Dealquest 301 - Robbie Hardy - AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
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Corey Kupfer: [00:00:00] Robbie Hardy knows how to navigate through the maze of the entrepreneurial journey and she wants to help you do it too. She can guide you through the highs and lows from your first major mistake to your first sale. She gets it because she's been there. As a new Englander by birth and an entrepreneur by trade, Robbie Hardy is an author, experienced investor, and entrepreneur with extensive startup and board experience. She climbed the corporate ladder, developed corporate strategies for Fortune 500 companies, and worked as a strategic consultant for the Kauffman Foundation.
She is the founder of XL Ventures, that's X E L L E Ventures, an angel fund for women investors investing in female founders. She has developed entrepreneurial programs and written two books, upsetting the table and fed up to startup
Robbie's passion and mission are to help women find their own special flavor of confidence and courage to be brave and bold.
Robbie, welcome to the deal quest podcast.
Robbie Hardy: Thank you so much for having me.
Corey Kupfer: Well, listen I'm [00:01:00] super excited for so many reasons. I mean, your background, your experience, the work you do with your clients, with women, this. Thing I hear about a first deal experience at an eight ball, you know, look, look at both.
I have my eight ball handy in case we need it.
I love it. I love it. The look of all that, but before we get into any of that, I want to take you back to when you were a little kid growing up, maybe eight, 10, 12 years old. What did you want to be? Because I'm guessing a, entrepreneur and, you know, venture capitalist investor and, working with women, you know, maybe wasn't it back then, but you tell me.
Robbie Hardy: I don't, I think I probably wanted to be a teacher. You know, and I don't think I had aspirations because I'm older. So I grew up, you know, not thinking about what I was going to be doing. Cause you know, we were just being kids. I did learn, in my, you know, as I, in my teens, I, knew that I didn't want to be in a relationship where I was [00:02:00] abused.
So I can tell you that the strength that came from me was I can remember saying at a very young age, I will never let someone treat me the way my father treated my mother. So that, a lot of that I think has fed Unconsciously, you know, sort of me finding how to stand up and own the room when, I was like, Ooh, this is scary.
Corey Kupfer: Wow. Love that. Yeah it's interesting. The things that some of, you know, for various of us, our experiences when we were young as kids that become, you know, drivers, for who we become and, you know, and the impact we want to have. One other question, looking back, what was your first deal of any type?
It could be something small when you were a kid, you know, or early in your career or, you know, anything that,
Robbie Hardy: I mean, my first real, my first deal was when, you know, my husband and I were doing, we always had a side business of some kind and we had, antique pottery, Roseville pottery. And so we were buying it and reselling it.
And it seems so [00:03:00] easy until of course we started buying, find it as we get more aggressive to it. But then we'd start finding things that were damaged, that had been well hidden and, you know, wouldn't pass the test. And so it was all those kinds of things. But yeah, selling Roseville pottery was my first deal, so to speak.
Corey Kupfer: Love it. Love it. So, let's talk about, I mean, I teased this 8 Ball story, you know, that is mentioned in a lot of your materials, and, so let's not keep the listeners waiting too long, tell us a little bit about, this, I gather this was your first exit? Is that,
Robbie Hardy: it was my first exit. It's, Yes, it's kind of the eight ball story is not told in there because I've told it so many times. But, yes, my company, I had a small software company and I was raising money and I also was in right place, right time. And I was approached by A large company, Seagate, the hard drive people, about hiring my company because we had a product that fit in, you know, they didn't like how the software, their hardware market was treated by Wall Street.
They loved the software [00:04:00] multiple. So they decided to go into the software business and things that would, you know, sell more hard drives, that kind of strategy. And so we had a lot of conversations. I had been to see them in California, et cetera. And then it was time we were actually the rubber was actually starting to meet the road after a long haul, as you know, how these things go.
And it was time to talk price and whether this was going to happen or not. And I got on a plane without my lawyer and having been in the corporate world and just kind of in knowing that wasn't smart, but I was bootstrapping. I was trying to be. Really smart with my money. It wasn't smart. Long story short, I was on the plane and thought, oh, started imagining, you know, how you put yourself at the table and try to imagine what's gonna happen, and I'm thinking, how am I gonna pause?
You know, they're gonna say X and I wanna say no X plus or whatever. So I got this. Crazy idea that I would get a Ouija board at a Toys R Us back [00:05:00] then when Toys R Us was still around. And the good news about this story is they didn't have a Ouija board. I had never used one. I don't know how I thought I was going to be able to.
