4 female entrepreneurs – from an 11 year old to a Hollywood producer – share tips

Photo credit: Pixabay.

Picture this – a venture capital investor and a company founder are having a chat while seated across from each other in armchairs. The investor, Jordan Hudson of Upfront Ventures, gently explains to the founder that he has to turn down more companies than he picks up.

It’s a common scene, but today that power is not in his hands. In what must be a dream for many a business owner, it lies in the hands of 11-year-old Mikaila Ulmer, founder and CEO of Me & the Bees Lemonade. Her business made her a household name in the US when she appeared on the American television show Shark Tank as a nine-year-old, pitched her idea to a board of successful investors – and won.

It’s a common scene, but today that power is not in his hands.

Me & the Bees uses local honey and Mikaila’s grandmother’s recipe to make lemonade. A portion of the proceeds goes to help save bees, the population of which is rapidly declining in the US and hurting the country’s ecosystem.

Mikaila and Jordan’s conversation is a “reverse pitch,” part of the Circular Summit for female entrepreneurs, meant to teach a room full of conference-goers about what both parties – VC firm and founder – should be looking for in an investment. That includes talking about whether venture capital is the right choice for a company at all. Among other things, Mikaila grills him on his exit strategy when he does invest and how he sees his firm fitting in with her goals.

Throughout the Summit, the attendees saw the same kind of format shakeup, from conversations between female entrepreneurs and their investors to entrepreneurs in different industries interviewing each other. Just in case you weren’t there in Houston to take notes, here are four big pieces of advice for women entrepreneurs seen throughout the conference.

Love what you do

Mikaila Ulmer, founder and CEO of Me & the Bees

Mikaila says she has been working on Me & the Bees since she was four years old, which she doesn’t see as strange at all. Kids make great entrepreneurs because they have such creative and crazy ideas, she says. Adults should learn from them.

“Make a business in something you have a passion for, and try to solve a problem with your company,” Mikaila tells Tech in Asia. She names that as one of the big lessons that she’s learned – one doesn’t have to choose between making a profit and helping the world.

Passion helps her dream big – she mentions that she wants to eventually build a global business and perhaps do some merchandising to further help the bees. But her passion for her cause keeps her focused as she tries to keep a balance between school and being CEO of Me & the Bees.

Don’t give yourself the opportunity to fail

This is easier said than done. After all, there’d be plenty less failure in the world if avoiding it was as easy as willing ourselves not to, but there’s a point to this advice. You can’t succeed if you don’t try or if you quit after every time you fail. Everyone’s going to fail at some point, so the best thing to do might just be – as corny as it sounds – to keep trying anyway.

Transcend your circumstances

Be aggressive