I couldn’t be happier to be here tonight
with all of you as Caleb said my name is
Genevieve Khanna D and I’m here to talk
to you about one of my favorite concepts
which is the concept of entrepreneurship
and in particular the concept that
entrepreneurship is for everyone it’s
something that is accessible to everyone
and I hope to convince you of this over
the next few minutes so let me start
just by unpacking that word
entrepreneurship if you open up your big
old oxford english dictionary which I
like to carry around in my backpack
it says entrepreneur a person who sets
up a business taking on some financial
risk in pursuit of profit or reward and
that’s an awesome thing right that’s
already really interesting there’s like
a whole huge story in there about the
person and the risk and the reward so I
already loved that idea of
entrepreneurship but I would I like even
more is think about the courage that it
requires to do any of those things the
set up of business or take on financial
risk like that’s hard that sounds
difficult so what I love about the
Entrepreneurship word entrepreneurship
is I feel like it captures that courage
that empowerment that would be required
to do anything entrepreneurial anything
entrepreneurial by definition is hard
you’re starting something new that’s
always hard so I really love this word
how it captures the sense of empowerment
however I do not know about you but I
have sort of like a tortured
relationship with this work when I was
growing up for whatever reason I did not
think I could be an entrepreneur I don’t
I don’t feel like anybody came to me and
said Genevieve why don’t you start a
business I don’t know maybe I just
looked like somebody was unlikely to be
successful start you
could’ve been I mean you know it wasn’t
that I had low self-esteem I always
thought it was awesome so somewhere in
here though this word is a little bit
tough and I don’t know if any of you
here with me tonight feel this way but
speaking very personally for myself
there was something when I was growing
up that was like a barrier between me
and this word entrepreneur I did not see
myself as an entrepreneur I did not feel
like this was something that was very
available to me to become an
entrepreneur and so lately because I
love this concept and I think about this
all the time I was trying to figure out
why could that have been what was the
problem
what’s the big deal anybody can be an
entrepreneur you’ve been talking about
it already for five minutes what’s the
problem and I really think that part of
what was going on at least for me
personally this might not be true for
everybody was that when you picture not
to pronounce close your eyes and who’s
the first person who comes to mind for
whatever reason I don’t think that
person looks like me I think our
archetypal entrepreneur like our Henry
Ford or any person like this they just
might not be me and I’m hoping things
have changed since I was a kid but I did
a little bit of detective work to see
maybe is there any evidence out there
that this could still be the case that
when you say entrepreneur you don’t
automatically picture somebody who looks
wild and crazy like I do so what did I
do
how could I test that so I went on
Google search which is your best
research tool and I put great
entrepreneurs what’s going to come up I
did this have Sunday so this is like
pretty fresh this is what came up and
there are some great people in this
study search results I’m not saying
anything bad about any of them some of
these people are my personal heroes this
is like Steve Jobs but I would kind of
think if you scan the screen you might
see why I didn’t see myself up there
this is not this is not like a super
diverse looking group of human
wonderful as they are there’s nothing
wrong with you know anything that they
are but I don’t see it like Wilding
crazy self that I consider myself to be
represented too well in this first page
of google searchers they probably have
to scroll down quite a bit before you
got to me what is this on me you know
and I have to tell you the reason that I
think my attitude towards
entrepreneurship has changed from
feeling like it’s something really
remote and inaccessible to feeling that
it’s something so accessible that I
would come here tonight and tell you all
it’s accessible to you what changed
okay so Caleb gave this away already I
work at this company called IndieGoGo
and IndieGoGo was founded in 2008 and
the express purpose of the company when
they were founded was how can we create
a launchpad for entrepreneurial ideas
their mission is how can we empower
people to unite around ideas that matter
to them and together make those ideas
come to life so this is like an
entrepreneurial engine and I’ve had the
great privilege to work there since 2012
so for six years now I’ve had more or
less a front-row seat to all these
different types of entrepreneurial ideas
that flowed through our platform and
that’s what I want to talk to you about
tonight I want to give you some real
evidence of how having a service like
that that opens up entrepreneurship to
everyone can change some of these
dynamics that may be someone like me
feel like maybe I couldn’t be an
entrepreneur
I don’t feel that way anymore I don’t
want to show you why so these are just a
handful of projects that have run on
IndieGoGo over the years we have people
making films we have people inventing
new products we have people are raising