But the clerk said, but we carry eight balls. And I was like, perfect. So the old eight ball, you know, you tip it and turn it. And so the eight ball, unwrapped it, stuck it in my briefcase, went off to my meeting. We started talking price. I had a walkaway price from my board. I knew what that was. And so we were sitting in the boardroom going through all this and the price was too low.
And I knew I'd have to walk away and I didn't want to, et cetera, et cetera. So. I reached in my briefcase and I pulled out an eight ball. Now it didn't say this at the time, you know, it kind of looked like this and turned it up and said, well, I wonder what she has to say. And the CEO banged his hands on the table and his team started laughing.
And I was like, Oh God. And I was, anyway, why I did it, I don't know, [00:06:00] and he grabs my hand and he takes me down to his office and on his credenza is a Buddha holding a gold eight ball. And so he brings his eight ball back and he brings it into the room and we start having this eight ball deal. And I don't think we ever, none of the good news is none of the answers out of either 8 Ball were made any difference.
And they sort of said, well, you know, if you've got the, what it takes to bring an 8 Ball into a negotiation where we've acquired, you know, hundreds of companies or deals or whatever, and we've never seen this before, we'd like you to have, you know, bring you and your team and your product. And so, there it goes.
It's not advice. I don't know why I did it. The only thing I can say is that sometimes you need to think outside the box when you don't have what you need. I wouldn't recommend bringing a [00:07:00] toy to a deal meeting, but, you know, it all, it just shows sometimes things work that you would least expect. But I'm not advocating.
Corey Kupfer: I love it. You know, so when you said, you know, having the, and you left the blank, right. Let's use the word chutzpah. Okay. . I know there's a lot of the words you might be able to use, right? Yes. But, so what is it, do you think? And listen, I don't wanna make generalizations based upon gender, anything like that.
When you work with women a lot, right? And I know with my negotiating training, and I've spoken to countless, you know, men and women about negotiating that have been in my. You know, my seminars and, people are trained, women are trained in negotiations. And, so with all the caveats about generalizations not being true, et cetera, there is a socialization, right?
Of men and women differently in business and negotiating and billing willing to stand up for value And things like that and you know in many women I know many people I know generally have had to go through a process of you know being able to own their value and stand for their values You know, that kind of stuff.
And, you know, my experience of speaking [00:08:00] to many, many and training and I'll do all this stuff is that it's an additional journey for women, just the way in terms of the way things are socialized or whatever. So, I'd be open to your comments and including disagreeing with anything I just said, but also curious about your personal story.
You know, about how you had, the chutzpah, so to speak, to bring the eight ball, to feel confident, you know, to do that,
Robbie Hardy: Whether I felt confident or desperate is unclear at this point, I'll go there. I think, you know, I'm older. So I was literally always the only woman in the room and I didn't, I, I didn't know any better.
I mean, it didn't seem like that was a problem. Well, I mean, until certain things happened and salary negotiations, I mean, very, you know, it wasn't without issue, but I had to learn to stand up for myself and I think that in the back of my head, I thought I am not going to be bullied or whatever, which is certainly part of it.
And so I would, you know, just. [00:09:00] got it and spent a lot of time in the bathroom going, okay, you can do this and taking a deep breath and thinking, what's the worst thing that can happen? So a lot of that really came almost organically. I could have, if I hadn't been able to make it, then I wouldn't have been at the table.
And so, because for. Internal reasons that I think we all might, I take it back to my childhood is, you know, is how it came about. I wish I could, you know, say there was some magic. So I encourage, when I'm coaching women and mentoring, chatting with them, you know, I always say to them, what's the worst thing that can happen if you take this step?
And what's the worst thing that can happen if you don't? And nine times out of ten, if you don't. is much worse than if you do. And it's one step at a time. And it, and you might get smacked down and somebody may, you know, do something to you and trying to get women to not take it personally. [00:10:00] Women are very, you know, the intuition and emotions that make women better leaders is also an, you know, an issue because it's hard to separate it.
Always intrigued me is these men would battle it out with each other and then they'd be drinking or playing golf, you know the next day But you start to observe that and understand some of it and it's yeah, it isn't easy I mean, it's women have a hard time and as the cunt, you know, and in right now, I mean We still don't have equal rights.
I mean, come on. I mean the Equal Rights Amendment has still not been passed And now that somebody wants to take away the right to vote, I mean, as a woman, you do start to think, what am I doing here? Now, hopefully that's empowering women to say, no, no, I'm here, get out of my way. But you know, that's not true.
