Today’s episode of Startup Hustle features Lauren Conaway and Kelly Sievers, Managing Director of Women’s Capital Connection. They talk about why women need to put themselves forward for leadership. In this episode, Kelly and Lauren discuss the challenges of women in the business and leadership space. They also explain what gender equity, gender diversity, and gender equality are and why every business needs them. Finally, they emphasize why it is vital to understand and hear from different perspectives to find success.
Covered In This Episode
Gender diversity in leadership fosters innovation, creativity, and balanced decision-making. It brings diverse perspectives, skills, and experiences, enhancing problem-solving and organizational performance. Women’s Capital Connection invests in women entrepreneurs to promote gender diversity in the startup space.
Listen to Lauren and Kelly share notes on building communities that support women leaders. Kelly talks about how growing up with supportive parents helped her explore opportunities without gear. The conversation covered her journey that led her to Mid America Angels, Women’s Business Center, and finally, the establishment of Women’s Capital Connection.
Lauren and Kelly discussed gender diversity in leadership teams and gender equality in startups. They focused on the importance of creating supportive spaces for women leaders to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment. They agree that different perspectives in leadership are critical for business success.
Women entrepreneurs are finally getting more support. Find out why it is important in this Startup Hustle episode.
Highlights
- Kelly Sievers’ backstory (1:59)
- Mid America Angels and Women’s Business Center (9:21)
- Establishing Women's Capital Connection (12:45)
- Gender diversity in leadership teams (17:44)
- Gender equity in startups with a focus on creating supportive spaces for women leaders (23:22)
- Gender equality and women's empowerment (30:10)
- The need for gender allyship and different perspectives (33:50)
- The favorite word (41:53)
- Superpowers (43:04)
- Checkout OneKC for Women (46:21)
Key Quotes
Companies that are led by both men and women, or at least have both men and women in management, do so much better. Statistics show they do so much overall because you need that perspective from both genders. You need it in order to be successful. -- Kelly Sievers
What is your version of success and be good with that. Don't constantly get people challenging you like that's not enough. -- Kelly Sievers
What I'm all about is choice. I never want her to feel limited by her environment; I only want her to feel limited by her own needs, wants, and desires. If this is not what you want, then you don't have to. I have so much respect for the stay-at-home mom. I don't want to eradicate stay-at-home moms, but I just want to make sure that every woman out there has the choice that is only powered by her to be a stay-at-home mom or not. -- Lauren Conaway
When you have your own company, you know, you just you, you have to, the best thing is you get to make all the decisions. The toughest thing is you have to make all the decisions. So, you have to learn how to look at things from a lot of different perspectives. Yeah, I think it's helpful when men and women are involved. -- Kelly Sievers
Rough Transcript
Following is an auto-generated text transcript of this episode. Apologies for any errors!
Lauren Conaway 0:01
And we're back. Thank you for joining us for yet another episode of the Startup Hustle podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Conaway, founder and CEO of InnovateHer KC. And today's episode of Startup Hustle is powered by FullScale.io. Hiring software developers is difficult, but Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably. And they have the platform to help you manage that team. Visit FullScale.io or click the link in the show notes to learn more. All right, friends, I don't think it's any great secret that I love, love, love interviewing thought leaders around the women's space and women founders, capital for women, all of these things. And I have to tell you that today's guest is a little bit of a hero of mine. And I've told her this before. She's aware. But we have with us today. Kelly Sievers, Managing Director of Women's Capital Connection, a partner of OneKC for Women. It has been an absolute joy and privilege and honor to watch OneKC for Women and all of the different verticals that they have, and all of the initiatives and programs that they put in place around the Kansas City area to support women. But in particular, Kelly has always been someone that I wanted to get to know a little bit more, she has excellent taste in T-shirts. And Kelly, I am just so glad to have you here on the show. Thanks for joining us.
Kelly Sievers 1:25
Oh, Lauren, the hero remark goes back at you, girl.
Lauren Conaway 1:30
Well, I certainly appreciate that. But you know, even from my early days with InnovateHer, I always kept an eye on OneKC for Women and Women's Capital Connection, and it was always Kelly Sievers. That's the one that I want to watch. That's the leader that I want to emulate. So super excited to have you here today. And we're gonna go ahead and just kick it off. And I'm going to ask you, Kelly, to tell us about your journey.
Kelly Sievers 1:51
Oh, tell you about my journey. How long do you have?
