Building Billion Dollar Unicorns: How To Pitch, Overcome Rejection, & Succeed As A Modern Entrepreneur w/ Sarah Chen-Spellings | iDigress Podcast

SCS:

What makes a unicorn, right? And the patterns for unicorns. And a lot of misconception is that the Mug Zuckerbergs of the world is what we're looking for. But the reality is a lot, most unicorn founders are repeat founders. They've done this before. They've been through the rodeo before. 

So these founders have been battle tested is what I would say, and are able to articulate why they're best suited for this thing that they're looking to build. So all I'll say is don't be discouraged if you failed in your first one.

For us, we see that as a good thing, right? And that you now know, hopefully, what not to do.

Troy:

Sometimes brute force isn't the answer. And I had like a moment of introspection, and I'm sure many people who are watching and listening may have had that too. They're like, especially if you're a marginalized community, you're just like, you just tough through it, hitting until hopefully the wall breaks down. 

When you could have just took an assessment, step back and maybe walked around the wall and didn't have to do none of it. If we were to be honest, sometimes it's about pride or ego or shame or what people think or judgment of like, if I have to pivot, if I have to change, if I declared all of these things that I said this business was gonna do and in the first six months or first year I didn't achieve it, I always say successfully failed.

SCS:

And I wanted to highlight this point that you so eloquently packaged, right? But this question I always ask on my podcast is, what is that crucible moment for you? Because that informs so much of our lives, right? And a lot of more marginalized, underrepresented communities, we've been brought up to think that anything worth doing feels hard. You know, that hard work, the grind and all of that.

And yes, I absolutely believe that some part of that is necessary. But over time, I've come to realize when I think about my life, like launching Lean In Malaysia, coming to America at the right time, it feels and building something that has this level of momentum and support. Of course, I had to work hard at it, but it felt like the right people were being put in front of me.

And the next thing and the next thing, sometimes it's easy. Not everything that's worth doing has to feel hard. And the moment that I think we reduce that burden on ourselves, I reset my mindset in that way. That shift helped me breathe a little bit. There's a lot more work to be done, but there's going to be some lessons learned in this chapter and dollars burned, unfortunately.

Troy:

Lessons learned and dollars burned. Okay now. I'm ready for the new Kendrick diss track on AI. Let's go!

SCS (Intro):

Hey folks all of you know by now that I'm so proud to be part of the HubSpot podcast network where I get the Incredible privilege of hanging with some amazing podcasters this week I'm excited for this feed drop where I sit down with Troy sandage on his show for a master class I digress episode where yes, I am in the hot seat and we chat about lessons learned, dollars weren't an adventure, overcoming rejection, the entrepreneur mindset and frankly, I shared some very personal reflections from my journey co-founding Beyond The Billion through the lens of a founder and an investor and my work and venture over almost the last decade.

And yes, a quick PSA, I will be at Inbound by Hotspot in person from the 18th to the 21st of September in Boston with yes, Serena Williams and Ryan Reynolds So you want to be checking out my socials on search and global and billion-dollar moves podcast to get in on the action otherwise, enjoy!

Troy:

Oh my gosh, I can't believe this finally happened. It's finally happened. Sarah, you have graced me with your presence. I appreciate you. We're both on the hustle podcast network. I was fanboying over you. We've got to meet in person. And for those who don't know, those who are listening, please, Sarah, who are you? And what makes you so amazing?

SCS:

Who am I? Well, the perennial question, right? I think a question that we're all asking ourselves every day. Let me start with I'm an investment and entrepreneur. I was born in Malaysia, so I'm a first generation immigrant here in America and proud to be here, proud to be building a business here. I say it as often I couldn't have done what we've done in the last couple of years in any other country but America. And I am really thrilled that, you know, we are the world's first and largest global consortium of venture capital funds and limited partner investors that have pledged to invest and are actively deploying over a billion dollars into women-founded companies.

So we started as the Billion Dollar Fund for Women, but hit the goal of the billion very quickly within nine months. And that actually inspired the expansion of the brand, I would say, to Beyond The Billion. So look it up, beyondthebillion.com. And of course, as you mentioned, I am passionate. I guess if you think about the overarching theme of my life, it is about surfacing unexpected leaders. That was very much the case for myself. 

I had a lot of questions. I was in positions where I felt I was too young to be in. I was not necessarily qualified. There are people above me that were so much better, but I was put in certain positions in leadership very quickly, very early on and I had to step up to the plate. So a lot of the work that you see that I do, whether that's Beyond The Billion, the podcast, Billion Dollar Moves, it is this one theme of surfacing unexpected leaders and really ensuring that all of us have fair chance, right, to live up to our full potential.

Troy:

One, you are just a testament and this is not to boost you up, this is just reality. And I always feel people should hear their flowers while they're currently doing the things. I feel you are a strong light in areas where people, I didn't know that I could do that. I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know we're going through our careers, going through certain life, socioeconomic status in certain places in the world. 

