Unfettering Entrepreneurs from Self-Limitations

Samantha Wellington: Well, this is fancy. Super pleased to be back here with you, everyone. Our next guest is an entrepreneur. He has a passion for capitalizing on high-impact business opportunities that are based on disruptive technologies. He has a proven track record of leading opportunities from inception to commercial stage or profitability through organic growth and M&A, both in the U.S. and abroad. He’s financed, developed and managed new business opportunities in various clean tech sectors and he has developed and taught a highly successful clean technology course at Stanford.

Now, since late 2015, he has worked for StartOut, which is an organization that has been a champion for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and promotes the successes of the LGBTQ+ community. It also researches the economic impact of LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs. StartOut is the largest LGBTQ+ entrepreneurship group in the world, so please join me in welcoming Andres Wydler, the executive director at StartOut, to TriNet PeopleForce 2022.

Thank you. All right, so today’s session is all about awareness. Many of you out there are business owners, you’re employers, you’re business partners, you’re investors and you’re mentors. Now during our discussion today, we’re going to be focusing on the aspiring underrepresented entrepreneur and the choices that they might make based on their identity. And who they are can inform how they design their product or their services, who they are might even contribute to their decision to not pursue the next big idea.

This is the concept of self-selection out, which we’re going to talk about quite a bit. So Andres, StartOut works closely with LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs. So let’s start, if you could give everyone an overview of how you do that and any perspectives on the organization that they should keep in mind as we talk through.

Andres Wydler: Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Samantha: Thank you for being here.

Andres: Thanks everyone for listening. So a quick overview perhaps to start. StartOut is a community of 25,000 members, most in the U.S., and about two thirds of whom are entrepreneurs. So a pretty big number of entrepreneurs think of startup as a national accelerator to grow the LGBTQ community and drive the economic empowerment. We really want to build a world where every LBGTQ entrepreneur has equal access to lead, to succeed and perhaps most importantly to create, to fashion the workforce of the future, so that’s really exciting.

We offer a full range of services, the typical accelerator services, if you will, access to capital mentorship, one-on-one support and so on. Now, we do that one entrepreneur at the time, but in order to have the impact, we of course have to do that by the thousands. Our long-term goals over five years, we want to drive, facilitate about a billion dollars in investments into about 3,000 companies. That should create about 25,000 to 30,000 jobs, and most importantly, about $20 billion in economic value. So that’s direct impact, and of course, indirect impact is even greater.

Finally, we do all that for free, so that’s certainly good news for all of the entrepreneurs out there who might be listening in. We can do that thanks to very generous supporters, including TriNet, so thank you very much for that.

Samantha: Thank you. So one of the interesting things that I think that I saw as we were looking through some of the topics that we thought about talking about together is this idea that as you’re going through the process of raising capital as an entrepreneur, as you’re thinking about pitching yourself to VCs and whatnot, you’ve done some studies and have some stats around this concept that 63% of LGBTQ+ founders come out to investors during fundraising. Now, we talk about this, I’m going to give a shout-out to the TriNet Pride CRG, who I know are watching at the moment, thank you.

But one of the things we talk about in the CRG is this concept of coming out isn’t a one-and-done thing. So if you’re an LGBTQ human, you don’t just come out once and you’re done. You come out every day or twice a day or three times a day or when you’re getting venture capital funding. And I think that’s sort of an interesting point, which isn’t actually, I think, the point of the research. But it’s the point that I took from the research, which is this fact that entrepreneurs are coming out during the process of actually getting VC funding which is a big deal I think and a difference I think to others.

But the other piece that comes out of that research is the idea that 47% chose not to self-identify as members of the community. And I think that’s a big deal as well, with the majority of those saying that being out wasn’t relevant, didn’t matter. And I’m not sure that I buy that. Not that I think the data’s wrong. The data’s right and the people were telling the truth, I think, but I’m not sure that it’s true that it doesn’t matter or that it isn’t relevant.

