Venture capital may be Kathryn’s occupation, but entrepreneurship is her vocation. She looks at the world through the lens of possibilities and what can be built. In creating her venture capital firm, Genius Guild, she uses venture capital to build a new Black future. In this episode, you’ll learn about the founding of Genius Guild, the power of investing in Black entrepreneurs, and the importance of sticking to your core values.

“I think Genius Guild is going about its mission with much more experience than almost anyone else doing this.”

Kathryn started Genius Guild as both a community for entrepreneurs and a fund to invest in high-growth companies led by Black founders. Genius Guild’s investment thesis is that Black companies produce alpha- aka market rate returns- for investors, their community, and themselves. They aim to invest in market-based solutions that end racism by funding and supporting Black founders.

“On average, it takes seven introductions to an investor to get a white woman funded in their network. But it takes fifty to get a black female entrepreneur invested.”

Genius Guild was created to level the playing field and make it easier for founders of color to find investments to continue pioneering work. If only some people create new businesses, you don’t get access to creators’ entire wealth of lived experience and new, innovative ideas that may not look like everything else on the market.

“We're doing something big, bold, and forward-thinking. And so, we must ensure we're all on board.”

When you build your business, you want to ensure that you and your team are on the same page. One way Kathryn did this was to create a set of shared company values alongside her team and create an environment of shared trust where everyone felt comfortable contributing.

“In a lifetime of doing a lot of big, interesting things, this is the biggest, the most interesting, the boldest thing I've ever done.”

Life is about what you leave behind and whether your existence made the world better.

Guests

Renee Wittemyer: https://ncwit.org/profile/renee-wittemyer/

Brian Laung Aoaeh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/industrialtransformationandsupplychaintechnology/

Cheryl Contee: https://dobigthings.today/team-members/cheryl-contee/

Geri Stengel: https://ventureneer.com/founder-bio/

Sharmayne Lueiza Muñoz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharmayne-lueiza-mu 

Barbara Clarke: https://impactseat.org/team-member/barbara-clarke/

Teresa Chahine: https://som.yale.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/teresa-chahine

Dr. Jeffrey Robinson: https://www.business.rutgers.edu/faculty/jeffrey-robinson

They may be called “micro-investments,” but they’re anything but small. In this episode, you’ll learn about The Doonie Fund, a social investment fund started by Kathryn in honor of her grandmother Kathryn “Doonie” Hale. The Doonie Fund provides micro-investments to Black women entrepreneurs and has provided grants to over 2,000 women. 

“During the pandemic, I felt helpless.” 

The Doonie Fund began during COVID when Kathryn had an extra $10,000 from a canceled cruise. She decided to donate that money to Black women entrepreneurs who were struggling due to the pandemic. Those initial donations became the Doonie Fund and started a movement.

“It was just such a sweet, simple way to tell women–particularly women of color, particularly Black women–that we see you.”

One of The Doonie Fund's most important aspects was its placing trust in women of color entrepreneurs. The fund trusts women to know what is best for their businesses.

“The Doonie Fund is one of the first resources that I've seen that is truly equitable.” 

The Doonie Fund allowed people to put their money where their values were by supporting underrepresented founders.  

Guests

Jamela Peterson: https://socialpreneurlab.org/about-founder/

Robert Finney

Shawn Escoffery: https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/shawn-escoffery/

Kim Folsom: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimtfolsom/

Ruth Ann Harnisch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruthannharnisch/

Barbara Clarke: https://impactseat.org/team-member/barbara-clarke/

Jennifer Van Dam: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifervandam/

Michea Rahman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michea-rahman-aa09078a/

Choosing yourself isn’t always easy. But after eight years leading the groundbreaking digitalundivided—D)—an organization that she founded to help Black and Latinx women tech entrepreneurs get the mentorship and support they desperately needed, Kathryn had to do just that. She chose herself and her sanity and decided to leave the business.

“You have to pivot, change, and evolve, and it's hard.”