Lauren Conaway 1:57
It is a big question.
Kelly Sievers 1:59
Question, I've had a few years on this planet so far, too. So? Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not gonna go all the way back. But I'm gonna go pretty far back in saying that. You know, I was very fortunate in that I grew up with wonderful parents, but a father who was a true entrepreneur. And I am an only child, and my dad was a very type of guy's guy. But he always wanted to listen to my ideas. And, you know, he wasn't this, you can be president, you can do anything, but I never felt like he wanted a boy or that I was anything less than anything. And so, my dad was my true mentor. And I was fortunate enough to grow up with a man who believed in me, and I got to watch the highs and lows and things of, a business owner and parent. And I learned so much, and to this day, I have lots of sayings, they'll probably come out of my mouth here today, to a lot of things. I thought about a lot of directions I took because I had the support and guidance from my entrepreneurial father. So as a young person, again, watching a parent as an entrepreneur, I grew up in Northern Iowa. I went to school at Iowa State. Go Clones! But when I got out of college, I remember taking a job for a year. Well, actually, a friend of mine lived in Kansas City. That's how I got to Kansas City. I came here for a visit, and she said, Why don't you get a job and move here? Well, my first job here in Kansas City was with junior achievement as a high school program director. So I went. It was a very wonderful job for a 25-year-old. Because I got to meet a lot of corporate folks who are kind of forced to volunteer, you know, but they were all young, professional people. And I got to know Kansas City really well because I went all around to different high schools to do presentations. I went around to all different that's when these Junior Achievement companies would meet in the evenings. And I was all the way from peculiar to, you know, Liberty to all over the city. So I got to know the city well as a newbie in Kansas City. I also got to meet a whole bunch of young professional people who were my age, so that job was phenomenal. I had it for maybe about a year, and I thought to myself, you know, I really need to own my own business. Retail sounds fun. So
Lauren Conaway 5:11
Really? Okay. All right. That was who I was. You weren't, you're young, maybe you didn't know.
Kelly Sievers 5:20
Not yet. So I just remembered I had no money at all. But my dad, you know, he's like, well, help. I'll help fund that. But I don't know anything about retail, and my parents didn't live in Kansas City either. So, I did get some funding. And I actually purchased the gift shop out in the Doubletree Hotel in corporate woods. Believe it or not, the gift shops were independently owned. And I ran that for about eight months. And then we bought the gift shop at the Embassy Suites hotel down by Westport. So this is I'm really dating myself here, but I will. So this was in the mid-80s. And I that so computers, were just kind of getting going. So I had to learn how to do payroll in Kansas and payroll in Missouri. And I can only let you know the gift shops are open from 7 am to 10 pm, seven days a week. I had to hire only the people who would work for the money I was paying them, or old ladies and high school students. Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was really quite a lesson in, like, just throwing you into the fire, like I say, Do you know, employing a bunch of people? But not really. I mean, I never made a ton of money because I had to put money back in inventory and everything. So once, so once, I kind of had those gift shops for about five years. And then I needed to sell them because I couldn't really get more customers that were outside the hotels. Yeah, they were pretty limited. So yeah, I was going through a business broker to sell those. And I remember him saying, well, there's a store for sale on the plaza called Scandia down. And so I bought it, and I hadn't sold my gift shops yet. And anyway, I sold those a few months later. And so I found a business that I could grow and expand and have, you know, hire more professional folks and all of that. So, so I embarked on that journey on the plaza. I grew and relocated that store twice and expanded it. In the 13 years I owned it. And I sold it 20 years ago. Well, after I sold that, I had no idea what I was going to do with myself because as an adult, you know, I was like, I can't go to work for Sprint, right? And never done anything. But own my own business. So, so I that's when I came to the woman who was running the Women's Business Center at the time. Sandy Licata is her name, and Sandy Bartow is her name. Anyway, I came to her because I knew her through my banker. And I'm like, What am I going to do with myself? And believe it or not, she's like, well, there's a position open here at the Women's Business Center. Really just helping create programming for, you know, entrepreneurs, and why don't you come and interview for that? And so I did. It was wonderful timing because and so I came as the client services manager at the Women's Business Center. Wonderful timing. I had two small kids at the time. And I, I could I could close my office store at the end of every day. That was kind of my thing.
Lauren Conaway 9:16
Yeah, you can't do that when you're in retail. Right? When you own your own retail.