And so, I think this is this idea of your identity and who you are and all of the things that make up the human that you are, all of your life experience are your superpower. They’re the things that make your idea different to everyone else. Right? And I think one of the things that comes with, sometimes as folk think about the LGBTQ community, they’ll think, “Well, it’s invisible, so I don’t have to come out. It’s not relevant because no one will know.” And I think there’s a lot of otherness as well that is invisible, right? So if you think about what makes you different, what are your superpowers? What are the things that make you different? I’m pretty sure that there’s a bunch of folk in the audience who have an invisible other. I can see your hands.

Are there people who would identify with having an invisible other? Are you an immigrant? Do you have a disability that people can’t see? Are you a member of the community? There you go. There’s some hands, right? People identify as other. And I think what’s really important about the conversation we’re going to have today is that we are talking specifically about LGBTQ+ because that’s the basis of the organization that you run. But I also think that that concept of otherness can be used as a proxy or as an exemplar perhaps for other others, and the themes that are common, if you could talk about the themes, perhaps.

Andres: Sure. I love the fact, by the way, or just the comment that this is not necessarily unique to LGBTQs. A lot of underrepresented communities of whatever flavor suffers through a lot of the same. So to your earlier point, I want to come back to the superpower in a moment, but to your earlier point, you don’t go to a VC and say, “Hey, I’m queer and can I please get your money?” No one does that.

Samantha: I mean, you could try.

Andres: Maybe it worked with some, but it’s different for sure, but I haven’t heard that. But at the same time, especially in the early stages of fundraising, and a lot of you in the audience here, as a small, mid-size business, especially the ones who got funding, then you’re kind of like married to your financier, your first investor, because you see them maybe more than your spouse or your partner.

And so, you don’t want to start with an omission or a lie. Don’t want to call it lie, that’s a strong word. You don’t want to start with an omission and you got to build trust for them to want to invest, and for you to want to accept the money. So that sync-up needs to happen. And just leaving that out altogether, that is really tricky, because you don’t want to have the surprise later on. So yes, it’s a superpower, but only when you are given the opportunity to exercise it as a superpower.

So let me give you an example. So we have this program, phenomenally successful, actually, if I may brag a little bit. We have incredible entrepreneurs. You’ll be truly impressed in our Growth Lab, our in-person, formerly in-person, now virtual accelerator. And there was a guy who, phenomenal entrepreneur, great passion, great perseverance, everything was there, but he was not out.

He was a veteran, he is a veteran, he’s Black, and just didn’t think that was a superpower at all. He quite to the contrary thought, “No, this is not going to happen.” We convinced him to join our program anyway. During the program, he actually came out not just to the business community but also his family and everyone else and is now kicking back, to use a nice term.

So, he’s incredibly successful, one of my favorite stories, by the way, one of my favorite success stories. Not that he raised the most amount of money or anything like that, but the delta for before and after, what our community could do for him and now in turn for his employees, for his partner, for all the people around him. That’s just truly mind blowing. And so that’s really cool. So yes, it’s a superpower, but only if you make it that. So if you believe in it yourself and then if you, either through introductions or through your behavior, create an environment where that superpower falls on fertile ground.

Samantha: And actually, we were talking about this a little backstage and because we had the opportunity to be able to watch this session immediately previous to us backstage. And there was this conversation about imposter syndrome and we were looking at this idea of 70% of folk who believe that they’re suffering imposter syndrome. And I’m not sure that that’s, it’s not unique, so there’s a lot of imposter syndrome that sits through all of the others, but frankly there’s also a lot of imposter syndrome that exists in entrepreneurship more generally, I think, because I think what you said was...

Andres: Well, if you don’t have imposter syndrome, you don’t try hard enough. And I’ve read, it’s not my quote, by the way, I read that a few days ago, I think in New York Times, whatever it was. But yeah, I mean as an entrepreneur it’s incredibly hard, everyone knows that the odds are clearly stacked against you regardless of who you are. And then you add underrepresented community attributes and then basically it gets harder and harder.

So, if you think you have all the answers with no HR department, no finance department, no marketing department, and so you don’t really know your industry well enough, hopefully you do, so there’s all the things, and if you are confident that you make solid decision based on all the data you could possibly have, well, I’m impressed. Let’s put it that way. So yeah, of course we all have imposter syndrome and it’s a healthy thing. I know psychologists might disagree with me, but you got to have it in order to succeed.