money for nonprofit causes and this is
the panoply of ideas I think you see
when entrepreneurship is available to
everybody and it just looks to me it
looks a lot different from the Google
search results that I showed you so let
me explain briefly how the concept of
crowdfunding works so if you go
the crowdfunding website all you have to
do to use it it’s put your idea out
there you just have to say have a great
entrepreneurial idea maybe you don’t
even think it’s great maybe like maybe
it sound good put it out there and what
happens on IndieGoGo is you see whether
people want to back that idea whether
other people believe in that idea and
that’s why we call this the concept of
crowdfunding because there’s a crowd of
people out there and there actually are
crowds of people who visit it need to go
go all the time and they look at the
ideas there and if they catch their
fancy they will back that idea and the
funding and crowd funding comes from the
fact that usually that’s a financial
donation that they give so what does
this look like in real life it looks
something like this this is a page from
our website from again over the weekend
right after I did my google search for
great entrepreneurs and one on our
website and I found this example this is
a project to make a beehive that anybody
can have in their own backyard at home
it’s called the flow hive they ran their
first campaign in 2015
it’s a father-and-son team out of
Australia those are the entrepreneurs
behind this idea and when they first
started they had no idea how good the
world would think their idea was they
set out to raise just $70,000 and I
can’t believe I’m telling you this but
they raised thirteen million dollars and
what happened was these two
entrepreneurs who honestly they were
like working in Australia I’m sketching
out a revolutionary beehive like
honestly they had no way of knowing
whether anyone would care about their
idea instead what happened was they
found $37,000 about thirty-five from
their first campaign in 2000 from the
new one that’s running now on this over
the weekend that I just showed you so
this is an example of the power of
combining a platform where anybody can
put an idea with a whole bunch of people
who care about
ideas and want to express interest in
them give money to them and make them
come to life I really really love that
story I tried very hard not to buy a
flow I have myself because it cost $700
but you know this I find is so inspiring
that I almost have to buy one just
because it so what I wanted to present
you is now is some evidence that because
we have this other way of approaching
entrepreneurship now we actually could
change some of those dynamics that might
make someone like me feel like
entrepreneurship wasn’t available to me
and these pieces of evidence come from
our platform which has opened up
entrepreneurship just a little bit more
so here’s one troubling fact in the
world today right this is not surprising
to any of us to be reading about
something like a gender pay gap or
gender related bias this is a troubling
fact nobody wants us to have this
problem and honestly nobody knows quite
how to solve this problem a very real
piece of evidence supporting the idea
that this is a problem is that out of
all the venture capital funding that was
given out in 2017 only 4% of those VC
deals went to companies run by women and
I have to tell you I’m not even somebody
who really believes that gender is a
binary just men on the side and women on
the side so there should be 5050 I don’t
even think that but I do think that this
4% is disheartening somewhere in here
this like something kind of awry and on
the other hand on IndieGoGo we see that
41% of campaigns that reach their goal
were run by women and for me this math
just feels a little bit better 40% to
60% feels a lot better than 4% to 96%
even if you think that there’s not just
two sides and you don’t really want to
divide people up into two buckets anyway
so I really feel like part of my feeling
things have changed a little bit and
that entrepreneurship is becoming more
available to people it’s coming from
seeing these kinds of entrepreneurs
finding a lot of success through working
with IndieGoGo so here’s one of my
favorite stories from the platform over
the past few years this under person and
hers name is Chantel Carter Taylor and
before she founded a business that I’ll
tell you about in a second
she was a fashion stylist and something
I didn’t know until I was working I
didn’t go go and learned about this
Chantal Carter Taylor person was when
you were a fashion stylist the thing
that you’re trying to style is the
garment over the person’s body if the
person’s underwear it’s not the same
color as their skin this is a problem
for a fashion stylist this can create
weirdness and the photographs are trying
to take so Chantal Carter Taylor was
working with lots of models who didn’t
happen to have skin tones that were
matched by the underwear that she could
buy in the store so she was doing you
know wild things like this is something
I would be by the way she was going to
her kitchen table at home buying the
underwear in whatever colors you could
find it and using fabric paint to paint
it to try to be the right color to match
her model skintone and she found this
frustrating so her big entrepreneurial
idea was maybe there are other people
who are also suffering from this problem
who would also like to see moderate in
diverse skin tones in different colors
