On this episode, Brenda speaks about purpose with Allison Byers, founder of Scroobious, a tech company driving innovation to equitable capital access by removing barriers to partnership among diverse founders, investors, and service providers.

Scroobious is a platform that is working toward equitable capital access: In Allison’s words “ fair representation of all segments with the exclusion of none” - now into its fourth year – having served over 900 founders.

“Finding the funding and the people are critical to early stage success of a company.“ Listen to Allison’s personal story of Scroobius and how her relationships that go back 20 years ago and an introduction to the newly appointed President and COO of Scroobiuos.

You can find out more about Allison, Scroobious, and other resources mentioned in this podcast at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-byers/

https://www.scroobious.com/

For founders working on a pitch: Scroobious is dedicated to empowering founders for successful fundraising. Our platform provides invaluable resources including online learning modules featuring investor-vetted content, personalized pitch feedback, tailored pitch practice sessions, access to a vibrant community of hundreds of diverse founders, and connections with investors. Click here to apply for a sponsored (free!) account. You can also join our Lite plan for just $1 to access our community, events, and curated resources immediately.

For early-stage investors: Scroobious connects you to a network of brilliant and diverse founders solving important problems. These founders have worked with us to clarify their story, showcasing comprehensive pitch material and coachability.

Click here for a quick platform demo.

Visit this website, register, and then use promo code EARLYINV for a free 6-month trial at the Stripe checkout page. After the trial, it's $10 per month (cancel anytime). Complete brief onboarding questions to enter the portal and start messaging founders!

https://www.newswire.com/news/scroobious-scales-up-to-meet-the-urgent-call-to-support-diverse-22415543

additional content here :

https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/SB-54-SIGN-MSG.pdf

Transcript:

00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke

00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors.

01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25% off your membership costs. Thank you.

01:19 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host. I'm delighted that we're now into the third season of this monthly podcast that reaches entrepreneurs, business owners, and corporate board directors, and VCs. All interested in building resilient, scalable, purpose-driven businesses with an undergirding aspect of great corporate governance.

01:45 I admission, my mission at NextAct Advisors, which is my consulting firm, is really simple. It's just building the scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses. My guests to the podcast are themselves founders, business owners, corporate directors, professional service providers who like me want to use the power of the private enterprise, small, medium or large to make change for a better world. With each of my guests, we go through some storytelling.

02:13 about their origin stories. And we will touch on topics around resiliency, purpose-driven enterprises and sustainable growth. And again, my goal is to provide a fun environment in this sandbox where we can equip one startup founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. Today, my guest is Alison Byers. I'm absolutely delighted that she's joining me all the way from Boston.

02:41 Allison is joining and she wears many hats, but she is going to talk a lot today about her founder journey of Scroobius. And it is a very unique platform that unlike other platforms in the ecosystem used by startups, this is one that has a purpose to improve equitable capital access by providing pitch education for founders while making connections with investors.

03:11 to put unused capital to work. And we're gonna hear more as we get into the podcast. I like to have guests that are also very mission-driven as mission-driven as I. And you are, Alison, unequivocally mission-driven in your purpose after you yourself encountered gender bias firsthand while you were fundraising. So I think it'd be appropriate

03:40 story to start telling now. So thank you for joining me, Allison. Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me, Brenda. And absolutely love being so aligned in our missions and being able to talk about how we can use business elements to accomplish the mission-driven motives that we have. So.

04:02 Yeah, I'm happy to share my origin story for Scroobious. And we're a four-year-old company, so I incorporated in January of 2020, which maybe we'll hit on later what it means to incorporate right before a global pandemic. The initiative started after I, as you said, experienced pretty extreme gender bias myself.

04:26 So before Scroobious, I joined scientific co-founders and launched a medical device company out of MIT in a hospital system here in Boston. And I was the business one on the team and did all the things from incorporation through our fundraising. And we did raise almost $10 million at that company going through a series A prime. And then I really struggled to raise our series B. So we ended up going to early acquisition. And

04:52 I didn't know any of the things that I know now. I was not in this space before then. And Medical device is a pretty specific industry with pretty specific investors. So you're kind of in that world. But we were acquired in an asset sale. The people that acquired us were men. And not too long after, raised $55 million. And not. Yes.

05:21 Every time I share that, there's eyes open. A multiple of what? 10? Yeah. And it was very clear to me that the one thing I could point to that was different was my gender. And I was co-running the company with another woman. So we were two women out there doing this, and one more woman involved in the company. But it's.

05:48 it set me on a path of trying to understand what happened. And so that's when I researched the field of capital allocation and investing in pitching first just to understand how I could have failed so badly. That's the internalization that many founders have when they're unable to raise the capital your company needs. And very quickly found all the data that I know you're very familiar with. But for those who are listening who maybe aren't,

06:17 Nationally, 1.8% of venture dollars go to women-founded companies. And in my state of Massachusetts, that number is 0.9%. We're also ranked one of the worst states, 47th, for supporting women-owned businesses. And once you learn that, as devastating as it is, it also releases that internalization of failure. Because you say, oh, I didn't actually fail. I just did not know.

06:45 that I was operating in a system that's designed to keep me marginalized. I was not likely to raise that money regardless of how well we were operating the company or how strong our fundraising pitch was. Okay. So that's my origin story for wanting to dedicate my professional career to working toward more equitable access to business capital. And it's not solely focused on women owned companies, is it? Exactly.

07:15 Yeah. So tell us a bit more about Scroobious and starting a company. And right when the pandemic, you know, set in here in the United States and we locked it went into lockdown. So, right. Yes. So I did at least a year of research before deciding.

07:33 what I wanted to do was meant to be a for-profit company structure. I didn't rush into it. That's not my nature. Did my full market analysis and primary and secondary research, thought about our own capitalization plan, then decided to incorporate in January of 2020. So, impeccable timing. But I know we'll talk about that a little later too in terms of how do you handle what

08:02 startups throw at you and building without the ability to predict...

Purpose: Equitable Capital Access