Meet Alice: All the Resources Women and Minority Entrepreneurs Need
Securing funding and resources as a women or minority entrepreneur has always been difficult. Elizabeth Gore aims to change all that with the company she co-founded, Alice.
Click here to listen to Elizabeth Gore’s segment on The Small Business Radio Show
00:04 S?: Get ready for all the craziness of small business. It’s exactly that craziness that makes it exciting, and totally unbelievable. Small Business Radio is now on the air with your host Barry Moltz.
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01:01 S1: Well, getting funding and resources as a women or minority-entrepreneur has always been difficult. My next guest aims to change all of that. Elizabeth Gore serves as the co-founder and president of Alice, which helps businesses launch and grow through a network of more than 100,000 companies in all 50 states and across the globe. Alice is building the largest community of business owners in the country while tracking data and trends to increase owner success rate. Previously, Elizabeth served as entrepreneur in residence at Dell Technologies. Elizabeth, welcome back to the show.
01:36 Barry Moltz: Thank you. I’m so happy to be with you. And wow, you’ve done so many shows [01:40] ____.
[chuckle]
01:40 S1: I have. 12 years. I had 12 years. People always say to me, “How do you have so many great sponsors for your show?” I say, “Well, first, you gotta do the first five years with nobody listening.” And they go, “No, no, I just wanna skip to the other part.” So it’s so great to have you back. Talk about your new venture. You’re always doing such wonderful things to help entrepreneurs.
02:02 BM: Oh man, well, we have to, right? As the backbone of America. But yes, helloalice.com, we are so proud to serve what we call the new majority of business owners. Collectively, women, people of color, our US Veterans, entrepreneurs with disabilities, we’re so proud that these are the folks who are growing businesses the fastest, and as you know more than anyone, we have 560,000 businesses launching per month right now in America. And our goal is to make sure that every business center has access to capital, networks, and the resources they need of Alice.
02:37 S1: So, Elizabeth, why is it so much more difficult for women and minorities to get these kinds of resources? Isn’t it just equal for everybody?
02:50 BM: Well, the issue is access. We are now, whether you’re a woman or a person of color, starting businesses at such a high percentage, and I think systems and networks are catching up, frankly. And if you look at sources of capital, for example, in venture, it’s really in three geographies. I mean, it’s certainly in other places but if you’re not in San Francisco, New York, Seattle and other places, it’s hard to access that. And traditionally, women are starting to build companies all over the country. Or you talk about our US Veterans, they’re coming back to mostly the Midwest. I mean, in Texas alone, we’ve got 2,000 coming home per week. So if capital is not concentrated in those areas, we have to make sure that systems get to them.
03:42 BM: And then second is access to networks. Women in particular, we tend to keep our day job or our corporate job a lot longer. We generally also have childcare, elder care on our plates, so the way that we work, the times that we work, the ability to network or go out for happy hours, or go golfing or all these things, are just different. So we have to create systems that are more applicable to the way individuals work for now and the future. But I tell you the great news is that, when these individuals do get equal access to capital, they tend to match or outperform their white male counterparts, so this a [04:27] ____ story.
04:29 S1: Yeah, it’s interesting to me because women and minorities really start, as you said, businesses much more frequently than people that are not part of that group, and I believe they also work harder because they know this is really their chance.
04:45 BM: Absolutely. I mean, if you wanna see someone who works their butts off, head into any small business, and all the small business owners are working really hard. But I will say that, whether it’s unconscious bias or some of the hurdles I’ve mentioned, it does require sometimes twice the effort. I mean, even in our company, we’re a Latina women owned company and we closed the Series A financing this year. And it was just incredibly difficult and we learned that only 2% of women are getting venture. If you’re Latina, it’s 0.001. And so, but I do… I am an optimist all the way. And I do believe that there are great organizations coming out, there are enterprise funds coming out very focused on these demographics, there are business services. And that’s our job to find all of those and make sure that we’re putting them right there on your desktop every morning to find those opportunities.
05:45 S1: So let’s talk about your series A round because you did something very interesting that you included a first of its kind “Me Too” clause, that holds investors accountable for discriminatory behavior. Talk about what that is and why it was so important to do that.
06:03 BM: Absolutely, so we… As we were raising our A, we were pretty shocked by some of the behaviors of investors, board members, whether you look at me too incidents, financial mismanagement, race orientation issues. And we were surprised that legally, if an individual had that kind of behavior, they still had control of a company. And to us, for me, that’s… I always go at things from a profitability lens. If you have someone who’s chairman of your board and they end up doing some kind of sexual assault or financial mis-grievance or whatever that is, obviously, that is gonna lower your profitability, it’s gonna affect your brand, it’s gonna affect trust, it’s gonna affect employee morale.
06:56 BM: So to me, actually, the data shows not just me that’s lowering profitability. So we worked really hard in the state of California to put in a legally binding clause that showed, if someone is prosecuted for that type of behavior, they do lose control, their controlling shares. We felt that was really important. We were proud to release that language on a piece on our helloalice.com blog, so anyone can use it. It was an expensive endeavor, so I hope somebody uses it, that’s for sure. But our goal again is to always be looking out for our business owners, even if it’s through our own practices at Alice.
07:37 S1: But this, Elizabeth, seemed to me that you actually made something that was difficult even more difficult. It’s difficult for women to get venture, and now, you actually narrow the field putting a me too clause on it. How was that received when you went out for venture in California?