so she put her idea onto IndieGoGo and
I’m so happy to tell you she found 99
backers who also thought that that was a
problem worth solving and if you are so
inclined you can go on the web this
evening and orders them this is a
product that actually came to life
because she crystallized her
entrepreneurial idea put it out there
found her 99 backers got just enough
seed money to kind of kick off her
website and this is an example of an
idea that really came to life because of
this son empowerment that she found
now let me tell you about Anna Lily on
rapport this person is so inspirational
to me she was from an Iranian background
her Iranian family heritage she was born
in the UK she moved to America and she
started watching movies she loved movies
and she had an idea for her own movie
and her idea was I want to make an
Iranian vampire western I would have
told her make it right away will there
be an obvious so she put a campaign page
for that movie idea onto IndieGoGo and
she found at least 290 people and later
I have to tell you there are even more
fans of this movie and she raised about
$60,000 which was enough to get her
going and in 2014 that movie a girl box
home alone at night
debuted at the Sundance Film Festival so
it was a really real story of a person
who had just like a light bulb moment
like I want to make this movie and
through finding just enough support to
kind of get her off the ground she
actually did get that idea to come to
life so her entrepreneurship was
actually recognized and lifted up by her
crowd that when she had that idea she
didn’t even realize that she had finally
I want to tell you about Noelle Santos I
think this is my favorite person who has
used the platform over the past several
years have I had to pick just one person
Noah Santos lives in New York City she
lives in the Bronx the Bronx is densely
populated place 1.5 million people
living in the Bronx however nowhere in
the Bronx
is there a bookstore not one single
books were in the whole Bronx and this
but I don’t talk about no Santos this is
disturbing to me because my father is
no Los Santos thought that way she felt
that way too
she was looking around her community I
think her twitter handle is like bookie
shed bossy she’s like somebody’s got to
fix this and that somebody is me I’m
gonna fix it and so she found great
success with her IndieGoGo campaign
she’s found a 1838 backers she raised
about one hundred and fifty five
thousand dollars and I’m so so happy to
show you this next picture this is her
in her pop-up store and on the right up
here you see her actually signing the
lease on her retail space so that store
is not open yet is slated to open in
spring of 2018 so I’m about to book my
ticket to the Bronx to go visit it plus
you should read that says the lit bar so
and this I really what I say she’s my
favorite person who’s used the platform
in the past several years I just
absolutely loved how she was inspired by
her community she looked at the world
around her she was like how come there’s
no bookstore and then she took that
entrepreneurial stuff to say all step up
I will bring a book start to the box
let’s bring a book start to the Bronx so
I just I’ll report back I’ll go there
and I’ll tell you how to Venice okay so
I by showing those examples I’m just
trying to show a contrast between a
world where you know only a handful of
companies run by female
getting any VC funding to a world where
whoever you are whatever wild idea you
have maybe you can find just enough
backing for it to help it take flight
and really become reality so I’m gonna
show you one other example of that like
changing dynamic that I’ve noticed
working at IndieGoGo so a lot of you all
are students which means that you’re
young enough to have not suffered from
discrimination for being too old but
maybe you are discriminated against for
being too young maybe you said who I
want to do this cool thing and somebody
said sorry you are too young not
experienced enough come back later and
then on the opposite end of the spectrum
maybe you’re starting to think how old
do you have to be to be age
discriminated against you know that it
just seems to be going down so this is
an article from The New York Times that
says showing the door older workers fine
bias hard to prove it’s very hard to
prove that there’s age related bias in
the workplace but trust me I have a
strong feeling that there are cases of
this and this is something that
shouldn’t be true there shouldn’t be
like a magic age range from like 22 or
24 to 52 or 54 and only in that bracket
can you be a good worker a successful
entrepreneur why would why would that be
true that seems wild to me so I’m really
really pleased to be able to offer a
different piece of evidence which is
that on IndieGoGo we’ve had
entrepreneurs from age 8 all the way to
age 78 so let’s start with you 8 because
he’s super cute he’s not eight anymore
but he was eight when he launched his
campaign this d’entre person his name
was max ash and Max’s entrepreneurial
idea was I love to drink cocoa it comes
in a mug that’s fun it would be even
I could throw my marshmallows and she’s
smart because he diversified into
multiple sports Arabic basketball but
you can get them different different
hoops for different months and he
launched this IndieGoGo campaign who’s
only eight he actually was so successful
with this this is a product that went
into retail and you can buy this online
