On Finding Product Market Fit and Growing Your Business Through Community (Season 1 Ep. 5)
On this podcast episode we chat with Lauren Washington, co-founder of Black Women Talk Tech and CEO of Fundr, about her 4 time entrepreneurship journey. Lauren dives in with us on what it means to achieve product market fit, how to build a killer team and find a co-founder who aligns with you and your business. We also go in depth with Lauren on the who, what and why of fundraising. She also lets us know how she is changing the game with Fundr, a platform that automates seed investing by creating portfolios of vetted startups for angel investors.
What can you expect from this episode:
Lauren walks us through her transition from starting as a teacher in special education to being in the corporate world with online marketing and social media. She shares her experience on the agency side and how she landed at a social media firm where she built out a new department that kicked off her entrepreneurial career. [4:30]
Lauren dives into her first two businesses with Keeping Up and Black Women Talk Tech and how she faced her first failures in entrepreneurship + understanding what it takes to achieve product market fit. [11:42]
Lauren speaks out about the fundraising challenges that black women face. Lauren talks about the creation of “Black Women Talk Tech” that became the first conference for black women to support each other while building businesses and working around barriers in funding. [15:20]
We talk about the who and why of fundraising and Lauren’s earliest experiences within the funding process. [21:56]
We chat about the journey of resilience and the vulnerabilities of starting a new venture while navigating through trust and partnerships along the way. [30:20]
Lauren shares core insights for early stage founders who are deciding on running a business with others, including co-founders. [36:13]
Lauren talks about her most recent venture, Fundr, that uses fundraising as “fire and fuel” to achieve business goals for all walks of life. She also talks about what is next for her entrepreneurship journey. [38:52]
Recommended resources in this episode:
Favorite book – “Think Like a Rocket Scientist” by Ozan Varol
Favorite productivity hack – Apple reminders app