I have been recently part of an open forum on being black in America, as well as in the startup space.
A white founder asked, "What can I do as a startup founder at an early stage?" The group made various suggestions which included the obvious (or at least I hope it's obvious), "When you're growing your team, consider hiring black team members" or "When you're considering an investment from an investor, pressure them the diversity of their current portfolio founders. "
But one tip really stood out, which is to make a concerted effort to find someone other than your current team's makeup when it comes to subject matter experts. This willful act shows your homogeneous team members that blacks, other racial minorities, or genders can also be experts. It can also be applied when growing your team by making sure you interview different candidates whose skill level is often guessed.
This got me thinking about VC Monique Woodard's claim that "black founders are often overestimated and underinvested". In June, at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests and open dialogue on anti-blackness, we saw a slew of investors rushing to offer mentorship to black founders. Some investors don't have black founders among their companies in their portfolios, so for some viewers this rush to help black founders has been seen as insincere and a marketing ploy.
As a former founder, I can confidently say that most black founders simply want to have a good chance of introducing their startups to investors. The prevailing system of needing a warm introduction to access investors puts founders, especially black founders, who don't have the same networks as investors at a disadvantage. The correct mea culpa of these investors should be to make pitching more accessible to all founders. While mentorship offers are certainly welcome, the constant barriers black founders tell me they struggle with are access to capital and networks, not a lack of talent or business knowledge.
The quick emphasis on mentoring made me ask myself: How are the contributions of blacks (founders, investors, operators, etc.) viewed to the startup space? Are we presented as experts or as perpetual students in need of mentoring and counseling? To answer this question in a directional way, I turned to podcasts. According to a New York Times article, "more than half of people in the United States have listened to one (podcast) and nearly one in three people listen to at least one podcast every month." This figure shows that podcasts are a far-reaching medium that the public uses as a source of entertainment and information.
I delved into the 2018 and 2019 guest lists of three of my favorite startup-related podcasts: "This Week In Startups", "How I Built This With Guy Raz" and "The Twenty Minute VC". These are all top-notch podcasts with tens of millions of downloads and over half a million subscribers.
This week in startups
Entrepreneur and angel investor Jason Calacanis brings you his opinion on the best, worst and most interesting stories from the startup world. Check out the boardroom during in-depth interviews with the most innovative founders and investors. Get the most interesting insights from experts on trending topics during our news roundtables.
- Successful founder
- Prominent investor
- Promising founder
- Startup Expert
How I built it with Guy Raz
Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the most famous companies in the world. How I Built This weaves a narrative about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists - and the movements they have built.
The Twenty Minute VC
The Twenty Minute VC takes you into the world of venture capital, startup financing and the field. Find out how you can get funding for your business by listening to what leading investors are looking for directly in startups, providing easy-to-use tips and tricks that can be put in place to increase your chances of getting funded.
- Prominent investor
- Successful founder
I analyzed more than 500 episodes that aired in 2018 and 2019 across all three podcasts to get a racial and gender breakdown of the guests featured in those episodes.
Not surprisingly, the majority of the guests in attendance were white men (60%). Black men and women were present in 4% of all episodes. A total of 15 black unique guests (nine men and six women) were introduced as guests on more than 400 unique guests over the two-year period. Also interesting to note that of those 15 black guests, three were celebrities (a comedian, a TV personality, and a rapper), two of whom were in attendance twice.
There are certainly more than 15 unavailable black celebrities who would fit the ideal guest lists of these podcasts. It is also interesting to note that the percentage of black guests decreased by 2% from 2018 to 2019 and incidentally increased by 2% for white guests during that period. The percentage of black female guests within the female gender pool dropped dramatically by 10% while white female guests increased by 21% over the two-year period.
Conclusion
The results are a microcosm of what is happening in the startup ecosystem: black minds are undervalued and undervalued. Often in the startup space, a founder is considered a successful founder not based on how much money they raise from satisfied customers, but on how much money they have raised from investors. Based on these misleading standards, black founders will rarely be classified as winners because 1% of VC-backed founders are black.
When it comes to investor ranks, 81% of venture capital funds have no black investors, so very often black investors have to raise their own funds as the path to joining one is limited. Given these and other obstacles, I would argue that blacks are the inspiring and recognizable experts whose stories and advice need to be heard by a wider audience.
It is also worth noting that blacks are well versed in various topics and should not be invited exclusively to platforms to talk about black matters. Blacks are not a monolith and each person has their own passion and areas of expertise and outside of their experiences not all black people may be well equipped to analyze black issues.
In the spirit of not only highlighting systemic racism in the startup space, here is a list of emerging black founders, investors and startup ecosystem builders, by Denisha Kuhlor and I. The talented individuals listed would make great hosts for podcasts, conferences, and any platform that aims to amplify a diverse set of insights and experiences.
Methodology: Analyzing 484 guests across all three podcasts, the hosts of these podcasts were not included in the analysis as guests. As a result, podcast episodes that only included the host were excluded. Real podcast episodes were included in the analysis. If an episode had multiple guests, each guest was accounted for separately in the analysis. The gender of the guests was based on the pronouns used to refer to the guests on the podcast or on publicly available information. The race of the guests has been objectively determined based on how the host identifies or subjectively determined based on publicly available photographs, videos and information. The "Other minorities" grouping includes Latin, Southeast Asian and East Asian hosts. Disclaimer: This article is by no means written to sprinkle the three podcasts analyzed. They were chosen simply because I'm an avid listener and they are all relatively popular in the startup space.
