How do you raise capital with no business background?

today we have Julia pimsler CEO and author of million dooll women a company helping women Founders grow their businesses past 1 million in Revenue her last company little pin was a venture-backed edtech startup company that she raised several million for and ended up leading into a successful exit Julia opens up about the difficulty of raising Capital as a female entrepreneur how she sold her last company and now how she supports female Founders it's an eye-opening episode let's dive welcome back everyone thanks for joining us today today we have Julia joining us uh founder and CEO of million dooll women thanks for having uh coming on the show Julia great to be here Jason I'm excited to have you you have a very interesting background as someone that's raised Venture Capital many years ago about 101 15 years ago uh and basically doing it again now uh tell us a little bit about your background and you know what you're doing at million dollar women well I'm not a typical entrepreneur Journey if there is such a thing in the sense that I started out as a documentary filmmaker and then decided I wanted to create a language teaching program for young children so that was my first Venture backed business little Pim right what's the connection there uh basically I H the maternity leave with my first son and knew I wanted to teach him French there was nothing on the market to teach little kids a second language even though that's the time they learn languages best I grew up bilingual in French and English thought that was just one of the best gifts my parents ever gave me and thought well somebody should really create that I spent about three months saying someone should make this language teaching program for young children and eventually realized that someone was me so started it with just a lot of passion and I did have the film making background we made a multimedia series that could be seen on any screen any size anywhere started with six languages got up to 13 languages so really kind of planted a flag and and said okay we're the leader if you want to teach your young child the second language and the first few years you know we grew pretty quickly we got to about 400,000 of revenues and then the fact that I had not gone to business school I didn't have a finance background I had no entrepreneurial training really caught up with me and I really almost threw in the towel on the business I got so exhausted I know you're a dad I had two little boys at home at the time they were three and six and I was putting these crazy long hours and working on weekends and started feeling like this isn't even really worth it and that was when I got my first coaches and mentors and figured out how to take the business up to a million and then ultimately multi-million through raising Venture Capital which you know I know we're going to talk all about here today but that was how I got started as an entrepreneur no that's an amazing journey just kind of throwing yourself into it too just like I I want to solve this problem no one else is solving it and making it happen despite the forces against you but uh you know being that this show is all about demystifying the fundraising experience kind of walk us through what it was like raising Capital back then what were you doing you know kind of talk us about the time period and how much you rais can of give us some of the details when I decided to raise Venture Capital it was a little bit out of desperation meaning I was like okay I either have to shut this thing down or figure out how to go big and that took an incredible mindset upgrade I really had a lot of limiting beliefs about what was possible for me as a woman founder I never met any woman who' built a multi-million dollar business didn't know anyone who'd raised capital I did eventually meet one woman who had raised venture capital and she shared her term sheet with me which was like amazing and I'm still friends with her today still remind her and thank her um that was a GameChanger but I had to do a lot of inner work and a lot of research I sat down with tons of entrepreneurs who had raise Capital all men and said you know what did you learn how did it go and I'm so thrilled there resources is like your podcast now to make it easier for people but I spent nine 10 months researching because even though I didn't know much about raising capital I had a hunch and I was right that you only get one shot at each potential investor so I wanted to make sure I I knew I wouldn't become fluent in Venture Capital but I wanted to be at least conversational drawing on you know language teaching metaphors so I just read a lot of books talked to a lot of people did a lot of pitching to board members and advisers them kick the tires I remember a lot of you know just practice runs at it and eventually started going out and meeting people how did you go about meeting those people how did you go about finding those people to meet and talk to mainly through one person who really believed in me that was the start of it I I want to give credit to uh my my best friend from high school's father who worked in banking my parents were academics so I really didn't have that example uh my father did create the pimsler method method which is a best-selling language teaching method it's owned by Simon and Schuster so people think like oh you grew up at the foot of this entrepreneur but in fact he created the method and it was really incredible and game-changing for the language teaching world for adults not for little kids and then unfortunately he passed away when I was only eight like I really didn't get you know to see him build that Beyond there it was then taken over by other companies and it wasn't until I was in my 20s that that was a successful business so interestingly I grew up with my mom single mom teacher trying to support you know our family here in New York City uh I've been working since I was 13 went all through high school and college on scholarship and so when I went out to have those conversations I really didn't have very many people to have them with but I did have my best friend from