now if it’s cold tonight you go home
you want a cup of cocoa you can go on
Maxie’s creations and buy one of these
mugs to make your hot chocolate even
more fun another example of a younger
entrepreneur that I find super inspiring
is ELISA Chavez ELISA was 17 when she
launched her campaign her story was that
she was the child of a single mom the
mom was running a home-based daycare
which meant that Alyssa and her high
school years was seeing a lot of babies
coming in and out of the car and if you
have any experience in this I certainly
hope you don’t but there’s a real
nightmare scenario of you’re a parent
that you forget your kid in the car seat
close the car door walk away really bad
things happen after that
so ELISA was inspired to create an alarm
system that would be inside the car seat
if the parent left the car and the kids
still in the car the alarm would go off
our idea was called the hot seat and I’m
just I’m very very proud of her because
she put that out there when she was you
know not even 18 she was only 17 and she
did find support for this idea this is
another product that came to life
because she was able to put that
entrepreneurial idea out there and then
finally on the other end of the spectrum
we have dr. Bob Wagstaff I love dr. Bob
so dr. Bob’s personal life story is he
was a missionary he was working in the
Philippines many many years ago now but
the incredible piece of this story is
that while he was a missionary in the
Philippines someone had the courage to
come to him and say dr. Bob I’m so sorry
to have to tell you this but some of
your missionaries they have bad breath
so poor doctor Bob is like overcome by
shame but then dr. pretory oh so he
thought what can I do and he invented a
special brush for your tongue it’s
called the Orabrush and this was his
first idea he didn’t even need any go go
for this he did this a long time ago but
the Orabrush was so great and cured bad
breath for people somebody else came to
dr. Bob and said could I get one for my
dog so he went a second version the aura
pup and the aura profit believe it or
not the aura pub is a tongue brush for
your dog and dr. Bob Wagstaff put that
idea and you go go you at that time for
78 years old and it was successful and
that brand or a pup was so powerful it
actually got bought out by another brand
that’s like a dog food and a dog
products brand overall so I super love
this example the set of examples just to
show that of course there’s no age range
within which you can be an effective
creative entrepreneur that’s truly not
true instead anywhere from 8 to 78 and I
would like to think 88 or a hundred
eight since I’m hoping lives to be a
hundred and eight you know anybody can
you can really make this happen ok so
now we’re going to talk about you so I’m
really hoping that I’ve armed you with
some knowledge right now which is that
truly it’s truly the case that any one
of us can be an entrepreneur
entrepreneurship is not a closed
inaccessible remote concept it is truly
available to everybody so when we look
at that word entrepreneur now I if you
did have that kind of hang-up that I
have
about it I hope you can start to
dissolve that a little bit and feel like
maybe maybe and do something and I I
want you to start to picture what that
could look like for yourself so one of
the things I love about the stories I
was just telling you is that they give
me ideas for how to have ideas so for
example to get your idea up here you can
follow the example of dr. Bob and let
somebody bring you an idea I think that
is a problem I’d love to solve why don’t
I do that or you could do something more
like Chantel Carter Taylor where she
encountered a terrible frustrating
experience of body painting underwear
and thought I could solve this problem
you could do something for fun it’s like
max ash hot chocolate
already fun why not make it more fun
what would you do if you did something
like that you can make your own movie
you can’t make an Iranian vampire
western that’s been done but you could
make your own movie what movie would you
make if you were making your own movie
and a person like I told you one of my
favorite most inspiring examples Noah
Santos who brought the bookstore to the
Bronx she looked around her community so
what do you see when you look around her
community
what gap is there that you could fill
with your entrepreneurial idea what
service could you start in your
neighborhood to make life better for all
of your neighbors so where I want to
infer tonight is I would love to see
your idea here I would love to be giving
a talk like this in five years and get
to talk about you so if you have any
notion of an entrepreneurial idea you
don’t have to have it now I’m not gonna
ask you but maybe tomorrow in the shower
or when you’re going for a job over the
weekend
really try to empower yourself to think
what would what would it be like if I
had an entrepreneurial idea what would I
do what problem when I saw what business
would I start what movie would I make
I’m really invited to think about it
because it’s an extremely powering for
me personally just to see all of these
really empowering themselves to unite
with backers and make things happen
so next talk like I said I’ll save you
the slide you make it happen I’ll put it
up here and I just want to close with
that really deep conviction that I have
entrepreneurship is for everyone and
everyone includes all of you thank you
so much for your time and attention [Applause]
