In 2016, tech conferences were dominated by men. Women founders on the tech stage were few and far between and Black women, even fewer. So when Lauren Washington set out to create a retreat for women working in tech she hoped to get 30 attendees. Her goal, along with those of her co-organizers, was to meet and talk to other women working in technology, learn the industry lingo and develop a deeper understanding of fundraising. They ended up getting 300.
Lauren Washington is a businesswoman turned tech entrepreneur. She is the co-founder of Black Women Talk Tech, one of the largest conferences for Black women founders in technology, and Fundr, a software platform that democratizes the investing ecosystem. Lauren started her career in corporate America before turning to entrepreneurship and the tech world. She is familiar with all the excuses about the low pipeline of Black tech workers and a shallow talent pool (a common refrain when businesses are asked about their lack of diversity). Except, the pipeline might just look a little different than what we are conditioned to see.
“When my co-founders (Esosa Ighodaro and Regina Gwynn) started Black Women Talk Tech, we saw this hunger and need for women entrepreneurs to feel welcomed into the tech space. I didn’t realize that there were so many Black women founders in tech, building cool, scalable businesses with impact. It’s a myth that we’re outliers.”
The technology pipeline problem is widespread. According to Built-In, there are 700,000 open tech roles in America and only 56,000 computer science graduates. The numbers get even grimmer across gender. While women make up 47% of working adults in the United States, they hold just 26% of computing jobs of which 3% of those are held by Black women and 1% by Latinx women.
Black Women Talk Tech grew quickly, beyond Lauren and her co-founders’ expectations. The visible lack of diversity on the tech stage meant there was a hunger and enormous appetite for space where Black women could foster connections, build out their network and get access to the resources they need to scale their businesses. But talking to Black women entrepreneurs, brought up another problem —the lack of funding available to Black women founders.
“I had gone through the fund-raising process and seen first-hand how hard it can be and how demoralizing the process is. There are so many instances where Black women will hear a no, when if it were someone else pitching the exact same idea, they would get a yes. I started Fundr part-time, bootstrapping with my two co-founders to get it off the ground. This past year we got into an accelerator and have been moving at lightning speed ever since.”
The funding gap is one of the bigger problems not just in the tech space but also within the entrepreneurial community at large. Venture capitalists and investors are looking for a certain type of unicorn status company and in the process losing out on valuable business opportunities.
“I think we have an image of the type of person that is building the next big thing. They might be a college dropout from a prestigious school like Stanford or Harvard. The tech wunderkind is what the media portrays, when the reality is it might be a 38-year-old Black mother, with two degrees that is building the next billion-dollar business. But investors have a hard time seeing that, and so we want to help remove bias from the funding process.”
Fundr uses a smart algorithm and AI to simplify the funding process. They look at businesses across 90 pieces of data, including traction and revenue to give investors an objective picture of a company.
“We give them an evaluation and a score, and this helps investors and entrepreneurs, because there are likely companies that are being overlooked.”
Lauren’s career has spanned across disciplines, but she always knew she wanted to start her own venture. Having cut her chops in corporate America she shares lessons in empathy and learning about the kind of leader she wanted to be.
“Like everyone I had good and bad experiences in the corporate world. I think when you have a bad experience, like if the management of a company is poor or there are operational issues, it’s a learning opportunity. I started my career in teaching and transitioned to marketing and social media management soon after. I wanted to accelerate my progress, so I got an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. Transitioning out of the corporate world to start my first company, Keep Up happened faster than I thought, and I haven’t looked back since. I now know that I want to love what I am doing. Above all I want to continue doing work with impact.”
Lauren’s impact has been profound for Black women who are building businesses in technology. Her platforms have allowed women who are constantly fighting an uphill battle with being seen and recognized for their talent, enterprise, and skill to be center stage. But her work and connecting with other women in her space has also allowed her to contextualize her own experiences.
“I think the feeling of not being seen is one that almost all Black women can relate to at some point in their careers. We talk about biases in funding but even when we do get opportunities there is this constant experience of people talking over you, or not listening to you. This past year there’s been a lot of talk about how Black people face microaggressions in the workplace, but I think we underestimate how unceasing it is. You’re constantly going through your experiences and wondering if they are happening to you because you’re a Black woman.”
As the tech world continues to grapple with its diversity problem, the outlook can seem disheartening for BIPOC people and women especially. One of the biggest challenges facing tech is one of culture. Hiring managers, unfamiliar with a diverse hiring process, continue to skew job openings in favor of men or white people. This becomes even more pronounced in funding, where power dynamics are vast, and wealth stays within the same circles.
Women are used to being underrepresented across the board, but underrepresentation is especially visible in technology and STEM disciplines. And yet, as Lauren learned through building Black Women Talk Tech, there were many women that were facing similar battles. Even more telling is that the burden of change falls disproportionately on the shoulders of these women and others in marginalized communities.
For Lauren, building a business ethos from the lens of equity and fostering community simply makes sense. She is passionate about creating an equitable culture through her work and hopes that as more businesses like Fundr and Black Women Talk Tech take their place in the tech world, the public perception of who should be at the helm of a billion-dollar business starts to broaden.
“I think there is so much brilliance among Black women founders that it just makes economic sense to start paying attention to us. Otherwise, we are doing ourselves a disservice and losing out on innovative brands and companies that can really make a difference.”
Despite the deck being stacked against her, Lauren has shown her naysayers and the world that she is a force to be reckoned with. But the reality remains that if the current tech business climate stays status quo, we will continue to have a diversity problem. Lauren’s journey proves that as more women take big strides, the more other women progress. In the meantime, the rest of us can reflect on how we can make that journey, a little smoother.