high school's father and I sat down with him over lunch he'd always been very Mentor Le to me and I remember I better bring a budget so I brought this printed out Excel budget and at lunch she said you know so where do you want to go with this company and I was like well look we've only been in business this for a year we've made $158,000 I didn't quit my job yet I'm just managing this amazing woman I found who works three days a week and I I send her messages on my BlackBerry before working at lunch uh but we somehow made 158,000 and there's so much potential here and he was sold I mean he had some connections to France I really loved the French language I think it was personal for him plus our relationship and I'll never forget he said well how much do you need and I was like I think I need a million and I pulled the Excel spread sheet out of my bag and put it on the table and we went through it together and then he said these five words that really changed my life where he said I can help you get a million and of course in my mind Jason that was like he was gonna write a million dollar check I was like great I got the check what it really meant was he was willing to introduce me to people he knew who were in his Social Circles who had already invested in other startups this was really my first for into this world I had no idea hour worked but you know I went to all these meetings and probably met with I don't know maybe 40 50 people that fall was able to raise uh series a I had already raised some friends and family before that but really very little just enough to like make the pilot and produce those first few videos that we were selling so that was the gamechanging moment and he taught me a lot about how to pitch how to get the not not just get the meeting but get the check yeah it's one thing yeah it's one thing to maybe get a meeting but uh you know when it comes down to actually getting that cash in your bank account it's a different story sometimes right there's also that gender difference i' sorry to interrupt but I know you said well what's the difference raising while female right when we had our little prep call and I would say for women there's a much higher incidence of you can get the meeting but you can't get the check of course it's hard for any founder pitching but I think because there are fewer of us out there when you know you reach out to a VC they're sort of intrigued it's like okay I'll hear what you got you obviously must have something if you got this far so they will take the meeting but then we know get the check that often so that's one thing we're helping women with it million dollar wh so there's a couple things I want to unpack there I want to go back to the series a but I think just with the point you just mentioned right there why do you think that is why do you think that women may get the meeting but not the check well Studies have shown that we all have this unconscious confirmation bias right where we tend to believe that people who are like us will do a better job it comes up in hiring right plus BCS are all about pattern recognition so there haven't been as many successful women run companies compared to you know male run companies I mean the stats right now are pretty dismal in 2022 1.9% of the Venture Capital went to women run companies now that's exclusively women run companies it goes up a little more if it's a team that has women and men on it or people who don't identify solely as women so that's a big Challenge and then there are very few women VCS so you're mainly pitching to people who don't share your experience like in my case coming up with a language teaching program for young children studies show that moms at the time anyway were doing 85% of the purchasing of educational materials for their kids so we had a lot of E's saying oh this sounds interesting you know let me ask my wife as opposed to having had any real experience with buying these educational products for their kids which is a huge multi-billion dollar market but just not one that touched their everyday life I think it's a valid point I think you brought up a term called pattern recognition which you know I think a lot of entrepreneurs just don't really get why they don't get meetings or why things don't progress um and it has a lot to do with this thing called pattern recognition they see thousands of deals and you know they see them kind of come to aition they see a deal like okay I saw you do ABC see here and I saw it happen you know somewhere else it didn't work so it's just an automatic like blocker and yeah unfortunately if you don't look act and talk like me I don't know if you will do what I'm capable of doing therefore I you know don't feel comfortable investing which well and it's and it's founder and it's the company right because so in my case they might have believed that I was the right person at the right time to do this I was the daughter of a pinsler you know had film making background there were reasons to think I could pull this off but at the same time they had never heard of a kids company that had sold for you know a billion dollars or anything so I referenced Rosetta Stone a lot which is not as big a brand today but at the time they were in every airport every magazine on the plane right so when I came up with the phrase it's like Rosetta Stone for little kids that was like kitain people started to get it and so I often recommend to female Founders who were like oh well this isn't like anything anybody knows it's like we'll find something they know and say that it's at least in that family because it's going to be very hard especially if you're a first-time founder for them to imagine you doing something they haven't seen very many people like you do building a company they've really never seen reach great success that's a that's a great advice and uh so I want to go back you mentioned the series a you previously raised a little bit of capital from friends and family I guess kind of talk is how much did you raise at the friends and family level and then how far did that get you to the point where you know you guys went out and raise your series a and how much did you