“At the very basic level, a key challenge is that founders of color/women typically do not travel in the same circles/networks as white venture capitalists or even angel investors.”
We caught up with James to discuss the challenges facing underrepresented founders today and what he thinks can be done to help change things for the better. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
PJ: At the very basic level, a key challenge is that founders of color/women typically do not travel in the same circles/networks as white venture capitalists or even angel investors. This is especially true for new/first-time founders of color. As a result, it is going to take us longer to get the network connections and build relationships within those networks. These network connections are key to getting those “high valued” warm introductions.
Then when we finally get those meetings, gender and racial bias, oftentimes, will be right there with us in the room. For a person of color, an investor’s biases can kick in before they even get started. The same can be said for a woman. This is very critical because investor meetings will go very differently because in many cases the questions that are asked of a person of color and women will be different than the questions white founders would get. Bias is a beast.
PJ: When I first started working in the startup ecosystem I was really disappointed to see the investment data points. As I got deeper into the community my disappointment didn’t go away, but I began to understand the why. I mean, you go back just six years and there weren’t very many black VCs–probably less than 1 percent. There were not as many black startup founders back then as there are today. So the “startup life” was not very prevalent in the black communities like it is today.
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