Kelly Sievers 9:21
You can't do that when you own your own business. You just you know, and it was funny because then we were doing that. At that time. Well, then they still have it but Kauffman had the Fast Track New Venture Program. Yeah, yeah. And so I became a facilitator for that and we did Fast Track New Venture for Women. And I remember facilitating those classes and somebody asking me, so in your business, how many hours a day did you work? 40 I said all of them. Right? We all have them. And, yeah, so I it was it was, it was an interesting space for me and I loved it. And I spent a couple years doing that. And then that's when Mid America Angels had gotten started here. So the Women's Business Center is under the umbrella of the Enterprise Center in Johnson County, which is an economic support organization and the Women's Business Centers. There's about 150 of them around the country, I think. And they have to have a parent organization so so ours was under the under ECJC umbrella and and the Mid America Angels Group had gotten started in 2006. Under the ECJC umbrella, and, you know, surprise, surprise, it was made up of all guys. Yeah, it but there were no angel groups in the city at the time, there were none. And so it was kind of it had gotten started in mid 2006. And we had some women accredited women investors who were tied in with the Women's Business Centers, mentors and things and kind of came to us to say we, you know, hey, we want to learn about angel investing. And so we we encourage them to go to a Mid America Angel meeting, and some of them came out of the meeting, like, Hey, this is awesome, but they're talking a lot of new lingo for us, you know, valuations term sheets, where we need to, we really need to get educated plus, plus, you know, we really would like to invest in other women who hadn't maybe, you know, identified with, you know, finding investors and things like that. So,
Lauren Conaway 12:07
Well, really quick. I just for our listeners, I want to provide a little bit of context because you're you're talking about this at a time when this was not the issue of women receiving funding for their businesses, equitable funding, that was not a topic that was at the front forefront of anyone's mind it at
Kelly Sievers 12:25
Not at all. Not at all. Nope.
Lauren Conaway 12:29
You were you were a little bit of an early adopter, slash innovators slash disrupter even in having these kinds of conversations. So, so continue, but just to make sure we're all on the same page. This was this was new news for people. Very
Kelly Sievers 12:45
new. I mean, again, yeah, this is 2007. And, and, yeah, so. So we decided to start. So we had, we had some champions, some women, again, some champion women that would win these cocktail parties and these women's homes. They offered up their homes, like and brought in a you know, a bunch of people they knew through either their work life or their just their life in general. Hey, are you interested in learning more about women funding women in the invest equity investment space? And, you know, so in January of 08, we started Women's Capital Connection. We were hoping to start with about a dozen women and we started with 33 women investors. I know it was, well. It was like, yay. But we knew we had to tie ourselves. We wanted to tie ourselves in with Mid America Angels, and that, hey, we've got to get educated in this space. Yeah. Now what do we look for? How do we look at different investments and, and I kind of I kind of laugh now, and I tell this story to lots of people. But it was like, when we first started, we were going to again, remember back in January of 08, we were going to invest in women CEOs in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area that were wanting to raise equity investment. And we I laugh I'm like, yeah, all two of those companies.
Lauren Conaway 14:27
That honestly, like that is still the pipeline problem is still an issue that we have today. Although I you know, full acknowledgement of the fact that things are getting better. We're starting to see more tech lead more scale, highly scalable companies founded by women, but it's still there still a lot of inequity in what we see in the numbers. And again, we're just kind of at the forefront of this very, this new conversation and this new need. How do we support female founders on their journeys. So, so just so impressed by that, but what was the next step, we're coming together to learn about that shared vernacular coming to so bridging some gaps around knowledge, bridging some gaps around capital. But these conversations are just starting. So, what's the next step?
Kelly Sievers 15:21
Well, we, you know, the first. So now how many years is that been 16 years? You know, and I kind of talk, I'll go up to 2019 was our biggest, biggest year for Women's Capital Connection, right before COVID. But anyway, you know, for the first what 12 year, we did more, there was more activity in the last those last like 16, 17, 18, 19, than there were in the first eight years of our existence. Incredible. Again, we decided we, it took us a little time, but we decided, okay, we're not just going to look in Kansas City. Yes, we love Midwest deals, still love Midwest deals, but we have to look throughout the country. You know, for good women-led deals. So we expanded our reach geographically, we also expanded our reach. But, you know, that we have to have a woman that's in a C-level position in a company. And it doesn't, doesn't have to be the CEO. But it's, they need to be in day-to-day operations of the company. So years ago, I think I was at a at an investment West event here. And when it was in Kansas City, I can't remember when it was mid, maybe 2014-15. And I remember, there was a company presenting, and it was all guys in the management. And they were presenting but what they had, and again, I can't recall what it was, their, their, what they were, what their company was about. But it was all targeted to women like that their customer was women. Yet they had no women on their management team. And and I remember this guy coming up to me afterwards, I don't know if it was a CEO, I think it was and he came up to me, he's like, Oh, we really would like to get in front of Women's Capital Connection because you know, your all your members will will get it. And I'm like, well, where's the woman on your management team? And I remember him saying, oh, you know, my wife is really involved. And I'm like, Oh, wrong answer, wrong answer.
