Felicia Jadczak: Hi, and welcome to the She Geeks Out podcast, where we geek out about workplace inclusion and talk with brilliant humans doing great work, making the world a better and brighter place. I'm Felicia.

Rachel Murray: And I'm Rachel, and let's get into it.

Felicia Jadczak: All right. What are we getting into this week?

Rachel Murray: Well, this week, I think the Olympics just ended yesterday. We're recording this on August 12th. So everyone else will be like, there's been like 10 days of news. What are you doing talking about the Olympics?

Felicia Jadczak: only knows what's going to be happening by the time this comes out.

Rachel Murray: I mean, what could possibly happen? Did you watch any of the Olympics?

Felicia Jadczak: I did. I actually was one of those people who basically has, have only been watching the Olympics for the past, like, whatever, how long it's been, a week or two, two weeks.

Rachel Murray: What

Felicia Jadczak: Um, what is time indeed. I thoroughly enjoy the Olympics. I was with a friend over the weekend and he was asking me what my favorite Olympic sport was.

And I truly just started listing [00:01:00] all of them. Cause I was like, well, I love diving. And I was like, I also love track and field, but then I also love this. And I was like, you know what? It's just, it's all of them. What I do want to say, and this is what I think it is actually really pertinent is while , quote unquote, regular Olympics has ended, Paralympics has just started.

And I want to just plug that because a lot of people don't, watch the Paralympics and it's not a hundred percent, the average person's fault because media does not give the same amount of attention as they do to regular Olympics. But there is like a little bit of, discussion in certain spaces, especially like disability spaces around how we should just combine the two, because why, you know, why do we have to have them separated out for this exact reason?

Because people don't watch and don't give as much credit or as much attention. So the Paralympics has just started. So I will be trying to watch as much as I can, those kinds of races.

 So, you know, Felicia, that I'm a big runner [00:02:00] so, so watching people run, is just, it's literally, it's the most inspiring thing. I'm excited to watch it myself

Rachel Murray: you know, I think that it was funny. I not everybody covered all of the, uh, a lot of the, what was happening. Um, But it was just, it was beautiful to watch it this year. I have to say full confession. I really have never really paid much attention to the Olympics. I always felt like it was this weird, like nationalist thing for every country for some reason.

I don't know why I just got into it this year. Just watching the athletes do these incredible things with their bodies and their minds. Like it's just, it was beautiful. Truly inspiring. To see some of the stories coming out of it and obviously some of the hardships, of course, as well. I've been a fan of Noah Lyles, and he's come out and talked about how he grew up with asthma and has, ADHD and, and depression and anxiety.

And he's like one of the fastest people in the world. It's just, and the, I can't [00:03:00] remember her name. The woman who didn't start cycling until seven years ago. And then I'm just like, boom.

Felicia Jadczak: I saw a very funny poster meme or something online somewhere where whoever it was basically was like, can't wait for the LinkedIn post to come out because you just know there's going to be a massive LinkedIn post being like, seven years ago, I had a dream. And if you could wake up at 5am and you do this, this, this, you too can accomplish.

And I mean, this is in no way meant to downplay her accomplishment at all. But it was just so funny because No, I think that's part of it, right? It's that you have people from all walks of life and all backgrounds and people who do this with tons of support and money and training. And then people who are like, I'm in my forties and I'm deciding to get into something, and now, oh my God, I'm like an Olympic medalist.

And so I thought that was really funny. 

Rachel Murray: Well, the good news is we actually have a blog post that's going to come out. That's going to actually tie in some really beautiful [00:04:00] lessons from the Olympics, tying it into the workplace. So we will link to that in the show notes. And I hope that y'all get to read it because it really, it really does track, there really is integration between what is happening out in the world and what happens in the workplace.

Because, as we like to say, it's because humans, we're everywhere.

Felicia Jadczak: It's all connected,

Rachel Murray: It is.

Felicia Jadczak: I think one of the things that I myself find very exciting about the Olympics is it's this idea that you can come together and celebrate human achievement without a lot of the extraneous bullshit. Obviously that's not totally possible because, again, we cannot operate in a bubble and I think the Olympics has served for many, many years as a stage to also bring in a lot of the social commentary and the issues of the day I'm sure we can all think about some of the famous, images that have come out in terms [00:05:00] of like the athletes raising their fists with a black power salute, people who showed up or didn't show up to protest or not, different regimes. Even in this Olympics, um, I mean, we would be remiss if we didn't mention breaking at least briefly in our discussion, but I don't know if you watched any of the women's breaking competition.

I watched the entire thing,

Rachel Murray: that's amazing.

Felicia Jadczak: for worse and, one of the first matchups, One of the dancers was representing the refugee team, which is like, that's really cool that there is a team that's for refugees because not everybody has a country that they can fully represent.

And she was, I mean, I hate to say it, she was not that good, but what she did was she actually used the platform to highlight Afghan women and what's happening there. And she was disqualified because she Put a message on her clothing and she unveiled it, but how courageous and brave to just be there in the first place and then to use that platform as a [00:06:00] way to highlight what's happening. We could spend days talking about RayGunn and.The Australian breakdancing approach.

Rachel Murray: Think we'd also be remiss to not talk about the trans controversy with the boxing and Amani Khalef and, um, uh, Lin Yuting from Taiwan were both, um, both born women and the immense amount of, backlash and discrimination for both of them. I cannot imagine. How they must feel and what that experience must be for both of them and just being caught up in this controversy is just,

so tragic.

Felicia Jadczak: it is, and it also I think is really important because it highlights that trans rights affect everybody, and these issues affect everyone. Everyone because she is not a trans woman. She is a woman who was born biologically assigned female at birth, and she is [00:07:00] caught up in this discourse, you know, and it's very harmful.

And, also the fact that she's from a country, Algeria, where It's dangerous to be trans, like it's just wild. And I was watching a clip of her, , after she had won in a press conference. And so she speaks fluent French, but what I loved is that the journalists were asking her questions in French and she was like, Oh, sorry, I don't speak French very well.

You know, I'm going to respond to you in Arabic. I loved it because I was like, she's basically, it was like a giant FU because she does speak fluid French Algeria's, got a long history and ties to France. And she was like, I don't want to talk in French to you. I'm going to talk in Arabic and you're just got to deal with it.