Samantha: Well, healthy thing if you engage with it and have support around you, which is why the work that StartOut does is so important. I also think that there’s a concept of self-limitation that comes from imposter syndrome. There’s a danger in imposter syndrome that you self-limit yourself out of that great big idea, that next thing that you could possibly do.

And the reason why I think this conversation is relevant to not just the other entrepreneurs, but also frankly anyone who’s here who’s an employer, right? Because there’s a whole bunch of potential entrepreneurs out there who have self-selected out of entrepreneurship because it’s too hard or too scary or they can’t quite find the support to allow themselves to do it. And they all work for you, those people are your employees and they have amazing ideas. If you can create a support network around that allows those ideas to come to the fore.

And I think that’s why the conversation is relevant either in the context of entrepreneurs themselves or in the context of employers. Because I think there’s that idea of the aspiring underrepresented founder may never get to become a founder because of the very real concerns that are either associated with imposter syndrome or perhaps associated with a lack of awareness or visibility of others like them. Like, “I won’t get funding because I’m X thing.” Right? Or, “There’s no space in this industry for me because of X, Y, Z thing.” I was reading an article last week about Soul Cap. I don’t know if everyone’s heard about this, but this... Have you heard about this?

Andres: I have not.

Samantha: Okay. Forgive me for throwing something at you that we haven’t talked about. So there’s a company called Soul Cap. It’s a Black-owned swim cap company who had developed a swimming cap specifically for Black hair because Black hair’s bigger than white hair and it takes up more space, and there is a need in the market for a different swim cap. There was no space for them in that industry, and in fact, FINA, the world swimming organization told them for several months in fact that, there was no space for them because they wouldn’t approve the cap. Now, the good news is the cap got approved and all was great, but that’s sort of an example of perseverance, right?

**Andres:**Oh, big time.

**Samantha:**There’s a hole in the market, “I created a thing. There was no space for me in this market because I’m X, Y, Z thing, but I’m going to persevere and push through it anyway.” And I think that that’s sort of a nice story in terms of perseverance. I think creating an environment where people are supported, this is what we were talking about earlier, allows people to thrive.

Now, I want to take us to the potential and why seeing people like you is important, why the support networks that StartOut creates are so important. There was a Junior Achievement, if you haven’t heard of Junior Achievement, you could Google them, I guess. They’re quite famous. There was a Junior Achievement study earlier this year that found that 60% of teenagers want to start their own business rather than work in a traditional job—60% want to start their own business.

And when asked why, where did that inspiration come from, two of five said that the inspiration comes from social media, from celebrities and from the news. So thank you to TriNet’s social media team who will post this on social media and allow people to see what the opportunities are. 45% of them, though, want to learn the ropes from someone who already does it. So 45% of them want to learn the ropes from someone who already does it who is like them, who has some sort of life experience that’s like them. And 37% of those kids want to go to an afterschool class. They want to spend time after they’ve finished their school day and go to a class and learn how to be an entrepreneur from someone who does it and who is like them. That’s what you all do.

Andres: Well, that’s awesome passion. I mean, let’s go there right away. So there’s a couple of connected topics I want to address just briefly. So the self-selecting out and the lack of role models. There’s actually a study that showed that Black students who were admitted to MIT had a lower acceptance rate than white admitted students. It’s the same logic. If you think, “Look, I can go to MIT, spend the enormous amount of money to get through MIT and in the end, I don’t really have a chance to get a decent job and pay back the enormous student loans that I had to rack up.”

So that is the same issue here. Entrepreneurship is not a zero-sum game, especially growth entrepreneurship, where there’s some ideas that are happening that are being pursued as a business with tons of perseverance, luck, good fortune, everything else, but a support network. If you don’t have the support network, if you don’t have, as you mentioned, they want people like them, like 47%, I think you mentioned, something like that.

Samantha: Yes.