It's like, wow, you get on this mic and you're just like, this is what I do, this is who I am. And that is essentially very beautiful. And I can't imagine the other side of the veil of all the things you constantly are navigating, dealing with to not only achieve what you're doing, but surpass to the next thing. So for you, what have you learned along the way that has helped you keep momentum in times where you're uncertain about the outcome?

SCS:

Ooh, how do I keep momentum when I'm uncertain about the outcomes? Frankly, that's just life, right? It feels like, especially in this time, I think it's important for our generation to also acknowledge the time that we're in, right? We're going through a real shift, right? You think about AI, the technology shift and what that means.

And this hasn't happened in a while since some people say mobile or even like the start of the internet, how that has changed. So we're going to see really a step change in how things evolve. So with that as a backdrop, even the younger generation, growing up in a generation which is on social media, that is fully digital, where in real life is almost now kind of sad to say, it's almost an option, that changes the way we think about the future and truly how uncertain it is. 

I spent a lot of time with the younger generation. I'm very passionate about inculcating the spirit of entrepreneurship because I think that that's really hard to actually teach. So I spent a lot of times like I was just in a couple of universities with different startup challenges with high schoolers and all of that.

And what I realized is that a lot of these skill sets that we learn in university are templates right from the past that really doesn't necessarily set us up for the future. But what you know, and I'm getting to the lessons here, what I realize it's really unpacking the invisible lessons along the way that you can put yourself in many experiments to ensure that you have that skill set of key thing being agility, adaptability, right?

So it's a whole thing of you think about ChatGPT. I know everyone's speaking about it today, but it's just top of mind now because I'm preparing for actually a conversation with OpenAI and Google DeepMind, so I got to have all my notes together. But you think about where we are as a generation, it's no longer about having all the answers, but it is being able to ask the right question and knowing the right prompts to get to the answer.

And I kind of feel that's how I've built momentum in my life, in which I frankly, even when I think about the next few steps that I have to build, it's truly unprecedented, right? No one has done it in the way that I want to build my future. And so even in the past, frankly, when I was younger, it was, OK, let's find all the mentors.

Let's ask people for a ton of advice. But this is the reality. You ask two super smart people the same question. They have their own lens and their own experiences. We are the sum of our experiences. I can guarantee you, you ask enough times the same question to many different people that are smart enough, you can get two different answers. So at the end of the day, you can't rely on those answers because always remember that it comes from their own experiences, which is not yours, right? 

Which is also how I think about limitations. We talked about how both of us and reconnected because both of us are passionate about historically marginalized communities and underrepresented voices and amplifying that. And I think it's important that when we think about how we continue to lift each other up, that we also train that muscle of you set your own path, you can get all these inputs, but it's really you need to act on that information, right? A lot of times we're held back by the fact that, oh, I've never done this before. I don't have enough information. I don't have this. I don't have that. That sort of scarcity mindset.

But if you just stop and pause and think about how much more you move forward from taking action on the information you already have using your own lens, that's how you move forward. And that's how I've lived my life, right? Have I made mistakes?

Hell yeah. But what I would rather do is make the mistakes early on so I don't waste a ton of time in a direction that I know will not bear result. I've been struggling with this lately. There are some people who think you need a podcasting business, right? You need to slog it out. You need to be in it. You need to do 200 episodes, and then you'll be successful. But there's also a school of thought now, I mean, especially in entrepreneurship. 

Some of my mentors argue, and they're great, world-class, award-winning investors, that say sometimes in certain businesses, when the signal is off early on, it's off. And there's nothing that can change it. And it just means and brute force is not the way forward. I think I have to balance that a little bit. And that's how I think about adapting, about crunching through a lot of information that we have and then just experimenting, right? 

You know, I always say, what are the instead of taking that big leap, is there a mini experiment that I can do? I mean, for anyone who's looking to launch a new podcast, what I always say, what I learned myself is like, don't set the expectation that you're just launching it. Build up your own rhythm and system before you do it. So batch record, say you're releasing a pilot season. That's exactly what I did, right? Do a pilot season, although I did it in a different way.

I did it because I called it a pilot season because I knew, you know, I may, I'm not sure about it. I may burn out and I did everything myself. I know some people still do that. I don't know how they do that. But I think there are ways to do it, right? So using the podcast experiment, do like five episodes. See if you like it. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's for everyone. Little changes in my life as well.

Troy:

Three points come to mind. One, see if I can pull up this quote. People delay action once they know truth, and the interim between knowing and doing is a space where suffering thrives. And I love how you brought that out.

Like when the truth has been revealed to you as an entrepreneur or creator or whatever it is that you need or you acknowledge, like don't sit around and wait for the truth to change because that delay can impact you just as much, if not more than that delay of action.

