Speaker 1: Welcome to Made by Women, a new podcast by the
Speaker 1: Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio. At a
Speaker 1: moment when businesses face some of the biggest challenges in
Speaker 1: recent history, we bring you inspiring stories, practical insights, and
Speaker 1: shared learnings to help you successfully navigate in today's environment.
Speaker 1: Every Thursday, Made by Women will showcase the experiences of
Speaker 1: legendary women, entrepreneurs, fierce up and comers, and everyday women
Speaker 1: who found success their own way. Consider this your real world.
Speaker 1: N b A designed for the new Now. I'm Kim
Speaker 1: Azarelli and thanks so much for joining us today. K
Speaker 1: Koplewitz is a television pioneer who has shaped the way
Speaker 1: we live and watch HEV for decades. The eventual founder, chair,
Speaker 1: and CEO of USA Network, K became enamored with satellites
Speaker 1: as a University of Wisconsin student, inspired by the work
Speaker 1: of science fiction author Arthur C. Clark. In ninety seven,
Speaker 1: K launched one of the first satellite delivered basic cable networks,
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden Sports Network, which later became USA Network.
Speaker 1: With that launch, K became the first female network president
Speaker 1: in television history. KA is the visionary who created the
Speaker 1: dual revenue stream of licensing and advertising, which networks still
Speaker 1: followed to this day, and after building and running the
Speaker 1: network for over twenty years, Ka helped sell USA Network
Speaker 1: for four point five billion dollars. One of the most
Speaker 1: influential people in entertainment, K complots today is sharing her
Speaker 1: unmatched knowledge with other women entrepreneurs through two organizations that
Speaker 1: she has co founded, Springboard Enterprises and Springboard Growth Capital.
Speaker 1: Enjoy my converse station with K Compliments. So, Okay, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. It's so lovely to join him.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Okay. Obviously, your career has changed
Speaker 1: the landscape for so many things, whether it's cable television,
Speaker 1: the way we think about entertainment, women's entrepreneurship. You have
Speaker 1: been a leader in so many areas, and we're so
Speaker 1: pleased that you're here to talk to us today. It
Speaker 1: seems that this goes way back, and that you learned
Speaker 1: the art of negotiation at a very young age. Perhaps
Speaker 1: kindergarten is that right, Yes, it is. Actually I was
Speaker 1: the five years old at the time. I was in
Speaker 1: my second year of kindergarten where I, my parents and
Speaker 1: I were living and my dad had built a new
Speaker 1: house in the next town and it was about Christmas
Speaker 1: time and he said, well, we're moving to our new house.
Speaker 1: And I said to my dad, well, I really can't
Speaker 1: move now. What do you mean you can't move now
Speaker 1: we're moving, you're moving with us. Well, I said that
Speaker 1: I really can't move down. It's a you know, something
Speaker 1: I've got to do. And he said, well what do
Speaker 1: you got to do? And I said, I've got to
Speaker 1: graduate with my kindergarten class. And he looked at me
Speaker 1: like I here she goes again, and he said, well, well,
Speaker 1: how are you going to do that? You're moving And
Speaker 1: I said to him, well, dad, you have to raise
Speaker 1: my allowance by fifty cents a week so I could
Speaker 1: take the bus to the next town and go to
Speaker 1: kindergarten class and graduate with this is Washington's kindergarten class.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to do. And he looked at
Speaker 1: me and he went, okay, but don't you ever ask
Speaker 1: your mother for a ride. We're not going to take it,
Speaker 1: no matter how cold it is. It was in Milwaukee,
Speaker 1: Wisconsin cold winters. And I said, no, I never gonna
Speaker 1: ask for a ride, never gonna ask for any help.
Speaker 1: Just give me my fifty cents a week and I'll
Speaker 1: take care of it. And that's how I won my
Speaker 1: first negotiation. Well, that was really the beginning of something extraordinary.
Speaker 1: The writing was on the wall, as they say, So
Speaker 1: from that point on, you were sort of a girl
Speaker 1: on a mission. And I mean to bring you forward
Speaker 1: to college when you became fascinated by the potential of satellites.
Speaker 1: How did that come to be? I was between my
Speaker 1: junior and senior year at the University of Wisconsin at
Speaker 1: the time, and I had been working my way through school,
Speaker 1: working lots of jobs, and I thought, I've got to
Speaker 1: get out of Wisconsin see something about the world. And
Speaker 1: I decided to go after Europe with my backpack and
Speaker 1: five dollars a day and see what was happening and
Speaker 1: give myself a little bit of a break. And I
Speaker 1: was in London at the time and I saw walking around,
Speaker 1: I saw this poster for a lecture being given on satellites,
Speaker 1: and I thought, Wow, that could really be interesting. I
Speaker 1: think I'll go in there and listen to this lecture,
Speaker 1: which I did, and the lecture was talking about the
Speaker 1: power of geosynchronous orbiting satellites which had just been launched
Speaker 1: um in the previous year, and he was talking about
Speaker 1: how powerful they were and he only needed three of
Speaker 1: them to connect people all around the globe. And furthermore,
Speaker 1: they couldn't be jammed. We are in the time of
Speaker 1: the Cold War with the Soviet Union at that point
Speaker 1: time and also China uh and he was saying that
Speaker 1: this was a way to communicate with people around the globe.