Corey Kupfer: Yeah. And listen, when you, when you combine that you know, whether it's because of socialization, everything, you know, the internal challenges with the fact with the realities of the fact, I mean, you work with women to help [00:11:00] them raise capital. I mean, raising capital, let's face it. Raising capital is not easy for any business, right?
It's not, you know, period. Just in terms of the types of businesses that are even fundable, you know, the steps that have to be in place, the. The biases and I'm not even talking about gender bias, but just the bias in terms of like when industries people, you know, the money likes to invest in and how you're supposed to, all that stuff.
And then when you add the dismal statistics about what percentage of, of venture and private equity money goes to women, Yeah. Yeah. It is.
Robbie Hardy: Yeah. When you don't see someone that looks like you sitting across the table from you or is on the website that you're going to. So that, so then, you know, and that's the other part of, you know, when people are raising money, let's go look for, you know, when you're doing your research, you know, do as much due diligence on them.
Have they invested in women? Are there you know, other women at the table, et cetera. You know, when I think back to my ape old days, I was a woman in 1993, CEO of a software company, so I [00:12:00] was really weird. And maybe they had no clue what to think of me, because I was the first woman that they did an acquisition with.
So that, You know, I think we don't want to give the eight ball too much credit. I think there was some gender bias there, but in the, you know, or, what is she? Let's give this a shot. I don't know. So there is some of that, you know, the, unintentional bias that occurs is real. And I used to get so angry at my male colleagues because of how they treated women when we were looking at investment, et cetera.
Some of it is intentional, but there is a certain amount that's unintentional. And I can tell you, I had unintentional bias. As I started examining that whole aspect, I realized that sometimes I softballed my questions to a female founder. No reason to, other than I was trying to protect them. Right.
Well, that's the worst thing you can do. But it was an unintentional bias of me. You know, I was using the excuse that I was [00:13:00] trying to help them. Did I think they couldn't do it? I don't think so, but I don't know. So I've had to work through that. And I coached peep other women investors on that.
Corey Kupfer: Well, okay. So I feel like we, you know, we talked about your first deal. We've jumped a little bit to what you do now before we, I want to get more into that. But I'd also like to, let's fill in some blanks, right, in terms of your journey, right? So you. And even how did you, let's even start even before, like, how did you come to be a software company founder, you know, back then, again especially as a woman where that was, I mean, it's still, you know, not close to where we'd like it to be, but certainly back then it was all different environment.
I mean, listen, I started practicing law in 1985, and I know what it was like, you know, in terms of law firm partners, right? You know, and for women, at least in the legal field and certainly in, you know, at our clients back then, you know, so how did you even get into starting that company?
And then let's talk a little bit more about your journey, you know, from there to what you do now.
Robbie Hardy: I started my [00:14:00] journey, you know, I started it by saying yes to opportunities when I had no clue what I was doing. I mean, it started when I was in my first marriage. We, I moved from Boston to Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Worked for my ex-husband to go to graduate school. Been there a couple of days in this apartment across the street from a farm. Somebody knocks on the door and says, I understand you're looking for a job, and I have an opening and I need you to start tomorrow. So I ended up being driving a bus, a Mercedes.
little school bus back then with the big door opening thing, which I thought was so cool and teaching kindergarten. And I had no idea what I was doing. And I just said, yes. And that's sort of the big, it's sort of the beginning of my journey. As I tried, it was putting my husband through school. I needed to, needed, you know, to not be doing the children thing.
So I was a research associate analyzing data, had no clue. I had no background [00:15:00] in software. I had nothing, but I just kept saying yes. And then I'd look for help and I didn't have the internet to help me. And I, for some reason, I was okay asking for help. Didn't always get what I needed or the way I wanted it, but neither here nor there.
And another opportunity came up, it was all in software. And we did a, had a big contract with the, North Carolina for automating the licensing of healthcare care professionals. I knew nothing about it, but we did all this great stuff, anyway. So it just kind of snowballed, and then I started climbing the corporate ladder.
I left the university, we got recruited back in the day, they were always, you know, people were always coming into towns like Chapel Hill looking for, and I started that path, and I just kept going. You know, taking a deep breath and moving forward and willing to, you know, say [00:16:00] yes when I really didn't know what I was doing.
So for me, what I realized about myself, it's about the thrill of the chase. Once I know how to do it and I'm doing it, I'm like, okay, what's next? So that's the good and the bad of that. That's how I ended up where I was.
Corey Kupfer: Yeah. It's interesting because you know, you spent some time in corporate America, but to me, that is like.