Lauren Conaway 17:44
And I had a conversation. I'm so sorry. This, this like, made me so angry that I have to share this with you. I had a conversation with a founder not too long ago. And we were talking about the lack of women on his his team. And he was like, Well, my wife, so his wife is not a part of day to day operations at all, is not a member of this VC sees, like we had talked about that. He was like, well, she's practically a founder because when I If I die, or something happens to me, she gets to my half of the company. And I was like, those things aren't the same at all. I appreciate that inheritance is your equity strategy. But
Kelly Sievers 18:27
My gosh, it is just it's a big pet peeve of mine, too. I just, and I go in and to mentor for so many different, you know, just in all the years with Pipeline with Tech Stars with all these things, and I go to like that when they're the Sprint Accelerator. And I just remember I'd go to like, watch them practice, like Demo Day, kind of, you know, pitches and things like that. And nothing gets me worked up more than when they say, Oh, we have a really diverse team. And they throw a slide up of like six guys. Yeah, just like how do you say, well, maybe one was, you know, African American or one was me just like, Okay, I'm looking at the diversity from the gender standpoint. Companies are all though, that companies that are led by both men and women, or at least have both men and women in management do so much better. I mean, statistics show they do so much overall because you need that perspective from both genders. You need it in order to be successful. So I just I, that is a real big pet peeve of mine. And a lot of times people really understood that. You know, and they weren't going to look at my face too. When this slide went up or something. This is our team. Like, oh my god. I mean I wouldn't
Lauren Conaway 20:00
When we're talking about diversity. I mean, I'm absolutely thrilled. Anytime I see people of color on a leadership team, you know, let us not, you know, conflate the two. It's not the same, you need to have gender diversity, you need to have race diversity, you need. Basically, you need to have people who represent such varied backgrounds, that you're getting all perspectives from your leadership is
Kelly Sievers 20:27
Exactly. It so important. And again, you know, in my world, I tend to look at the gender diversity that's like, where I get pretty laser focused on that. But
Lauren Conaway 20:38
We had Brandon Callaway on the show not too long ago, and I asked him, and I'm going to ask you, like, when you walk into a room, you scan, right, like, you walk into a room and you scan and you're like, how many women are in this room? How many gender minorities how many people of color, because that's the lens through which we all operate. When we're talking about equity, first thing we have to do is make sure are we in the right rooms? Are we surrounding ourselves with the right people? Right?
Kelly Sievers 21:02
Right. And I'm going to squirrel a little bit here, because this is what I do. But when I when I when I attend, like more national Angel conferences or things like that, I get a lot of people that come up to me that might be managing groups, you know, elsewhere in the country, and they'll be like, we really need to get more women in our group. How do you do that? You know, you run and I said, and my, my response is always well, you just can't insert them. Right? Like, again, the the statistics show that until you have at least three people of the same, I don't know whether it's ethnic or gender background, or whatever it might be. People are uncomfortable. And you know, sometimes I laugh when I get when I get men and women's Capital Connection meetings, and they're the only guy. You can, you can sense the uncomfortableness.
Lauren Conaway 22:08
But the thing is, it's kind of it's kind of like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she has that quote, when there are nine like, and when she's talking about the Supreme Court, and she says, you know, nobody questioned it. When there were nine men on the Supreme Court. I kind of feel that way about leadership team is in rooms, like, I think that gender equity is something really, really great to shoot for. But the fact is, like, if we walked into when we walk into rooms as women, we already know that in most cases, we are occupying rooms that in spaces that were not built for us. Right? And so when you say that discomfort flipped, it's always so fascinating to me because, I'm like, if I as a woman was hesitant to walk into a room that was fully populated by dudes, I would be in big trouble. I would never go anywhere.