Andres: So if you don’t have a role model, if you don’t have a support network of people like you that you feel like you can associate with, that you feel comfortable, you feel safe with, you want to take a risk with them, for them, for your community, if you don’t have all that, you’re not going to do it. And that’s a logical conclusion that you shouldn’t do it because you think you have less of a chance in an extremely hard environment already. Now, right now is the midst of probably a recession, like post-COVID, everything else. So the funding environment is terrible for new first-time, early-stage seed stage, pre-seed, we see it. And so, why would I want to take the risk?

Samantha: Because the…

Andres: But the passion is there.

Samantha: Because the statistic tell you that now is the best time to start a business, right now. Now is the best time to be an entrepreneur. If you’re starting a business right now, stats tell you, you have more opportunity to be successful.

Andres: That’s so true, but if you are right now making a decision, “Should I start or not?” You definitely want to have your support network.

Samantha: Yes.

Andres: You want to have people around you to encourage you like “Yes, you too can do it. I believe in you.” And it shouldn’t be just one person, there should be a lot of people to help you.

Samantha: A lot of people.

Andres: So yes, statistically the best companies or the most successful companies are typically formed during tough times. But if you are the entrepreneur, and I’ve been an entrepreneur for 20 years myself, that’s how I got the job, by the way, so yeah, it’s really hard.

Samantha: I want to talk next about the StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index. But before I get there, I just want to reassure everyone, this isn’t going to be a very sad tale about the entrepreneur that never was. We’ve finished convincing you that this is a thing that you should care about and is important. And instead, what we want to focus on is the opportunity that’s in front of us, the things that we could be doing and working on. So if you could talk about the StartOut Pride Economic Impact Index. It’s super cool, first of its kind, huge, massive project that you undertook that came out of a really interesting experience that you had, I think. If you could talk about how you got to having this project on your plate and what it does.

Andres: Yeah, so a couple years ago we hosted a summit with Congress on LGBTQ entrepreneurship and the state of business. And we asked him how can you help us, and we wanted them to help us of course. But they said, “Look, we would love to.” Their heart was in the right place, they realize the potential of more business and everything else, “But we don’t have any data. We have data on Black entrepreneurship, on female entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurship, we have and so on. But we don’t have anything on LGBTQ.”

Okay. So we teamed up with Socos, whose founder is a big data company, was a chair of our organization, so then with the support of JP Morgan Chase, which is great, we built this massive, massive, massive project. So, “Okay, if you don’t have the data, we’ll give you the data. Give us a few years, we’ll come back.” We’ve done that. So what we’re basically doing, we are measuring the impact of LGBTQ entrepreneurs and what the impact could be with equal access.

So this is all an exercise in, and I’m going to explain in a second how we’re doing it, this is all am exercise in, “Look, this is your missed opportunity because of X, Y, Z,” whatever that might be. “But if you were as welcoming to LGBTQ entrepreneurs and gave them the same opportunities as you do with admittedly white male counterparts, this is what’s in it for you.”

Samantha: And it’s super cool because it’s geographically based as well. So if you think about Congress people and senators and what they care about and what they care about in terms of their own communities, the way you all structured the data really speaks to the opportunities that could exist in particular jurisdictions.

Andres: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And so we basically, we’ve followed, since year 2000, just briefly, I’m not going to geek out on it, so promise, but just briefly, I am a geek, but I won’t. Data geek. So since year 2000, we followed entrepreneurs, and I want to say 137,000 entrepreneurs we followed and we are measuring jobs they created, money they raised, IP or innovation as a standing, would be the patent filings and then exits, business exits.

And so, we did that and got tons of data, tons of data, it’s very hard to figure out whether someone’s LGBTQ or not. Equally hard, by the way, figuring out if someone Latinx or Black or so. People just don’t volunteer that for obvious reasons. And then we’re basically, we’re mapping that throughout the United States, it’s U.S. only. And it’s really exciting to see, a little shocking, like a couple of findings. So in 40% of cities with at least 50 growth entrepreneurs, not a single one of them identifies as LGBTQ.

Samantha: That’s crazy.

