The ultimate contradiction for women in tech

This article is part of “Embrace Equity,” Tech in Asia’s campaign for International Women’s Day 2023. As we move to boost support for women in tech, we’re unpacking the idea of equity and exploring what it really means by facilitating candid, thoughtful conversations about how we can achieve a fair and equitable tech ecosystem.

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I recently met with an investor who reached out for advice on how to bring more female founders into their deal flow.

I asked how their fund selects founders to work with. The criteria sounded like a typical laundry list – startup experience, industry expertise, and entrepreneurial spirit. But then came the kicker: “should have a successful exit under his or her belt.”

I can be a bit of a cynic in these conversations as a matter of self-preservation, but this caught even me off guard. It seemed like the ultimate contradiction – expressing the desire to support more female founders while also using a checklist that effectively disqualifies women.

Such qualification lists have played a key role in keeping more female leaders out of the startup ecosystem. Male investors find affinity bias with male founders, who then have an easier time fundraising and thus improving their chances of a successful exit. Or investors type-match to successful founders, who happen to be predominantly male, and continue the bias.

I’d like to believe that investors have moved on from looking for college dropouts in hoodies, but we know that these stereotypes still get used. Either way, relying on historical success to predict future outcomes means maintaining the status quo.

That said, the most infuriating part of this conversation was the investor I spoke to is a woman.

Wrong yardstick for female leaders?

This exchange has stuck with me because it highlights how women are fundamentally not starting from an equal playing field. Most people know this chain of events in theory, but it’s so convoluted that even folks with the best intentions still miss the forest for the trees. Let’s unpack this:

1. Past data is skewed.

To date, the majority of founders have been men, which means most founders who have successfully raised funding are also men. Consequently, most startups that have successfully scaled and/or exited are also led by men. The data tells you a lot about male founders and who might be successful again in the future, but you effectively get nothing about female founders because there’s not enough data to even begin extrapolating from.

I did a quick LinkedIn search to check this. When I searched for Singapore + founder + she, I received 2,200 hits. But when I did a similar search using he instead of she, I got 4,300 hits. Based on these results, there are approximately 2x male founders for every female founder.

I was never qualified for my job

The case for equity