What It's Like Being A Woman In Silicon Valley

Is it harder for you to raise money than it is for a man? That’s what I asked women in the startup world as I conducted interviews for my Forbes eBook, Their Roaring Thirties: Brutally Honest Career Talk From Women Who Beat The Youth Trap. Sadly, this answer from one woman echoes much of what I heard: “I don’t want to talk about that because if I say anything negative, it could hurt me.”

And there we have it, women attempting to scale the heights of their careers fear if they speak out, they’ll face backlash from the people they need the most.

Then I met Rebeca Hwang, a 34-year-old old woman who has always put herself in roles where men have led but women can excel. She has her M.Eng from MIT. She’s on a leave of absence from her PhD at Stanford. She’s been named one of MIT Tech Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35. The World Economic Forum has recognized her as a Young Global Leader. She’s the founder and CEO of a tech startup and a social enterprise, and she’s the cofounder of another startup in South America (in retail). Currently she’s a managing partner at Rivet Ventures, a female-run Silicon Valley VC fund backing entrepreneurs creating innovative products and services that target a predominantly female demographic. Last but not least, she’s unafraid to speak up.

Rebeca was born in Korea and when she was six, her family moved to Argentina. In a traditional Korean family, having a daughter isn’t as celebrated as having a son. Her dad would tell her that he wished she was a boy, so she could accomplish her wildest dreams instead of being limited by society. Those words motivated her to excel in a man’s world.

Rebeca shares what a week in her life in Silicon Valley looks like in this excerpt from Their Roaring Thirties:

I’m Living In A Man’s World

Being a female in a man’s world has advantages and disadvantages. I wouldn’t say I work harder than men (in fact, there are plenty of men who probably work harder than me!), but I work harder at finding my competitive advantage . Here’s an example of what a week in Silicon Valley could look like for me:

The fact that I am a female changes the dynamics of interactions. It’s not just me; many founders have told me the same thing. When I’m at networking events, people assume that I’m in sales or community development because I’m a young woman. When I introduce myself and say, “I'm the CEO and cofounder,” they look at me strangely and ask, “Are you really the CEO?”

The next day at a business meeting, men aren’t directing the hard questions to me, even though I’m the CEO. I start tracking eye contact and the direction of the questions. When it’s about important business matters, questions and eye contact go to the men in the room. The attention comes to me when we’re talking about the “softer” stuff like team dynamics or social.

Then I go into a fundraising meeting and I am told that I should bring a man with me to these meetings because having a man by my side will help me gain credibility and get a higher valuation. Sadly, these investors thought they were being helpful.

Next stop is another business meeting during which the first 30 minutes are spent talking about my plans to have babies, assessing my availability or commitment for medium-term projects, or questioning if I will have the capability to run a company because they assume I can’t run a company and have a family. Before I was married, I would go to meetings with Korean business partners and I would get questioned about my marital status, as if it was that much more uncomfortable to deal with a female CEO who was unmarried. They would ask me how old I was, why I wasn’t married and tell me that I should find a husband before I became a spinster. Crazy but true.

It’s Good To Be A Woman

But here’s the flip side, four good things about being a woman in Silicon Valley.

You stand out. Entrepreneurs from all over the world flock to SF to live their startup dreams, not unlike actors buying one-way tickets to Hollywood, hoping to be the next big celebrity. It is difficult to be noticed. Because of the large proportion of men versus women in the tech space in the Bay Area, it is statistically easier to make a more lasting impression during demo days or pitch sessions. This environmental advantage can be helpful, although not sufficient if not accompanied with talent and a great idea, of course.

You can find a unique and valuable contribution to most discussions. With the increasingly important role of women consumers and users in driving growth for startups in the mobile, shared economy, e-commerce and education space, founders and investors are eager to gain perspectives that are not usually represented at the male-dominated table.

There is demand for stories of women entrepreneurs and investors. The timing for women entrepreneurs and investors couldn't be better. There is a growing interest by the media to capture stories of up-and-coming and accomplished women who have shown leadership in male-dominated fields.

There are network effects with women who are excited to help other women! For some time we have talked about the queen bee effect and the trend of women not helping other women. I believe that this is starting to change—fortunately! Women today are eager to change the equation from protecting one piece of the pie to working together to increase the size of the pie.

The New Silicon Valley

I believe that Silicon Valley has stifled innovation. One of the issues is that we have fashionable trends—the new thing that will lead to riches or the new buzzword. But it’s not relevant for society, isn’t giving people what they really need and isn’t finding a gap that needs to be filled. One of the reasons is that there has been more focus put on a “let’s get rich quickly” versus a “let’s do something awesome that may take longer” mentality. These short-term dreams are often based on creating companies that will be acquired, getting to an attractive valuation point as soon as possible. That’s very different from creating companies that give value to the customer long term.

The good news is that Silicon Valley is starting to change. I am seeing more founders thinking holistically about problems versus just making money. What’s really interesting is that many of the new opportunities aren’t about a cool new tech disruption or innovation. I see a good number of startups building tangible products, often with a hardware component, which address real problems instead of theoretical or assumed ones. Moreover, there is more emphasis on customer validation early on, and lean approaches to building the first prototype.

Companies are now more focused on branding, with more connections to the non-tech world. For example, the intersection between functionality and fashion has produced interesting startups. Everpurse founder Liz Salcedo created a purse with an inductive charging mat inside the purse so women can charge their phones on the go. Grace Choi created Mink, a 3D printer that can print any color of makeup at home.

Opportunities like combining fashion with technology are creating more founding roles for people who are more knowledgeable on branding, marketing and positioning of the story. This is great for women because there are a lot of women in these fields, and it’s putting a higher appreciation on marketing and branding roles. More women lead to more diversity in the pool of founders—both in terms of gender and roles.

Finally, the over-idealization of youth as a conditioning factor for successful startups is changing. Seasoned executives and mothers re-entering the job market are becoming startup entrepreneurs, which provides a bit more maturity to the space.

Why The World Needs Female Investors

In Silicon Valley, only 4% of senior investors are female; 96% are male.  Combine that with the fact that women make two-thirds of all purchasing decisions. Now look at trends like mobile, education, wearables and the sharing economy. Women are key to purchasing these products. Even Twitter and Facebook have a majority of female users. Women are key to a company’s success.

Female investors and women in funding have a needed perspective, an advantage because we are the end users of the products. And that gives us experience, knowledge and even intuitive information from the startup stage on.