The second part where you talked about sometimes brute force isn't the answer. And I had like a moment of introspection and I'm sure many people who are watching and listening may have had that too. They're like, you know, does this tie back to when I was younger? And you're, especially you're a marginalized community, you're just like, you just tough through it. You just kind of, you don't speak up, you don't, you just kind of navigate and just keep hitting until hopefully the wall breaks down.

When you could have just took an assessment, step back and maybe walked around the wall and didn't have to do none of it. If we were to be honest, sometimes it's about pride or ego or shame or what people think or judgment of like, if I have to pivot, if I have to change, if I declared all of these things that I said this business was going to do, and in the first six months or first year, Q4 of next year comes around and I didn't achieve it, I always say successfully failed.

SCS:

And I wanted to highlight this point that you so eloquently packaged, right? But this really is linked to sometimes, frankly, generational trauma, right? And I've only started to realize a lot of this, like so much of what we do, you know, a question I always ask on my podcast is, what is that crucible moment for you? Because that informs so much of our lives, right? In childhood, there's usually one thing. And a lot of more marginalized, underrepresented communities we've been brought up to think that anything worth doing feels hard. You know, that hard work, the grind and all of that.

And yes, I absolutely believe that some part of that is necessary. But over time, I've come to realize when I think about my life, like launching Lean In Malaysia, becoming like an accidental activated feminist, coming to America at the right time, it feels, and building something that has this level of momentum and support. Of course, I had to work hard at it, but it felt like the right people were being put in front of me. And the next thing and the next thing kept building from there. 

So, you know, sometimes it's easy. Not everything that's worth doing has to feel hard. And the moment that I think we reduce that burden on ourselves, I reset my mindset in that way. That shift helped me breathe a little bit and made things sort of fall into place. And of course, compounding. It takes years for that overnight success. So don't discount that, but put in the work, put in the fundamentals, build your systems. 

What I always say, you know, when entrepreneurs come to me and we look at the businesses as we evaluate them, investing in them and all that, I always think about this one question. Have you done all the experiments that you're excited about that have not shown the results? If you still feel that there's that mini experiment in you to build to the next stage and that will open doors and that maybe there's a little bit of momentum. We're not at the J curve yet, but we are seeing it. Then let's continue, right?

But if you're really like, and I've seen this, right? Like just because AI now is the hot thing, everybody wants to be an AI company when they're not, right? And it's just not working. I'm serious. Like there's so much, I mean, even Sam Altman said this, right? The foundation of where we have to be, the models are just not as robust as people think. There's a lot more work to be done, but there's going to be some lessons learned in this chapter and dollars burned, unfortunately.

Troy:

Lessons learned and dollars burned. Okay, now. I'm ready for the new Kindred diss track on AI. Let's go.

You know, it's so refreshing to hear this. And I think we're all need to be reminded of just because something's trending, doesn't mean we have to try to integrate it right away. Like we should have a plan. Does this align what we're trying to do? Do we need it?

Absolute. How does this matter? Are we really integrating it? Are we just trying to get a label to say we are, but we're not. I'd love to talk and switch gears slightly. you have experienced both yourself and advised and witnessed a lot of businesses who have pitched their idea, who have pitched their vision, what they're looking like, they may be associated numbers of defining the market, defining their valuation,

maybe they have a product or a service already doing some things, but they have never broken through to that next level. Do you find it's more so because of the market or is the person not articulating the value threads enough for investors to understand to say yes?

SCS:
You know it's hard to give like a single answer to that right there you know your question is essentially why do VCs or investors say no in many ways and it has to do with many different layers. One is the key thing is like product market fit, right? Is there a real market fit for what you're trying to build? Do we see early traction, early momentum in the way that you're thinking about your new product in the world? 

And unfortunately, we've seen a couple of different personalities. One is like a super excited developer who is a builder and then is finding the reason for this application later. Right? And that sometimes it works. I'm not saying that it doesn't, but a lot of times it doesn't work because you haven't done enough market research, understanding who is going to ultimately be your beneficiary and the payer. Like those are different things. You know what the business model is.

It's good to have entrepreneurs that are innovators. I always want to encourage that. Right. Because I think we definitely need less incremental innovation, more big ideas that can leapfrog and that can really change things for our communities, right? I always believe that investment is always an opportunity and a privilege to invest in the future that you believe in, that you want to see.

And so, you know, when we have a little bit of out of touch kind of builder, that's when it fails, because obviously for investors that are niche and experts in, for example, B2B SaaS, like we see so much more on the ground and we have the numbers, we know what people want. And of course, yes, you have to build desire for certain things like, you know, how Steve Jobs did it for Apple and Apple suite of products. But there's some element of understanding your angle deep enough that sometimes is missing. And that's a no. I'm thinking about, you know, just a couple of deals that we said no recently. One was the evaluation was way too high for zero revenue.