Yeah, I love that she's also suing folks and bringing a lawsuit because I think she absolutely should.

Rachel Murray: I mean,

Felicia Jadczak: she filed a legal complaint, I should say.

 It's such a great point about, you know, she is from a country where she would literally be killed. Your life is on the line because people are making [00:08:00] these comments. I don't think that people Realize the power of words sometimes and we see this in the discourse You know in the workplace and outside the power of these words that can literally destroy lives I mean, we're seeing that in the UK right now with these far right protests based on some tweets that are just Not true.

Rachel Murray: And so it's just this continuation and this escalation of violence

Felicia Jadczak: I think some people know the power and don't care. Right. And that's like the other, the sort of the dark side of it, if you will. I was just watching something, um, during my lunch break about

obama McCain matchup when they were both running and like, where do we go off the rails?

I mean, probably hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but in more recent time, and, this sort of position was that you can tie some of the shift in at least the U S around like public discourse and the power of words and things [00:09:00] to that race, because McCain, very well respected Republican, and then he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, and he himself, before he passed, was like, he regretted that choice and said, what would it have looked like if he had chosen Joe Lieberman, for example?

And I don't know if you remember, but there was that really famous, town hall, right, where the woman accused Obama of being an Arab or a terrorist, whatever, and he was like, no, he's not, and people were yelling at him. And that's, to me, such a shift right in our national discourse and that also like honestly opened the door for people like Trump to come in and make false claims and accusations and spew hateful and ignorant and false information that is very damaging and has real life impacts for people.

Rachel Murray: yeah, it's a shame because it does seem as though, there are people that are hurting that are on the, the sort of other side of the political spectrum that, that we are on. And I believe that they're being [00:10:00] used Rather than looking at those in positions of actual power causing harm, it's much easier to say, Oh, no, it's actually the immigrants that are taking away, you know, and that rhetoric is so powerful and but everything's gonna be fine because we got Kamala.

Felicia Jadczak: Oh God, I wish we had like hours and hours of talk because there's so much to dig into, but it's just so interesting because what you just mentioned is a very old tactic of dividing to conquer. The fact that if you keep an illiterate, ignorant, dumbed down population, one way to keep them under control, right?

And that's why in our social justice and DEI space that we operate in , we talk a lot about there's no oppression Olympics tie back to the Olympics discussion. There's no, that's not one of the new sports unfortunately.

Rachel Murray: my God.

Felicia Jadczak: Can you imagine?

Rachel Murray: Oh my god,

Felicia Jadczak: But we talk about that because it's all tied together and the fact that there's a lot of folks who don't get [00:11:00] that reality. it is hard because it's, you have to put yourself out of an individualist mindset into more of a collectivist mindset. And especially here in the U. S.,, we are just, that's not

Rachel Murray: you're such a socialist. You're such a socialist.

Felicia Jadczak: mean, yes. And thank God I can say that without having to be worried about any repercussions, which was not always true.

But yeah, you know, anyway, it's like, I, sometimes I wish we could just spend a semester digging into some of this stuff, but that it does all tie back to the work that we do and what we think about and it's all interconnected.

Rachel Murray: really, really, really is. Thank you so much for indulging me on that conversation.

Felicia Jadczak: Thank you.

Rachel Murray: And now, yeah,

Felicia Jadczak: conversation. I mean, again, all related, a related conversation. So let's switch gears a little bit and talk about our guest for today, who's Alison Byers. She's the founder of a company called Scroobious, and they're an organization that's dedicated to making fundraising more accessible for underrepresented entrepreneurs.

And what they do is they provide [00:12:00] resources and support to help them effectively communicate the unique value that they have to investors. So we talk a lot with Alison about what challenges these folks face, what the difference between an angel investor and a VC is, a bill that she co created and helped pass very cool.

And a lot more,

Rachel Murray: And before we welcome Allison, we want to share some, uh, an exciting resource with you. Did you know that we offer a fantastic newsletter packed with the latest news, insights, and resources on workplace inclusion? It's the, I think, personally, It is

Felicia Jadczak: I think so too.

Rachel Murray: Okay, good. I'm glad we're in alignment on that.

Felicia Jadczak: So the two of us, the two of us think

Rachel Murray: Because we do have a hand in it, a literal hand. Uh, it is the best resource for learning how to support a truly fair and inclusive work environment. So don't miss out. Sign up today at shegeeksout. com forward slash newsletter and stay informed and inspired. And yes, there is always a Giphy in the newsletter.

You're welcome.

Felicia Jadczak: something to look forward to.

Rachel Murray: And welcome [00:13:00] Allison.

​

Felicia Jadczak: heh. Woosh!

Rachel Murray: Hi Allison. We're so excited to have here.

Allison Byers: Well, thank you so much. I'm very excited to be here.

Rachel Murray: We have so many questions for you, so we are just going to get into it. First of all, you're the founder and CEO of Scroobious, and we of course get into that in the intro. We want to hear about your origin story and also the Scroobious name.

Allison Byers: Yes, I know I picked a very funny company name, but it does have a meaning and it's memorable. So I'm happy to to describe it, but maybe I'll start with the overview, kind of a bridge story of how I came to start Scroobious and we call it our origin stories and my origin story.

 I have encountered two career roadblocks in my life, and both have been gender based. So, my first [00:14:00] career roadblock, after about ten plus years of working my way up into being a really successful tech operator and consultant, I was forced out of my job when I came back from maternity leave with my first child.

Which didn't talk about openly until a couple years ago. Now I'm very open about it and have realized there are just tons of women who went through something very similar. I had a little career break. I didn't know how to go back to work and the way that I did was through entrepreneurship. So that's the beginning of where entrepreneurship became a real passion of mine because it allows for particularly mothers to have a career and contribute and generate wealth and knowledge and all of those things where a corporate life doesn't always accommodate.

So entrepreneurship, I teamed up with some scientific co founders and we launched a medical device startup that we spun out of MIT and the [00:15:00] Lahey hospital system here in Boston. I did not know any of the things that I know now about how Fundraising works, capital allocation, the venture industry itself, all those things that I talk about today, I did not know back then and we did end up raising almost 10 million for that company, and we went to early acquisition, and in large part because I struggled to raise our Series B round of capital, and so once that happened, it was a fairly traumatic experience.

