Vince Chen (11:12)

Absolutely. I remember your tagline, tough love for entrepreneurs. I also recall That a few years back you published an article about LGBTQ entrepreneur in the Chicago Booth Review. I read the article myself and it highlighted how underrepresented this group is in the entrepreneurial community. From what I remember, you discussed challenges like funding and general support. It wouldn't surprise me if you planned to focus more on supporting them going forward.

Waverly (11:53)

Yes. In fact, I just accepted a speaking engagement to talk a little bit about LGBTQ entrepreneurs in today's world with the association for Enterprise Opportunity. They're doing an event for Pride Month. I am hoping to work with Startout to refresh the report that we did in 2016 on the state of LGBTQ entrepreneurship in the US because I think that data is now almost 10 years old. And one of the biggest challenges in thinking about the availability of resources to LGBTQ entrepreneurs is that nobody collects the data. Right. That's something where you have to self identify. You don't find it in the census. You don't. You can't use AI to screen for names that indicate being a member of the LGBTQ community the way you do for gender research or even bipoc research where you can triangulate and create a data set that is likely to be made up of people with non Caucasian heritage. You can't do that. This is a community that has to self identify. So you can't say to venture capitalists, how many LGBTQ entrepreneurs do you have in a among your portfolio companies? Because they say, how would we know unless that entrepreneur has had a direct conversation with them? Unless they have self identified with their investor, it's very difficult to get data. There's a wonderful group out of Chicago called Blend that is working on diversity in the venture capital community in Chicago. And when they were doing their research, I said, why aren't you asking about LGBT LGBTQ entrepreneurs? They said, isn't that intrusive? So we think it's not intrusive to ask about gender. We think it's not intrusive to ask someone about their marital status or if they have kids. But we think it's intrusive to ask if they identify as lgbtq. Why? Because there's still a risk in identifying that way. So I said, rather than asking, are you an LGBTQ plus founder? You can ask, do you choose to publicly identify as an LGBTQ + founder? Right. You can ask your venture capitalists, how many self identified LGBTQ capital entrepreneurs have you funded in your portfolio? We have to rely on self identification to even collect data in that space. That makes it much harder to know what's happening with their access to resources, with their support, with their outcomes. It's just a very difficult community to support for that reason because in the US and in many cultures around the world, it's still a risk to come out as lgbtq. We've seen a huge rise of anti LGBTQ backlash in this country. Target, which has annually done a beautiful collection of products for Pride, gave in to the protests about recognizing Pride Month and pulled that line of products. So there are ramifications in this country to being LGBTQ and in many places around the world. So it's a difficult group of entrepreneurs to support. So you're right. In Pride Month we should acknowledge that's an area of my personal passion and interest that I hope that wise heart can make a tiny difference with some of the individuals in that community.

Vince Chen (15:29)

Yeah, who knows what the future holds, especially with the election coming up. You mentioned the ongoing issues with LGBTQ identities being illegal in many places. It's a complex landscape. I also want to touch on ageism and other critical but often overlooked diversity. You are a baby boomer with extensive experience across various technological and economic cycles. Speaking of age, many of our listeners, whether Gen X like myself or baby boomers like you, might have retired or been laid off for various reasons. Yet despite their valuable experience, they face entrenched ageism in the workplace and in entrepreneurship. As we discuss how to balance the heart and the head, love and logic when making career decisions involving moving from corporate roles to entrepreneurship to taking risks, the challenges can be very daunting for more mature individuals. So my question for you is if an entrepreneur from Gen X or the baby boomer generation approaches you wanting to do something meaningful to create a legacy, they have ideas that could solve problems in industry they've known for decades. But they may not be as tech savvy as a lot of people perceive them that way or the pitch is not modern or sexy. How would you advise them? How would you help them balance the passion for their project with the logical aspects of launching a new venture at.

Waverly (17:46)