Let's just put it this way. Love the big thinking. But again, especially in this time, Ventures is going through a whole market correction right now. I mean, it's been going through since interest rates are no longer the way they were, right?

The cost of capital is no longer zero. So in the highs of like 21, 22, during the pandemic, where deal values were sky high, people, you know, lost their shirt, right? There's a lot. So people are now, you can see in the words of Warren, you can see who's naked on the beach right now, right? Who doesn't have the bathing suit on. 

So realizing that there needs to be a little bit of a grounding of what you're selling as well. So that's why we say no sometimes. Whether that's a person, yes, absolutely. There was a study done by one of my partner pledge funds, Endeavor Catalysts, and they looked at what makes a unicorn, right? And the patterns for unicorns. And a lot of misconception is that the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world is what we're looking for. And what that means is like a guy in a hoodie, right? It's his first time, like he's really technical and all that. But the reality is a lot, most unicorn founders are repeat founders. They've done this before. They've been through the rodeo before.

And the average age is actually a lot older, right? So it's not the 20s. It's sort of, you know, the median, I believe it's between the 35 to 45 range, depending on which country, that sort of thing. So these founders have been battle tested is what I'll say, and are able to articulate why they're best suited for this thing that they're looking to build. 

So all I'll say is don't be discouraged if you failed in your first one. For us, we see that as a good thing, right? And that you now know, hopefully, what not to do and what else to double down on and build your network significantly to show that it's not you, it was the idea, the timing, a whole mix of different things. But because you're seasoned enough, you know how to handle these challenges when put in front of you.

Troy:
Two thoughts come to my mind. I'm going to play devil's advocate. If I'm on the other side of it and someone tells me no to my value, you might go into Michael Jordan meme mode. I took it personally. I'm going to prove you wrong and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And sometimes that's not always the best fuel source because it's a two-edged sword. It's poisonous. Yeah, it feels good to be in that energy space, but you shouldn't lean and depend on that type of source of energy.

And I always think you have perception and you have perspective. And we all have our own perception, which may attribute to our valuation or our deals, how we may interpret the market, how we interpret ourselves and how we pitch. But then if we're able to get out of our perception for a minute and take to a high level of perspective, which allows you to go up and consider other people's knowledge, experience, understanding over time, which what a beautiful opportunity to have people who got to the point to even hear you out. Let me be real, a lot of people don't even get that opportunity to have that conversation and to have that perspective of this may be where it doesn't land.

And maybe because you're new, you don't have the foresight. You can only see this far and this person, they've been in the game. They can see a lot further and then maybe not predict the future, but they can tie in patterns and nuances and consumer psychology and all those things to say, based on your evaluation, all these things that you know the language better than I do, this may not be fruitful right now. You might need to go back, rebirth it a few times and come back again, but you're gonna be stronger and better if this is what you wanna pursue. But how many folk failed and they did so many pivots that where they started is not where they end up either. It all comes down to, I think, us conceptualizing rejection and resistance, especially for us.

And, you know, we can put all of our time and energy in this one thing and then let's say no one wants it. You know, what do you do then? You know, do you got to go back to your family, go back to your friends, or you're sitting alone, like how do you navigate? And I think if we're going to be real, people have to sit down with it.

Like, do I really want to do this? And is it the art of creating something that's valued to achieve a certain money epsilon or impact epsilon? Or do I just want to chase the title? Like, do some introspection, be real, but why? And then take the information that people are gracefully giving you and put things like in a certain type of perspective. And I don't think, at least you may know this, I don't know. 

I don't see too many entrepreneurs and those who are pursuing those things, maybe getting the EQ and the mental health and support they need, the mental fortitude to navigate rejection or navigate change or knowing how to switch gears and pivot. Like entrepreneurship is not for the weak of heart for a reason. seen who have made it through? Have you identified in those personality types or those businesses that have made it through trial and error and actually came on the other side of that? So one is grit and resilience, right? Those two kind of come hand in hand. Now I'll give a, an example here. One of our fund managers, so we work with venture funds and then the underlying founders, but mostly it's with venture funds and the investors into those venture funds, right?

SCS:

So we call them general partners and limited partners. So we know about the births of funds that invest into founders more so than at the founder level, I'll say. And this particular fund, she started as a receptionist. She was doing this while paying the bills, getting into law school and decided when she was listening to all the analysts as a receptionist that I can do this job, I think, and maybe I can do it better.

And she decided to turn around and go to her boss. And for some of you that may know the venture role was Insight Venture Partners, so it's a pretty big firm, and said, look, give me a chance. If I do badly after six months, you can just fire me. I didn't want this receptionist job anyway, right?

