In honour of Women's Entrepreneurship Day (November 19), the Waterloo Women's Impact Network presented its first in a series of webinars aimed at sharing the stories and experiences of our alumni, friends and allies.
Susan Heystee (BMath’86), Managing Director at Golden Seeds, and Katie Witikop, Founding Designer at Faire, discussed the importance of supporting female-owned start-ups, potential funding sources for entrepreneurs, incubators, the experience of female founders and the recent shift towards women starting their own businesses during COVID-19.
The conversation was so lively and engrossing that there wasn’t time to address all of the audience’s questions, but we caught up with Susan afterwards to get her responses to your queries:
What drives you to keep going with your start-up when things are really tough?
Any startup is going to have lots of challenges. That’s why you need to have passion and believe in what you are doing and the team you’ve built. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, your team won’t either.
It’s also important that the way you’re solving issues is sticky and differentiated. That’s why you need proof points. If you are transforming something and you have the proof points and good customer feedback, then all obstacles are surmountable.
What supports do you have to keep motivated and strong as a leader and entrepreneur?
You need to love what you are doing. You need to be excited. You need to wake up each day and feel ready to take on the world. That takes a lot of courage. It means that, when you hit obstacles, you use them as learning opportunities. You learn more from mistakes than anything else. If you aren’t being hit with issues, then you aren’t moving forward. I’m a glass-half-full person but you can’t stand still. You need to empower your team to make decisions, seek input and advice, and have the courage to learn and fail and move on. Be better, faster, smarter.
Making a decision is like chess, you have to think three or four moves ahead. It really helps to have advisors who have experience that you don’t, because they can be your sounding board. When I was at Telogis, our CEO had amazing strategy as well as mergers and acquisitions experience. He helped me think through the strategic ramifications of my decisions as well as setting aggressive but responsible growth plans that allowed us to become the leading SaaS company for Mobile Resource Management. I found that really helpful.
I was fortunate to have great personal supports throughout my career, too. When my children were young, my mother helped out a lot. Now I have the amazing support of a homecare nurse to help with my ageing parents. My executive assistant was also amazing. She’d find and block an hour a day so I could go for a run or exercise. She knew it was important. You need to take time for yourself, whether that’s doing yoga, cycling or running.
How do you know you’re working on the right idea for a business?
Look at your evidence and proof points, talk to customers, and be curious. Don’t just hear what you want to hear. Talk to those customers who went with someone else and find out why. If you do that, then you will know.
Are all your board positions paid positions? If not, what is the compensation?
If you are on a public board, they are paid positions. Studies are available about Board compensation. Private boards or start-ups are usually a small cash component and weighted to equity; equivalent compensation in equity is about $75k per year. Start-ups usually give you the opportunity to invest early on in the company. What is critical is that they have director and officer insurance. If they don’t have that, don’t join the board.
Our next WWIN webinar will be held on March 24, 2021, at 12 PM ET. Join us for a conversation with Joanne McKinley (BMath'00, MMath'02), Waterloo’s 2020 J.W. Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation recipient and Director of Software Development at Google, and Sandra Banks, Vice-President, University Relations at Waterloo on Creating Your Own Path: Opportunities, Sustainability and Lessons Through COVID-19