Andres: Mostly in the South, so there’s tons of upside for those cities. Or another one is only 0.56 less or about half percent of the founders who self-identify as LGBTQ got funding. So there’s a major mismatch here. And the funding they got, by the way, was significantly lower than their straight counterparts. And it was even lower, by the way, for female entrepreneurs. So we also have the female index up there as well, so I can go on and on and on and…

Samantha: Well, you mentioned the female piece and you also... So the two pieces of data that I actually thought were most interesting out of the study were if the same focus was applied to LGBTQ entrepreneurs across the country as is applied to others, there would be 500,000 more jobs have been created as a result of that entrepreneurship. And similarly for the women, because you also track gender, gender based, 1.2 million more jobs would’ve been created across the country.

Andres: And that is just what we captured. So we know we didn’t capture everyone, of course, we try, we’re very good at it, but we’re still not good enough. And so, these are big numbers and you can also go in there city by city and soon state by state, industry by industry. There’s such a richness of data in there. Once you measure 140,000 companies over time, you get a pretty solid picture. And I encourage all of you to go and have a look. I mean, it’s free, it’s on our website and you can just go and check it out.

Samantha: So if you are listening and you’re an LGBTQ+ entrepreneur, have your contributions counted. Go onto the startout.org website. It’s super easy. Your participation is going to help highlight the challenges and support entrepreneurial diversity across the country. If you’re an entrepreneur at all and I know we have a lot of entrepreneurs paying attention right now, there is also a more general survey that will really help with the data that is being built. So if you’re an entrepreneur, it takes two minutes to take the survey, please go on and take the survey. Startout.org, it’s right there in the front. Super easy. All right, so let’s talk about-

Andres: Thanks for the plug.

Samantha: You’re welcome. So I’m also a data geek and the data is phenomenal. It’s very, very cool, looking at a map of the states and working out where the jobs could be created if investment was occurring. It’s very cool. All right, so of the entrepreneurs you’re currently working with, I know you’re passionate about all of them because they’re all your children in some way, but what makes them tick? We’re talking about passion, purpose and perseverance. What is the thing that brings them out, that makes them...

Andres: So fundamentally, I think there’s a big congruence with every other entrepreneur. So that’s certainly, I don’t want to make the LGBTQ entrepreneur so incredibly special. They are special and they’re more fun to work with, by the way, I think. But that’s a highly subjective, biased opinion. So of course, the basics about, the toughness of entrepreneurship, building a business, everything, that’s the same with everyone else. But like you mentioned with the... There’s two things. There’s voluntary entrepreneurship and forced entrepreneurship.

So the forced entrepreneur is more like where you don’t have the same opportunities in the business world for whatever reason. Then you basically, and during COVID it actually happened a lot, that we saw tremendous, tremendous growth and demand for our services, which was great to see that we could be more helpful. But it was also a little heartbreaking to see how many people really went through all that trouble.

So the forced entrepreneurship is the ones who don’t feel like they have an opportunity, have a place in the business world, in the workforce, hence our hope to shape the workforce of the future in a different way, given that we focus on growth entrepreneurs. Then there’s the voluntary ones and your... Is it Soul Cap, what was it called? The cap?

Samantha: Soul Cap, yeah.

Andres: Yeah, so that’s a perfect example where someone, in this case I guess Black, you mentioned?

Samantha: Yes, yep.

Andres: Was seeing a need in the marketplace for their community with a business, with an opportunity that could apply to anyone, right? You don’t want to build a business overall for just a small subsection of the potential audience or clientele. So we see that a lot, that some of our entrepreneurs, they see an opportunity, they see something’s wrong with how they’re perceived what their opportunities are, how they were treated, whatever that might be. But then they figured, “Okay, I can do this. I can maybe start with that community, but here’s the opportunity to grow that into an opportunity for the whole economy.”

And that is the exciting part, so what makes them tick is similar to others, but also an innate sense of fairness. And that’s a very exciting part and perhaps a lot has been talked about that, but also the perseverance part. They had to go through so much, all of our members had to go through so much to just get to where they are today. That that actually is a superpower, is an opportunity if they recognize it as such that they’re just... Perseverance for them comes more naturally. I don’t want to denigrate anyone else, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just something that’s a trait that makes them tick that we see again and again.