I spent some time researching the space of capital allocation and venture and all those things first to understand how I could have failed so badly. And when you research it, you come across statistics right away that I would guess a lot of listeners know where only 1. 7 percent of venture dollars go to female founding teams.

It's worse if you're black. It's 0. 5 percent if you're a black woman. It's [00:16:00] almost statistically impossible. Uh, and I just didn't know, right? For me, it was a light bulb moment of, oh, I didn't fail. I stopped internalizing failure and said, I just did not know that I was operating in an industry designed to keep me marginalized.

And I was likely never going to raise that money. I just didn't know it. That started my career. real obsession with dedicating my professional career on working toward equitable access to business capital. So Scroobious is one of the things I do. And I know we're going to talk about a lot more too, but I founded Scroobious in 2020, whole other topic.

It was one month before COVID showed up. So that was interesting timing. Started it. To address an enormous market need. I saw where on one side, we've built a fully scalable platform that brings truly expert and accessible education to founders. We do focus on those who identify as underrepresented in some way [00:17:00] about how you put together equity fundraising pitch material and also just as importantly, the why behind the guidance.

helping people understand how investors think and why they get this advice is missing in a really big way for folks who don't have natural access to those resources or those networks of investors. And we pair that online education with Personalized feedback on draft material. So you get human eyes and human feedback as well.

Then those founders can choose to share their pitch material with the other side of our platform, which are investors. And we focus on angel investors who actively write checks to underrepresented founders. And we're currently building a sophisticated recommendation engine that will take into account both the business and the client.

And the characteristics of the person. So there is a human element to efficiently [00:18:00] connecting opportunity with investor. So we can drive innovation and wealth generation.

Rachel Murray: my God. I have so many questions, but go ahead, Felicia. Get in

Felicia Jadczak: know, same here. I actually want to pull a thread that you mentioned briefly, which is, so you founded Scroobious one month before COVID. That's so wild. We have to talk more about that. Just to sort of set the stage. And I know you're already familiar with us and what we do and how long we've been around, but we'd already been in business for many years and we were having so many issues with pivoting.

So I cannot even fathom what it must've been like for you. So I'd love to hear more about that.

Allison Byers: Yeah, absolutely. Although I, I realized I never said where the name comes from. So I'll throw that in really quickly. But Scroobious

Felicia Jadczak: also important.

Allison Byers: Yeah, well, I want to answer your question. It's from a poem. There's a 19th century poet named Edward Lear. He was a children's poet. He wrote The Owl and the Pussycat.

There once was a man from Nantucket. Like, things that people know. Uh, but he has a poem called The Scroobiest Pip, and it's like two pages. It's all about this creature that [00:19:00] enters the animal kingdom, and it's a little bit of every kind of animal. And the whole poem are these animals in their group saying, which of us are you?

Where do you belong? Trying to classify it. And at the end of the poem, they celebrate it because it can't be classified. The Scroobious Pip is unique. It's a little bit of all of them. It's different and it's happy in tone. And so for me, if you're Scroobious as a founder, you don't pattern match, you don't fall into one of those buckets.

We shouldn't be penalized for that. We should be celebrated because that's a unique opportunity and that's how you generate alpha as an investor. So that's where the name comes from. Um, and. Uh, yeah, I love that I get to tell the story and also highlight, uh, Edward Lear is a very

interesting, as well. 

Felicia Jadczak: I think it's so interesting because I feel like in entrepreneurship and, you know, tech forward companies, we sort of lose some of the humanity sometimes and as a comparative literature major where I studied French and English literature in college.

I'm loving that this is [00:20:00] where the name came from. So anyway, back

Allison Byers: Amazing! You would love his work! Um, and yeah, from the beginning, I have always wanted Scroobious to be different. Right, just like that. I went through the naming process of like, what's a combination of network and capital or money and all the kind of names that these generic mishmashes of names that don't really have meaning, uh, and, you know, I know scrubious is a funny word, but, I love it.

It has meaning, and it's different, and it makes people smile, and it indicates we are a different company, and we're led by underrepresented founders ourselves, who have shared lived experience with the people in our community. And by the way, we're up to almost 800 founders that we've worked with in just a few years.

Yep. In answer to your question about COVID, yes, I spent probably a year and a half from ideation when I first had the idea from this through deciding to incorporate the company, doing all of my own market research, hundreds of interviews, my [00:21:00] own financing plan and capitalization plan, uh, all of that, and then incorporated and had to throw it all away like a month in because I have two school age kids, And it was, no school to go to all of a sudden, one month in, and I had to make some really hard choices about how do I keep doing this, how do I not just shut down right away, because that was an option.

 I'm just so mission driven, I didn't want to do that. So I drastically altered our own growth plan to be much slower. Right. And that's one of the messages that I share, even with our founder community is there's no one right way to grow your company. And if you need more time to make it sustainable, slow down.

So I took angel money on a rolling basis very slowly just to get through the value inflection points at those very early stages and made a decision to put off some development. Couldn't execute that vision [00:22:00] in the timeline I wanted. Now we're there. But yeah, it was, it was a very difficult two years, but it, when we were really in that lockdown phase. but it also forced me to really dive into our content right away and make very differentiated, valuable content. It forced me to validate that content with results with founders on a no tech product. My first product was a Google doc, right? Like things that I could do. Forced me to develop my voice and my thought leadership and my activism voice, which I didn't do before I started Scroobious.

I wasn't in the activism space. It also had a lot of benefits for how we developed our voice and our brand.

Rachel Murray: I'm really glad that you mentioned about the, the slowing down and the sustainability of companies and Felicia and I have talked about this before around taking capital versus try and sort of go the, like. Okay. What do they call it?

The lifestyle [00:23:00] business. I hate that phrase,

Allison Byers: agree with

Rachel Murray: yeah, but essentially it is getting revenue like from customers and clients and the amount of effort and time that you put into raising capital versus just trying to like, Make revenue. I'm just curious how you, um, advise folks. Is that something that you work in that space of, do people have that debate?

And how does that look for you?