One of the classic definitions of a true entrepreneur, right, you know, we do get, you know, we want to build, we want to create, we want to learn when it sort of is running well, it's, you know, it's gets very boring, right? And we were, and one of the things that entrepreneurs do sometimes, you know, unconsciously, As opposed to being smart enough to bring in a team to run that and either do something different or even within the company, maybe create that next initiative or product or whatever is sometimes, you know, entrepreneurs unconsciously end up blowing up their companies because they're too, you know, things are too smooth.
Right. And they, yeah, I
Robbie Hardy: mean, I always hired people that were smarter than me. I think the corporate world, I think I learned a lot in [00:17:00] that whole world. And so I always knew that having, you know, hiring people that were smarter than I was. That wanted my job, or didn't, but they were smarter than I was.
And so, yeah, so you can, yeah that's a lesson that, you know, you come to that in various ways, or you have such a big ego. You can't.
Corey Kupfer: That's right. That's right. And then the other one is, you know, is for me, so defining of a transcriber is this, willingness and ability to say yes, when you don't know what you're doing.
Right. Like, I always say to folks, you Like, you know, I mean, when I, you know, when I built my law practice and other business, I've been in whatever real estate investment stuff I've done my paying consulting company, you know, it's always been, I mean, I always, to me people say, how do you say yes to stuff you don't know how you to do from two points of view.
One, aren't you worried you're not gonna be, you know, gonna do it? And two, isn't that, like some people said, you know, isn't that out of integrity? Right. And I would always say, no, listen, what's out of integrity is for me to say yes to something like, I don't need to know how to do it now. I just need [00:18:00] to have confidence that I will figure it out by the time I have to do it.
I'll do the research, I'll get the support, I'll ask people who know, I'll do whatever it takes. That's where the integrity is. I'm not going to take on something that, that I don't have the confidence I will figure out by the time I need to do it. That, that would be out of integrity. And also, I'm, you know, I've been that kind of person that's willing, you know, some people are like, how do you deal with that uncertainty?
How do you deal with that? You know, and again, I think that's sort of, one of the distinguishes of, you know, people who can live the entrepreneurial life and people who, you know, who can, and I don't have any judgment on that. Isn't that no, no, but it's true. Yeah. Just know thyself, you know.
Robbie Hardy: Yeah. I mean, being, I think, you know, living with uncertainty, however you define that, and you know, people say you're a risk taker. I mean, you know, it's like, women who are trying to get, you know, we don't have a lot of women investors in the country and, you know, women like to understand what they're doing.
They don't want to jump in the pool and they don't know if there's any water in there. Well, I'm okay. Cause I figure the water's going to be there by the time I get there. I mean, there's something clearly wrong with that, but that's kind of, you know, how you look at things. Thanks. [00:19:00]
Corey Kupfer: Yeah. Yeah.
All right. So, you exit the software company, let's continue on your journey between, you know, that and now between the books and the, you know, the angel investing and the working with, with women, both on the investing side and the raising capital side.
Give us a little bit about the journey.
Robbie Hardy: I started working with women when I was in the corporate world, when I finally kind of made it and I had a, you know, an office and a conference room and you know, all the bells and whistles of the corporate world back then I had a secretary and her name was Ruby.
She was a German woman. She was really smart. didn't think she was smart. And I recognized in her and I was like, why is this? And so I started giving her more and giving her more and pushing her, but I had her back and she just grew and grew and was like, [00:20:00] wow. So I've, Robie hooked me on, you know, helping women.
And so I did it, I've done it since then, you know, Always three or four young women somewhere, you know, that I'm trying to help, take the next steps that they want to take. But when, after I sold the company, obviously I had, you know, indentured servitude of a couple of years while we earned out the escrow that happens when you sell your company.
And, but I started angel investing back then, that was in 1995. So I've been angel investing, since then, but in my world, you know, I did a lot of consulting. I did turnarounds, you know, I've sat on boards. I sort of sat on all sides of the entrepreneurial desk. We built another few pieces of software.
That we sold. We didn't build companies. We just, you know, which you can't really do today. Although I think we're going to start seeing that come back as some of this new technology comes around. And so I just, you know, was always, working on that. And I always had a side business [00:21:00] of coaching as, I moved along after experience of coaching startup CEOs.
And so I've been doing that along with my women. mentoring and, you know, all, all along. And, you know, in addition to doing, you know, a lot of other things. And then I ended up, I was trying to figure out how could I reach more women. And I came up with all sorts of crazy ideas. And I, so I finally wrote a book.