07:56 BM: Well, it’s hard not… It’s hard to look someone in the eye and say, “Do you perceive that someone on your board or someone is going to do this type of behavior?” And but, when you start getting down to brass tacks and legalities around it, as a capitalist, everyone wants these companies to succeed. So I will tell you, I was really pleasantly surprised by the venture community and as we were out pitching, this was a no-brainer to a lot of folks. We had very few people shy away from it. And again, this is not just me too. It’s financial misgivings, it’s race issues. And frankly, it’s not that hard not to be an ass, and if you kinda put that up front, I think that it puts people on their best behavior. And it is forward looking and it’s profitable and it’s the way we should work.
08:55 S1: Why would venture companies wanna put this at risk because in the early 2000s, when I was an angel investor, there was this old joke that said that, “Any rights that you have left in the agreement with a venture firm is really just a typographical error.” [chuckle] Why would they wanna give you any right in this area? Is it because they also believe that the time has really come, that we’ve really got to change the behavior and this was important to get behind?
09:23 BM: Yeah, that, but I’ll tell you what was interesting is, I found that a lot of LPs at venture funds, as well as managing partners, are trying to figure out how to better train their fund managers, whether it’s their behavior or whether it is ensuring they’re being proactive. And this actually helped many of them put an extra layer of accountability in. And the reason that’s important is the amount of legal issues that these VCs have gone through for the behavior of their employees, you know they don’t wanna do that either. And so, it brought joint accountability and I was pleasantly surprised that I heard that a lot.
10:11 S1: I think that’s great to hear. Now, you’re also working with a lot of other significant companies like Bumble and PepsiCo and Mastercard and Salesforce. What are they doing to help entrepreneurs out in its relation to Hello Alice?
10:26 BM: Absolutely, so we’re very proud to have a lot of enterprise customers utilizing Alice. And whether it is a Chase Bank, or a Mastercard, or so on, are really trying to get their services in the hands of this broader group whether, again, we’re talking about women or people of color, or our Vets, or folks in smaller towns. So they’re utilizing Alice to better access these owners, which is really exciting. On the other side, Bumble, PepsiCo, L’Oreal, many of them have innovation funds that they’re running, and they’re trying to find the next best business owner who they might acquire, who they might learn from, innovate with, or they might lift up within their own, let’s say, supplier diversity program. So again, Alice has become a major conduit for enterprise, other business services, innovation funds, or co-marketing campaigns for small business owners.
11:25 S1: You’re also working with one of my favorite people in the world Ramon Ray. He’s your entrepreneur in residence. Tell us how Ramon is gonna be helping you out and bringing his electric energy to this venture?
11:36 BM: Oh my gosh. I gotta drink six cups of coffee before I talk to Ramon. He’s so great. Well, we really started Alice to be at the size to where we wanted to ensure we consistently innovate as well as the company, and I was very proud to be the entrepreneur in residence at Dell previously, and really liked the model of bringing outside in. How are we continuing to learn from the outside world inside our company? And so, we felt like it was time for us to have entrepreneur in residence and Ramon was literally the first person I thought of because he really understands the cross section of what small business owners need, how time poor and busy they are, so you have to get the information with energy and concise and focus. But then also, he’s very inspiring and we all need that in our lives. We need someone to say, “You’re doing great, keep going.” “This is hard, but you can rock it,” and that’s really Ramon.
12:34 S1: Now, through your website, are people going to be able to make personal connections, either with other entrepreneurs or with these types of resources that can help them out?
12:45 BM: Yeah. When you log on to helloalice.com, we ask a lot of questions. We ask your stage of growth, your physical location, your industry. We also ask your gender, your ethnicity, are you a veteran, a military spouse? Because then, through our meta tagging and machine learning, we ensure that you’re getting the most precise information for your business. But additionally, you can create a company profile, and that allows you to actually market yourself on Alice. And if you agree, there’s a toggle on your profile to say, “Yes, I want to receive introduction.” People can search for you, whether it’s by name, or they can say, “I’m really looking for another person in the food industry in Detroit who is African American.” And that person will pop up. And Alice will send an email and say, “Would you like to meet this other individual?” So that we protect people’s privacy. And then you get connected. It’s a great way for people to also do business when they say, “I’m an accountant. I’m in Houston, and I’m available for business.” So on and so forth. So, it’s a real network, which we’re very proud of.
14:03 S1: I noticed that on your website, you have ecosystems, right? Tell us about the ecosystems and why you don’t have one in Chicago.
[chuckle]
14:12 BM: Well, let’s do one. Come on.
14:12 S1: Let’s do it. Glad to help out.
14:16 BM: We’re really proud that there are, what I would call clusters of individuals, who want to dialogue on the day-to-day. And so, we support, to your point, ecosystems. Maybe they’re industry specific, maybe their demographic. So, we host the black female founder ecosystem, for example. We host big Omaha. We have a big one in Houston. And we have, again, industry focus. So, we have a community for companies that are combating climate change. These are self-selected communities that want to, consistently throughout the day, share ideas constantly with each other, opportunities and so on. But also, we offer our services for free, obviously, for owners, but also for any non-profits or chambers of commerce that are working. So, Bunker Labs for Veterans that I’m a huge fan of in Chicago, for example. The National Hispanic Chamber, they’re utilizing Alice as well to help manage and support their owners.
15:21 S1: Well, I wanna encourage everyone to sign up. And where can they do it, Elizabeth?
15:26 BM: Absolutely. Helloalice.com. We wanna help as many business owners as we can. Pretty soon, we’re gonna be launching a very special campaign called Business For All, where you can apply for a grant for your business, non-equity small business grants, which we all need. And please join us. We can’t wait to meet you.
15:49 S1: Elizabeth, thanks so much for joining us again. Always love to follow what you’re doing next. This is AM 820 WCPT in Chicago. We’ll be right back.
Click here to listen to Elizabeth Gore’s segment on The Small Business Radio Show