Late H that's a great question and you're 100% right. I'm seeing that in the market right now. Right now in this country we're going through a very strange time when the markets are at an all time high, the public markets are at an all time high, and yet the tech companies are announcing layoffs constantly and valuations for privately held tech companies have fallen off tremendously. It's a very strange economy. And you're 100% right that economic situations make A huge difference in the landscape for entrepreneurs of all kinds. And I think I can't answer this question without acknowledging the incredible privilege that I've had in my life. People hear about the struggles I've gone through and the hard work I've put in and I honor that. But I was born white to a middle class household where I got excellent education and excellent opportunities. And I've been very fortunate to have the kind of career, 22 years at a university where I've been able to accumulate a retirement nest egg. I am still able to get health insurance through the university, albeit I have to pay for it. I am incredible, incredibly fortunate and incredible. My privilege has been part of my journey. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that a lot of entrepreneurs come from very different places and they don't have that. And so when I look at folks of my generation who do not have nest eggs for the future, who are being subject to layoffs. Why? Because when you are, when you are senior in your career, you're more expensive. Expensive. So if I lay off someone who is making $200,000 as a director in marketing, I could take that $200,000 and hire three young people out of college. Age is a factor in these decisions. Seniority is a factor in these decisions. And now you have these incredibly talented, experienced people in their 50s, in their 60s, who want to keep working, who have a lot to add, but who are also now pretty expensive people for a full time job. And they're saying, what do I do? What do I do with all of this experience? What do I do with all of this energy? I don't want to take a job that is a $75,000 a year job because I'm forced to it. I want to do something different. And people have different levels of choice at different times. So one of the things that I'm noticing in that community and one of the things that I'm talking with that community about is you have been exited from these companies because they need to reduce costs because you're expensive. And yet they still see the value of your wisdom and experience. Experience. Many of these people are being hired by companies like the companies they came from as consultants. There is generational knowledge capture that is lost when people are laid off without thought to transition plans. And I think a lot of companies have made that mistake. So I see a friend of mine who is a financial expert laid off from her CFO job, now consulting as a, an interim CFO for various companies in the industry that she came out of same thing with sales executives being brought in. What I would say to those people is you may have to do work that you outgrow through in your career. You may, as a cfo, have to go back to work you did as an accountant or a controller to establish your value to a young company that's growing, that needs financial knowledge. You may not be able to be a strategic cfo. You may have to actually go back to some of the work that got you to where you are. If you want to consult in building a go to market or a sales organization, you might have to write marketing collateral. You might have to, you might have to get on sales calls. You might have to do the kind of work you did when you were coming up to establish your value as someone that now charges consulting rates instead of full time salary rates. If you're able to do that, there's a lot of room out there to find consulting work, to find engagements that could lead you to your next job. But your dream of I'm going to go from my $200,000 job to a bigger, better $250,000 job. When you're in your 60s in this market, that's a difficult one. You may have to let go of that.

Vince Chen (23:05)

It's not just about tricking your mindset or upgrading your skill, learning new technologies and branching out. The market itself is transforming. I see a future where new types of jobs and careers emerge, roles we haven't even imagined yet. The names or labels for these positions might not even exist today, but give it a year, two or three years max. Thanks to advancement in AI and other technologies, we're going to see work processes and roles evolve in ways we can't yet imagine. I view this shifting career landscape not just as a transition, but as an origin of growth opportunities for everyone, whether they are in 40s, 50s, or even 60s. Health is of course a vital consideration. As long as we are healthy, those of us with sound minds and cross generation experience, particularly in people skills and relationship building, will find immense value. These skills are crucial even for AI focused tech companies like OpenAI. They're looking for individuals who can bridge the human technology gap, making these seemingly complex, more approachable and human relevant.

Waverly (25:00)

Absolutely. You mentioned reskilling and upskilling. I can't tell you how many people I know who are signing up on Coursera for a prompt engineering class to learn how to better leverage generative AI. People are going to need to use the contemporary tools to deliver the value that they bring. As experienced professionals definitely engage with the newer technologies because you can't walk into a growth company populated by a bunch of 20 and 30 somethings and not understand the impact of generative AI or not understand the impact of social media marketing, or not know what TikTok is. You have to be able to communicate in the language of today's companies if you want to build a new career after your corporate career.

Vince Chen (25:58)

So we are at the end of our interview. Waverly. This is the first time in my podcast that I create a three part series on a single topic and a single guest. You are the first person. How do you find this experience yourself?

Waverly (26:19)

I just want to say I love how this conversation ranged from career and heart and head into AI, continuing with the heart and head metaphor because AI is all head. So you got to bring the heart to diversity issues, which are very much heart and head. Diversity is not only the right thing to do, but there's a lot of evidence out there that it creates better business results, that focusing on diversity actually improves your business results. So I think I love the wide ranging conversational topics that you brought up, Mintz, today. It was a really excellent conversation.

Vince Chen (26:58)

Oh, I almost forgot. That's one important question I haven't asked you yet. I kind of guessed the reason I like you to share with us in the show the name of your firm, Wise Part. Any thought process behind it. Could you share your little secret with us?

Waverly (27:16)

So I'm working with a great agency on the book and I was creating the LLC as a place to put revenues from the book, consulting revenues, things like that. And I was working on what to name it. And I, of course, being very head oriented, was thinking of things like sepentia, which is Latin for wisdom. And the agency was like, no, nobody knows what that means. They won't know what you're doing. It makes no sense. And I'm like, okay, so I, I want to think about wisdom because I, I had, I am in the, the latter portions of my life and I have gained a lot of wisdom over my years and I think that's one of the things I bring. And, and they said, you know what, you talk about tough love because what you're bringing is also the love. And that's where the combination wise heart came in. And you commented earlier that I spell it with a Y. The reason for that is quite simple. I could get the URL. I could be wiseheart.com if you spell it with an I, you can't get the URL. I wanted the URL.

Vince Chen (28:22)

So Waverly sent us so much. We just so much good insights from you today, so I definitely would invite you back for another session. Thank you so much for your time.

Waverly (28:34)

Vince. It's been my sincere pleasure.

Vince Chen (28:38)

A special thanks to Waverly for sharing two hours of her valuable time for such amazing and candid conversation. That's a web on our three part series on love and logic. For those who appreciate Waverly's insights and teachings, be sure to explore the other two episodes of this series if you enjoyed this finale. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget subscribe to our show. Leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.