My first book was Upsetting the Table. It's about a young woman. And I did it as a fable because I think it's helpful to be able to make it something you don't have to, you know, be taking notes in and you can, you absorb it in a story. And and then I had three books that I laid out. One was about the young woman in crime and the corporate ladder.
The second was about a woman leaving the corporate world and starting in going into the entrepreneurial world, which is fed up to startup. And the third book is in process, which is about. Women angel investing and, you know, all that full whole process. So [00:22:00] I have, you know, done a lot of things. I'm now a mentor in residence at Duke University, which is completely different than anything I've ever done.
The mentoring is the same, but it's just a different environment. And the founders are different because their intellectual property belongs to the university, as that's the case in everyone. So licensing it out and figuring out is it commercially viable and helping them sort that through.
Corey Kupfer: Okay. So, you know, obviously you have that entrepreneurial chops and journey. You have the corporate, you know, chops and journey, right. Which helps. And then, let's talk a little bit about, you know, your angel investing journey, right? Because, you know, it's interesting. I know a lot of angel investors and obviously that's a broad term.
You know, I would say the amount of time you've been doing it, your background that you're training or your. That's, I would say, a sophisticated angel, right? So you know, and I know some people who sell their company and they started, like, it's, it becomes a natural thing to angel. And for some of them, it's actually not their thing.
It's very dissatisfying, right? And some people
Robbie Hardy: Trying to pay it forward is how it [00:23:00] starts. Yeah. I mean, if you raised money I mean, the other in Beth, I worked with, you know, hundreds of them and it starts off usually trying to pay it forward.
Corey Kupfer: So, obviously there's that driver, but you know, you're also going to make smart business decisions in terms of who you invest in.
And, you know, and always, well, you're going to try to, all right. And listen, I'm not saying there may be other drivers. I mean, you know, I know people who are, you know, socially conscious capital, patient capital, you know, all these. Ways and things that people care about, right.
That doesn't always have to be about maximizing financial return. But how do you, you know, as an angel investor, you know, what have you looked at over the years? Who has it been focused? I know you work with women now as you're investing, been focused in Sicily or mainly, you know, on, Well,
Robbie Hardy: back in the day when I started, I'd be hard pressed to find many women to invest in.
But the answer to that is no. You know, my background is tech and software, so I spend a lot of time there, but I also joined angel groups, and funds because I [00:24:00] realized after my first investment, I had no clue what I was doing. Okay. You know, I had done mergers and acquisitions in the corporate world.
I thought I knew everything. I had raised money and sold a company. I thought I knew everything. I knew, I mean, it's just very different when you literally sit on the other side of the desk. Yes. And so, yes, I had a lot to learn and I learned a lot for the good and the bad from other investors that were in you know, the organizations that I belong to.
Again, I was the only woman with, you know, white men over 50. So I decided in 2000 that I was going to raise a fund and I was going to have it all women investors. Okay. And I got to six after six months. I could have done it differently. Now I, you know, hindsight is 20 20. And so I did, I ended up opening it up and, you know, we had 75, but you know, I have learned a lot and one of the things that is not falling in love with the entrepreneur, you know, [00:25:00] staying, you have to, you know, you have to respect them.
And I am very respectful of entrepreneurs. But, you know, do it so that you can do due diligence and really understand the business. It's so easy to fall in love with somebody with a lot of energy and doing great things and they, you know, they're like, you don't know that they're not, you know, they can't execute the way that you hope that they can.
Yeah.
Corey Kupfer: So what are the other factors that, you know that you're looking at. I mean, some of it depends upon stage, right? You're, Yeah. Often that people invest in, you know, at least we see investors invest in management teams much more than even, you know, right. The.
Robbie Hardy: Well, I think we all invest in
Corey Kupfer: those and really count that much. There's all kinds of, you know, philosophy.
Robbie Hardy: Everybody says a lot of things. And a lot of it is just what's what happens in the back room, so to speak, when you're doing the deals as you know, I'm sure as an attorney sitting in on some of these things, you know, we do bet, you know, betting on the team.
I mean, if you can't bet on the team, then, you know, that's crazy because, you know, Things don't always work out the way you want them to. So the ability [00:26:00] to focus on what they're trying to do, but also the ability to pivot if things change. You know, think of the pandemic. Perfect example of how, you know, really good investors and companies helped each other find another way to survive.
And oftentimes really Bloom, Zoom being a perfect example. You know, that was an opportunity. Who knew? No wonder some of the things didn't work. They had no idea they were going to have millions of people using their product. So it is that ability, that agility that you see that, you know, the lack of rigidness and how coachable are they, you know, and pushing them to kind of get answers and having them, you know, get, kind of arrogant about it is not a good sign.
