The Female Fusion Podcast!

Show transcription

[INTRO] Hi there. I'm Jen Blandos, the founder of Female Fusion Network. I've been an entrepreneur for over 20 years with experience in building seven figure businesses and working around the world. Originally, I'm from Canada, but I've been living in Dubai for the past 14 years. I've created this podcast to share my insights and expertise as a global entrepreneur and help other women start, build, grow, and scale their businesses. You'll also hear from some of the world's top experts and female entrepreneurs who will inspire and motivate you to achieve your business goals. So join me as we explore all that the world has to offer and build the business of your dreams. Let's get started. 

MAIN EPISODE

Today I'm so pleased to welcome Olga Fleming, who is an angel investor. And welcome to the podcast. Olga.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me here and I really appreciate it. And I'm sorry for not being here in Dubai for so much time, but yeah, I really enjoyed our conversation back then too, so I'm happy to be here.

Fantastic. Well, it's okay. I'm being in Dubai, and the reason why I wanted to talk to you as well is that you are international. You spend your time between Europe and the Middle East, and I was like, so many of our listeners are around the world, so I thought, this is great to get your international perspective as well as regional perspective.

Well, yeah, I would say I'm more of a person between Middle East and Europe. So it's international, but it's still limited. So please do not take my advice for all the regions, though. I've been working and talking to startups coming from different regions, but I believe if we speak about fundraising part, it more applies for those two regions. And it may be a little bit different, let's say us, which is the most mature market and so on.

Absolutely. But I think before we started recording, we were having a conversation about businesses getting investment. And I think that there are a lot of principles that are the same no matter where you are in the world, that a business needs to be at a certain stage to be able to get investment. But before we jump into that, because I have a gazillion questions, I think it would be great maybe if you could just tell everybody a bit about your background, what you do, the kind of businesses that you invest in, and then we'll jump in.

So I've been in to law for pretty much most of my business career, let's call it this way, in my life. Then I decided it got a little bit boring. So I moved to investment into startups and into PPPs and all those more complex projects so it was a very exciting journey I should say very interesting, very different. I've met a lot of wonderful people, even though some of them I didn't obviously invest in because of it was a little bit too late or it was a little bit too early. But we still maintain very good relationships. And to be very honest, I think that looking at those sparkling eyes of those startups, having those great ideas when you're already in business for many years, that makes a difference. You realize why you are there, why you are doing this, why it's worth still doing businesses. And, yeah, I think it's very those very eyes, passionate eyes about business that make me still do what I do.

Isn't that amazing just hearing you say that? Because that's what I love so much as well, and love so much about female fusion is just to see all of the ideas that people have about creating a business and the things that they can create is just incredible. And the excitement that people have about that idea.

Absolutely. Absolutely. The way they speak about the project sometimes it's for good, maybe for bad as if it was their first baby, so much excitement. So I will tell you maybe later why it sometimes get into on the bad side but in most cases being passionate is very good, is very good not being overly protective. Yeah if that's the case.

You'Re an angel investor correct and I want to make sure that everybody who's listening maybe understands what an angel investor is and does.

Sure. So basically angel investor is an investor who typically invests in very early stages of startups and the further you go, the higher amounts are to invest in. The less you will see investors, you will see more visas, venture capital investors. You will see more institutional investors depending on the stage basically and angel investors. What makes them different, they also do a little bit bigger piece of advice to the startup. So typically you don't go just for any angel investor whoever you find on LinkedIn or anything, those people should have their niche, industry knowledge or context or some other things you may utilize for your business. So angel investors are not typically there only for money. I would say it's like a big part of it is advisory you take from them. So another piece of advice is just don't go for any angel investor who you think is very powerful, is very smart but doesn't fit your working style or something, it doesn't fit idea what you are trying to do or your pace because you will always have those clashes and it's not something you want for your business.

It's like a relationship, it's much more.

Deep relationship than we think right? And that's also how we chose startups as well because we will not invest in something who not something we do not see visible but also we will not invest in someone who will not listen to idvice and will not execute.

So you want to make sure that that startup is going to have founders that are willing to listen to advice that are going to be easy to work with and absolutely, I guess also as well themselves looking for the right partner, the right investor to be in their business. Right?