rais for your series a yes so we raised 460,000 from the friends and family we had only raised enough to sort of produce the first few videos by the time I sat down with the friend of the family and then we were able to raise 1.1 million in our series a and then another 1.2 million and over time we raised a total of six million I just over time 2008 to 2014 so that was like a long a long journey but you know we kept raising the valuation going into new markets we entered the Early Education Market in daycare centers expanded to other countries ultimately we were in over 10 countries so that was a lot of where that Capital went and I think it's interesting because like you know everyone listening this podcast now thinks series a is like you know five 102 million rounds and you know this the reality back then that was not the case and there was a really seed or preed back then it's something that's kind of continuously to Evol in most recent years that's true no one used the J seed back then it was just convertible note straight to series a yeah that's exactly what it was and I remember I was when my first Venture back company in 2013 we were trying to raise a million dollars on a $3 million valuation for our series a it's just like that's like laughable I think my first valuation was something like six million no not the very first I think it was like three million ultimately it was it was six million you know as we got further into the rounds but but not the crazy inflated numbers you're seeing today at all yeah it's it's a completely different game now there a lot of lot of attention in the space now but so you you basically let's walk us through that you so basically at the end of 2014 you raised some additional Capital but you end up selling the company yeah ended up Victory like tell us about that Journey like what ultimately led to the company having an acquisition yeah well um I wrote the book behind me this million-dollar women about my journey building the company was about seven years in and right around that same time I realized that we were going to have to convert completely to digital because just taking us back this was DVDs we sold many millions of worth of product at Toys R Us Babies are us right it was another time and so when I saw that I thought okay let's bring in a new CEO whose digital native will really take us to that next place and so after I wrote this book want up pivoting and becoming a coach for women business owners now building a tech platform for women business owners which we can get into later but I really want to shout out my board because they stayed loyal to the company right through many years later working with new CEOs I took a step back I was on the board but not involved in the day-to-day we handed off to the new CEO and this is not something people talk about enough because it's not always this this really clear Road right of like you build it and seven years in you sell it and then you you do whatever you want the rest of your life it's not always like that so in my case it was like I I was ready to step way I knew wasn't the right person to keep running here we brought in a new CEO I started this new business but then after a few years we thought okay it's time to sell like the we we we want to sell so we put it out we had several offers and the one we like best for multiple reasons was from a long-standing partner mango languages which bought the company and is taking it to new heights especially in the library Market where they're very strong and they had been one of our biggest partners for a decade so that was a really great long-standing relationship ship we were happy to see rip land in their home when did you realize that you were not the CEO to take it to the next level well you know it's very personal running businesses right I mean especially if you created it partly inspired by your children so for seven years my kids were the Target customer age right because our program was for little kids zero to six to learn French Spanish Chinese Italian that's the age kids learn best my kids were that age I was our Target demographic that Mom but as my kids moved into like Middle School right and I wasn't with those same moms I didn't really know what those moms needed or wanted of course my head of marketing was on top of that but I just didn't feel as connected to it and I wanted the company to succeed more than I wanted to be the one running it and saw that sometimes Founders hang on too long you know they they it's not always the best thing for the company and I didn't want to be one of those Founders I thought if I don't have that you know make it happen pass every single morning for this anymore you know seven eight years in then let's find someone who does and uh let them take a crack at it I think that's a profound execution of Judiciary responsibility as a CEO to recognize that you staying in that position can actually be more negative impact to the company as opposed to bringing someone in over time to grow and eventually lead to to an exit and I think that's something that you did a very good job of explaining that kind of thought process and I feel a lot of Founders should look at themselves and just you know assuming that you I think it takes the business getting to some kind of sustainability um or it's not easy to step away right because you have your identity very wrapped up in it but I also think it's good to realize like you're not the company the company's not you especially once you take Venture money right I had a lot of board members and was so grateful that they helped Shepherd the company through you know everything that came after that right through to the sale same board so that's something I always like to share because I know a lot of people are afraid to raise Capital because they're like well then I'll have all these people in my business you know and I want to make all the decisions and that is true but you also have other people who care about your baby and that is really amazing especially if you know you decide to do something else and want help shepherding it into a new era or when you're making the sale so there are a lot of upsides