After digitalundivided’s first cohort, Kathryn restructured the organization, moving it from New York City to Atlanta. However, Atlanta’s tech scene wasn’t as developed as New York's, so after two years, she moved the company headquarters back to the East Coast to Newark and got an investment from Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company. This completely changed digitalundivided’s trajectory. 

“I think the greatest challenge that I saw Kathryn overcome was being in a place where you've created something that you love and adore and then taking a step back and being willing to make a change.”

The Pivotal Ventures investment gave digitalundivided the space to grow from an organization led by a charismatic leader to an institution. 

“I could leave feeling empowered because I knew I could build something else.” 

Exiting your company can be a real opportunity to unleash your creativity and consider what you want to build next. For Kathryn, it was creating her VC firm, Genius Guild. 

Guests

Dr. Jeffrey Robinson: https://www.business.rutgers.edu/faculty/jeffrey-robinson

Laura Weidman Powers: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurawp/

Darlene Gillard-Jones: https://www.darlenegillardjones.com/ 

Valeska Toro: https://www.instagram.com/valeska_toro/

Kelechi Anyadiegwu

Danielle Robinson Bell: https://www.medill.northwestern.edu/directory/faculty/danielle-bell.html

Citi Medina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/medinaciti/

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson: http://kendrabracken-ferguson.com/

One of the hardest things for an entrepreneur is to sell your big idea to others. That’s precisely what Kathryn did when she started digitalundivided. Kathryn shares how her “co-conspirators” — such as the founders of BlogHer and early employee Darlene Gillard Jones — helped her build a powerful company based on her mission of empowering Black and Latina women in technology. You’ll also learn how she pioneered the groundbreaking research study, Project Diane, which exposed the disparities in venture capital investing in Black women's businesses and went viral.

“The FOCUS100 conference was just an introduction into this new ecosystem around Black women entrepreneurs and Black women in tech.”
Kathryn started a conference for Black women in business called Focus 100. Her colleagues at BlogHer gave her the template to plan such an enormous event, and she raised money from partners as diverse as Andreessen Horwitz and American Express, as well as putting in another $30,000 of her own money. The conference, mainly focusing on how diverse entrepreneurs could raise money, was a success that helped launch many careers.

“We were about three or four years too early with the Focus Conference.”

It’s important to recognize when your ideas are ahead of their time and when you might need to reevaluate your approach. After the first few years, Kathryn realized that it would be challenging to get the funding she needed to make the digitalundivided genuinely a business. 

“Project Diane fundamentally changed venture capital space in ways that still vibrate today.”

As a Builder, there will be times when the ecosystem isn’t ready for what you offer.  But you can take what you’ve learned” idea and use those lessons to build your next venture. Kathryn could take what she learned from Focus100 and create her next venture–digitalundivided–and a game-changing research study with Project Diane.

Guests

Darlene Gillard-Jones: https://www.darlenegillardjones.com/ 

Elisa Camahort Page: https://www.elisacp.com/

Shawn Escoffrey: https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/person/shawn-escoffery/

Kelechi Anyadiegwu

Kellee James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelleejames/

Chris Carfi: https://christophercarfi.com/

Jeanne Sullivan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannemsullivan/

Geri Stengel: https://ventureneer.com/founder-bio/

Diverse entrepreneurs often feel they have to stick to what they’ve built. But what happens if you want to do something different? How does one even begin? How do you sell a company? In this episode, you’ll learn how to successfully exit a company–something many entrepreneurs can’t imagine–and how to start something new.

“I think what many people don't realize–particularly in the Black community–is how venture capital works.”

Selling a company can mean a couple of different things, but fundamentally, it's about seeing some return on the investment of time and money you put into building your company. When she was thinking about leaving The Budget Fashionista, Kathryn had a choice between venture capital, private equity, and just selling it. Accepting venture capital or private equity meant she would have to stay with the company for several years, something she wasn’t interested in doing. So Kathryn decided to sell the company.  To sell it, she had to prove that the community and the revenue would stay even if she left. So she spent two more years building a team that could take over The Budget Fashionista when she was gone.