Definitely. What I've seen, unfortunately a lot. And part of our discussion was about how people can contact me and I basically allow them to contact me on LinkedIn primarily for the reason. Because if you have this form, even if you specify that I'm investing in so and so projects, my expertise is so and so still you will find a lot of startups who do not fit the requirements. Meaning they are coming from a totally different niche. They are looking for much later stage investment. And even though I do some fundraising and I help some startups to raise funds, but it's a very different discussion. So when startups do not care who they are speaking to, who they are speaking to, they just copy paste, you know, the message, they do not do their due diligence. It's really, really irritating because, you know, we receive a lot of messages, and if they do a little bit of their work and they just more specific about what they want and they will find out that there are a lot of visitors who didn't reply to them or a lot of angels who didn't reply to them just because they were maybe a very good startup, but not something initially interesting to the investor.

So they chose the wrong investor.

Exactly. And then you hear those stories, oh, I've sent like 200 or 300 emails and it didn't work out. Yeah, there is a reason why it didn't work out because it was not personalized. It was really like copy and paste and we sense it. There is nothing worse than doing this. And there are a lot of stories in the market where you will see like the personalized message, even video message or something like that, where people understand who they're speaking to. Makes a huge difference.

Yeah. Now you mentioned that for people that you like it that they reach out to you on LinkedIn, but you specialize in a specific niche as well. Right. So for you, what kind of businesses are you investing in?

Well, it's primarily tech related. It would be Fintech, prop tech, aviation tech and travel tech. So those are the industries I'm trying to circle around even though I'm not limiting myself. So if it's tech, but some kind of interesting dip tech or something, or blockchain, which I'm not really an expert in, but I'm trying to get better in this because it also takes time and to understand. And as a lawyer, I really like to understand something I'm investing in. So it's really hard for me to do just emotional stuff. I think non investor does. But for me it's exceptionally hard because I'm also with this legal in compliance background which makes it even harder for me.

Yeah, but then I want people to understand what this whole process looks like because I often have people come to me and say hey Jen, can you introduce me to an investor? I want investment in my business. And what I find a lot of times is they haven't clearly thought out what that whole process looks like and what having an investor means. I think sometimes people think that it's free money, that someone's going to go here's $100,000, we think your business is great, go for it. And it's not like that, right? Okay, so let's look at the very beginning. So if somebody's looking for investment and they come to you, what are things that light you up, that interest you? If you see that they've approached you, that makes you take an interest in taking it further?

First of all is obviously idea because we don't know through the deck what are actuals whether they have a company set up, whether the company is properly set, who is behind the business, how many investors they already have those information typically are not in the deck unless they have already raised some proper amount. Most of the times it's people who we invest in in very early stage investing process. Because even if the idea is great when you try to utilize it or I don't know, do some prototype or make some partnership or partner with some government agencies or somebody else, you will see that you need to adapt the project to the market needs which happens most of the time. And you can even see those biggest names even over the business model. And the deck they initial deck was very different from what we see now on the market. Right? And hence we see different people, also different, let's say mentality or preparations or understanding from the investors point of view at least, it's very important for me, but I believe it's also very important for other investors. At least I spoke to that people are actually ready to adapt and they are very ready to contribute to the project. Because there may be a very talented person but he has several things to do and he doesn't prioritize startup as much as we want them to. Meaning at a certain point of time we realize that if something goes wrong he will be like oh yeah, I'll probably go back to my PhD or something and just skip it. And we've already invested our money in. And typically it's not only one angel investor that enters, it's typically syndicate for those who don't know what syndicates, basically several investors joining together because the typical, very typical amount angel investors invest in preseat is like between 25,000 thousand, $50. And obviously this may not be enough for certain movements and certain developments of the company to the extent where we can raise another round. So it goes with the syndicate where we have five to ten investors and the amount is up to half a million dollars, right?

Okay.

So with this money, they basically can achieve some decent results, hire team and develop things. But also what we look at is bootstrapping, how much they've put into project before. Because most of the startups, they come, oh, we just wanted money. But what did you do? I was like, yeah, but I didn't manage to do anything. And that is totally not true. Approaching companies and getting certain, like, agencies, government agencies, hubs, whatever, whatever, companies to work with, participate in different kinds of, I don't know, cohorts or participating in different government programs to get subsidized. In most cases you realize they did nothing out of it. You're like, then why do you think you will be successful now? And if you didn't even try that?

And I guess you really want to have people founders that are going to be all in and super committed.