to having those board members and ambassadors as long as you have the right one yeah and I think that's the key point is like you are when you take money from other people expect a five to 10 year relationship and make sure that you want to see you want to see that person's face for the next five to 10 years uh and and that they also want to you know see yours and engage with you and you know make sure that you're coachable that's one of the kind of the key factors that VC's look for is that uh you're a coachable individual uh to build that relationship over long time so all right so you you end up selling the company but in the midst of all that you were not necessarily maybe dayto day in the company when it goes and sells but still a victory not to the about exciting and I'm sure that kind of helps contribute to your network at million dooll women give us kind of the update on where you're at with million dollar women yeah so for about five years after I left little Pim I was just coaching about a hundred women a year through an executive education program we built online I stayed in the edtech lane and wanted to build some scalable way of helping more women get to 1 million we talked about the stats for Venture Capital but there are some parallel stats for women in business where just two to three% of women business owners ever get to 1 million in revenues and that's just getting off go in the business world right that's just table Stakes getting to one million so when we got to a million at little Pim I got calls from journalists it was this whole big thing and I was like why why are you even calling me it's just a million and they were like at the time there were like only 1.9% of women ever get there so as someone who had been a women's studies minor in college and just really interested in closing the economic gender gap I thought this is my next thing uh the book tackled the topic but I knew women really just needed access to coaching and mentorship and business skills like I was able to get when I needed that help so for five years we've been doing that and also having Summits we have about 25,000 women on our mailing list we've been helping over the years and the pandemic was a big Turning Point Jason because things really fell apart for women small business owners and that's who we were working with so we realized that our business model of a affordable but still an investment Business program they could take you know5 to $6,000 way better than $100,000 for business school but still an investment we thought let's create something where any woman business owner anywhere in the country can get access so we launched a tech platform that is for Learning and networking for women business owners who are making between 50,000 and 750,000 wanting to get to a million and it turns out that is what I like to call the invisible majority of Women Business own owners because folks in the VC and Angel ecosystem sometimes forget that the women they see fundraising are really just about 2% of all women entrepreneurs 98% of women entrepreneurs are either not raising capital or raising alternative capital and they don't have a YPO or EO or vistage or any of these organizations so this is the first time that that's been accessible to them and we are super excited about building you know I'd like to unpack that last point a little bit more in terms of these Mentor groups or peer groups that you I'm familiar with you know EO the entrepreneur organization you know YPO and there's there's so many out there but they are not exclusive to men but they are predominantly you know men in those groups um you know kind of walk us through what those groups do what your groups do that really kind of change the game for Founders if you know the founders listening are familiar with these peer groups kind of what what's the real value add of these types of groups yeah I mean I think think anyone who running a business knows that it's incredibly lonely you're making really tough decisions all day long you're the secret to your business growth really is in your network whether you're out raising capital or just doing deals or looking to hire the best people for your team and so that's why people join entrepreneurs organizations and ypos but they all have a revenue minimum to join so EO it's a million YPO I think it's something like 10 million and if you look at what women business owners are making there's just a tin any handful of them we can qualify for those organizations I was in entrepreneurs Organization for six years I served on the board for four of those years made some incredible friends got so much value out of it but ultimately felt like I want to go build something like this but fully online so that women could access it from anywhere for all the people who are not in the room and that is about 14 million women entrepreneurs and that number is going up so fast Jason so many women are starting businesses especially post pandemic like they don't want to go back to the office as we all know and not being able to have that flexibility especially those who have a family so we're seeing a big increase in women starting businesses and you know this is this is the future a lot of women in the gig economy I'm sure you're even seeing it in your own circles I am curious like you know it's a big jump from running a $50,000 $150,000 Revenue business that's a marel lifestyle complimentary business to your you know to your life to making it a real business in some cases as one might say to to get to that million plus Mark is that the right path for everyone or is it like I guess how do you how do women kind of make that decision on if it's the right or any business owner to make that decision well because we're million-dollar women we tend to attract women who have big Ambitions right so we get the women who have a business that's working but maybe they just don't know how to double their revenues or maybe they don't know the scalable part of it I remember one of our grads uh Shelly she's from Florida first-time entrepreneur blackwoman in I think it's Tampa or that area and she has a poll Fitness Studio where women come and their workout