Allison Byers: Yeah, all the time. I mean, we, and it's also an area where there isn't a right answer. one of the women who I really admire in this space, Melissa Withers, who runs her own fund often talks about, she actually did a workshop for our community not too long ago about building a sustainable financing plan, right?

How do you blend different sources of capital to really be sustainable? And that's what I help founders think through, but also. I talk a lot about thinking through what you want for your company in terms of [00:24:00] how long you want to run it for, what do you envision as success, because different sources of capital come with different requirements of their own.

And that will dictate what you take, right? So venture capital, it's its own business. It's only ever meant to be appropriate for a subset of companies that can scale and grow quickly to be exited for a very large multiple on what they are. That's not everyone's business plan. It doesn't fit all the time.

So if that's not your goal, that's not the right source of capital. If you want to just run your business for the foreseeable future and generate enough income that you're comfortable and you can hire who you want and go slowly, there's more plans, right? Venture doesn't mean better. It's just different.

 So really thinking through what source of capital matches your business model and [00:25:00] desires is more important than just trying to get money from wherever you can get it.

Rachel Murray: I love that because I do think there is that kind of glory with the VC funding. And since we're getting into it a little bit, can you also talk about the difference between VC funding and ANGEL funding?

Allison Byers: Yeah, I talk about this a lot. I'm talking about it in a workshop next week too, but this is, and this is part of what we focus on with our Scroobious platform too, is this type of education, right, is understanding not every investor is the same, and you have to be able to look at it from their point of view and their mindset to see how they're evaluating Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You and again, so you don't internalize something is failure when it really just wasn't the right fit. So the major difference is with venture capital, the people who are making investment decisions, the general partners are managing other people's money. They're managing limited partner money, and [00:26:00] they are going out and raising money themselves to be able to fund founders.

It's actually very parallel, situations, which a lot of founders don't realize. But it means that those general partners have a fiduciary duty To their limited partners to run the business and optimize for returns profit to those limited partners, so there's rules around what they can and cannot invest in, and that's where their own business model of running a fund.

It's running a business. They have to optimize for their business. Angel investors or family offices are investing their own money, their own discretionary money. They're not managing someone else's money. Right? If you're in a syndicate, that's a whole different, we can talk about groups and syndicates, but those are all pooling individual capital.

And individuals make decisions however they want to make [00:27:00] decisions. Every angel is different in what they want and what they need. And their version of what is a successful amount of profit from my investment is also very different from a fund. Because it's just you. Some angels are just happy if they.

Don't lose money, right? If I get my money back, that's a win because along the way I helped this innovation get into the world or I helped this founder that I care about. If they get a little bit of money back, great, right? Some angels or ultra high net worth individuals might still want a whole lot more in profit and they invest in a different capacity.

Um, but that's really how I explain that primary difference is you're dealing with a person who can do whatever they want or a fund which is a business.

Felicia Jadczak: That's super helpful. Thank you for sharing. It's interesting to hear because, we sort of dabbled in this space back in the day and then we were like, nevermind we'll just get clients. Obviously, that's our story and that's not everybody's story. [00:28:00] And there's so many ways to fund and get connected with these different networks of, Revenue or not revenue capital, really.

But I'm curious because your model is dependent on not just getting your founders in to help them. But also, there's that match piece or connecting them with the investors. And so given what you just shared around different motivations and different spaces and goals and outcomes that Investors may be looking for.

I'm curious if you've found any challenges with getting investors onto your platform to sort of fill out that, that other side of it.

Allison Byers: Yeah, so I mean, it is really interesting. And whenever you build a marketplace, that's an issue, right? Of like, how do you build both sides? Strategically with Scroobious, we went to market with founders first, we focused on founders exclusively for about two years, because there's incredible value for them, independent of any investor being on the platform, right?

So it's a little bit unique in terms of we have a marketplace, but one side derives it. [00:29:00] enormous value. And we can get into this too, but our own revenue model, our business model actually comes from service provider partners, so we don't even charge founders for this. So that's part of how we've grown so fast, is to be able to bring this, again, accessibility, Everyone should have access to resources.

We walk our talk. On the investor side, part of slowing down with COVID was, I got myself ingrained in investor networks and became an investor myself. So I've done 11 angel investments over the past couple of years, exclusively in companies run by underrepresented founders, where I feel I can add some value.

Joined an angel group. I have now spent three years on the DEI task force of the angel capital association, and I'm very outspoken in the angel world as well. In part to do my own, groundwork for building the base of investors that would want to join what I'm building. So that's. That's part of that, too.

And for us, the investor side, we launched within the past year, and we're doing it [00:30:00] on an invite basis for right now because we want to make sure that we have people who are writing checks to our founders, and they are right. We have, at least eight founders I can think of who have been funded by discovery on our platform with a pretty small sample size comparatively.

Where I don't worry about that, is every year, the more data that comes out about angel investors, the more it shows how diverse we are. The latest numbers, it came out last week, a report by UNH, they track, they're in their third year of tracking. According to their data, 47 percent of angel investors are women, and like the same, 47 percent of people who get angel checks are women, which does not surprise me at all.

And it is a huge undercount, uh, and that long tail of individuals. adds up to billions and billions of unallocated investment dollars right now, and they have no technology [00:31:00] infrastructure to help them find those opportunities. And that's where we're building.

Rachel Murray: Want to talk a little bit about the data driven curation that you're working on in improving, the greater representation in sort of funding.

How does that work?

Allison Byers: Yeah, so, I mean, I can tell you, when I was thinking about this space, A lot of what came to mind was the industry of online dating. And I did a pretty deep dive into that industry, right? Where you, today it's the number one way you meet your potential partner, like globally. It is an enormous industry.

But back when it started, it was very taboo. No one would talk about it. It started in niche audiences. And if you look at the industry growth, it's like, it's the definition of a hockey stick. And it was when Match. com came along and companies that Figured out how you measure components of personality and character and have some algorithms that help you find compatibility.[00:32:00] 

The investor investee relationship building that's required is such a parallel. And if you listen to any investor, they talk about how it's like dating. We should be able to have compatibility. A site like that where you can efficiently find who you want to invest in based not only on the business but on the person and that's where we're really differentiated and that's where we now have four years of data, right?