So, that, you know, the give and take, the ability to collaborate, and, you can do your homework on the product, and, you know, I try not to pass judgment on anybody's product. It may not be something I know anything about, or I think it's going to go anywhere, but, you know, we go back [00:27:00] to the pet rock, you know, it's like going back in time, who would have thought?
I mean, come on. And so, you know, I don't do that, but if I don't understand it, then I don't invest in it.
Corey Kupfer: So let's talk about you, you know, your work with women and I love this evolution, right? I mean, the three books that you have with the third one is coming someday.
But, you know, this evolution of, okay, you know, getting out of corporate, right. Becoming an entrepreneur and then, and now, you know, becoming, an investor. Talk to me about that journey, because obviously, there are some more women who have done that since you started, you know, in the early days, not, I mean, it's still tiny.
But talk to me, yeah, talk to me about that journey because obviously becoming, you know, one of the things I did a talk in Singapore. For the, global leadership, conference of entrepreneurs organization. And, you know, one of the things I talked about is that there's a huge amount of information out there.
If you Google it, books, you name it on like, employee versus entrepreneur. Right. I did a whole talk on how, [00:28:00] and I did a solo course recently on this, on how there's a lot less talked about the difference between being an entrepreneur and being a deal maker. Right. Cause that's another mindset shift, another skill set shift, all that kind of stuff.
And then certainly there's this thing of becoming an investor, right, as well as a whole different thing as well. So I'm curious about, you know, this evolution, which is reflected in your two and then third upcoming book and also in the work you do. You know, with folks and from, you know, our prequel and looking at his stuff.
It's also, I feel like it's part of your mission, right? Absolutely. You know, so, a big part of it. So you know, take us on that journey. What does it take? Because listen, you know, as I said, I'd never have any judgment, right? There are many, many people who had never met to be entrepreneurs.
They should be employees. There's nothing wrong with that. Right. You know, nothing at all. In fact, you know, it's again, no, that's. Right. Exactly. We need them. And, you know, and some people are suited to be a number two or a number 12 at a company that, you know, way more than I ever would be you know, I'd be terrible at that.
Right. So, and then, you know, so that's, [00:29:00] there's that shift entrepreneur, but then, you know, there's this dealmaker mentality and then this is investor mentality and they're all different. And some people try to move from one to the other and they're not successful. It's not for them. So I'd love to hear more because you've been on that, you've done that journey personally.
Absolutely. And you're working with people, you know, on, all aspects of that.
Robbie Hardy: Well, I think some of it is the thrill of the chase. I mean, just, set that out there. But I got addicted to watching, you know, you know, sitting and listening to companies pitch. And just that whole journey of how did they come up with a, you know, how did they get there?
All that was just, you know, it was like, I was, I couldn't get enough of that. I still. Love it. I have pitched, I have judged gazillions of pitch competitions, but even when not doing that, I mean, just that whole thing of looking at opportunities that people have seen and what they've done with it and why they've done it and what they think there is to be done.
I mean, sometimes it is, you know, they think they can do it bigger, better, faster, cheaper, [00:30:00] and that's usually not a good reason, but. It's all of that. So for me, it was understand, trying to understand that. Always underneath it all, when I first did my first angel investment, I had this mentality about paying it forward.
It was hard for me to raise money. It was hard for me to do a lot of things. And I wanted to help. I felt like I had learned so much and I didn't think it was fair for me to keep it bottled up inside myself. And how could I. Okay. Get it out of there. So by seeing a lot of pitches and then, you know, as an investor and you see a lot, you end up coaching, you know, in those pitches.
Well, what about this? And well, how did you do that? Well, actually no. When you pitched, you tell me what your product does. They don't see that. I mean, it's sometimes some of the simplest things that you can make a difference for them. So. That's always in what I do. Do I enjoy it when a deal goes well?
Absolutely. And do I want them all to be successful and therefore I'm successful? Absolutely. And I'm willing to, [00:31:00] you know, help and open doors and make introductions or leave them alone. So there's a lot, so that they sort of get tied together. And now, I have the opportunity to work with women who are first time investors and women founders, who are, you know, doing what I did a long time ago.
Corey Kupfer: I love that. So talk a little more specifically. I mean, we've touched on a bunch of it, but exactly, you know, what are the scope of services and the types of, business as an entrepreneur, female entrepreneurs that you're working with, both on the founder side and on the investor side,
Robbie Hardy: So Accel Ventures, first of all, I learned a lot.