Kelly Sievers 22:55
You know, correct. Yep. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah,
Lauren Conaway 23:02
I want to pop in here. And I want to just let you know, like, we're talking about creating supportive spaces. And we're talking about, you know, how do we make sure that we're in the right rooms. And one of the ways as a as a startup founder, one of the ways that you can get yourself into the right room is you can talk to Full Scale. Finding experts, software developers doesn't have to be difficult, especially when you visit FullScale.io, where you can build a software team quickly and affordably. Use the Full Scale platform to define your technical needs, and then see what available developers, testers, and leaders are ready to join your team. Visit FullScale.io or click the show notes to learn more. And friends. Just a reminder, we are here with Kelly Sievers, Managing Director of Women's Capital Connection, a partner of OneKC for Women. And we're talking about one of my favorite things to talk about, even though I wish there wasn't a need to talk about it at all. But we're talking about gender equity, particularly in the in the startup space. And so So Kelly, I do want to make sure to ask you, you brought up something really, really interesting. You know, you talked about the fact that you can't just plug and play with women in leadership, right? You can't just be like, we want women on our team, and then you get women on your team. You actually have to make sure that you have prepared your culture for that that influx of new ideas and new perspectives that women bring to the table. And so that's actually what I want to drill down on with, with you. I want to ask you, what are some ways that organizations can prepare themselves for gender equity and make sure that they're creating a supportive space for women leaders?
Kelly Sievers 24:36
Oh, that's a tough question, Lauren. Again, and I was so blessed truly to grow up and not feel like I needed to do things differently because I was a girl. And I'm awesome. He was I mean, he really, really was And but not a lot of people are that fortunate, honestly. Yeah. And so I think it's, you know, I think each generation is getting better, I'm going to be honest with you, I really do. And I'm going to, I'm going to tell a story that I hope nobody takes out of context. But I just remembered this. So I have daughters, I have two daughters that are 30 and 26. And I remember talking to one of my daughters in and when they were in high school, and they were telling me about this guy, and we was doing this and they were talking to him. And I mean, it was a very positive, upbeat, general conversation or whatever. And I kind of remembered, you know who that was, but I said, Oh, is that that tall black guy? And, and she looked at me, and she just kind of thought for a minute. She goes, Oh, yeah, he is black. I mean, it was like, not a, it was not a descriptor she had of him. Yeah. And again, I just even though I was just, it was a general descriptor for me because I was just trying to figure out who that was. Yeah. But she didn't even think of that. And I'm like, Yay, you. You know, it was like she didn't even that was baby. Progress. I know that sounds kind of It's a weird story. But it, it comes back to me a lot because that is huge progress. Yeah. And even like from my dad, so I will say my dad ran a manufacturing plant one time. And or like he was the CEO of this big manufacturing plant. And I remember him saying that there was they had done a time study on their line on their production line, or whatever it is. And again, my dad who's very, very not gender bias at all, but he was like, telling me about he goes, Yeah, and this and this gal came in to do this study, almost like it was like, and he thought she did a really great job. And I'm like, going, Okay, you were
Lauren Conaway 27:15
so cool. Yes.
Kelly Sievers 27:16
She was a girl that she did a good job. Like, I don't think he I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have told the story that way. Meaning like, I'm another generation, right? And I wouldn't, I wouldn't have told that story that way. Yeah. And then I go to my kids who have a different, I think each generation is getting better to come back. And a long winded answer to your question, in that I truly don't think I look at my daughters, even in what they're doing now. And I don't think they just don't seem to care. If people are of a different race, if people are of a different gender of people are they just, it just doesn't seem to be a part of how they think. Yeah. And I love that. I absolutely love that.