Exactly. And also you are very right in saying founders all the time because typically the red flag is a one man show, right? Even if it's a very talented person, life is life. Anything can happen to this person. We are not against certain someone, we are just mitigating our risks. And if somebody tells us, oh, I'm alone at the moment, oh yeah, I didn't look for any other foundries or I didn't hire a team, and you're like, yeah, but in case anything happens, the project is blocked. So that's something for me, it's definitely a red flag. And I try to make sure they understand what is the red flag if I tell them, no, I cannot do that at the moment. But if you find certain someone you are going to work with, then we are going to look into the project. Some startups do understand. Some startups still think they're smarter, so whatever.

Well, then they're maybe not the ones that get your investment, right?

Absolutely.

When somebody gets investment, there are strings attached. Obviously it's not free money. It's not something that you get $100,000 and go, great, I get to increase my salary. So what does that look like? That typically you would take equity within the business, but then you would also take an active role within the business.

With angels or angel investors. It's, as I mentioned, very different from the corporates where they do give a lot of advice and of course they get an equity. They also are very good for startups to utilize their names, right? Because if they tell bigger ventures or even like smaller ventures, but still corporates that there are certain credible investors who do the very good reputations already in the project because it's a very small world, they will be also more willing to look into the project itself. And typically you have somebody leading the round which is more experienced in the industry. What I would probably give us a piece of advice here is that you should not give away too much equity in the beginning, because it will be complicated for you to raise further rounds.

When somebody gets investment in the beginning. So the precede angel investing, what amount of equity do founders typically give away? Is there an industry standard on that.

Or it depends on the amount, but I believe that it's up to 15% maximum. If you give away more during the first round, it could be very challenging for you in the future round.

It doesn't give you much to play with, right? If you give away half a business.

You can imagine that if we want to grow, we probably will need three or four rounds more until we get into IPO. Maybe just exit in a different way. Exit meaning you will probably sell your business or go for IPO or something else where you will leave your business, right? Or maybe just keep some shares with not very active role. Maybe somebody will merge with you, maybe somebody will acquire you. There are very many options where you can target. And there are also different kinds of investors asking for the exit strategy. So it's better to keep it off the deck, but at least to have it in mind. If somebody asks, you will not get lost. So what were you thinking of? Where are you going, what is the direction, what are the next markets you are going to and so on. Because typically like serious C is already for different markets. So you are already developed in your specific market. You have a great product, everything is working. You're just raising funds to go somewhere else. And there you will find also new customers. So I believe that equity is giving away equity. Equity is very important, but not too much of an equity. And also having your company ready to give away equity. Because you and I both know that not every company is ready to give away shares. So we have different types of in Europe, sole traders and so on, which are definitely an algorithm for any start up, any shares, sometimes LLC in different countries also are not suitable for this one. And it should be converted to more of a joint stock company. And here we have quite a few free zones that do not even allow you to do that. And investors will not invest in this free zone, right? This is pretty much what we can see within the industry, within the markets, and also here in Dubai or UAE in general. I believe that depending on the investors and the region of the investors you are targeting, you should also keep that in mind when setting up an entity.

I'm really glad you mentioned that, actually. And it's not only in the UAE, but I also think as well in other countries that sometimes people, when they're setting up a business, go for the cheapest possible incorporation without thinking about what the vision is for the business and where they want to go. And then that becomes quite messy because then you have to undo all of that and restructure your business all over again.

Exactly. And it's probably in Europe, if it's within one country it's going to be a little bit easy because you still have those procedures which take obviously a lot of time, much more time than setting up an entity to convert even sole trader into something more decent and then the next step even more decent. So you basically have to take several steps which may take several years, which will just block you or you just have to move your assets from the sole trader to join stock and find another way to make it faster. But here in UAE you have also a problem in moving entities between the different free zones or mainland.

You basically have to set up a new company.

Exactly. So it's another challenge because within Europe, let's call it this way, most of the countries you will be free to change that address within the cities, within one country or even move it between like EU member states. Yes, there is also procedure for that and it's simplified. Sorry for being a little bit lawyerish, but there is it takes time, obviously, but here you cannot technically do that.

No, it's basically setting up a new company and this is one thing I warn people about because you see people they go for cheap or even in Europe as well, that will set up their business as a sole trader or something like that and you can't scale that. So if you want to scale your business, it needs to be set up properly and you need to take that advice as well.