I did a lot of, and talked to, you know, hundreds of people, to women around the country, you know, that women who are doing angel investing, et cetera. And what I realized is that I was only talking to women who were somehow in the entrepreneurial world. They were either lawyers or accountants. where they were a, you know, they were successful entrepreneurs.
And there's this whole other world out there [00:32:00] that has knows nothing about this, who are, you know, accredited investors or have the ability to be accredited investor. And when I thought about my journey with all these men, they didn't, most of them had no entrepreneurial experience. They just had money, you know, they were high net worth guys.
And so it took me a long time to figure that out and talk about obvious. And so I started looking in the mirror. And said, yeah, maybe we can need to do this ourselves. So that's the journey I went on. So I started talking to investment groups. There's a lot of lunch and dinner investment groups of women who get together socially.
It's a public market, you know, they're investing in Apple or whatever. And I started talking to them about angel investing and sort of nine times out of every ten that I did that, the first question was, as I would start talking about, they're like, what's an angel? It's just this huge lack of knowledge.
The other thing I learned is that they really wanted to understand it. Now it's not rocket science, but there's a lot of language and a lot of, you [00:33:00] know, there's an aura about it that makes it look like you need to be a lawyer. And you need a lawyer if you're going to invest, but you don't have to be the lawyer yourself.
There's certain things you need to understand and then you let others understand the rest of it for you. So we started Excel as a debt fund. And so we, because, you know, equity is complicated and can be very long and painful. And so, you know, everybody understands alone. So the idea. But that gets you into their understanding, having somebody pitch, doing screening, doing due diligence, the stuff that really matters is also necessary for debt.
Now my male colleagues told me that was the stupidest thing I ever did, of which they thought I'd probably done many stupid things, because the return was just not going to be, you know, you weren't going to find a unicorn there. My argument was, well, maybe a little bit of debt. Well, catapult them that they can do equity and they can be in the unicorn.
And then these women will know about them and they can invest, et cetera, [00:34:00] if they want. So that was kind of the, rationale behind it. So Excel is of getting ready to raise fun too. So, you know, the majority of the women had never done it before. We reduced the amount you had to invest.
So, putting your toe in the water wasn't so painful, and I've done a lot of education, but the real education is, you know, hands on experience. In the early days, we saw a lot of spas and makeup and that kind of thing. We have evolved. We see, you know, we just invested our loaned money in A company that she created a bra for after a mastectomy, because that happened to her mother and blah, blah, blah.
And a bourbon company, because there's now women doing bourbon. So, you know, candy, I mean, the variety, is, there now, and it's money that when I coach them, I'm like, is this [00:35:00] money that, you know, it's maybe it's they need their, you know, maybe it's for shipping, maybe they're building something and they need to say goodbye.
A hundred thousand boxes versus a thousand boxes, their margin would increase by a certain amount. That's perfect money for debt. That's not equity money. Well, it can be, but you know what I mean? So it's that kind of evolution that has occurred.
Corey Kupfer: Love it. And then, so yeah, it was interesting to see, you started to say you would, you know, started to talk to a different audience, of folks, you know, women on the investor side.
What, talk to me about those conversations a little bit, right? Because. You know, I will tell you, I mean, in my client base and entrepreneurs organization in various places, I know some women, you know, I definitely know someone who are best, but, you know, as a percentage. The conversation the willingness to, you know, to throw money into something.
And by the way, I'm not saying this in a
Robbie Hardy: positive
Corey Kupfer: then negatives, right. Because, you know, and again, you know, we don't want to totally generalize across, You know, gender you know, not to mention gender [00:36:00] non conforming folks, but the point is there is certain things that are true.
And I see men thrown around money, you know, way more freely in general, you know, some positive about that, that they're willing to take the step and, you know, it's many who've lost a lot of money, thrown money out there, you know, like that. So, talk to me a little bit of, about, you know, all the work you've done and what you're seeing in the evolution of women in terms of, you know, being willing to do more investment and maybe, the approach that they take.
To that, that might be,
Robbie Hardy: I mean, women don't have the have FOMO about they don't, when they're at a cocktail party, the need to say, I just invested in X, Y, Z, or I just, you know, so and so was a unicorn. I made gazillion dollars. So they, you know, all their buddies and they don't even look, they're like, yeah, man, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in.