Samantha: It’s the element of other that creates that. We talk about grit, we talk about this idea of grit, and we want to have grit in our kids and our employees. We want everyone to be gritty, and a lot of the grit comes from that aspect of perseverance, going through the thing and finding the way through.

Andres: I would love to add something, actually, I forgot to mention. It’s like especially with our membership and we have to mention it’s a great accelerator, the growth lab, and we always have exit interviews of course with everyone. And what we’d like to hear is, “Oh, your work’s so great. Your programs are so awesome. That’s why we succeeded.” That’s not what they say. They’re very appreciative of what we do, but consistently, the number one response is, “It was so great to be in a community where we could feel we belong.”

Samantha: Yes.

Andres: And so, one of the things that also makes them tick is peer pressure, if you will. Now, we want to make sure we do something for our community. Giving back is very, very big for people who haven’t always been fortunate enough to get what they needed. And so, that is actually heartwarming. I love their answers and I love it’s consistent that they want to support each other. This is a peer-to-peer support environment and that also makes them tick.

Samantha: So I want to talk about that in a little bit. You’re talking about sort of allyship, but the idea... Because you can be an ally if you’re a member of a community, the fact that you’re a member of a community does not mean that you cannot be an ally to that community. And so, I think you’re sort of talking about allyship inside of a community, that I want to get to. But before we get there, you also talked about this innate sense of fairness and this idea of not just making a product for one segment of the community, but rather ensuring that we are being inclusive in the way that we think about product design.

I actually think we have a poll. I hope we have a poll that is about inclusive product design. And the question is something along the lines of, “Do you have in your organization a function that is dedicated to inclusive product design? Do you think about that inside of your organization?” Oh, there it is. “Do you work for a company that has a focus on inclusive product design?” And the answers were yes, no, and, “We haven’t heard of it.”

Andres: The interesting part is actually for I think any underrepresented community entrepreneur, they’re seeking out others like them. So diverse product design iterations, all that, it’s just so central to their DNA. And also the people they hire, like one of our early growth-type companies, his first eight employees were all underrepresented communities. Didn’t have a single more privileged person on his staff. And they built phenomenal products with great success in the marketplace just because all those different views were integrated from the get-go. So it’s not something you put on afterwards. It’s something that’s integral, innate in the DNA. And that’s a big advantage to be honest.

Samantha: And I think that that piece is actually really sort of important—that idea of those diverse ideas are what makes your product inclusive. It’s how you create inclusive products is by applying all of those different thought processes to the way that your product is being developed. So that sort of inclusive product design, we’ll come back to that in a little bit. Self-censorship. We talked about this at the beginning, self-censorship, stopping yourself, stopping yourself from moving forward. Why would that happen? Why would you not pursue your idea? Why would you stop midway?

Andres: There’s of course a gazillion reasons. And first of all, not everyone is a born entrepreneur, but if you have what it takes and you start, if you’re consistently getting, “No, no, no, no, no,” for reasons that are different from why other people get the nos. And you sense that, you realize that and you don’t have the good fortune of having the support through whatever organization or family or friends or businesses that make you successful, then I mean, it’s understandable that at some point you just can’t do it anymore. It’s such an incredibly hard journey for anyone, even in the best of circumstances.

Samantha: And I think that, so whilst entrepreneurship I think is obviously, I shouldn’t say obviously, but I do think in some ways more difficult than working for someone else, I do think that that same challenge exists inside of the companies that you all are running, insofar as there are humans inside of your companies that are feeling those same things. And so, I think here, when we start to think about that idea of allyship and how you think about the support that is available in your community and why it’s important.

I think that’s the really important piece because I think some people look at it and say, particularly in respect of invisible identities, so identities that aren’t overt when you first meet someone like, “I have an invisible disability. I’m an immigrant. I’m gay.” Whatever, the thing that you can’t necessarily see that is part of who I am. I do think that there are some folk who would look at that and say, “Well, why does that impact you?” I don’t know when I’m looking, I don’t know you’re gay. Why would that impact you? Why? Because I do think there are people who think that way.