with all of you as Caleb said my name is
Genevieve Khanna D and I’m here to talk
to you about one of my favorite concepts
which is the concept of entrepreneurship
and in particular the concept that
entrepreneurship is for everyone it’s
something that is accessible to everyone
and I hope to convince you of this over
the next few minutes so let me start
just by unpacking that word
entrepreneurship if you open up your big
old oxford english dictionary which I
like to carry around in my backpack
it says entrepreneur a person who sets
up a business taking on some financial
risk in pursuit of profit or reward and
that’s an awesome thing right that’s
already really interesting there’s like
a whole huge story in there about the
person and the risk and the reward so I
already loved that idea of
entrepreneurship but I would I like even
more is think about the courage that it
requires to do any of those things the
set up of business or take on financial
risk like that’s hard that sounds
difficult so what I love about the
Entrepreneurship word entrepreneurship
is I feel like it captures that courage
that empowerment that would be required
to do anything entrepreneurial anything
entrepreneurial by definition is hard
you’re starting something new that’s
always hard so I really love this word
how it captures the sense of empowerment
however I do not know about you but I
have sort of like a tortured
relationship with this work when I was
growing up for whatever reason I did not
think I could be an entrepreneur I don’t
I don’t feel like anybody came to me and
said Genevieve why don’t you start a
business I don’t know maybe I just
looked like somebody was unlikely to be
successful start you
could’ve been I mean you know it wasn’t
that I had low self-esteem I always
thought it was awesome so somewhere in
here though this word is a little bit
tough and I don’t know if any of you
here with me tonight feel this way but
speaking very personally for myself
there was something when I was growing
up that was like a barrier between me
and this word entrepreneur I did not see
myself as an entrepreneur I did not feel
like this was something that was very
available to me to become an
entrepreneur and so lately because I
love this concept and I think about this
all the time I was trying to figure out
why could that have been what was the
problem
what’s the big deal anybody can be an
entrepreneur you’ve been talking about
it already for five minutes what’s the
problem and I really think that part of
what was going on at least for me
personally this might not be true for
everybody was that when you picture not
to pronounce close your eyes and who’s
the first person who comes to mind for
whatever reason I don’t think that
person looks like me I think our
archetypal entrepreneur like our Henry
Ford or any person like this they just
might not be me and I’m hoping things
have changed since I was a kid but I did
a little bit of detective work to see
maybe is there any evidence out there
that this could still be the case that
when you say entrepreneur you don’t
automatically picture somebody who looks
wild and crazy like I do so what did I
do
how could I test that so I went on
Google search which is your best
research tool and I put great
entrepreneurs what’s going to come up I
did this have Sunday so this is like
pretty fresh this is what came up and
there are some great people in this
study search results I’m not saying
anything bad about any of them some of
these people are my personal heroes this
is like Steve Jobs but I would kind of
think if you scan the screen you might
see why I didn’t see myself up there
this is not this is not like a super
diverse looking group of human
wonderful as they are there’s nothing
wrong with you know anything that they
are but I don’t see it like Wilding
crazy self that I consider myself to be
represented too well in this first page
of google searchers they probably have
to scroll down quite a bit before you
got to me what is this on me you know
and I have to tell you the reason that I
think my attitude towards
entrepreneurship has changed from
feeling like it’s something really
remote and inaccessible to feeling that
it’s something so accessible that I
would come here tonight and tell you all
it’s accessible to you what changed
okay so Caleb gave this away already I
work at this company called IndieGoGo
and IndieGoGo was founded in 2008 and
the express purpose of the company when
they were founded was how can we create
a launchpad for entrepreneurial ideas
their mission is how can we empower
people to unite around ideas that matter
to them and together make those ideas
come to life so this is like an
entrepreneurial engine and I’ve had the
great privilege to work there since 2012
so for six years now I’ve had more or
less a front-row seat to all these
different types of entrepreneurial ideas
that flowed through our platform and
that’s what I want to talk to you about
tonight I want to give you some real
evidence of how having a service like
that that opens up entrepreneurship to
everyone can change some of these
dynamics that may be someone like me
feel like maybe I couldn’t be an
entrepreneur
I don’t feel that way anymore I don’t
want to show you why so these are just a
handful of projects that have run on
IndieGoGo over the years we have people
making films we have people inventing
new products we have people are raising
money for nonprofit causes and this is
the panoply of ideas I think you see