But in that time, she proved, you know, she's a polyglot, she speaks multiple languages. She proved her value in building in Europe and showed her ability to bring diligence into the work that she does and spun out eventually for her own, i.e. to build her own fund. And it took her about 18 months really of knocking on doors, getting a ton of no's, and finally at the 18-month mark, because we were in constant communication as she was building here.

She literally felt like she was at its end and then something changed, right? Somebody turned around and said, okay, we'll anchor this fund. We'll give you $50 million to build this. But in between, she did what she could. She mobilized the smaller checks around her. She proved that if she were to get the capital, this is the results, right?

She's built the system, the team, the sort of full thinking around how do you analyze, how do you win the deals, how do you get to the next stage and prove that in the small way that she could, she could build her own track record. So I will say it is in that, you know, grit, resilience, creativity, because, you know, sometimes your back's against the wall, you got to figure out how else, right? You know, it might not. And if I think about my life as well, right, a lot of things didn't turn out exactly the way that I wanted, but I had to get creative and that pushed me. And by the way, that's how a lot of innovation is made, right? 

When you can't just like go through the wall, right? What do you do? To your point, go around. How do you go around? What kind of help do you need? So grit, resilience, being able to also see the big picture, I think, rather than just the narrow focus. So it's a good mix of that. I really think that these days I'm less excited about a great idea, more excited about the proof of execution because great ideas come by so often. 

You go to a grocery store and you look at all these innovations, all these products. Someone I can bet you, someone who's in that grocery store shopping would have said, Oh, I thought about this long ago. Yeah. So what? You didn't execute on it. I don't care. You didn't, you didn't act on it. You didn't act on it in the right time and bring it all the way through. So frankly, it's easier said than done. And I respect entrepreneurs who put in the work, right. And, and keep doing it and to get something to ship something out, right. To ship your product, to get it to the stores, to get it in front of a customer that is happy, right? 

You think about the Zappos story, right? To delight your customer in a way that shows that they want this product that you've built, that is so much harder than people realize. It's easy to copy, easy to, you know, just do the same thing, but to build something and conceptualize it and put it out into the world, I always say this is a spiritual thing.

Troy:
But I always think the successful entrepreneurs have to have a really good ecosystem around them to do what they do. Because it is taxing. It takes on a lot. And you need that trust system with you. For you, who is in your trust system that helps you do and be the best Sarah that you are?

SCS:

Oh, so many. How do I even begin? But of course, number one is my husband, right? I couldn't be taking all this risk. Like I talk about this very openly. In a couple, in a marriage,

you can only take a certain amount of risk when the other is that beacon of stability, right? And my husband is that stability for me to be able to take all this risk and continue to grow. That's number one. And then of course my co-founders, my family, and of course my family is a given, my extended family, to have that support system around me. You know, as we think about growing our families, right, having that, and that's an important thing to say, there's a whole movement now in America of Moms First by Reshma Saujani.

I think that's super important. And she started Goals for Code as well, but the lack of infrastructure for women, for families, to build on the ambition is scary in America as a developed nation, right? Truly what I believe to be the greatest nation on this earth, but to not have that infrastructure in the way that it should for women to build their families, but that's super important. But beyond that, of course, my co-founder, my partners, the entire venture entrepreneurial ecosystem that has been, first of all, open to this idea to say yes. 

I think about when I just got started and built this big idea of the Billion Dollar Fund for Women. I think of Gobi Partners as an example of a venture fund in Asia. I've known these folks for quite some time now. I want to say, is it close to a decade? But in my previous chapter, I was an investor for a public-listed company as well. So a lot of the partners there had known me from my previous chapter. We looked at deals together. We looked at the Malaysian entrepreneurial ecosystem together. 

And now, you know, as I ventured into something new, I was new to DC, I was new to America, and I had this idea and I came to them and I said, hey, this is something new that I'm starting. Would you take this pledge? Right. Would you, you know, be one of our first signees? And remember, this is a firm that's been built for over 20 years, Gobi Partners.

And here I am with essentially a website, a black sheet of paper on what I'm trying to build. And they said, yes, right. And all of this, though, I will say is what I've learned is the framing of Goodwill. If you're looking for books, I've got a whole list

I have to finish, but James Lee, he's one of my advisors as well. James Rhee, he's a Korean-American entrepreneur, investor, and now best-selling author, he published the book, The Red Helicopter. And what he talks about is the power of kindness, which has real tangible value, and that is goodwill, right? So what you and I have, like, you know, we've only met in person literally once, right, Troy? But, you know, we know what we're doing. We know what we're doing. We got that connection. And what that connection is, is really goodwill, right? Like, I see what you're building. I believe in you. And so you ask for some time, of course, you'll have my time, right? 

And that is the feel of what runs businesses, frankly. When you ask me about like, a lot of times people ask me, what is this checklist, right, for investment? Yeah, this is checklist. But at the end of the day, right, even as I'm going through my own building and fundraising myself, right, for the work that we're doing, they're investing in me as a person. And I take that so seriously. It's easy to sort of fall behind the numbers and all of that, but at the end of the day, it's the trust that you're building. And I think that's underestimated.