Lauren Conaway 28:07
So I have a I have a lovely story. And this was actually super gratifying for me, and I think you'll appreciate it as well. But a while back, we did a panel discussion with Keystone. And it was a living history of Kansas City, professional women and and so what we did was I moderated and we lined up a woman from every generation going back to oh my gosh, we went to xennials we had a millennial we had I'm trying to remember what the name of Teresa gar has is generation it's the generation after the baby boomers. What's up the name of the generation it's totally escaping me, but
Kelly Sievers 28:53
this generation was yeah, that was
Lauren Conaway 28:56
Greatest generation baby boomers the question mark next gen x Gen X jet. Yeah. Millennials and then I think right now we're on what Gen Z. But at any rate, we I had lined them up in in reverse order. And what was interesting as I asked you, what are some of the challenges that you experienced as a woman and we started with Teresa who was the most wisdomest member of the panel and she the same stuff, but she she shared her stories and then as we got closer, every single woman who spoke have less and less to say about the challenges and barriers that they had received that were gendered. I mean, of course, you know, everybody experiences those those blockers and the all of the, you know, challenges and things like that, but by the time we got to Marisol Rivas, who was the representation for the Generation Z, and Generation Alpha, she was like, I haven't really experienced anything and I was like, That is a totally valid response and that's exactly what we're shooting for. That's excellent. of progressive generation just have less and less to say. And it was just really, really beautiful to see the point that you're making,
Kelly Sievers 30:10
It's very inspiring. It really is. And it's like, I mean, again, it's kind of going back to, to, again, with my, my dad being my biggest supporter, but you know, I think it's just on, you know, some, you know, the statistics again, show that, like what women have to be asked seven times to run for office, because they don't feel like if they don't have 100% of the qualifications, they're just not even going to attempt it. Right. And, and we, we, as women have to get over that we have to get past that, you know, it's like, I mean, I understand, we all have our challenges, and we just have to persevere through it. Because it's, we have to be our own best supporters. And I think that a lot of times, people, and I challenge myself with this pretty much on a daily basis, I cannot stand to be around negative people. I'm like, you can, you can switch that around. I mean, I get that, you know, people go through tough times. And people have to be supportive of them with that, but to constantly talk to people, and they just constantly are finding all the things wrong with things and why they can't get it done and why they can't, why it isn't going to happen to them. I just I just choose to distance myself from those folks. And I need to find people that are, but we need to support each other as women too. And not, you know, and not bring other women down. And here's here's a controversial thing. I do too, in, in, just in, in supporting women, not always in the equity space, but women who really are starting up businesses and want to grow their businesses. I always tell everybody, what is your version of success? And be good with that because there's so much noise around around that. So much noise and people I remember when I had my store on the plaza, everybody would come in and say when are you going to open another location? When are you going to expand to here? When are you going to do that? And I always kind of, I'm just like, you know what, I don't really, I don't feel like that is what my version of success is? Yeah. And I was really, it was really hard for me because I had a lot of noise and a lot of people coming at me like, why don't you do this? Why don't you do that? And, and I'm like, just I mean, if your version of success is to just make enough money each year to go on a great trip, or you just want to have purpose in life? Or what is your version of success and be good with that. Don't constantly get people challenging you like that's not enough. And people sometimes say why aren't there more women that are CEOs of large companies? And, and, and I just again, that's my opinion only, but I think a lot of them. That's not their version of success. And it's not what they want to do. And many men, many women get into business because that's one thing in their life that they want to do well. It's not the end all it's not I'm going to I'm going to myopically focus on growing a big business where ever the fallout is elsewhere. I mean, most women don't think that way. Yeah. And that's okay.
Lauren Conaway 33:50
Okay, now, I do want to just, you know, there's a caveat in there. And I think that Kelly, I'm going to speak for you just a little bit, you know, disagree, you're free to disagree. But I think that one of the real kind of miss or miss the misunderstandings around the women's equity space is the fact that we all want women to be these high-performing, super high achieving, you know, working 80 hours a week. And it's like, no, that's not actually what, what we're shooting for here as people who are invested in women's equity. I had a I was on social media a while back, and there was this big controversy happening around women wearing hijab in sports. Do you remember this conversation like it? Big deal? And I was I made a comment in it. And I happened to mention, like, I work for an organization that supports professional women. And so this person comes in the comments and he's like, Well, if you are truly a women's advocate, then you don't you shouldn't want women to wear hijab because that's you know, a patriarchal society telling and I was like, I If you think that I am here to tell a woman what she should or should not do to feel closer to God, then you don't understand why I'm here and what I'm all about. What I'm all about is choice. I never want a woman who wants to achieve and wants to be a startup founder. I never want her to feel limited by her environment, I only want her to feel limited by her own needs, wants, and desires. If this is not what you want, then you don't have to. I have so much respect for the stay at home mom. I don't want to eradicate stay at home moms, but I just want to make sure that every woman out there has the choice that is only powered by her to be a stay at home mom or not. Right?