when entrepreneurship is available to
everybody and it just looks to me it
looks a lot different from the Google
search results that I showed you so let
me explain briefly how the concept of
crowdfunding works so if you go
the crowdfunding website all you have to
do to use it it’s put your idea out
there you just have to say have a great
entrepreneurial idea maybe you don’t
even think it’s great maybe like maybe
it sound good put it out there and what
happens on IndieGoGo is you see whether
people want to back that idea whether
other people believe in that idea and
that’s why we call this the concept of
crowdfunding because there’s a crowd of
people out there and there actually are
crowds of people who visit it need to go
go all the time and they look at the
ideas there and if they catch their
fancy they will back that idea and the
funding and crowd funding comes from the
fact that usually that’s a financial
donation that they give so what does
this look like in real life it looks
something like this this is a page from
our website from again over the weekend
right after I did my google search for
great entrepreneurs and one on our
website and I found this example this is
a project to make a beehive that anybody
can have in their own backyard at home
it’s called the flow hive they ran their
first campaign in 2015
it’s a father-and-son team out of
Australia those are the entrepreneurs
behind this idea and when they first
started they had no idea how good the
world would think their idea was they
set out to raise just $70,000 and I
can’t believe I’m telling you this but
they raised thirteen million dollars and
what happened was these two
entrepreneurs who honestly they were
like working in Australia I’m sketching
out a revolutionary beehive like
honestly they had no way of knowing
whether anyone would care about their
idea instead what happened was they
found $37,000 about thirty-five from
their first campaign in 2000 from the
new one that’s running now on this over
the weekend that I just showed you so
this is an example of the power of
combining a platform where anybody can
put an idea with a whole bunch of people
who care about
ideas and want to express interest in
them give money to them and make them
come to life I really really love that
story I tried very hard not to buy a
flow I have myself because it cost $700
but you know this I find is so inspiring
that I almost have to buy one just
because it so what I wanted to present
you is now is some evidence that because
we have this other way of approaching
entrepreneurship now we actually could
change some of those dynamics that might
make someone like me feel like
entrepreneurship wasn’t available to me
and these pieces of evidence come from
our platform which has opened up
entrepreneurship just a little bit more
so here’s one troubling fact in the
world today right this is not surprising
to any of us to be reading about
something like a gender pay gap or
gender related bias this is a troubling
fact nobody wants us to have this
problem and honestly nobody knows quite
how to solve this problem a very real
piece of evidence supporting the idea
that this is a problem is that out of
all the venture capital funding that was
given out in 2017 only 4% of those VC
deals went to companies run by women and
I have to tell you I’m not even somebody
who really believes that gender is a
binary just men on the side and women on
the side so there should be 5050 I don’t
even think that but I do think that this
4% is disheartening somewhere in here
this like something kind of awry and on
the other hand on IndieGoGo we see that
41% of campaigns that reach their goal
were run by women and for me this math
just feels a little bit better 40% to
60% feels a lot better than 4% to 96%
even if you think that there’s not just
two sides and you don’t really want to
divide people up into two buckets anyway
so I really feel like part of my feeling
things have changed a little bit and
that entrepreneurship is becoming more
available to people it’s coming from
seeing these kinds of entrepreneurs
finding a lot of success through working
with IndieGoGo so here’s one of my
favorite stories from the platform over
the past few years this under person and
hers name is Chantel Carter Taylor and
before she founded a business that I’ll
tell you about in a second
she was a fashion stylist and something
I didn’t know until I was working I
didn’t go go and learned about this
Chantal Carter Taylor person was when
you were a fashion stylist the thing
that you’re trying to style is the
garment over the person’s body if the
person’s underwear it’s not the same
color as their skin this is a problem
for a fashion stylist this can create
weirdness and the photographs are trying
to take so Chantal Carter Taylor was
working with lots of models who didn’t
happen to have skin tones that were
matched by the underwear that she could
buy in the store so she was doing you
know wild things like this is something
I would be by the way she was going to
her kitchen table at home buying the
underwear in whatever colors you could
find it and using fabric paint to paint
it to try to be the right color to match
her model skintone and she found this
frustrating so her big entrepreneurial
idea was maybe there are other people
who are also suffering from this problem
who would also like to see moderate in
diverse skin tones in different colors
so she put her idea onto IndieGoGo and