Absolutely. And to some extent you can even have some preliminary conversations with investors which will release certain amount to set up a proper structure. So it's doable even if you don't have funds for that. But you should keep that in mind still talking to investors, you're just telling them okay, this is the idea and when raising funds we need it first for so and so. And also obviously one thing to keep in mind is that you do not have the full amount released. Typically you have certain KPIs. You have to reach to where the next stage or next amount is going to be released because we definitely as investors, we don't want to see something messy going on especially within those blockchain startups and so on, where they care a lot about issuing a coin. But what happens after often gets neglected. I'm not saying all projects are like that, but there are a lot of projects like that on the market so.

You need to protect your investment.

Exactly.

I want to delve a bit more. So I hear female entrepreneurs within female fusion when we have these conversations. Sometimes people, and probably not even just female entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs in general struggle sometimes with the idea of one, releasing equity in their business and two, knowing that they'll have somebody else in their business who will be providing advice and some businesses feel very reluctant about that and I'd love to just hear your take on that. Yeah, I'd like to know that and then I want to talk a bit more about reinvesting in our businesses.

So, besides the key sectors of my activity, I also work with some government agencies and we do this different kinds of workshops for startups. So during those workshops, you typically have two types of startups. One group of startups is immediately trying to see how the ink can implement the knowledge you're sure? Including advice on getting some very niche advisor and so and so because you can tell what is lacking when they tell you about their project. And there is a group of startups which refuses to do so and they think they are the smartest and it will take them probably another few years to understand that. And this is definitely another group of startups that will take my advice and interest in investing. So basically I would avoid those startups. I'm not saying there were no successful startups like that, I'm just saying they are less successful. And statistics say that typically those startups just take more time to develop, which means losing money for investors for a certain time because they still come to an idea or to the solution they could have found probably within half a year. It takes them more time because they are trying to do it on their own. And if somebody really thinks that giving away some small amount of equity is not worth it, whereas you don't even have to pay cash. So somebody puts a lot of trust in your project, right? And actually they don't even have any other solution. I mean, they could have charged you or they put trust in your project and they are with you for a few years and they share their knowledge and they may get financial result, but they may not if you don't listen.

Yeah, because sometimes as well I know that that's a big obstacle to growth is that you can't afford the high level people that you need to really take your business to the next level. So instead of you giving the salary that that person says okay, you know what, I will come into this business, I will play this role in exchange for a certain amount of equity.

Absolutely.

Some businesses are really scared of that, aren't they?

They are. But at the same time there are businesses who would love to take it but they don't know where to look for those advisors. And I would rather advise them to just find those right people and speak to more of advisors they want on board and just to find this one who will take equity and will put more trust in their project to do so, more trust than others. But on the other hand, those who are relocated to give away equity, well we can do nothing about it. I mean, honestly, it's their choice and they will come probably to the same solution in a few years, but it may be too late because startup market is real quick and there are probably few companies already developing similar at least similar product in other countries. So within three years they may be already developed in another region and they will be coming to your region as well as a developed entity. So I believe the startup world, especially It sector is very much about being fast and furious about what you do because you cannot wait. It's super dynamic market. Very dynamic market where if you are not the first and if you are not getting any better and which may be equal chances from the beginning, two startups, starting with pretty much similar idea and one getting fundraise second. Not because they are trying to do they are not sharing their idea because it's NDA and all these things. Those people don't want to sign their NDA and that's why they don't share it. Most of the investors don't mind signing NDA but it's not an issue, you just have to tell them you should sign and that's it. And also investors, if they really wanted to do all those businesses they received decks for they wouldn't be even able to, it's not their business. We are passive, we don't want to do this business, you know what I mean? Yeah, well basically you will see one startup developing really fast and the other one probably out of the market in a few years.

Well that's one of the things as well. Statistically I think it's one of the top five reasons that businesses fail is that they don't ask for help and they don't get the support.

Exactly or there is also one very important failure stage where they do not start fundraising also early enough after the first stage of fundraising. So typically it's like constant process for startup they fundraise now and they already start looking for the next round. It cannot be in this death valley of startups where they lack of funds, they cannot simply and this is what happens a lot.

So they're not looking for the next round of fundraiser.

They are, but they are Like, oh, we still have Time. And then they run out of funds. And that's the problem because they have a team, they have to support It and so on and so forth.

And when you get involved at the Preseat Stage, do you help them with that or do you introduce them to maybe VCs at a higher Level?