Kelly Sievers 35:42
Exactly. I, you know, I, I do 100% agree with you. I also tell people to, if you are here to focus on running a huge business and that's your goal. I'm here to help you with that, too. You know, it's like, it's just about what you what you decide, again, what your version of success is. I mean, you You be good with that. And because it's really hard. I mean, it's really difficult, I think for all people, but it's very difficult when so many people are kind of like, you know, oh my god, you can do so much more, you know, you could do so much more. Or you could do this, you know, different and all this stuff. It's like, I'm want to be good with what I what I'm, you know, my choice, like you said, I want to be good with that. And I think it's really you have to really dig and be good with that. And I and it's hard. I think it's hard because we have the society that just, you know, has its own version, I think of success and things like that knew that we need to be, we need to be pretty confident in ourselves. And I think that's, um, again, I think, like you said, each generation is just getting so much better with all of this, men included. I mean, men included, I'm saying that men are just, there's so many men out there again, I look at, you know, and men in my generation, but men in the generations after me and, and everybody's just so much more. They don't they don't see. They don't see the differences. They try to see the, you know, how can we all do figure this out together? Right? I mean, again, the basics of a piece of the pie, and I go back to my equity stuff, but a piece of the pie as much a little piece of something ginormous is much better than a big piece of nothing.
Lauren Conaway 37:48
Well, and I to your earlier point, like I do think that there is some responsibility on us as women to to change that narrative. So we that quote, or that statistic that you gave women need to be asked seven times to run for office is something that I do periodically, when I meet a woman who mentions potentially being interested in running for office, one of the things I do is I'll be like you should run for office, will you run for office, and I'll do it seven times. And I'm like, you've been asked seven times to run for office. Now, go forth and prosper, have fun. I know that mental blocker is often in there, and I'm just like, let's speak to it. Let's just get it out of the way. But we as women have to have to take on that responsibility and say, hey, you know, I need to every successive generation has worked to bring women to success. How do we help women thrive? And so I'm always hyper aware and so grateful for women of your generation, and each generation that came before mine because it is the you are the only reason that I am able to do the work that I do today. And I talk about this all the time. People are always like, Oh, you're doing such amazing work. And I'm like, Well, yes, that's true. But I am building this amazing work on the backs of women, the blood, sweat and tears of the women who came before, you know, and each we're building, we have a strong foundation, how do we move forward and so so hats off to you, my friends, for being a part of that of changing that narrative so that people like me can come up behind and be like, Alright, let's do cleanup. What else we got to do? What's next? You know, it's a progressive thing.
Kelly Sievers 39:32
Well, I mean, it's just it. I think it just takes it takes both. And again, I look at it from the gender part, but it takes both men and women, it does. To really understand sometimes and to approach men and women approach things very differently. And I think that's wonderful. I do. It's like I truly respect you know, sometimes I can get off on tangents and I can have it I can have somebody I can have a guy be like, Man, that's, that's too much stop. You know, you need to whatever it is and I need I. I mean, I don't know, sometimes I just I just really appreciate the dynamics that that different perspectives bring. Yeah, that's really important. It's very important in business. I mean, it really is it's like, you know, and especially folks that come from more of a corporate environment or whatever it might be. It's like, you just you might have a little department or a group that you bounce things off of, but when you have your own company, you know, you just you, you have to, the best thing is you get to make all the decisions. The toughest thing is you have to make all the decisions. So you have to, you have to learn how to I don't know how to look at things from a lot of different perspectives. Yeah, I think I think it's helpful when there's men and women involved.
Lauren Conaway 40:59
Absolutely. And I mean, some some of InnovateHer's greatest supporters and champions have been men and so so this show Lauren's episodes of the show are not the she woman man haters club, like we love around here. The only reason I'm here is because it points in my journey. I had people who believed in me, and that includes a lot of men, you know. And so when I see men who are just great allies and co-conspirators, like, Yeah, let's have more of that. Let's give you the the applause and the kudos that you deserve as well. Now, I hate to say this. And speaking of tangents, I'm going to take us a little bit out here because we have come to time. We've, we're actually going a little bit over time. And I'm not shocked because I knew that I really wanted to talk to Kelly. But I have a human question for you. Kelly, are you ready?
Kelly Sievers 41:50
As I'll ever be, Lauren.
Lauren Conaway 41:52
I have this one? No. All right. This one, we'll see how you feel about it. If not, I can go back to the drawing board. But what is your favorite word?