Troy:
Belief is a big factor. And also what I'm hearing is when you have this aura about yourself and about, I think you have on your website somewhere about being a champion of the mission and getting other people to be advocates of that mission. And you create this extended aura of like united front. This is what we're believing in as an investor, as an advocate, as communicators, as part of the team. 

And I think sometimes that's the part a lot of people fail at articulating. It's not so much, like you said, the stats and everything. It's like the why and how does it connect to other people? How does it make other people feel? Yeah, that's not in the data analysis per se, but I like to call it element H. Somewhere in that report, the human element component where sometimes you're like, this is a good deal because of the person, or because of kind of whatever. And we're not just talking about investments, it's just business in general.

I think anyone who decides to buy from you, listen to an episode of a podcast you're creating or watch a video, they're choosing to invest that time in you from what you've conveyed and create this aura of trust or maybe even curiosity. Or they got what the old people used to say, they got moxie or they got that sauce. 

I don't know what the new people are saying these days about this. But I'm only going backwards, y'all. I'm a millennial. I can only go so far of data.

SCS:
Oh my goodness, you might delete this later, but I've been, you know, it's Asian Heritage Month, right? So, Goldhouse, friends of mine, they just had Sawiti on and she just released Nani. So, they got that Nani, which is like a vibe, but it's kind of, I don't know, in certain languages, it's kind of vulgar, but... That's what this generation is saying these days and she just released a video.

Troy:
I just watched it. Hats off.

SCS:

Hats off to her.

Troy:
Hey, whatever floats, everything, somewhere, just change a new meaning every generation.

SCS:
That's right.

Troy:
You know, when you're an entrepreneur for a long time, you have a sense of empathy and it's such a high letter of respect for your fellow entrepreneurs because you know beyond the socials, which your socials are lit by the way. I'm like, I'm sure she has an amazing team or maybe she's doing her stuff. I don't know, but I'm like, oh, she is. The perception is up there, right?

But I know behind the scenes that probably takes, you know, work and planning and timing. How do you balance the public perception of you and maybe separate that from maybe the personal side that you navigate with your partner, your family, your friends, and your loved ones, how do you separate the two in your life?

SCS:
You know, frankly, these days, I'm in my era of what you see is what you get. So I am, I do get real on my socials. Like, you know, these things, I've worked hard to get to where I thought I wanted to be, and then things change, and then it take, you know, what I'm building right now, it's taking me a lot longer, I'm frustrated, I'm stressed, like all of these things, right? 

There's elements of that, which I share pretty openly, I like to think. Of course, the podcast stuff, like there's a certain brand that gets put into it, but it's also really frank conversations that I have with my guests, right? We talk about mental health, right? I had someone on who literally almost committed suicide. And we talked through that.

And now she's working with Lady Gaga and Selena Gomez and the royal family in mental health and investing in mental health. I had a friend of mine, he's a personal friend of mine. We went to university. He had a literally $780 million exit.

So he's doing pretty well for himself right now. But in the hard days when he was building, he talked about like just literally it was 3am alone in the office and complete darkness no one was there and why was he still there because he had nowhere else to go. Like he didn't you know he just was so focused on building he didn't necessarily build friends or even cared about it and all these things and this happens to it. So frankly I would say what you see is what you get. I don't try to differentiate that too much. 

I would be like, you know, trying to be not noticed. that's just not heard of. To be so young, to be so vocal, it was almost a negative to be an ambitious woman, a woman of color, right, in Asia because you're supposed to be more, wait your turn, do your time, be a bit more submissive, really. So that whole time I even wore, you know, I was running a family business, right, even like wore a fake wedding ring to be taken seriously and looked to be, you know, seen to be older. So I did all of that and I'm done with that.

Like the moment I, frankly, I set foot here in America, it's like, you know, I'm building my future here and I want to be who I am, exactly who I am. Are there times where I'm going through challenges that probably I don't want to air out in public? Sure, of course, right? Like in partnerships, we were just talking about this, whether that's personal, whether that's in building businesses, it's never easy.

There are challenges, there are hiccups along the way. Do I want to air all of that? No, not necessarily. But when I have down times, I talk about that pretty openly because I think we all benefit from just being frankly a little bit more real with who we are. And I think about the next generation as well.

To grow up in an environment where you think everything is perfect, that is a huge, huge toll on the next generation. I actually just had this conversation with my husband yesterday about how girls are taught to be perfect and not brave necessarily. And that's the beginning, the genesis of where the disparity starts. You know, I was spending some time with young entrepreneurs and I was looking at the numbers, the drop off of girls applying for startup competitions is significant by the age of 10. And I wonder why that is, right?