We do have, of course, as I mentioned, it's very small world so we typically try to introduce some VCs but startups have to do very intense work on this as well because it doesn't mean the people we introduce to them will invest in them even though we do have some credibility level, of course and they are looking into direction. But there are also certain pools of money they can deploy. For instance, for venture capitals, they raise funds from their investors and they have typically one or two years to deploy funds and then they raise another fund. So we may just not fit in somewhere in between. They may not have funds at the moment to invest in us, even though they'd love to. So they may be looking to invest in us if it was the proper right, the right time.

Right.

But they don't because they don't have funds at the moment.

And that's also important too, that for any sort of startup or entrepreneur looking for funding is that you constantly need to be networking, right?

All that is for sure.

This is one thing that they say that why women aren't getting access to the same amount of funding is that they're not doing the right networking and meeting people in the same ways.

Absolutely. And that happens a lot also with tech people because they are often very introverted and that's where they should find another founder or hire somebody. But typically more motivated people are like founders or, you know, somebody who have equity because they care about the company. They will not get any money out of it if it's not going to happen. So hiring somebody for networking to be in PR manager, it's just the cash deal and it's nice, but not as nice and not as nice results. And there should be always somebody networking and there should be always somebody on the business side. And that's why one of the reasons where one man show is not going to work because there is somebody talented and there is with the It sector where they will be able to control this part and there is somebody talented in a way to bring those people into your business and both aspects are equally important.

And so definitely they're going to need to have more people on their team. So even if there is just one founder that you need to have that team supporting course as well. You mentioned to me that you don't have many women contact you and approach you and I find that really interesting that that doesn't happen. And I just love to understand this because women are not getting access to the same amount of funding. But I don't believe that we should be sitting around complaining about it, saying it's not fair, we need to look at why and how we can create more opportunities. Do you have any sense why you think women don't approach you for investment?

I think it's not only about me, but also about other institutions as well because I've had a talk with few hubs and they also do not. Receive as many female founder projects as they receive male founder founded projects. So I don't know, to be very honest, like exactly, I wouldn't be able to tell you for sure, but in my sense your opinion is just how they prosafe different investors they probably find hard to talk to me, I don't know because I've been in a very male dominated industry from the beginning. So for me it's not an option not to speak to somebody if I have something in mind and I have project in my mind that I want to accomplish or some idea I want to be done. So pretty often I was the only female in the room, like 1015 persons for negotiations, I'm the only female. So for me it's very normal and like I feel very normal about it. But what I feel happens, at least what I've heard from other female founders is that they approach first not angel investors, but VCs. VCs are very straightforward and they are very different mindset, I should say. They are not so flexible. They are very corporate and they have their own style of negotiations and that's probably where they get scared and they just move away and they try to find those typically female circles where they can find investors and so on. Which is not right, in my opinion, because there are businesses who also specialize in investing in female founder projects, or let's say at least one of the founders is female or something like that. But also maybe speaking to angel investors will help because those people are more flexible, they are not as harsh there. You do not arrive to the table of 15 guys or 15 email, even if half of those are female, you're still intimidated because it's probably one of the first meetings and you already have five to ten people at the table, you know what I mean? Sometimes it's just probably intimidating, I think that's the issue. And they arrive to such meeting and then they're like no, don't hold it to deal with that anymore because visas are very straightforward, they ask you questions, sometimes not very comfortable questions and they look how far you will get with your project as well because for them it's also risk mitigation. How stress resilent are you?

Yeah, and that's I guess as well, it's just getting more comfortable with those environments. And I'm a big advocate, although even we have female fusion and we're supporting women in business that it's important to talk to the men and build the network with guys but then also have men be really big champions as well and look at how they can support women more in business because the way that we do business is even slightly different.

Absolutely.

I find sometimes too that as women we often downplay our successes. I don't know what it is that we are much more collaborative and we'll talk about I did this together with my team where you know, you'll find guys who will be like I changed the world, I did this, I'm responsible for saving my business a million dollars.

So true.

And I guess as well it's maybe something we need to stand in our power a bit more, right? And go we're great, we're really good. I've done a great job at that.