Andres: Oh, I hear it all the time. It’s like, “Why do we need to support you? Aren’t you privileged anyway?” And yes, some of us are. I certainly am, so I’m very grateful for that. But no, I mean, our data shows anything but. So I was a little negative before in terms of it’s really hard to be an entrepreneur. I mean, every entrepreneur knows that. But I think you can also turn it around. And when you talk about the social capital, when you talk about affinity groups, what we also experience is, and we see that in other support groups as well, for Asian American entrepreneurs, for Black entrepreneurs and so on, or people in business, there’s lots of organizations. And there, people of much higher stature help you because you’re part of that group.

An example is one of the top-notch VCs from one of the major venture firms. He usually only talks to conferences like here, where there’s thousands of people that’s worth his time. At StartOut, he comes and talks for 30 people. So he would never do that and gives personal advice. And we see that again and again and again, so people just care about it. And so when you’re part of an affinity group and you use it as a superpower, then as an entrepreneur, got to milk it, make the most out of it you can because if you don’t, no one else will help you.

So it’s really exciting to see that camaraderie, that support, the social networks, how they actually make you more successful and they care deeply about you, which also in and of itself is incredibly inspirational for any entrepreneur, which is like 11:00 at night, midnight, just can’t get past a certain problem, but he knows or she knows or they know that someone is there to support them, either right now or next morning.

Samantha: And I’m going to tie this back then into, and if you’re thinking about this in the context of your own organization, your own people who work for you and the culture inside of your organization, I think that affinity... We’re talking about affinity groups and support and allyship, this concept, I think it becomes really powerful inside of an organization when it is used in the way that you’re speaking about, when you’re actually leveraging the experience of the folk who are in that group to truly impact your organization’s strategy.

We talked about inclusive product design. There was a whole bunch of folk who answered, “Never heard of it.” If you are one of those people who is running an organization and you don’t have a focus on it, an affinity group can actually be a really good way of accessing diverse opinions about how your product is going to be perceived in the market, how it’s going to be used. And it’s an opportunity to make it better, and I think that’s a really intentional and good way to utilize affinity groups and also empower folk that are in those underrepresented communities that may work for your organization.

All right, so we’re going to close by talking a couple of calls to action. I’m going to remind everyone again that just because you’re in a community, doesn’t mean that you can’t also be an ally to the community. I think that’s really important. If you’re in the community, you’re allowed to be an ally at the same time. So call to action, I want everyone to take one active step towards building action inside your organization. So this week, you’re going to do one thing, somewhere between now and next Wednesday. Check out your phones, write yourself a little reminder, send yourself a calendar invite, whatever it is that you do to organize your week and your day.

Do one thing to represent how you’re an ally to the diverse entrepreneurs, either educate yourself on how you can be an ally and support diverse startup ventures, right? If you’re an entrepreneur yourself, go and take the survey. Go on to startout.org and take the survey. Think about inclusive product design. Think about where diverse ideas are coming from in your next product, think about what you have available to you in your own organization that could help you with diverse product and services design.

If you’re an LGBTQ entrepreneur and you’re not part of StartOut, startout.org, they are the largest group of other folk like you in the world. So go join them, get on it. And if you’re any type of entrepreneur, I’m going to say it again, go take the survey. If you’re a TriNet client and you are interested in being part of a program that TriNet is building out, we are looking to create a mentor-mentee program to connect our historically underrepresented business community clients with each other so that people can learn from each other.

And if you’re interested in being either a mentor or a mentee in that beta program, you can reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn, Samantha.Wellington@TriNet.com. I promise you I’m not the only one that’s going to be monitoring that email address for the next couple of days. Andres, if folk want to contact you personally, how can they do that?

Andres: Email is best, Andres.Wydler@StartOut.org. And I love your action items. And all I can say is, of all the mentors in our place, they have a ton of fun. So when you do it, I trust, I can promise you, you’ll greatly enjoy the experience as well.

Samantha: Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. That is us.