We work with founders through our platform. We can measure an incredible amount of things and we can figure out how to build algorithms that match. person to person to build those relationships, because that's how fundraising is really done. It's not rational decisions. You can't take the human out of it.

It's a human business. And so that's how we're utilizing it. And the term for it is an interest based network. So [00:33:00] it's very similar to when you log into Netflix, everything's interesting to you because it's literally based on you. Right? So when investors log in, opportunities, these pitches are inherently interesting to them because it's based on them and they can go look at things that are again, efficiently find what you're looking for, regardless of geography or affinity networks, your best investors and your best investments wins.

are not in your current network.

Rachel Murray: yeah. And that's just making me think, you know, I'm sure this is top of mind for you is how is AI going to impact this?

Allison Byers: So obviously AI is like at the core of building this recommendation engine, right? But I conceived of the idea before generative AI, you know, enter popular lexicon and accessibility. What we're seeing right now in the marketplace is a number of platforms that are either using AI to provide instant feedback on pitch material, or trying to use AI to [00:34:00] do true matching.

None of this accounts for the humanity in the fundraising process and the irrationality of investment decisions, particularly at the angel stage, where it's so much more about the person. than the metrics. Uh, and we're using AI to capture those elements. To implement what we're doing, um, and I'm, I'm really leaning into, again, that, that human side.

You cannot take it out of it, no matter how efficient you want to try to be or, how fast you want to deliver results. I can tell you a founder still needs to talk to a person and hear if their pitch is landing there. They don't need just a bot exclusively.

Felicia Jadczak: That is so interesting because I feel like everyone's talking about AI. Obviously, the human element is so important. And I think that in a lot of spaces, it gets left behind or it's getting left behind, I should say, because the field [00:35:00] is changing so rapidly and is evolving so quickly. And of course, as you mentioned in the top of our chat, there's the human element, which is so important.

And it's, really thinking through how do we not replace ourselves, but really highlight the areas that are going to be helpful for us. So

Allison Byers: How do you augment our humanity with AI? How do you not replace it?

Felicia Jadczak: Yeah. Let's switch gears a little bit. Um, I want to talk about another project that you've been involved with, which was getting California Senate Bill 54 passed into law. Very exciting. So I just love to hear more about that. What was the experience like co authoring a bill? Like, I truly have no idea what that even entails.

That seems wild to me. I don't know how bills get written, to be really honest, um what does it do? And any insights on how legislation like this bill can get passed in the future, especially with all the different challenges where we're seeing so much data come out, even in the last couple of weeks around decreases in [00:36:00] funding for women and rollbacks on programming and all sorts of things that are out there.

So yeah, let's talk about this bill.

Allison Byers: Absolutely. Yes, this will forever be one of my proudest achievements. Senate Bill 54, which is a California, it's a state bill, we were a very small bill team and it was, An incredible experience. And honestly, I didn't know any of these things before then either. This was totally new for me and almost everyone on the bill team.

if you look at it from the outside, none of us had any business co authoring a bill. I like to talk about that because Policy is so much more accessible than anybody thinks that it is. And if you want to get involved in that type of work or learn the legislative system, you can totally do it.

In fact we have a big push in Massachusetts right now that I want to talk about post podcast as well, but I'm involved in a number of states after that. The whole thing For Senate Bill 54 came together really quickly. It was like 11 months from start to finish. It was really, [00:37:00] um, yeah, someday we'll write a book.

It was unbelievable. But it's different in every state is one of the things I learned. So there's some parts of this that are repeatable and some parts that really depend on where you live and what that process of getting a bill looks like. But for SB54, we really thought a lot about how, what policy is needed just to start, do something to allow for the change that we want to see, because it really needs a combination of private industry and public policy.

To create change, and it's not just about fixing venture capital. It's also how do you open other sources of capital? How do we work with regulators and help them understand just how fundamental? Business capital and equity capital is to [00:38:00] the startup landscape and to the innovation and economy growth that we want to see, because a lot of regulators really don't understand that at all.

They don't understand venture capital. Um, so when we were thinking through that, a huge need is the ability to measure. This type of data. So when we cite all these numbers about, you know, the 1. 8%, the 0. 5%, all these things, they come from PitchBook and CrunchBase, almost exclusively. Those are private companies.

That's not exhaustive data. It's not comprehensive data. It has a lot of flaws, and that's what we use as our baseline. That's not, and they don't even agree with each other. They're different numbers if you look at those two sites. That's not how you can inform. Initiatives policy, anything moving forward.

So that's where we said, okay, with SP 54, this is going to be about data. We need to start collecting it in an organized fashion, and it [00:39:00] needs to be publicly available because venture also uses a lot of public money. From pensions, endowments, and those contributors are very diverse, and they don't have any insight into where their money is going.

They don't understand that cycle. So we gotta start collecting it, and, and that's how we started writing the bill, and how we strategized it, so that it had the right chance of being collected. Making an impact and the right chance of passing because we're not telling anyone what to do with their money.

We're just telling them other people are going to be able to see where it goes now.

Felicia Jadczak: I want to dig into this further because in case anyone who's listening is like, what bill are we even talking about? Really briefly, I'm sure you could probably talk at this point. Ad nauseum about this, but it's going to require VC firms in California to report on an annual basis, I believe, what the diversity data numbers and demographics look like for the founders that they are funding and backing.

How did you even get involved in this to start with? Did someone [00:40:00] send you an email? I'm just curious, where did it even start?

Allison Byers: Yeah, absolutely. And yes, that's right. One modification, it's funds or firms that have a nexus in California. So a California based firm, or if you invest in a California based company. So

Felicia Jadczak: Oh, okay. So it could 

Allison Byers: of California will also have to report. Um.

Felicia Jadczak: Okay, cool. 

Allison Byers: So I have one of my investors in Scroobious also runs a fund called F5 Collective, which invests in female founders in the APAC region, but they're, a lot of members are here in the U. S., and one of their tenants is policy, and so they wanted to go about doing this. My investor is located in California and had some great insight into how we could utilize it. The pathways that we needed to be able to pursue this and asked a very select number of us with particular expertise and passion in the area to help co author this bill to write the bill.