So there's a lot of data to unpack there, but it's literally is how are you raising your sons and your daughters?

Troy:
I remember you telling me bits and pieces of that story when we met, and I appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing that and giving perspective. I find myself asking this question and this, let me know if this is an aligned or not but what are things that men can do who are in power to Consider and be I know There's a disparity nowadays of the word

Allyship because now allyship is not what it used to be and we won't go into all that unnecessarily But there's only word that's coming to my mind right now to help move and bridge that gap, kill some of that gap, that disparity, to make it a safe space, a more inclusive and equitable space for women to shine. And not because they're just a woman. I think that's another part of it too, that people think, you know, just with people of color, Black, AAPI, you're getting in because, you know, you're a person of color. And that's not it either, right?

SCS:
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I will say DEI initiatives are under attack right now, right? We're in the heat of it. And I think there's a whole framing issue, frankly. I think all of us at the core of it believe, I like to believe there, maybe there are some bad hats, but believe that if you have a son and a daughter, you want the best life for both of them, right? And, you know, we're going through a generation where we have mixed marriages and all of this. And I think this is a good thing.

I'm in one myself, right? Because that's how we connect with the bias of all, we sort of disconnect the bias of our algorithms. If you know what that means, like, you know, you and I are getting different things. And so, and this happens in my marriage, right?

We talk about totally different things that I completely miss because my algorithm is different and my husband's algorithm is different. But then we talk about it. I'm like, ah, I never thought about it that way. And that's interesting.

And I think that's what we need to do to have more mixed marriages. No, I'm joking. I do think that's the solution to world peace in many ways, because then it's like, you know, part of you. But one of the key things is really thinking about what is it that you can do with the power, opportunity, privilege and platform that you have to expand opportunity for others, right? And what this means is I still believe in merit. I still believe the best person, the most qualified person has to get the job.

I still believe in that. And yet what we can do, the difference here with what DEI initiatives and women empowerment initiatives, all these things, what it's actually doing is what we're doing is we're saying we're opening the aperture.

It's not a small pie where everyone is cutting from the small same pie. It is by doing this, you widen the pool, right? I'll give you an example and I'll bring disability here or different ability, right? Depending on what folks prefer. But I had this conversation with Eric Toda.

He is now the head of social, is a friend of mine. Just again, like everybody's launching books, great book. But he was one of the heads of marketing in Nike. He talked about the campaign, how those slip-on shoes, you know, it was designed in a way that it helped think about others who couldn't maybe necessarily tie their shoelaces. But then it widened an extra pool of, we all love slip-on shoes, right? You and I that are not differently abled love those shoes as well. So think just about that, like how are you widening the aperture to expand opportunity for others?

And by doing so, guess what? The dollars are there. The other example I really love is, again, using differently abled communities, like selling plane tickets, or bus tickets, or concert tickets.

By ensuring that someone who's differently abled could get a plus one in their purchases because they usually need support, right? Depending on how they are and all that. That's double the sales, by the way. You know, maybe you give a little bit of a discount because you feel like this is a good initiative, you want it back, you want to open it up. It's still this additional revenue. So it is about framing it as an opportunity rather than this is, you know, where we get, I guess, really caught up and polarized is it feels like I'm taking something away from you. 

Like I should be in that place, but really it's how do we think about it in a way that it widens the pool for all of us. And I always come from that place. And the second important framing is, it is about creating an equal playing field, right? I'll give this example. I think I mentioned this, but in investment sessions, we realize as investors, and there was a study done by Dana Kanzi on this, women are asked preventative questions, i.e. what is the risk in all of this business opportunity? Whereas men are asked more growth questions, like, oh, how big is the target market? We don't, where does this go? What is the big vision? And so even in the framing of your questions, right?

Which comes, which by the way, all of us, even you and I who are so quote unquote woke to this, right? Or enlightened to see this, we fall in this trap as well, because guess what? We all have stereotypes and biases. So it's about really re-angling what is the work, the systems and processes that frankly hold us back. And it requires introspection, it requires serious thinking, and also ensuring that we map out what are the consequences in some of these initiatives. 

Where we go wrong is I think we, you know, and the world goes in this way, right? We swing from one end to the other and frankly a lot of times it's politicized to get the vote, whatever stirs the pot, right? And stirs the majority. But let's not fall into that trap. I think we're all really, really smart, right? We should be. We have all this knowledge, we've advanced as a society, and yet we become lazy and depend on like the swipe of the phone to tell us the news. My mind always goes back to the movie WALL-E and I'm like are we gonna get there?

Troy:
These tools are great. I am amazed with what Gemini is now doing with the new release and ChatGPT4.0 and all these different things. There's gonna be all the things we probably don't even know about that's happening. I always think well if we're getting there as a consumers, what does a government got that we ain't got? But, you know, I'm always thinking about these things.

