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February 27, 2016 2:13 PM   Subscribe

An entrepreneur tries to start a company and raise venture capital in Silicon Valley — and then finds out she is pregnant.
posted by four panels (10 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Interesting story.

I'm not sure calling a woman-focused service a homonym of 'doxxer' was the best idea, but I like the information they're aiming to provide.
posted by Sebmojo at 2:45 PM on February 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


That's not a homonym.
posted by stoneandstar at 4:44 PM on February 27, 2016


Doxa makes it very easy for you to discover that they only have 10 companies signed up.
posted by euphorb at 5:03 PM on February 27, 2016


All of the example companies mentioned seem so totally uncreative. A weight loss app, a corporate recruitment site for mainstream Silicon Valley lifestyle companies, and a rebranding of the same safety razor you can get for fifteen bucks (but with a nice $20 monthly subscription). Sounds like a well-trodden, stable path to me.
posted by cichlid ceilidh at 5:42 PM on February 27, 2016


Soooo... is this whole thread going to be bashing women and minorities for their bad ideas and even worse name choices (I'm a woman on the internet, and the similarity to 'doxxer' seems totally irrelevant to me), or will it be about the content, which explains why the ideas might seem so "totally uncreative" to you:

Because of investors’ lack of diversity, they do not necessarily understand the value of companies that make products for customers who are not like them, said Tristan Walker, founder and chief executive of Walker & Company, which makes health and beauty products for minorities, including the Bevel razor. On his first pitch, the investor told him she didn’t think shaving irritation was a big enough societal issue.

“As a black man fund-raising, I imagine it’s more difficult,” said Tristan Walker, chief executive of Walker & Company. “A lot of investors let their lack of context cloud their judgment.”
“All she had to do before she said that was get on the phone with 10 black men or women and eight or nine would have said, ‘This is an issue I’ve had to deal with my entire life,’” Mr. Walker said.

posted by stoneandstar at 6:19 PM on February 27, 2016 [10 favorites]


Like, how about talking about sexism:

The first time they met to discuss Doxa, Ms. Miller had worn jeans and a sleeveless shirt. The look was too unprofessional, Ms. Herscher told her. She should dress like Yahoo’s chief executive, Marissa Mayer (whose uniform is crew neck, knee-length dresses with cardigans). Ms. Miller said that everyone she had worked with at tech companies wore jeans and T-shirts, and surely no venture capitalist cared if Mark Zuckerberg showed up in a hoodie. Ms. Herscher was uncompromising: Like it or not, the standard is different for women.

This time, Ms. Miller wore a dark cardigan over a dark blouse.

Ms. Herscher asked if she had been hit on yet by venture capitalists. She hadn’t. Ms. Herscher told her own horror stories — the investor who slipped his hand under her hair and massaged her neck, the one that rubbed her knee.

Ms. Miller was more worried about the investors’ reaction to her pregnancy. She broke the news to Ms. Herscher.

After congratulations, they plotted strategy. Wait until the second meeting to mention it, Ms. Herscher said. “Then say: ‘I’m pregnant. And I’m so well organized that my baby’s due on Christmas Day, which will be a slow time. I don’t expect it will faze me at all. I’m married to a man who will be a primary caregiver, and this is no different from investing in a man whose wife is pregnant.’”


Compare that to the advice that women usually get that wearing a dress to a tech conference makes you look like support staff.

Or this super depressing factoid:

Social science research supports Ms. Hu’s experience. A series of experiments by Laurie A. Rudman, a psychology professor at Rutgers, found that women who spoke directly about their strengths and achievements were considered more capable, but also less hirable. Self-promotion by men made them more hirable.

I also can't believe that Ridejoy made any money whatsoever, since it seems pointless and scary in a gonna-get-murdered-or-at-least-seriously-sick-of-someone's-playlist type way.
posted by stoneandstar at 6:26 PM on February 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Frankly, if someone had the clout to make Doxa into a thing, it would be an amazing resource. A Glassdoor but with better interface/moderation and answers to questions specific to the concerns of women and minorities... I'm super sold. Sometimes good ideas or wish-we-could just won't make it off the ground for business reasons, but some of the best and most popular apps are not terribly creative. They're just things people want that happen to be business plausible and funded.
posted by stoneandstar at 6:27 PM on February 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


Doxa sounds amazing to me. I would totally use that as a service.
posted by lunasol at 6:49 PM on February 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


I think it sounds amazing, too. I really enjoyed this article because as much as I like to hear success stories, it's actually inspiring and heartening to me to read about people that don't quite make it. There's been so much great, frank writing about the tough road to "success" and especially about the biases that women and minorities face in the last few years. It's helpful.
posted by amanda at 8:17 PM on February 27, 2016 [3 favorites]


6 percent of partners at venture capital firms are women.
posted by gingerest at 11:47 PM on February 28, 2016


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