For me, I have grown into my activism [00:41:00] role. My background is data. I'm a very data oriented person and It was just a natural fit for me to get involved. It really was this grassroots story from start to finish. I can remember we were on vacation once in Disney World with the kids, and we had to hurry and make some modification, I had to whip out my phone and try to do it sitting in Star Wars land with people walking around me in costume trying to work on the bill, uh, it

Felicia Jadczak: I can see the movie scene right now,

Rachel Murray: totally

Felicia Jadczak: you're like surrounded by like men and cosplay And you're like, we need women. 

Allison Byers: lightsaber and I'm on the phone trying to also type out, we have to change this requirement to this. It was really just working very closely with a tight knit team with the legislators as well. Right. And, a lot of people ask how did you even get involved in this?

How did you even get started? Being part of those early conversations and then being invited in comes from being loud about what you care about and showing your [00:42:00] expertise. And so I, I'd done that for a significant period of time now, and talk about what that was Scroovious 2, right?

Part of our moat is you, you can't shortcut time. You can't shortcut four years of consistency, and that's what gets you in the conversations to be involved in this stuff.

Rachel Murray: Love that. And I just have kind of a ridiculous question that I need to, you kind of blew my mind when you just were like, VC money uses public funds. And I'm like, what? I just have this vision of the billionaires in the back rooms with the cigars, just throwing cash at Stanford grads.

That's just my visual. so does that work?

Allison Byers: Yeah, venture capital is an industry is about like 80 years old now, right? It's not a super old industry and it has evolved over time. Where these general partners of funds have to take in really big checks, think about the size checks and the [00:43:00] size of assets under management or money that they manage, every time a fund announcement comes, that can't just be from cigar smoking, high ultra-net worth individuals, a lot of it from pension funds and endowments, they invest that money Into venture funds as part of their strategy to grow those pensions and endowments.

And so that's public money, right? Those,

Rachel Murray: wild. Well it's wild because my understanding of pensions, as just an example, is that the idea behind pensions is that they're virtually risk free funds, so they're incredibly safe funds. This is what they tell us. Not that pensions really even exist

Felicia Jadczak: Rachel's like, let me show the other side of the table in terms of what we're being told.

Allison Byers: yeah, well,

Rachel Murray: We're being lied to!

Allison Byers: well, that's a huge part of the transparency issue in this industry and why regulation is important because it as an [00:44:00] industry, like SB 54 in California, this was groundbreaking legislation. Venture is not regulated. And the Venture Trade Associations oppose any regulation that comes up, of which, of course they would, I guess, if you can just run around unregulated 

Felicia Jadczak: No one's like please give me more rules when I had never had any I can't wait for rules.

Rachel Murray: I mean, what could possibly go wrong without rules? Oh, hold on, let me get my 2, 000 page book on all of the things that are going wrong because of lack of regulation. SVB. 

Allison Byers: Uh, there are many, yes, many, many things we could point to, but where I think people don't realize, and this is what I said in my testimony in California, was the people's money who is being allocated to the same demographic over and over and over again are just regular people who would not want their money used that way.

They don't have visibility, like you just said, into the fact that [00:45:00] that's how pensions are allocating money and, that's how endowments are. The members of those don't know that. 

Marker

Allison Byers: And the other side of this is the general public also doesn't have a good understanding that this isn't a women's problem.

This isn't a people of color problem. This is an everybody problem. This is why female health care is decades behind men's. Because we're not funding female innovators and they are the ones that are going to create the medical devices and healthcare and, whatever it is that we need.

Other people need to be contributing to helping our climate. White men are not coming up with all the innovations that are needed. No one demographic could. We need a diversity of thought. Financial products are not working for large swaths of our population. Of course they're not. We're not funding the innovators that know how to build those products.

And [00:46:00] so that's where there is this huge need for public discourse and awareness that this is not a charity case. This is not, we aren't being treated fairly. Sure, we're not being treated fairly, but you're suffering because of it. Everybody is. And it's not a rich person problem either.

It's an everybody problem.

Rachel Murray: Allison, you sound like a real feminist right now, and I'm into it,

Allison Byers: Great. Put a woman on. Yeah,

Rachel Murray: That is actually the point of feminism, right? it's not just about, oh, we're helping women. It's about helping everyone to be in the society that we can all be better and we can all be improved by it. So thank you for

Allison Byers: exactly. And even like feminism, yes, but it's It's everybody too, right? Obviously my lived experience is as a woman, so I can talk to that, but like even at Scroobious, we have white guys in there. I don't exclude people, because the whole goal is diversity should be equitable [00:47:00] representation based on our population.

Everybody's voice needs to

Rachel Murray: And Allison, to be clear, this is what I mean by feminism. I think that people think that feminism just means women, but, um, I will encourage a read of Bell Hooks Feminism is for Everyone, because it, it is exactly that. We need white men to be part of this conversation as well. We need everyone to be part of this

Felicia Jadczak: it needs to be intersectional.

Rachel Murray: It needs to be intersectional, it, it, and that is, that is literally the only way the rising tides. Lifting all the boats, lifting all the boats. I would love to switch gears a bit if that is okay. And thank you so much for indulging me with that. That was amazing. I would love to hear about your experience with a lovely organization that we have some familiarity with, which is All Raise and I love that you're, the co chair for the Boston, chapter would love to just hear about All Raise what, how it's going, what you're doing with it and how it complements your lovely work at Scroobious.

Allison Byers: Yeah, I know. All Raise is a great organization. I encourage [00:48:00] anyone who's not familiar with it to go look them up. This is my work in the non profit space. Again, when I looked at how am I going to make a demonstrable difference here, there's private industry, there's public policy, and then there's non profit work as well.

And there's also Founders and angel investors, which I'm incredibly passionate about. It's a capital class. There's the regulation and there's venture. Venture does need a lot of help too, and All Raise is very focused on supporting and promoting women into business. Positions of power and check writing power within funds which is critically important.

All Raise as an Organization is just an incredible group of women in the venture industry all working on, like you said, that rising tides lifts all boats. How do we create programmatic initiatives that will address these needs? If you're a female fund manager, You have a lot of the same problems that female founders do, in that you are [00:49:00] underfunded, you lack access to the limited partners that you need, which is just like raising from a general partner if you're raising from a fund if you're a founder, except way bigger checks, and from institutions, and and you haven't been higher.

