After one investor told digital entrepreneur Kathryn Finney he doesn’t “do Black women,” Finney, the founder of the widely successful blog, The Budget Fashionista, didn’t get mad, she took action and founded digitalundivided (DID) in 2013. DID is a social enterprise that empowers Black and Latina women entrepreneurs through networking, training, and funding opportunities.
Finney knows more than a thing or two about making her way in the male-dominated, mainly white digital world. She started Atlanta-based DID after selling The Budget Fashionista, one of the first successful lifestyle and fashion blogs. The honors graduate of Yale University and Rutgers University was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the most influential women in tech; she is a White House Champion of Change and a past member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
Since 2013, DID has impacted more than 2,000 people and helped raise $25 million in investments. Here, she talks to us about how she is disrupting the digital world.
MadameNoire (MN): What prompted you to launch digitalundivided?
Kathryn Finney (KF): A decade ago, I decided to join one of the first tech incubators in New York. I was hopeful that with my education and the credentials I earned from my first uber-successful online media company, I would be able to fit into the group just fine. Unfortunately, I was met by various racial and gender biases (one prominent investor even told me then that I had the idea, but that he just doesn’t “do Black women”). Later on, I started to hear similar stories from other women like me who are trying to break into tech. The problem-solver in me never forgot this– there has to be a way we could deal with this. And so in 2013, I founded digitalundivided.
MN: What does digitalundivided do?
KF: digitalundivided runs the BIG Innovation Center in Atlanta and the BIG Incubator, a 26-week tech incubator program for Black and Latina women founders.
MN: Why is digitalundivided necessary?
KF: Women of color, specifically Black and Latina women, are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States, creating over 80 percent of the new women-led small businesses since 2007. Yet, Black women-led startups receive less than .2 percent of all venture funding. Moreover, the average Black women-led startup raises $36,000, while the average (mostly) white male failed startup raises $1.3 million. We found that this is caused by three things: lack of network, training, and funding specifically for diverse women founders. digitalundivided bridges this digital divide by offering all three to Black and Latina women founders.
MN: How does digitalundivided work?
KF: We take an innovative, transformative approach to economic empowerment by building a data-driven ecosystem that harnesses entrepreneurship, innovation, and technology as tools of change for Black and Latina communities.
Backed by the data and insights from #ProjectDiane (a proprietary research we conducted in 2016 to determine the state of tech entrepreneurship among Black women), we provide innovative women founders the training, capital and networks they need to build and scale their businesses through programs like the ongoing BIG Incubator and events like Innovation Thursday. This impacts the economic development and growth of the founders’ communities, as well as prepares them for career, personal, and life success.
MN: What are your plans for 2017?
KF: BIG Cohort 2 is already underway in Atlanta, but we’re also starting to hear interests from other cities (even as far as from the west coast!) asking if we can bring the BIG program to their communities. We’re looking into these prospects this year.
MN: What are your thoughts on the current state of diversity in tech?
KF: We are making strides–back when I started in this space, diversity wasn’t even a buzzword yet. But there’s definitely more work that needs to be done. Beyond paying lip service to the issue, we need more stakeholders to put their money where their mouth is. Nothing explains the need for diversity in tech better than showing the success of these diverse companies, especially when funded and when provided support and resources.
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