Funding startups from underappreciated entrepreneurs is Backstage Capital's mission. Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Managing Partner, says, “We invest in the best founders who identify as women, people of color or LGBT in the United States. I personally identify with all three. »
Christie Pitts, General Partner of Backstage, talks about the early days of the Los Angeles-based company and how it got involved:Working in the music industry, Hamilton discovered startups and established contacts with investors and entrepreneurs. When she asked investors to consider new companies, she noticed a disturbing pattern:“The founders always have a meeting if they looked a certain way and went to certain schools, but if it was, for example, a black woman who had gone to the same schools, like Stanford and MIT, she wouldn't get a reunion.
Hamilton also noticed that since these underappreciated founders were leveraging limited resources, their support could result in a huge return on investment.
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Working for Verizon Investors, Pitts heard about the Hamilton startup and met with it, thinking the young company would be a perfect match for strategic direction of Verizon on diversity. It didn't work out, but Pitts started working part-time with Backstage. In August 2017, she left Verizon to become Hamilton's full-time partner.
"We're seeing healthy performance from our portfolio companies," says Pitts, hailing their entrepreneurs as resourceful and creative in taking on challenges. “They don't get the same amount as other startups, so they have to find other strategies to be successful. The Backstage founders invest in 80% people of color, 68% women, 52% women of color and 13% LGBT, far exceeding industry averages in all categories.
Interviewer of the founders while continuing to fundraise, says Pitts, has given the partners “a unique sense of empathy because we know what it is like to want to do something and not have the money to do it. .… When she started Backstage, Arlan went all out on this idea. She changed careers without a safety net, to the point where she became homeless in an attempt to start behind the scenes. »
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Dawn Dickson, an African-American serial entrepreneur in Columbus, Ohio, is the CEO of two innovative companies, Flat Out of Heels and PopCom. She is one of the founders in whom Backstage has invested with enthusiasm.
She encourages women entrepreneurs to continue to play to the unique advantages of women.
Dawn Dickson
In 2011, while living in South Florida, she got the idea for Flat Out of Heels when she noticed women leaving galas and clubs, losing their high heels and walking barefoot for blocks rather than suffer in these impractical shoes. She thought that comfortable and immediately available apartments could meet a real need. She explains, “I wanted to sell the shoes through vending machines in places where women actually experience the pain point,” like nightclubs, airports, and concert halls. Traditional snack dispensers wouldn't do. Unable to find the appropriate equipment, she decided to design her own smart vending machines. This led to her fourth venture, PopCom (short for pop-up commerce), which she launched in 2012. A few years later, the need to develop hardware and software brought her to Backstage.
Dickson had started Flat Out with $100,000 from her personal network, but realized she would need more money to produce vending machines that could take credit cards, track inventory, send emails and interact with customers via artificial intelligence and facial recognition. Anticipating future possibilities, she says, she also wanted to use "technology with an opt-in to verify a customer's identity to distribute a regulated product, such as alcohol, cannabis, tobacco or pharmaceuticals.”
An investor she contacted introduced her to Hamilton, who had just started Backstage. The new company invested $95,000 in Dickson's companies, which helped Flat Out acquire inventory and ramp up marketing efforts, and PopCom develop patent-pending software and hardware.
Dickson placed his first smart machine for beta testing in a concourse at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where it would be highly visible to travelers with sore feet. She is beginning mass production of smart kiosks to be rolled out later this year and is working with companies that want to use them.
She encourages female entrepreneurs to continue to play to the unique advantages of women:seeing things differently. comprehensive and be compassionate and understanding rather than engaging customers on a purely transactional basis.
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This article originally appeared in the Summer 2019 issue of LadiesBelle I/O magazine. PHOTO COURTESY OF BLACK ENTERPRISE