They, they lack that access. They're hitting all the same walls on the other side of things, or they're in firms where they still don't have a power position, even though they are in a venture firm. They don't have final say or check writing ability. How do we create our own mentorship pipelines? All Raise functions through a lot of programmatic initiatives, public education, gatherings, convenings in person.

Right in Boston, we have an annual event called agents of change, which is incredible. And I love that one. It's important to have insight into. all the different aspects of the place where you're trying to be a change maker, they're a great organization to get involved in.[00:50:00] 

Felicia Jadczak: Thank you so much for sharing. Yeah, we, definitely are very familiar with All Raise and love the work that y'all are doing. And I'm curious how that aligns with something else that you're really involved with, which is mentorship and especially mentorship in the startup ecosystem, the VC funded ecosystem, all the things and areas that you're involved with.

For the founders that you're working with, is that a piece of. The work that Scroobious is focused on or that you're personally thinking about would love to have some thoughts from you on that or even any suggestions for people who might be wanting to mentor or be mentored in this space.

Allison Byers: Yeah, it's a great question, and I have some incredible mentors in my life that I've been fortunate to have, and I'm a huge believer in the power of having good mentors. There is this line where underrepresented founders are over mentored and underfunded. Which is true, right? We are.

 But it doesn't discredit mentorship. What I like to talk about, [00:51:00] particularly with those who want to mentor, because a lot of people come to me all the time saying, I want to help founders. I want to help female founders. How do I get involved? I left my job so I can work with a female founder.

Like, lots of people are very activated right now, which is great. But mentorship still means giving capital of some kind. There's financial capital, it doesn't have to be. It could be human capital, which means doing something, not just talking at someone. actively contributing your human capital. It could be social capital.

Open your network and make the introductions. A lot of mentors don't do that. Again, a lot of mentors think mentorship is just, yeah, if you call me, I'll answer the call and I'll give you my great advice and my expert advice, which can be helpful, but that's not a mentor. Actively open your network, even relationships that you find valuable, that's social capital.

Could be builder capital. If [00:52:00] you have a particular skill in something, hands on help. We need it. We don't have enough hands. We can't pay them because we can't raise the funding we need. So, help build a thing. Be a builder alongside that person. That is also mentorship. And if you're someone looking for a mentor, ask about all those things.

Say, if you were my mentor, and you are a marketer by training, and I really needed help, making marketing material, would you be willing to, to actually make it for me, and with me? Ask those questions about use of capital of some kind.

Felicia Jadczak: I love that. I love that suggestion because I think it's so specific and actionable and I think a lot of times when we talk about mentorship, it gets very into that Squishy nebulous area of oh, mentorship, you know, and it's sounds great. Everyone's excited about it. And then you're like, but how do I actually do it on both sides?

 I know, personally, I've had formal mentors, informal [00:53:00] mentors and Rachel knows like one of my, my longest running mentors in my life. It was such an awkward conversation because I had to schedule a meeting to be like, will you be my mentor? 

It was so awkward for everybody. And it worked out fine, but I think a lot of times when we talk about mentorship, we don't even explain to people like, how does that work? You might bump into someone at a networking event, or maybe again, it's being introduced to someone, but do you find that these sort of like more informal connections prove to be more valuable or, or long running?

Or do you think that having a more formal pairing or matching has been more effective in your experience? Thanks. Yeah.

Allison Byers: I think it probably depends on the person and the situation, so my answer for me will not be representative of what might work for somebody else. For me, again, I recognize my privilege, I've been able to meet a lot of really excellent people through my work and through my education and through my own network.

I've [00:54:00] met my longest running mentors, but I would encourage also for that question. Are you looking for a mentor or are you looking for an advisor for your business? Because that's a different thing. And so an advisor to your business, that's a formal agreement that comes with a small percent of equity.

Usually it's a quarter percent, right? We can talk about advisors for a long time, but yeah, you paper that and you should be looking for someone with particular functional expertise that you need in your business. That might have started as a mentor, right? I have a mentor who's now been my mentor for almost 20 years.

She's seen me through multiple jobs, my career break, all kinds of nonsense. She's the first person I went to with my idea for Scroobious, and she's a formal advisor to the company that is papered, right? That's a formal advisor agreement. She's still my mentor, even outside of, Scroobious too. She will continue to be my mentor.

But she's a specific function for my business as an advisor. And so there's some [00:55:00] advisors, right, like I'm a founding member of the Fourth Effect. They're a great organization that helps connect you to female advisors if you're a startup and vice versa. Then it can work really well. But mentorship is, It's something that I view is, happening over time.

Again, it's relationship building. You have to have a real trusting relationship to be a mentor.

Rachel Murray: It's less transactional in a way. Yeah, that's, that's great. Thank you for clarifying that. 

Marker

Rachel Murray: Um, I would love for you to predict the future for us.

Allison Byers: I would love that too.

Rachel Murray: right?

Allison Byers: I could do that. Yeah.

Rachel Murray: It's funny, some of these podcasts, they put the YouTube videos on and their titles are ridiculous. They're like, if person predicts future of the world, you know, so maybe we can do that for this and see what kind of clicks we get on there.

 But in all seriousness, what trends do you foresee for the next 5 to 10 years? Particularly regarding diversity and tech entrepreneurship and [00:56:00] venture capital.

Allison Byers: It's an interesting time to ask that question and in no way do I want to get political right now. I can't handle it, but.

Rachel Murray: What are you talking about, Alison?

Allison Byers: I, never mind, forget it. I'm gonna go stick my head in the sand for a while. No, but I mean, some of it will depend, right? I obviously am very involved in policy.

So some of it will depend on what happens with policy and there really isn't a way to predict that right now. So that part of it is more difficult. But in general, having now, I've been in this space for five years. I'm fortunate to be in the room for a lot of these types of conversations with, people in positions of power, uh, and I talk to hundreds of founders every day, all the time.

I really believe we are going to see a lot of change in how capital is accessed and allocated. We will not keep relying on venture capital to fund our [00:57:00] innovation economy. We can't. Women, and particularly women of color, are starting businesses faster than any other demographic. They're not going to just keep going to the places that don't give them money.

