I'm quite passionate about reproductive justice 🤱🏾 - wanted to share with y'all some information about some cool organizations I've found recently and chosen to support 🧵👇
@TheAfiyaCtr addresses the consequences of reproduction oppression for Black women and girls ✊ FUND RESEARCH to reduce maternal mortality, PROTECT ACCESS to abortions, created Texas’s First Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Policy Summit & PREVENT HIV theafiyacenter.org
@WRENetwork recently worked to pass the South Carolina Pregnancy Accommodations Act and the Lactation Support Act so women don't have to chose between working & having healthy babies🍼 scwren.org
@SisterSong_WOC has a Birth Justice Care Fund that provides essential items like car seats & diapers; midwifery and doula services; and transportation and prepared food for Black and other people of color that are pregnant, laboring and postpartum people sistersong.net/birthjustice
@KY_RFF supports the ONLY licensed abortion clinic in Kentucky. Their clinic has been damaged recently during the protests -- they need support to make repairs (though they are STILL OPEN and serving patients now!) emwwomens.com/donate-kentuck…
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I often tell founders that there are three types of successful seed pitches: traction, team, and vision. (I didn’t invent this I stole it from a ~2010-era VC deity).
It’s not having the impact I want it to have, so I’m going to say my point WAY STRONGER here:
VCs passing on your seed pitch often means ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:
- you don’t have the traction
- you aren’t good enough at storytelling to illustrate a compelling vision
- you don’t seem to have the skills, persistence, drive, execution, or background to pull this off
they only need ONE to invest and startups are all about problem solving though so pick one and go fix it!
- traction is best but hardest so no one picks it. fine.
- storytelling & vision are just skills you can work on!
- make the team pitch by showcasing how you execute now
ok here is a FUNDRAISING HACK that will get you more (& better!) intros to investors:
You know that blurb you forward along about your company when asking for intros?
Make sure it speaks to a VC’s top investment thesis categories:
- stage
- industry
- geo
- founder demo
most VCs want intros and invest in e.g. “Growth SaaS companies based out of India”, “Seed-stage hardware companies in Silicon Valley” or “Pre-seed diverse founders building network affects businesses”. my @parcelbvc invests in @OlinCollege alumni from the earliest days -> growth
most founders include stage and industry but you are MISSING the founder demographic and geographic location piece.
if you are or have a female founder? that BETTER be in your blurb. you’re based in new york or pensacola or munich? PUT THAT TOO.
ok my friends are starting to have serious things go wrong with their bodies and they are fucking up going to the doctor. Y’all. here’s my cheat sheet:
1. literally no doctor cares if you’re tired or in pain or can’t work. *but* they do care about Activities of Daily Living (ADL).
Google it, and focus on *those* as the reason why your problem is a big problem. e.g. my back hurts when I bend over => I can’t put on socks and shoes
2. when they say “Well, we could [insert treatment]”.
Immediately reply to this with “Will that help?” and potentially follow up with “Will that help me complete [ADL]?”
Often their answer is “most people don’t find it helps but sometimes some do” 🙄
I dunno, but I am extremely not into “feedback” at work, I do not want to “learn and develop”, I am anti “growth mindset”(which seems to be a way to justify telling employees they’re never good enough, holding them locked into that position and telling them they should like it)
and I get really positive glowing feedback all the time! but it still makes me feel icky, like I’m very skeptical that other people could judge or evaluate me in a way that is helpful to me
also there’s a whole bunch of stuff I am bad at… it’s because I don’t value it or find it interesting so no lol I am not going to work on it. and *maybe* I would be more valuable to my employer if I did but really, maybe not, and I think I’m plenty valuable to them as I am today
I scheduled time to see friends this weekend — I haven’t seen them in over a year and was excited! We planned where to meet - a restaurant, Taylor’s Shellfish maybe? and I just felt my whole body tense up.
A restaurant? It’d be so crowded on a Saturday, and Covid is still here. We might have to wait for a table. And it’s always either too fucking sunny at Taylor’s or freezing cold.
I usually don’t host at home mostly because I hate cooking while loving fancy food.
but opening my eyes and being more flexible and leaning into what I want and problem solving (and advice from my sage sister) resulted in us hiring a local chef to make us lunch at my house
nothing has been explained to me more than men telling me you can’t hang heavy shit on drywall without a stud
it is almost always followed by them failing to operate a stud finder correctly
but swear to god I must have really fucked this up in a past life to have to be explained this 100 times over. the first million times I was like “oh because I’m young they don’t know how handy & self-sufficient I am” but now there’s no explanation