Inc. Magazine October 2018

Most entrepreneurs pound a long and difficult road, but it’s well documented that women have the toughest time. A small library’s worth of studies has shown that female founders receive a tiny sliver of the tens of billions in venture capital that are invested each year. What’s worse, a depressing number of those who have tried to secure such funding say they were discriminated against. Inc. partnered with our sibling publication, Fast Company, for our first-ever State of Women and Entrepreneurship survey (see page 53). It reveals that 62 percent of women seeking funding report that they have encountered bias in the process. These findings are stubborn and aggravating, yet the big picture for female entrepreneurship is far from bleak. Women are launching more companies now than in recent decades. And,…

The venture capital industry, which last year doled out $84 billion to startups, manages a neat trick. While relatively new—and devoted to seeking out what’s next for business and the world—it’s as old-fashioned as it gets, comprising overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly white partnerships who overwhelmingly do business with those who remind them of their younger selves. As of last year, at the top 100 venture firms, only 8 percent of investing partners were women. Two percent of venture capitalists were Hispanic. Not even 1 percent were black. And almost a quarter of VCs with MBAs got those degrees from Harvard. But some of that is finally changing. In September 2017, General Catalyst hired its first female managing partner. Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital, and FirstMark Capital soon followed. This year, BoxGroup, Redpoint…

This spring, a typical workday for Tedra Cobb consisted of running communication and leadership training for a health care firm followed by glad-handing with hundreds of supporters at night. She’s the founder of Canton, New York–based consulting firm Tedra L. Cobb & Associates—and the Democratic congressional candidate in New York’s 21st District. Which, she admits, breeds a certain amount of chaos. “I haven’t been getting in an hour per day at the gym, I’ll tell you that,” she says. Two other female founders are also juggling running businesses with running for Congress. One of them, Cindy Axne, co-founder of digital design firm Creation Agents in West Des Moines, Iowa, has a business partner—in this case, her husband—to share work duties with when her focus on being the Democratic candidate in Iowa’s…

ACCIDENTAL COLLABORATION • noun When “free-range” employees with unassigned workspaces have serendipitous interactions: “You see people around talking about, ‘Hey, what do you see in the market?’ and it spawns some new ideas.” That’s right, folks: They’ve invented the water cooler. Source: NBC Dallas-Fort Worth PLASTIGLOMERATE • noun A “multi-composite material made hard by agglutination of rock and molten plastic.” Or: how capitalism is literally embedding our pollution into the foundations of the planet. Let’s celebrate this achievement with commemorative key chains, Frisbees, and fidget spinners. Source: GSA Today SADOPOPULISM • noun “Promise people things, but then when you get power … you deliberately make the suffering worse for your critical constituency.” Wait. Is this political, or is it iTunes? Source: Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom CYBERLOAFING • noun Think personal internet use on company time is “counterproductive work…

STARTUP NEIGHBORHOODS ▸ Legendary incubator 1871 is in the historic Merchandise Mart building in the River North nabe; around it is clustered the city’s “biggest concentration of startup activity,” says Julie Roth Novack. 1 She co-founded event-planner platform PartySlate, which is based there, as are personalized clothier Trunk Club, Groupon, and parking app SpotHero. ▸ West Loop—famed for world-class restaurants such as Avec 2—is “really hot,” says Jennifer Fried, 3 co-founder of medtech firm ExplORer Surgical. Google 4 opened offices here in 2015. Also here: food data company Food Genius and workplace caterer Crafty. ▸ Medical device company Attune Medical, agtech firm Hazel Technologies, and battery-tech startup SiNode Systems call the up-and-coming Bronzeville home. 1871 CEO Betsy Ziegler says the area is a hotbed for “aspiring entrepreneurs on the South Side.” WHO TO KNOW Shaniqua Davis…

What should go through your customers’ minds? Melissa Carbone knows what she wants for hers. “I don’t want them to think about the crappy day they had at work or the dishes in the sink. All I want them to be thinking about is ‘What’s coming around this next corner to ruin me?’” Naturally: She and her ex-spouse, Alyson Richards, co-founded the Los Angeles–based Ten Thirty One Productions, creator of haunted houses and events intended to terrify. They got started in 2007, hosting haunted-house parties in their yard—their friends would dress as, say, werewolves and chase around a couple hundred kids, while parents sipped “witches’ brew” (champagne). Halloween events could keep the company afloat—even though its haunted-house productions can cost $1.7 million, including $250,000 for costumes and makeup—but it has…