And the law in California, SB 54, is part of that. They'll be able to go see, they can go to a website and see where money is going. If a fund isn't writing checks to black women, they're not going to go there. They're going to go somewhere else. And they're not going to not build their businesses. So we're going to see a lot more proliferation in how you build channels of capital and economic access.

Can get to and everybody can build upon because it just isn't sustainable right now for it to continue functioning the way it is when we have more representation and education and guidance through accelerators and classes and certifications and speed of access to technology than we have ever had in the history of business building.

So that's, that's what I [00:58:00] get really excited about. And the. Other part of that is there are women in particular with money and with power who are just done with it. They are fed up, and they are activated, and they are collaborating in a way that I have never seen before. And we're really gonna see some new stuff happening.

Rachel Murray: we see you, Melinda Gates.

Allison Byers: Yeah, exactly.

Felicia Jadczak: It's definitely, if anyone is not aware of what Allison's referring to, just get on LinkedIn and start following a bunch of high powered women. Cause you'll start seeing those posts come through.

Allison Byers: Yeah, and it's different. Like, we're, we're not used to it. If you come from a marginalized group, your natural instinct is to protect. Because you always have to fight for that one little crumb, right? We have a scarcity mindset. That's gone right now. People are coming together and abandoning that scarcity mindset, and it's really encouraging.

Felicia Jadczak: yeah, [00:59:00] that is encouraging to hear. What's next for you, Allison? I feel like your answer could be anything, given what we've talked about so far. But yeah, what's next on the horizon for you?

Allison Byers: It's a tough question, but like for right now, I'm working on like 47 different things. Uh, so nothing Yeah, that's what I thought.

 I've only been doing this for four years, right? I ran a medical device company. That was my first entry into entrepreneurship, but it wasn't startup world.

I wasn't in the startup space. So in a relatively short period of time, by being a loud person and acting, I've gotten involved in some really incredible things, but I'm still incredibly focused on Scroobious. This has enormous potential and value and all of those things. So building my company, working on my advocacy work, working with All Raise.

All of these things are my immediate future. I'm not thinking of what's next. I can tell you in the short term, I'm about to write a book. So that's something that's next. [01:00:00] And yeah, it's, it's hard to say, but I'm open to every opportunity that comes with visible action and change where I can be a catalyst in that system.

Rachel Murray: That's so beautiful. Are you allowed to say what the book is about?

Allison Byers: It is about how those who identify as underrepresented can realistically go about fundraising with actionable insights into what does that mean and how do we make it happen. Inventor is not the answer.

Rachel Murray: Nice. Oh, I love that. So juicy. Oh, I'm going to sign up for an early copy.

Allison Byers: Amazing.

Rachel Murray: I'm scared to ask you what you currently geek out about that is not work related because you are clearly very busy.

Allison Byers: like any spare time is kid time and family time, I do geek out about a lot of stuff, but I, I have never been busier in my entire life than I am right now, but I can tell you I geek out about how to not [01:01:00] kill everything I planted in my garden.

Rachel Murray: That's my problem

Felicia Jadczak: I mean, that's real. Also, I think you're in Massachusetts, right? Yes. Boston area. The heat wave is, is real. Like

Allison Byers: Ugh!

Felicia Jadczak: is. Rough out there.

Allison Byers: Sucks! Also, caterpillars, right? Like, what's with them? Can they stop eating all my things? I hate them!

Felicia Jadczak: I know. At summertime is when I go into this very existential crisis mode of wanting to kill all the bugs and creepy crawlies that are out there, and then being like, no, spiders are good. We need this for our

ecosystem. 

Rachel Murray: Well, we need spiders to eat the bugs.

Felicia Jadczak: You know those really disgusting looking monstrous centipedes? They look, like terrible monsters are actually like amazing because they will eat all the pests in your house, but they're so Horrific to see and it just makes me want to murder them. And so I I feel your pain

like gardening all that stuff

Allison Byers: But people would laugh. People would, like, if people want to laugh however they know me or [01:02:00] think of me, just picture me on a weekend. I went out there, I geeked out. I was like, I'll try this baking soda dish soap water spray to get rid of these goddamn caterpillars that are eating all my brussels sprouts and I'm out there like sweating in the heat waves spraying these little things.

That's, that's what I geek out about is what can I put together in a bottle to help save my vegetables.

Rachel Murray: love that.

Felicia Jadczak: I love it too. you need balance in your life,

Rachel Murray: That's right.

Felicia Jadczak: a little caterpillar murder to balance out the funding issues in the world. Well, on that note, is there anything that you would like to share, promote that you haven't already, or where can people find you if they'd like to learn more about you, Scroobious, All Raise, any of the things that you've mentioned so far?

Allison Byers: Yeah, I appreciate it. My primary platform right now is LinkedIn, so anybody can, they should follow me, follow Scroobious. I post about all this stuff and I'm very reachable in that regard. You can go to our website. Again, if you're a founder, We don't charge you can apply for a sponsored account and we allocate them as soon as we have [01:03:00] them available.

We do have them right now. So I encourage you to join the community. We also have a plan for just a dollar a year to have access to a ton of stuff in there in our community. So, uh, recommend that. And then I recently had a post go viral there's now a campaign, hashtag put a woman on it, and it was calling out a manle, which is an all male panel, I ended up having to make merch because there was such a high demand for put a woman on it so you can buy stickers.

I encourage you to go like search hashtag put a woman on it and start using it yourself. This really lit a lot of people up and we should keep calling out these manles wherever we see them.

Rachel Murray: Love it.

Felicia Jadczak: Agreed. Woo.

Rachel Murray: you so much. This was wonderful, Allison.

Allison Byers: Well, thank you for having me on. This was great. I appreciate it.

Felicia Jadczak: All right. Thanks again, Allison. Appreciate you coming on the pod. Well, for those listeners who are still listening, we [01:04:00] hope you enjoyed this interview as much as we enjoyed our conversation.

Rachel Murray: And thank you so much for listening. And please don't forget to rate, share and subscribe. It makes a huge difference in the reach of this podcast and by extension, this work and visit us on the YouTubes, on the Instagrams, on the LinkedIn's to stay up to date on all things SGO. Bye.