Kelly Sievers 42:08
My favorite word would have to be something positive. But I'm trying to think of
Lauren Conaway 42:17
I will be perfectly honest. And I'm gonna, I'm going to answer this question while you're thinking about it. And I will tell you that there is a reason that we have explicit written on the Startup Hustle podcast. Like, wherever we post it we say explicit because some listeners of the show, it will not come as a surprise to you that my favorite word is fuck. It's an expressive word, I just love it. Like there is no other word in the English language that is so expressive. You can use it in so many different contexts in so many different ways. And I just think it's a fabulous word. But that being said, Kelly, you are more than welcome to come up with one that's a little bit more PG.
Kelly Sievers 42:57
But I can't, you know, Lauren, I'm not extremely creative. I'm gonna get off the show and be, like, oh, there was
Lauren Conaway 43:04
Two in the morning. You're gonna like bolt up, right? All right. We'll try another one. Actually, this is one of my favorite questions. And I've asked it before, but I'm going to ask it again. If you could have any superpower, what would you have? We've got invisibility, the ability to fly, mind reading. I would be a mind reader, by the way.
Kelly Sievers 43:33
You know what, I don't mean to get on the bandwagon there. But I would say yes, that would be me. And yes.
Lauren Conaway 43:41
So we can have our own little little take over the world thing.
Kelly Sievers 43:45
It's just like yeah, I do. That would be my superpower. I would be to read minds because then I think you can be more effective with people, right?
Lauren Conaway 43:59
Influence people and come right. My husband's like, is it because you want to manipulate people? And I'm, like, no, because I want to influence them to make the correct decisions. And he's like, Yeah, Potato, potato.
Kelly Sievers 44:13
A big I'm a big love languages believer. Let's put it that way. So it is about reading minds and knowing what people what you know what motivates them, right?
Lauren Conaway 44:22
Meeting people at their level.
Kelly Sievers 44:24
Yes, yes. Yes.
Lauren Conaway 44:26
Well, thank you so much, Kelly. It has been, of course, enjoyable. Like you're talking, we're talking about some of my favorite things did well, and I enjoy talking about them. But again, I wish that they weren't necessary. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.
Kelly Sievers 44:43
Oh, of course. It's wonderful.
Lauren Conaway 44:45
Yeah. Well, and another thing that is wonderful, my friends, is, of course, Full Scale. If you need to hire software engineers, testers, or leaders, Full Scale can help. They have the people in the platform to help you build and manage a team of experts. When you visit FullScale.io, all you need to do is answer a few questions and then let the platform match you up with fully vetted, highly experienced software engineers, testers, and leaders. At Full Scale, they specialize in building long-term teams that work only for you. Learn more when you visit FullScale.io. And friends, I feel like I closed out the show beating a dead horse, but I'm gonna do it again. You're just gonna have to deal with it. So, I'm going to ask you to reach out to us. We Startup Hustle is a show by founders for founders. We do this work for you. We want to have conversations that are meaningful and helpful to you. And so I'm going to ask you to tell us what you want to hear. You can go to StartupHustle.xyz, that's our website, suggest guests, suggest topics, and ask questions. You can find us on social media. We've got Startup Hustle chat on Facebook, we've got LinkedIn, TikTok, all of those social media platforms. And I'm just going to ask you, if you like the show, help us out, help us make it better. Help us speak to you and talk about topics that are going to help you thrive as a founder. Reach out to us, find me on LinkedIn, and I will take those ideas as well happy to pass them along to our producers. But the point is, we want to hear what you want to hear. And I invite you to do that. We are extraordinarily grateful that you come back to us week after week and listen. Please, keep doing so. And we will catch you next time.
Kelly Sievers 46:21
Hey, Lauren.
Lauren Conaway 46:22
Yes?
Kelly Sievers 46:23
Can you add this here? I don't know if you can, but to check into OneKC for Women. We have lots of great opportunities for education in the equity space for women. I just want to really add that in there because there are a lot of really good opportunities.
Lauren Conaway 46:44
Of course, InnovateHer, and we are still recording. But we definitely invite the women out there to check out OneKC for Women. They have a lot of really fantastic programs, the Women's Business Center and Women's Capital Connection. What am I missing? Kelly, what else what else we got?
Kelly Sievers 47:01
Well, we have a Wheatland Initiative, and I'm sorry, Women Leadership Initiative, and just lots of opportunities in the equity space, also in starting your business and opportunities for just learning a lot about women in business.
Lauren Conaway 47:18
Absolutely. And we will definitely put some we'll definitely put some links down in the show notes for you to check out for sure, but, but check out Kelly keep checking out Startup Hustle, and like I said, we will catch you next time.
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