So there's a certain amount of that, that doesn't happen in the same way with women. Women understand, wanting to understand what they're doing. And I can tell you that a pivotal moment for me, I was at the Kauffman Foundation when the economy [00:37:00] imploded. I went, went in as a strategic advisor to help them, you know, build entrepreneurial spirit in the financial.
And in the auto industry, so I spent a lot of time in Detroit, which was amazing. And I ended up meeting the head of the, Women's, the Detroit Women's Foundation. And she said, you know, somebody says, you know about angel investing. And would you talk to us? Because we think we want to raise an angel fund to invest in women.
So I did. And I walked into this room in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where all the auto industry people And there was a room of these matriarchs who had You know, this is back in 2008. And so there, they were very wealthy. And at the end of when I, as I got through talking this, these two women came up to me and held my hand and said, we're really good at giving money away.
We get philanthropy. We feel good about it, but we have no clue how to make money. That's what our husbands did. [00:38:00] And that's, they didn't want us to do that. But I don't want my daughter or my granddaughter to be the same way. So would you come back and let me, and let us all bring the next generation or two?
And I said, yes, and they did. And it just made me, it moved me to have them talk about it. But that was a lot of what it is. So, you know, this is also generational and there's a lot of things here that are going on that, that is why. More women don't do that, and a lot of women, you know, are not willing to risk it, because unless they're the big breadwinner, obviously they need to be, you know, I don't know if they're going to be a credit investor or they have to have something.
So, they're very cautious, they always want to be able to take care of themselves and not be dependent on a man. So there's a certain amount of that, whether that's right or wrong or fair or unfair, it's just the truth.
Corey Kupfer: Love it. As I mean, Robbie, I can speak to you for hours just in terms of your, you know, breadth of personal [00:39:00] experience, the impact that you're making, you know, with the women you work with this, like so many other questions, but we are coming to the end of our time, at least this time around.
So before I ask you my final two questions, you know, that was a broad question. There's so many places you can go. But is there anything in particular where it's about, you work with women, what you're seeing in the industry, anything that, you know, you think would be, you want to point out for the listeners, and anything that you, that's on your mind right now?
Robbie Hardy: You know, there are many more women investors now. There are many more, there are women running VC firms. There are women, running, you know, in big cities, in big, you know, urban areas we're starting to see a lot more. And so. That's making a big difference. So we're starting to see, you know, when a founder's looking, they can now perhaps find somebody where there are people that look like them.
And so I think you know, that does that make me excited? I mean, I'm excited, but we have so long to go so far to go, but you know, we have to, we just have to keep our eye on the ball and we can't rely on others. Women who want to do [00:40:00] good now, one of the ways to do good is to is we want, you know, to empower women to have their own wealth and to help women take the next step, wherever it is they're going.
Corey Kupfer: Love it. And I so appreciate the work that you do. My final two questions, first of all, I just want folks to be able to know how to find out more about you, get in touch with you, whether it's about the work you do with founders, the work you do with investors, the, Your books, you know, where should people go?
Robbie Hardy: You can go to RobbieHardy. com. My books are there. A lot of other things are there. And I'm on LinkedIn and you can message me there.
Corey Kupfer: All right. My final question on the podcast is always about my highest value in life. My highest ideal, which is freedom. And for me, that means everything from, freedom around the world, from oppression for all people to why I'm an entrepreneur and I haven't had a boss in decades.
What does freedom mean to you and how does it impact your life and business?
Robbie Hardy: Well, I have the same, I mean, I think freedom around the world is very important and is very in precarious, point [00:41:00] right now. So it's a little unsettling. Yeah, for me, freedom is, to be able to. help people the way that I think makes sense and meet them where they are.
And I like people to meet me where I am. And I think that's part of, so you give others the freedom to share what they have if you don't feel the need to tell them how great you are or what you've done, et cetera, et cetera. So a lot of that is what freedom means to me for sure. And I took a job at Duke, which was really scary because I told the guy, I'm like, I probably won't make it 24 hours, because you're going to ask me to do something.
I'm going to say no. But they've been very kind, and it's been very interesting to sort of be back in that environment. Since 1993, I haven't done that. So there's other kinds of freedoms, too. So that was another case where they met me where I was, and it has worked out just great.
Corey Kupfer: I love it. I love it.
It's that old, saying that a lot of entrepreneurs say is that I'm unemployable with maybe that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Robbie Hardy: Yeah, you get to the right situation, you know, never know.
Corey Kupfer: I love it. Robbie Hardy, thanks for [00:42:00] being such a great guest on the DealCoast podcast.
Robbie Hardy: Thank you so much for having me. It was fun.
And we'll have to do it again. Absolutely.
