To The Underrepresented Founder, You Are The Problem

Written by Swalé, Founder, Iuncta

A few weeks ago, I found myself in an open theater–style room that is the centerpiece for the offices of a renowned New York City venture capital fund. The individuals next to me and who predominantly filled the space were a colorful bunch of underrepresented founders just like myself, who were offered the opportunity to have a candid and off-the-cuff conversation with the fund’s investment team. In front of us, center-stage, was the partner and CEO of the fund. He was as expected; every bit of the prototypical fund manager. He was there to provide answers to questions from the founders whose questions have gone unanswered by his counterparts. Honorable.

When the dialogue started, for the most part the questions were safe, almost as though the founders were still uncertain as to whether the space they were in was truly that, safe. The partner choreographically danced around the questions, choosing all the right and politically correct answers. He told us of his own struggles and how he and us were bonded by it — heartwarming and relatable stories about how his difficulty in raising a fund is all too similar to our difficulty in raising capital for our businesses. This lasted for 59 of the 60 minutes scheduled for the conversation, until I raised my hand to ask a question.

I’m good at a lot of things, but I’m great at two: one of those being innovation and the other being discourse. As much as I wanted to keep the conversation vanilla, it is extremely hard when I am who I am: dark chocolate. I could’ve easily asked how he manages to remain steadfast, how he stays motivated with his limited partners’ hesitation to disperse funds in this economic climate, or how much of the onus of responsibility weighs on him if the investments fail. But I didn’t ask any of those questions. I couldn’t. The only question that I could conjure with authenticity was: Are you aware of your unconscious bias and how it influences the companies you choose to invest in?

There was a pause; the few seconds of silence was deafening. The question was uncomfortable, for him and everyone else in the room, though not so much for me. In these moments, I’m my most comfortable when I’m uncomfortable. Then I watched him think, then reach inside himself for the right response; but it’s a challenge to give a scripted answer to an unscripted question. It’s hard to prepare for this, an impromptu act of improvisation. In an honest moment, he acknowledged the diversity problem within his organization and used that as a segue to highlight the strides they’ve made toward inclusion. He spoke about their impact-specific hires on the team and referenced the event we were at and the coordination of it as a testament to the progress they’ve made.

But even after saying all that out loud, there was a sense of dissatisfaction for him and the others across the room. That wasn’t a good enough answer. It spoke to everything except why that same diversity initiative isn’t evident in the fund’s investment portfolio. The lack of an immediate response from his audience forced him to say more. And that’s when it happened: The truth was finally uttered; if his answer before was honest, the answer he gave next was genuine. He said he can only invest in companies founded by people to whom those contributing the funds for later rounds would be willing to invest in. Just as he is the prototypical fund partner, he knows who the prototypical and preferred startup founder is — the one whom his counterparts and fellow VCs alike are putting money behind. He basically said he cannot invest because they will not invest; because, even if we were to convince him, who is going to convince them?

I’ve said it a number of ways, but it is also universally known: Being a founder means you’ve identified a problem and designed and developed a unique solution for it that the market is demanding. But what happens when you, the underrepresented founder, are the problem? When your investor pitches are more of an evaluation of you as person as opposed to the viability of your company and its business model. How dare you think disruptive innovation can come from you? How dare you to think that you can be the face of bleeding-edge technology? How dare you even try to empower your community, whether it be women or people of color? Then you, underrepresented founder, are coerced to code switch your way to where you want to be, dilute any and every reference to what made you culturally you; you were advised to seek the advice of the successful and “preferred” founder, to mimic their mannerisms and study their pitches to perfection only to realize that their opportunity wasn’t yours to have — in fact, your opportunity wasn’t opportune at all. How flattering is imitation?

For an underrepresented founder, how the investor approaches us is different: When typically they are looking for a reason to say yes, for us they are looking for the slightest reason to say no, and if they can’t find it, they’ll make one up. It’s an art not a science, one which they’ve mastered and have learned creative ways to say. What you hear is, “not for us, not right now, not enough this or not enough that,” instead of them just saying you are not who we are looking for. It’s not the product that’s the problem, it’s the person.

To add insult to injury, there’s been an influx of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) funds specifically created to address the diversity disparity, but they’ve taken the same approach and viewed us through the same lens that looks at us for what we are and not what we are building. They use our faces for photo ops and then use the numbers that demonstrate our plights to better position themselves in the market; but the investment dollars have never been a reflection of the initiative. Stop it. Why is it that underrepresented founders have to work a thousand times harder for 98.13% less? At that rate of return, the lack of investment seems justified, and no one’s questioning whether it’s intentional.

They say never ask the questions you’re not ready for the answers to. As much as I appreciated the eventual genuine response, it was one I thought no fund would ever admit to. It was almost like, to that point, my ignorance fueled the delusion I needed to keep me motivated as a founder. But even with that, my only regret was that it was the last question asked and not the first. There was no time for an exchange after. How I would have loved to have engaged in discourse.

The weeks after that Q&A session were tougher on me than I wanted them to be, constantly seeing and hearing the struggles of underrepresented founders while in the midst of trying to build my own startup and having to raise capital in order to scale. I reverted back to my “why” to help me through. As selfish as entrepreneurship may seem from the outside looking in, it is a selfless act that lead me to it: the pursuit of my purpose, something I know is greater than myself that also includes advocacy for the underrepresented.

For a brief moment during those couple weeks, I seriously contemplated starting up my own fund, to be the change I wanted to see. A few of the founders from that same room reached out personally but privately wanting to help. Will I eventually start that fund? Maybe not now, but I won’t say never. I have a track record of doing everything I said I would.

To the underrepresented founders, continue to be disruptive, continue to be upstarts, continue to be resilient and, above all, continue to be problematically you. To the prototypical VC’s out there, if we are indeed the problem, as for the pie of available funds you’re splitting with everyone other than us, we don’t want peace (piece), we want more problems!