And I think with all of this, putting that all aside, like, what is the thing you're trying to do and have you created a community that can give you the insights and the advice and positive corrective criticisms even to guide you on your journey? Like you said, I agree. Most people are selfishly wanting to benefit themselves.

And there's a marriage in that, finding that difference. I wonder, from your perspective, what we've done in this conversation, what is the one question you wish people would ask you? 

SCS:
Oh, I like this trick, and I use it, too, Troy. I see you, boy. I see you. Podcasts is no one other than podcasters. Yeah, that's right. We're the worst. I know, wait till we invite them places. What would I say? One answer that I have is what else are we not seeing in this conversation that needs to be brought to the fold, right? And specifically that is to getting women in leadership, that needs to be brought to the fold, right? 

And specifically that is to getting women in leadership, getting women funded, getting them to where they deserve because I see that, right? Every day I see great women entrepreneurs that are building really important things that are going to change the way we live, the way we work, the way we operate. And one of the things that I will say we're not thinking about enough, my answer to that is just early childhood, right? 

And as I'm thinking about becoming a parent, not there yet, but as I'm thinking about that, about how parenting plays such a big role, right? This little messages, role modeling that we set up for our children. You know, I always talk about the sandbox example and what that is is, you know, when you go to a playground these days and you see a little boy, you see a little girl and you see the parent there, go, go play, you don't get rough. Like, yeah, you're just a boy, you'll be fine. Whereas for the girl it is, be careful, don't get your dress too dirty, you know, like be a little bit more ladylike, right? All these things.

And what that messaging does in terms of risk-taking, right, just going back to why we see a drop-off of enough talent pool over time, right? Girls wanting to be in STEM, like that's real. Like the next generation, we need to be intentional about our younger generation. And that's why for me, I've made an intentional step in my time in which if I have speaking engagements within the year, I will do a couple significantly more than I have in the past for the younger generation, because I think it's important to see this role models. 

I still go to universities these days where they say, oh my goodness, Sarah, you're like the first woman, young woman, and Asian woman that has spoken to us about this. And everyone else is, I don't know, maybe they're not seeing them, but it's really about, you know, when you're recruiting for these speaking roles and all that, it's really important to have that diversity, right, to show that role modeling. So that's a question that I wish people would ask me more on, like, what are we missing here from this equation? 

Because we spend so much time on, like, the end of the line, right, which is the why women are not getting funded or, you know, the numbers in entrepreneurship and all that. And women are growing, especially black women are growing businesses at a much faster clip, by the way. So this is great. But the next thing is how do we make sure they grow businesses that are scalable if they want to. Again, that's a choice, but I would like to see more scalable, big businesses, unicorns, multi-billion, right, that are by Black women, that are by Latina women, that are by Asian women, and all of the above. So I think just being more strategic is how I would frame it.

Troy:
I think for those who may be listening or watching and wondering, like, what does this have to do with business? It has everything to do with business and happiness and just don't we want to see everybody win? If I want to see everyone show up at the table, not just stare typically for as long as I can remember a certain type or, you know, passed on, it doesn't have to be the norm. And to your point, it starts young. It really does. I can only imagine. I'm like, there's more people now talking about them than was in the previous generation, which is great. And there's nothing wrong with us saying there needs to be more done. 

Things can be better. We don't think, oh, we got to the point where we're over. Like, no, we really can improve. This is just the next start. And we hope the next wave improves it more. But we do have to start it off young. And I do think, to your point, it is talking to both sides and understanding, one, we need to be more inclusive and equitable in our practice and the conversations, but also stop the knee-jerk, habitual conversations that we just allow to happen.

And don't think that doesn't play a part in how someone develops mentally, emotionally, and it shows up in their habits, it shows up in what they're doing. And I want people to win. I want people to feel more empowered.

And I think, what is it? You know, no one grows without change. And yeah, a lot of the words maybe people are listening or hearing when we say DIVA and all the subsets or other nuances, I don't understand what that means. They may not even understand the difference between equality and equity. And that's okay. There's an episode somewhere about that. Y'all need to learn.

SCS:
And importantly, we like opposing views. I will say I'm reading one right now that's by Christopher Rufo, actually, that is not sitting very nicely with me, but I thought it was important for me to work through Challenging like with the moment that we're in right? Yeah, and it you know I I think it reveals so much of why we are so polarized But it's important to to not only keep feeding yourself with what yes people, right? That's what another thing I would say don't don't just put yes people around you because then you're basically then the smartest person in the room, which is not the right thing. You want to be the dumbest. I always want to be the dumbest person in the room, frankly. Like I want to get to the stage and then you evolve.

Troy:
Appreciate your time Beyond The Billion and Billion Dollar Moves, Sarah Chen-Spellings. Thank you for being on the show. Appreciate you.

SCS:
Thank you. Appreciate you. Keep making billion dollar moves. Talk soon.