I’m so happy to tell you she found 99
backers who also thought that that was a
problem worth solving and if you are so
inclined you can go on the web this
evening and orders them this is a
product that actually came to life
because she crystallized her
entrepreneurial idea put it out there
found her 99 backers got just enough
seed money to kind of kick off her
website and this is an example of an
idea that really came to life because of
this son empowerment that she found
now let me tell you about Anna Lily on
rapport this person is so inspirational
to me she was from an Iranian background
her Iranian family heritage she was born
in the UK she moved to America and she
started watching movies she loved movies
and she had an idea for her own movie
and her idea was I want to make an
Iranian vampire western I would have
told her make it right away will there
be an obvious so she put a campaign page
for that movie idea onto IndieGoGo and
she found at least 290 people and later
I have to tell you there are even more
fans of this movie and she raised about
$60,000 which was enough to get her
going and in 2014 that movie a girl box
home alone at night
debuted at the Sundance Film Festival so
it was a really real story of a person
who had just like a light bulb moment
like I want to make this movie and
through finding just enough support to
kind of get her off the ground she
actually did get that idea to come to
life so her entrepreneurship was
actually recognized and lifted up by her
crowd that when she had that idea she
didn’t even realize that she had finally
I want to tell you about Noelle Santos I
think this is my favorite person who has
used the platform over the past several
years have I had to pick just one person
Noah Santos lives in New York City she
lives in the Bronx the Bronx is densely
populated place 1.5 million people
living in the Bronx however nowhere in
the Bronx
is there a bookstore not one single
books were in the whole Bronx and this
but I don’t talk about no Santos this is
disturbing to me because my father is
no Los Santos thought that way she felt
that way too
she was looking around her community I
think her twitter handle is like bookie
shed bossy she’s like somebody’s got to
fix this and that somebody is me I’m
gonna fix it and so she found great
success with her IndieGoGo campaign
she’s found a 1838 backers she raised
about one hundred and fifty five
thousand dollars and I’m so so happy to
show you this next picture this is her
in her pop-up store and on the right up
here you see her actually signing the
lease on her retail space so that store
is not open yet is slated to open in
spring of 2018 so I’m about to book my
ticket to the Bronx to go visit it plus
you should read that says the lit bar so
and this I really what I say she’s my
favorite person who’s used the platform
in the past several years I just
absolutely loved how she was inspired by
her community she looked at the world
around her she was like how come there’s
no bookstore and then she took that
entrepreneurial stuff to say all step up
I will bring a book start to the box
let’s bring a book start to the Bronx so
I just I’ll report back I’ll go there
and I’ll tell you how to Venice okay so
I by showing those examples I’m just
trying to show a contrast between a
world where you know only a handful of
companies run by female
getting any VC funding to a world where
whoever you are whatever wild idea you
have maybe you can find just enough
backing for it to help it take flight
and really become reality so I’m gonna
show you one other example of that like
changing dynamic that I’ve noticed
working at IndieGoGo so a lot of you all
are students which means that you’re
young enough to have not suffered from
discrimination for being too old but
maybe you are discriminated against for
being too young maybe you said who I
want to do this cool thing and somebody
said sorry you are too young not
experienced enough come back later and
then on the opposite end of the spectrum
maybe you’re starting to think how old
do you have to be to be age
discriminated against you know that it
just seems to be going down so this is
an article from The New York Times that
says showing the door older workers fine
bias hard to prove it’s very hard to
prove that there’s age related bias in
the workplace but trust me I have a
strong feeling that there are cases of
this and this is something that
shouldn’t be true there shouldn’t be
like a magic age range from like 22 or
24 to 52 or 54 and only in that bracket
can you be a good worker a successful
entrepreneur why would why would that be
true that seems wild to me so I’m really
really pleased to be able to offer a
different piece of evidence which is
that on IndieGoGo we’ve had
entrepreneurs from age 8 all the way to
age 78 so let’s start with you 8 because
he’s super cute he’s not eight anymore
but he was eight when he launched his
campaign this d’entre person his name
was max ash and Max’s entrepreneurial
idea was I love to drink cocoa it comes
in a mug that’s fun it would be even
I could throw my marshmallows and she’s
smart because he diversified into
multiple sports Arabic basketball but
you can get them different different
hoops for different months and he
launched this IndieGoGo campaign who’s
only eight he actually was so successful
with this this is a product that went
into retail and you can buy this online
now if it’s cold tonight you go home
you want a cup of cocoa you can go on
