Our platform provides a roadmap for early-stage founders to learn faster, avoid missteps, and stay accountable. In ten approachable steps, we break down what it takes to go from an idea (if you don't have one yet, we'll help you find one) to launching a company. Each Step includes context around startup-building frameworks, examples from real-life founders, and exercises to drive progress. There are also pivotal checkpoints 🏁 along the way, where we've found it to be essential to pause, reflect on what you've learned, and plan for moving forward.