is like with a poll right the dancing super fun but she came to us and she was like I don't want to be standing in this studio all day I love what I do but there's got to be another way of delivering this incredible experience so going through our 12-week online program we helped her figure out how to make an app instead of or as a compliment to coming into the studio she created that app right before the lockdown for the pandemic and I hadn't been in touch with her in a couple of months because she was done with the program and about six months into the pandemic I got this DM on Facebook and she was like Julia you're not gonna believe this I just made $108,000 in three months and it was the app it turns out that women wanted her to send them the poll so they would install a poll the themselves in their house and then do the workouts on the app and she's now Jason at 2 million in revenues and considering raising Capital wow that is St right so sometimes it's just that no one has sat down with them and said how else can you run this company I had the benefit of that ano with mentors and coaches and Vern harness who created a lot of the curriculum that EO uses in its accelerator program that I went through you know they ask these questions and most women I talked to in our programs we also have three other coaches so it's not just me with a big team and a board advisors most of the women have never had someone to walk them through those questions and help them figure out how do you make this business more scalable now yes you know now having your history uh bilding little pen raising Capital um looking at the markets today you know granted still a very small amount of the Giant pool of venture capital goes to women but what's kind of your your thoughts on how fundraising is today in comparison to what it was you know years ago when you were raising capital for a little fan right well anyone raising Capital right now is definitely fighting an uphill battle this is a tough time with the markets where they are so I think this is one of those moments where we're seeing a lot of consolidation we're seeing people pressing pause on their fundraising uh we just raised $400,000 for a precede and it was way harder than anything had to do 10 years ago where I think people were really like hungry for these opportunities where I think right now is a big wait and see moment right because I'm always helping women raise capital for their companies and they don't always get that for the investors it usually makes sense to just wait and see right if they reach those milestones and so unless you've got some kind of a real external pressure like reason to raise the money you know I remember uh Jeff Beck who was on your podcast talked about how he had a a goal of raising everything by November in part because there was something very seasonal about his business where that made sense and all the investors got that I had that same thing with little Pim I remember Closing one of my $1.1 million rounds and saying we have to get this money in by the summer so we can make these Big Marketing bets and have it pay off in Q4 where we make 40% of our Revenue as a children's Product Company and tet Product Company so investors got that and we're willing to you know get off the sidelines but it's not always easy to make that happen especially in this in these kind of adverse uh market conditions Market's tough right now especially you know one thing I warrant Founders and they come to us and they're just like we're launching in three weeks and we're raising like a million dollars or whatever it is and then I was like well do you have enough Runway to get three weeks they're like yeah like right well let's see what happens you know it's like something like just to get the phone call yeah it's yeah I mean meet the right person it can go very quickly right but often it's a very long slow process and I'm certainly a big believer in the method you've talked about on your podcast of having a monthly update keeping people informed um I I figured out early on when I was fundraising I've probably pitched I don't know over 400 people at this point given the last raise and this raise um that for me what keeps me sane when I'm fundraising is is thinking about it as friend raising not fundraising because a very small subset of the people you talk to are going to be your investors but lots of people you talk to could be folks you stay friends with folks you refer people to people who will come and speak at one of your events someone who's going to promote your next book or you're going to promote their next book so that is part of how I get through all these conversations is a good outcome is like hey I made a new relationship and who knows where that all go that's why tell Founders is like uh you know when you come to those meetings don't like come with your pitch hat on and fores shovel your pitch down their throat it's more of like get to know that person on the other side have a human- to human conversation and and build that Rapport then they'll ask you questions about your bit they should have looked at your deck right they should never have an idea they took the meeting you know there's already some level of interest there spend that time wisely as you say friend raising uh you know which we might you know make that a clip from the podcast say I like the friend raising you start leaning in you you have something right if they're kind of asking you more things and they really want to dig in but if it's like oh yeah that sounds cool that's great oh you know my sister did something like that you you're probably uh not gonna not gonna be getting that check or W transfer incredible signaling in a conversation is if they lean in continue to probe about the business it's a good sign if they say wow sounds like you got something really great they just kind of like leave it at that or they just kind of like wow sounds like you you figured it all out or sounds like you're gonna do great yeah it's all kind of a big game in the end of not it right okay this is not it so let's keep moving because maybe the next one is in and if you're not up for that then definitely