Maxie’s creations and buy one of these
mugs to make your hot chocolate even
more fun another example of a younger
entrepreneur that I find super inspiring
is ELISA Chavez ELISA was 17 when she
launched her campaign her story was that
she was the child of a single mom the
mom was running a home-based daycare
which meant that Alyssa and her high
school years was seeing a lot of babies
coming in and out of the car and if you
have any experience in this I certainly
hope you don’t but there’s a real
nightmare scenario of you’re a parent
that you forget your kid in the car seat
close the car door walk away really bad
things happen after that
so ELISA was inspired to create an alarm
system that would be inside the car seat
if the parent left the car and the kids
still in the car the alarm would go off
our idea was called the hot seat and I’m
just I’m very very proud of her because
she put that out there when she was you
know not even 18 she was only 17 and she
did find support for this idea this is
another product that came to life
because she was able to put that
entrepreneurial idea out there and then
finally on the other end of the spectrum
we have dr. Bob Wagstaff I love dr. Bob
so dr. Bob’s personal life story is he
was a missionary he was working in the
Philippines many many years ago now but
the incredible piece of this story is
that while he was a missionary in the
Philippines someone had the courage to
come to him and say dr. Bob I’m so sorry
to have to tell you this but some of
your missionaries they have bad breath
so poor doctor Bob is like overcome by
shame but then dr. pretory oh so he
thought what can I do and he invented a
special brush for your tongue it’s
called the Orabrush and this was his
first idea he didn’t even need any go go
for this he did this a long time ago but
the Orabrush was so great and cured bad
breath for people somebody else came to
dr. Bob and said could I get one for my
dog so he went a second version the aura
pup and the aura profit believe it or
not the aura pub is a tongue brush for
your dog and dr. Bob Wagstaff put that
idea and you go go you at that time for
78 years old and it was successful and
that brand or a pup was so powerful it
actually got bought out by another brand
that’s like a dog food and a dog
products brand overall so I super love
this example the set of examples just to
show that of course there’s no age range
within which you can be an effective
creative entrepreneur that’s truly not
true instead anywhere from 8 to 78 and I
would like to think 88 or a hundred
eight since I’m hoping lives to be a
hundred and eight you know anybody can
you can really make this happen ok so
now we’re going to talk about you so I’m
really hoping that I’ve armed you with
some knowledge right now which is that
truly it’s truly the case that any one
of us can be an entrepreneur
entrepreneurship is not a closed
inaccessible remote concept it is truly
available to everybody so when we look
at that word entrepreneur now I if you
did have that kind of hang-up that I
have
about it I hope you can start to
dissolve that a little bit and feel like
maybe maybe and do something and I I
want you to start to picture what that
could look like for yourself so one of
the things I love about the stories I
was just telling you is that they give
me ideas for how to have ideas so for
example to get your idea up here you can
follow the example of dr. Bob and let
somebody bring you an idea I think that
is a problem I’d love to solve why don’t
I do that or you could do something more
like Chantel Carter Taylor where she
encountered a terrible frustrating
experience of body painting underwear
and thought I could solve this problem
you could do something for fun it’s like
max ash hot chocolate
already fun why not make it more fun
what would you do if you did something
like that you can make your own movie
you can’t make an Iranian vampire
western that’s been done but you could
make your own movie what movie would you
make if you were making your own movie
and a person like I told you one of my
favorite most inspiring examples Noah
Santos who brought the bookstore to the
Bronx she looked around her community so
what do you see when you look around her
community
what gap is there that you could fill
with your entrepreneurial idea what
service could you start in your
neighborhood to make life better for all
of your neighbors so where I want to
infer tonight is I would love to see
your idea here I would love to be giving
a talk like this in five years and get
to talk about you so if you have any
notion of an entrepreneurial idea you
don’t have to have it now I’m not gonna
ask you but maybe tomorrow in the shower
or when you’re going for a job over the
weekend
really try to empower yourself to think
what would what would it be like if I
had an entrepreneurial idea what would I
do what problem when I saw what business
would I start what movie would I make
I’m really invited to think about it
because it’s an extremely powering for
me personally just to see all of these
really empowering themselves to unite
with backers and make things happen
so next talk like I said I’ll save you
the slide you make it happen I’ll put it
up here and I just want to close with
that really deep conviction that I have
entrepreneurship is for everyone and
everyone includes all of you thank you
so much for your time and attention [Applause]
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