I absolutely agree with you. And whenever you go out with this feeling of being great, you will find a lot of male entrepreneurs supporting you because they really support different initiatives coming to women, especially here in UAE. They are really trying to achieve the parity pretty much anywhere. They are really trying to support those entrepreneurs but what happens often is getting discouraged and probably not running away but stopping doing anything towards mixed circles including Hubs, which can help you a lot. I would advise any startup, honestly, especially those female founders, to apply for suitable Hub program and to get the support and you will see how those teams operate, you will see how actually this world is very friendly. You have those networking events, everybody is inviting everyone. It's like a great circle. You share experience, you share who is good as investor, who is bad as investor. What is your experience, how you can find some solutions to certain challenges? You also will meet also different startups on the further stages so they can also guide you because there are also alumni who come to different meetings, to the Hubs where you can ask your questions how have you made it? We have this obstacle, can you give us an advice? And it's about asking and same with investors. They approach an investor and they hear the answer no and typically they just run away without asking why. What happened? Is it too early, too late? Is it not the niche? Maybe we should improve somehow. And I believe the biggest problem is that they are not asking, they are not exploring. There is nothing bad about hearing no. You just have to find out why there is like this mindset of telling you no and try to improve it. Maybe you have it, but it's not in the deck. What I find often with It guys is that they put everything tack in the deck but they will forget about real, real important information for investors and business stuff. And that happens a lot like neglecting those this data. And maybe when you ask why no, you will have an answer. And they are yeah, but you have it. Sure. Please find an updated deck. Yeah also it will help you even if it's not the same investor, it will help you to improve your deck in a way where in 510 nose, let's call it this way you will.

Have a perfect deck. Yeah. And I guess it is being okay with failure, being okay with rejection absolutely. And taking that and learning from it, asking those questions, just being like okay, no, but why?

Absolutely.

So to make it better, I also.

Wouldn'T call it even a failure. I guess it's just a certain process which is totally okay, you've tried, you've tested, you've adopted, it's part of the process.

But it would be so boring if we succeeded in everything right? We can't make it better, nobody did.

Like if you look at the stats, most of the successful startups, it was not the first startup they came into the market with so typically it's 3rd, 4th or fifth project and those people never give up. So it's about never giving up and finding the right project. I think what also is problematic in Europe specifically, I'm not sure how the situation, legal situation is here with the startups, why they're so afraid of failing. Because bankruptcy procedures in Europe are much more complex than in the US. And you will have this dag of failure and bankrupt person or company, whatever the stage they will drag you into.

Forever and it stays on your record and you will be asked when you open up a company bank account.

Exactly.

Also as well in some markets I know for example in the UK that you cannot open another business for a certain number of years if you've had a bankruptcy.

Exactly. So basically it blocks you for a certain period of time and I believe this is where we really need help of all legislative authorities, where they actually can help those startup ecosystems and startup communities to grow because it's not only on us, but it comes with certain actuals in the market. Whereas in the US you fail, you bankrupt, next day you open a new business and your fundraise, there is no problem with that.

That's really interesting. Gosh, we could go down a whole other rabbit hole with that. Absolutely, yeah, it's been so interesting. To summarize it, I would say one of the things that I really take away from this is that you really emphasized that you need to get help. And that to not be afraid to give that equity and to get the right partner in your business, to give you that advice, to be able to grow and then also as well to be able to get out there, to network, to get to know so many different people so you can find the right people who will invest in you. And then to be cool with hearing no and to asking those questions and go, that's okay, no, I'm going to get better and keep getting better and keep getting better until you get that investment.

Exactly. I couldn't even summarize it better myself.

Well, okay, it has been so amazing, thank you so much. It seems like it was just destiny that we met last year and I'm so happy that I was able to grab you when you were in Dubai on a business trip and thank you for sharing your knowledge and I know that it's going to be so useful for so many entrepreneurs to hear this.

Thank you for having me here. It was such a pleasure and I really hope it will be useful and executed by the startups, you know what I mean?

Absolutely. Well, I think there's lots of tips to take away and this is a big issue that we're really pushing in female fusion because there are so many women owned businesses that want funding, but I think they just don't even know where to start. And my big passion is if we can help with that and the education and make it easier that those numbers are going to come up because seeing those low numbers, something doesn't add up. So we've got to find the solutions to that to make it easier for everybody. Absolutely.

But I believe you are one of those people making those changes. Absolutely.

Thank you again so much.

Elga thank you.

Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the podcast. If you'd like to join our membership, the doors are currently open, but only until the 6 March. So hurry up and grab your spot. If you're a female entrepreneur, this is the best place for you to connect with other business owners and work on starting, building, growing or scaling your business. You can find out more information on femalefusionnetwork.com join or you can find the link in the show Notes. See you on the inside.