Business Skills – Page 12 – More from the Institute for Women's Entrepreneurship at Cornell

Culture, Honesty and Three Tips for The Best Pitch

three hands holding cartoon puzzle pieces

In this September 22,2020 interview, Inc. magazine senior editor Christine Lagorio interviews Cindy Eckert who is the CEO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals as well as the founder of Pink Ceiling, a business incubator for women.

During the interview, Eckert shares her own dissatisfaction with traditional big-business which led her to become an entrepreneur. Related to that, she discusses the importance of creating a strong company culture – whether your organization is just getting off the ground or an established business. Finally, she shares her thoughts on the three things that every founder should be able to express when heading into a potential investor meeting. Click the link above to access the write-up and interview.

Black Female Entrepreneurs Are Thriving In Detroit

Courtney McCluney, an assistant professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations was recently interviewed on NPR’s Marketplace about her research on the status of entrepreneurship in Detroit. McCluney states that over the past several years, Black women have comprised the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S. despite having disproportionate access to resources like capital. She recently looked specifically at the city of Detroit which despite less resources and higher than average poverty is creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

This piece in the MIT Sloan Management Review entitled “The Detroit Hustle” outlines some of McCluney’s research project. The piece speaks to the growth in women-owned businesses in Detroit and discusses the concept of the “Detroit hustle” – a “long-held mantra unique to the city that defines people’s entrepreneurial energy and approach to work.” The Data collection for this research project is ongoing. It will be fascinating to find out what Professor McCluney continues to learn and share.

Link to webinar: “Raising Capital During a Crisis”

Picture of Olivia Owens from webinar zoom session

Click this link to access the August 18, 2020 webinar entitled “Raising Capital During A Crisis: Launch and Grow Your Business With Crowdfunding”

Olivia Owens, Head of Partnerships at IFundWomen, discusses how to leverage crowdfunding for your business. You’ll come away from this workshop with a honed pitch, a network map, a winning rewards strategy, and a marketing plan for your crowdfunding campaign.

Exploring Funding Opportunities For A Variety of Business Models

In this 15 minute video segment, Liz Ngonzi looks at the spectrum of business models from not-for-profits to social enterprises to traditional for-profits and then explores a variety of sources of funding that apply to each model. She also discusses organizations such as incubators and accelerators that can provide both monetary and consulting support to start-up businesses.

Elizabeth (Liz) Ngonzi is the Founder and CEO of Liz Ngonzi Transforms who as an international educator, speaker, executive coach, and consultant, helps impact-driven leaders, entrepreneurs and organizations to more effectively define and tell their stories, enabling them to improve engagement with their stakeholders. In helping clients she aims to INSPIRE, CONNECT with and ACTIVATE them to create the TRANSFORMATION they seek in their lives and/or organizations. Additionally, Liz proudly supports women leaders and entrepreneurs as a facilitator in the Bank of America Institute for Women’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell. Previously as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Cornell Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship, she helped aspiring entrepreneurs develop and present their unique value proposition to funders.

Amplify Speaker Series

“Amplify” is a free speaker series designed to support and empower underrepresented communities in entrepreneurship and venture capital. In 2018, only 1% of venture capital funding went to Black startup founders. Black female entrepreneurs were only allocated 0.02% of VC funding.

Entrepreneurship organizations at Yale, Harvard, Fordham, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, UC Berkeley, Stanford, UPenn, and Vanderbilt have come together to schedule weekly speakers. Amplify’s mission is to educate, inspire, and pave new paths forward for underrepresented voices in the world of startups.

The Cornell Entrepreneurship Club and the Sullivan Foundation at Rust College present AMPLIFY Week 4 – on Tuesday, August 4th at 5pm ET – which will feature a conversation with Jean-Pierre Adéchi, the CEO/Co-Founder of Wheeli. He will share thoughts on raising capital as a black founder and include specific lessons for women, minority, and other outside-the-box founders. To sign up for this event, click here.

To add your name to the Amplify mailing list to be alerted to future speakers, click here.

Interview with Jessica O. Matthews

Jessica O. Matthews is the CEO and founder of Uncharted Power, a full-scale renewable energy company. The initial goal of the company was to create a smarter energy grid for sub-Saharan Africa (Matthews is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Nigeria) but the impact of natural disasters such as flooding and wildfires on the US energy grid encouraged Matthews to broaden her focus and create a more global solution. Read more about this incredible entrepreneur in a July 14, 2020 interview in Politico.

Can Government Programs Counter the COVID-19 Impact on Women Entrepreneurs?

Big red button with word "help" in white letters

In this July 15, 2020 piece in Forbes, author Geri Stengel explores the explosion of women-owned businesses from 2008 to present as well as inequities that still exist (and were made more apparent with the impact of COVID-19) for women and more specifically, women of color. She also discusses how federal, state, and local governments can do more to support women entrepreneurs.

40+ Entrepreneurial Resources For Minority Founders

The team at Pareto has compiled a spreadsheet of over forty resources that are specifically aimed at providing support or funding to minority owned businesses. The list can be found here.

Count Me In Revival Grant Application Is Open

Count Me In is the first national not for profit founded to help women grow their micro-businesses to million-dollar enterprises. They are currently accepting grant applications.

There are 15 grants available at $10K and 4 grants available at $25K each. Contestants have two weeks to complete the application starting on Wed June 24th when the link to the official application will be live. All applications are due no later than Thursday July 8, 2020 COB 5pm PST. More information can be found here.