Popular Books For Startup Founders
Kaye-Cee Austin, founder of teentrepreneur.biz, shared with us popular books for startup founders and how female innovators are shaping the tech world.
I recently had a great conversation with one of my colleagues about the pros and cons of reading a lot of material when you’re someone who’s switching careers. The pros being you gain an abundance of knowledge and insight into your new career of choice and the con being that in a nutshell—you become filled with so much HOPE. We are so excited about starting this new journey in our lives, and the materials we’ve been reading have us so amped up with hope and passion that we often forget about the challenges. There is always a learning curve or a "curve ball" that could come our way. I served fourteen years in the Army where I loved my career but knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to eventually form my own corporation to empower young people. I have to say that I jumped into the world of entrepreneurship and startups with my excitement and passion parachute on! Pun intended... And that’s when I got punched in the face.
Let me just back up and say that in the Army we have this saying, "We don’t see race, gender, religion or anything else—we just see green." Meaning our uniform color, not the money. Okay, I was punched in the face with reality. The reality that the tech startup world had not quite caught up to the world I had just come from. I would walk into certain offices with my investor pitch deck exactly how Ken Rotcup in his book The Perfect Pitch instructed me. I would go to an event where I applied everything Peter Thiel taught me in Zero To One, or from Gabriel Weinberg’s Traction or even Ryan Levesque’s Ask, and I was politely and nonverbally reminded after 14 years that I was a double minority. It was then I realized that all of those big opportunities, including investor capital, did not apply to me.
I can’t tell you how many times I would have to pick myself back up, and re-read the article I kept in my pocket as good luck, about Zenefits Founder Parker Conrad and the abundance of venture capital he continued to receive. I would attempt another pitch and the conversation always came around to "had I attempted to get a loan?" A loan? Debt Equity? Are you kidding me? I’m not knocking debt equity but did he not just see my excellent credit score amongst other things? I’ll never forget the look on one gentleman’s face when I politely placed the article on his desk and stated I would get one just as soon as Parker Conrad and the thousands of other capital heavy founders that shared his gender and ethnicity were asked to do the same thing. I must add that to this day, the other two in the room with him at the time are my closest mentors and supporters.
One day after reading both Straight Talk On Making It In America by renowned philanthropist Earl G. Graves and Do Sh*t by entrepreneur Miki Agrawal, I became fed up with being affectionately teased by my friends and family that I had a Caucasian man’s brain—and that it was in the wrong body. I began answering with, ‘’No, MY brain is in the right body and oh by the way.. what does that even mean?’’
I took away a lot from those last two books. I learned that in order to accomplish my overall goal of leaving a legacy and becoming a mentor and motivation to other ethnic and female technologists/innovators, I must continue to not just read these valuable books but internalize them. Then apply what I have learned despite the perceived obstacles that stand in my way. I also learned that it is okay to have hope-- in fact, it’s more than okay-it’s one of the necessary ingredients we all need in order to finally be able to say "I Can Do That!"
Special thanks to Kaye-Cee Austin, founder of Teentrepreneur.biz