shouldn't fundraise because I only know one person in all the people I've ever met who raised $5 million on the first conversation it's a woman I interviewed for my series on LinkedIn called go big now live and she ran a yoga studio there was a woman who took the classes of the yoga studio she pitched to that woman's husband he was in private equity and he wrote a $5 million check I never heard story like that before or after that story no unfortunately doing this podcast I've definitely heard of those stories where it's just oh good well I'm glad they're out there they do exist those are not so much among women we tend to be like out there really hustling talking to you know hundreds of people yeah I I would classify more as boys clout type fundraising where it's like they're already a part of the club they already have the relationship they then they're of high net worth individuals and um you know it's it's an easier conversation when they've known each other for years whe went to college those types of things so I do see those types of things get not five million I think that's a bit of a stretch that's a pretty big first check that's not bad that's a big I would say that's probably unusual that I I don't really see you know five million get deployed on the first check you brought up something that's another one of those differences between men and women which is that most guys I know who've been to a college where they kept a bunch of buddies maybe they were in a fraternity maybe they went to Ivy League maybe they didn't you know they have gotten a phone call at some point or another from someone who's like hey Bill I just started this really cool company and remember George he's in for 25k are you in for 25k too and when I say to women have you ever gotten that phone call I mean women who I went to Y with women who graduated from Stanford Harvard you know George Washington they're like no I've never gotten that phone call now I'm sure some women have but way fewer than men it's a lot more accepted among guys to call each other and do that whereas for women we're still trying to undo a lot of socialization around raising money talking about money you know is that somehow unfeminine to be out asking for money there's all kinds of stuff we've got to break through and so I think it's really up to my generation and the generations coming after me to set a whole new precedent for what it means to be a woman raising money maybe raising a family at the same time and have it be acceptable to go to your network and raise that first friends and family which can then be the on-ramp to that series a ultimately but a lot of women just never get there so let's let's let's uh you know conclude and and dive a little bit more on that just like what would be your advice to women out there that think they got something big maybe they already have something something that you know it's progressing and making progress what's your advice to them my advice to women who want to raise capital is always to figure out where that capital is going to take you and is there a big enough opportunity to go pursue angel or Venture because I get a lot of women coming to me saying I think we're GNA make 15 million in five years and they're really super excited about that but then I have to sort of r on their parade and say well that's really not going to catch the attention of an angel or V SE so if there really is at least like a hundred million opportunity here that could ultimately be valued at a billion dollars or so now you're on to something but I think women really need to learn the game before they go out and play the game that's what I did I spent nine 10 months studying I'm not suggesting anybody does that now it can go much quicker with podcasts like yours but to talk to people who've raised maybe hire a coach get some mentors to help you and figure out how this game is played because it's been played like this for a couple hundred years and we're trying to shift it slowly so that women are a bigger part of the Angel and VC world but it's still very much a boys club the way it's Dan so got to learn how it works got to make sure you got your numbers together can pitch really well and can make a case for why your company is going to be the next most amazing thing I love that and thank you for sharing that that feedback now where can everyone that's listening learn more about you and your book and uh and million-dollar women yeah so we're really excited about working with women who are making 50,000 all the way up to a million we do have some programs for women making one to three million it's all at million women.com and I also could be found on Linkin Instagram Facebook Twitter all the all the places so if you follow me we'd love to keep you informed of our upcoming events and online opportunities and offline opportunities awesome well we'll definitely make sure to link those in the and the show notes down below but Julia it's been an absolute pleasure hearing your story hearing your journey and being able to share that with our audience so thank you for joining today thanks so much for inviting me and creating a space for this important conversation about women and Venture Capital we're going to see a lot of changes and your podcast is going to help to make them so thank you I plan to see it happen I I think there's enough things in motion nowadays with the resources and content available that uh hopefully we'll start to see more and more women that want it get it absolutely thanks so much Jason awesome thanks for listening to today's podcast we hope you learned something valuable and if you did be sure to let us know in the comments or by hitting that like button if you're a Founder looking to raise Capital be sure to check out our platform thunder. VC to use REI to identify which investors are most qualified to invest in your business it's free to join just go to thunder. BC again that is thunder. BC and if you're new we release new episodes every week and if you are someone you know recently raised around and want to share your story be sure to email me at Jason thunder. BC that's our show and we hope to see you next week