“One of the challenges that we have in the Black community is that we overstay, and I know why: security.” 

In many resource-poor communities, selling, aka exiting your company, isn’t a positive thing. Some see it as a failure. However, in the world of venture capital, exiting is the goal.

“This is what a CEO might do, or somebody in charge of a corporation might do: sell and move on to the next and build another one.”

Kathryn never saw The Budget Fashionista as just a passion project. It was always about the business and what that could create. Her focus on the b helped her recognize when it was time to leave so she could take the money and go on to her next venture. 

Guests

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson: http://kendrabracken-ferguson.com/

Heather Hiles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-hiles/

Cheryl Contee: https://dobigthings.today/team-members/cheryl-contee/

Brian Laung Aoaeh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/industrialtransformationandsupplychaintechnology/

John Schmidt: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/au/author/john-schmidt/

Patrice Grell Yursik: https://about.me/afrobella

The Budget Fashionista (TBF) was one of the first superstar blogs and became a sensation in the early 2000s, making Kathryn one of the first internet influencers. For many women, TBF was one of the first blogs they read, becoming a gateway into internet content. In this episode, Kathryn shares how she built and grew the company from a blog to a media empire. 

“Kathryn was such a pioneer and really one of the first, and to look at someone in that space who looked like me, who sounded like me, who was accomplished–it was really exciting.” 

At the beginning of the social media/blogging landscape, there were very few—to none—women and/or people of color. As a result, Kathryn’s presence became an important marker and influenced a whole generation of successful women entrepreneurs. 

“And (blogging) started to change the more money came into the space.”
Kathryn’s popular blog led to TV appearances and eventually a book deal. This success validated her for a while, and Kathryn felt like she was part of a community with other early bloggers. However, as blogging became more popular and easy with the advancement of blogging technology, the community began to fracture. 

Guests

Patrice Grell Yursik: https://about.me/afrobella

Darlene Gillard-Jones: https://www.darlenegillardjones.com/ 

Tobias Wright: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaswright/

Elisa Camahort Page: https://www.elisacp.com/

Nicholas Roman Lewis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-roman-lewis-revolutionarydaydreams69569/

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson: http://kendrabracken-ferguson.com/

Entrepreneurs are often built from a very early stage. In this episode, Kathryn talks to the people who were present at the beginning of her journey as a young builder and explains what led her to become one of the most influential women in tech. 

“When you go against Entitleds, there is sometimes a price to pay.” 

Sometimes, going against the grain has a price. The key is understanding the price and ensuring you have the support system to help you navigate the fallout. 

“And I'm always thinking about how to build, how to make things grow, how to make them bigger, and how to even be bigger myself.”

Looking back through your childhood, you can often see the genesis of how you got to where you are today. 

How did Genius Guild quickly raise millions to invest in diversity founders?  Kathryn shares her journey to get to that point, including all the work she had done over the last 20 years to build the relationships she needed to create Genius Guild.

“I started Genius Guild after years of trying to figure out how to create a space where everyone wins.”

How can you build a company that reflects your values? Kathryn wanted to create a space where everyone, especially Black people, could win. And she tried to defy the zero-sum dichotomy that says if one group of people wins, it means other people lose. 

“One ask turned into more asks, and one donation became many donations.”

The Covid pandemic inspired Kathryn to start the Doonie Fund, a micro-grant platform that gave $160,000 to 15,000 black women-led entrepreneurs within six weeks. 

“I knew I could build Genius Guild because I had spent a lifetime building stuff.” 

Your experience and everything you’ve learned from successes and failures are the fuel that can power your latest venture. 

Guests
Mia Henry: https://www.freedomlifted.com/miahenry
Saidah Nash Carter: https://saidahnashcarter.com/
Brian Laung Aoaeh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/industrialtransformationandsupplychaintechnology/