Speaker 1: I just thought the message was so powerful that there
Speaker 1: was an idea that would never let me go. And
Speaker 1: this lecture was Arthur C. Clark, a renowned science fiction
Speaker 1: writer but also a well grounded scientist, and he was
Speaker 1: talking to the class about geosyncritus orbiting satellites, which we
Speaker 1: took for granted today but just had been launched at
Speaker 1: that point in time. That was It just gripped me
Speaker 1: as an unbelievably powerful idea, an idea that would never
Speaker 1: let me go. And I went on to pursue the
Speaker 1: idea that went to graduate school, wrote my master chiefs
Speaker 1: Sun Satellite Technologies, and I think the potential impact it
Speaker 1: would have on the communication structure, which of course it
Speaker 1: has well. That another amazing moment and was a forecast
Speaker 1: of what was to happen, and from there you write
Speaker 1: your thesis, and you get into television and you get
Speaker 1: involved in the legendary Thrilla in Manilla Championship boxing fight.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us why this was a pivotal moment
Speaker 1: for you? Sure? At that point in between, I had
Speaker 1: worked at the Communications Satellite Corporation, so I really worked
Speaker 1: in bringing satellites into the communication here in the United States,
Speaker 1: and at that time in nineteen hour in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: and there are cable systems starting to grow around the country,
Speaker 1: but they really didn't have a way of connecting efficiently.
Speaker 1: So HBO is in its really early stages that would
Speaker 1: send tapes around and they will arrive at cable systems
Speaker 1: ghetto damaged or torn. It wasn't a really good way
Speaker 1: of distributing a signal. And along came the opportunity with
Speaker 1: the Thriller for Manilla in nineteen seth Tower thirty nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy five. HBO actually was a client of mine. They
Speaker 1: brought that to Vero Beach, Florida, UH and I was
Speaker 1: a representative for them, and we brought that signal via
Speaker 1: geoshyp critis orbity satellites ninety miles around the globe live
Speaker 1: from Manila into Vero Beach, Florida and showed the industry
Speaker 1: and members of Congress that satellites could be used for
Speaker 1: commercial purposes. Up to that time, they had not been
Speaker 1: used for commercial purposes in this way. And that was
Speaker 1: the night that changed the course of television history and
Speaker 1: the night that launched my career to launch USA Network. So,
Speaker 1: coming out of that one incredible championship boxing fight, you
Speaker 1: changed the trajectory of cable television and you go on
Speaker 1: to launch the first satellite delivered basic cable network, which
Speaker 1: was then called Madison Square Garden Sports Network and later
Speaker 1: became USA Network. Did I get that right? Yes, you did.
Speaker 1: Let me just say that, yes, the launch was with
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden. It was the Madison Square Garden Sports
Speaker 1: Network actually brought all the professional sports to cable before ESPN,
Speaker 1: so Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL Augusta National
Speaker 1: Golf Tournament, the US Open, Tennis, the less goes on
Speaker 1: and on um and so we broke open the window
Speaker 1: when sports at that time was really a weekend event.
Speaker 1: Uh it was you know, the game of the weekend, baseball.
Speaker 1: It was life world of sports on the weekend, and uh,
Speaker 1: then Monday night football and that was it, And I said,
Speaker 1: why not every night? Sports are played every night every night?
Speaker 1: So I went after every major league sport brought them
Speaker 1: all the cable. So broke open that window in the
Speaker 1: sports arena UM and went on afterwards the renaming the
Speaker 1: network USA Network and brought in entertainment and broke open
Speaker 1: many entertainment windows for the cable industry. So I got
Speaker 1: plowed a lot of ground for the industry. But it
Speaker 1: was certainly a lot of fun doing it. There was
Speaker 1: something very unique about USA Network and that you changed
Speaker 1: the way the business model operated. How did that come
Speaker 1: into being? Yes, I uh at television at the time
Speaker 1: was operated totally on advertising revenue. Starting up a nascent network,
Speaker 1: there was not enough distribution to rely on. We didn't
Speaker 1: have advertising revenue to start with. Maybe two percent of
Speaker 1: the revenue came out of advertising when we started UM
Speaker 1: with pilot programs with advertisers like Bristol Myers. But it
Speaker 1: really you needed to get the distribution. So licensing was
Speaker 1: what I changed in network television, that the networks paid
Speaker 1: the TV stations to carry their signal. I reversed the
Speaker 1: process and in cable the cable operators paid the programmer
Speaker 1: to get the programming, so we had to reverse the
Speaker 1: model really interesting, and that really changed the course of
Speaker 1: the way we think about cable TV today. What was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest obstacles you faced in building your
Speaker 1: business when I was built of USA network really was
Speaker 1: a different time and sort of a development of businesses,
Speaker 1: certainly in the cable industry, and being the first one
Speaker 1: out there launching a network, I really had to look
Speaker 1: for ways to get into the business. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of contracts in place, access to programming that I
Speaker 1: wanted to license and so forth, and I had to
Speaker 1: really create all these special windows and a strategy for
Speaker 1: not only bringing all the sports major sports to cable
Speaker 1: before ESPN was my idea, went out and did that,
Speaker 1: but trying to get into the entertainment networks was very,
Speaker 1: very different trying to license popular programming from broadcast networks.
Speaker 1: There are windows that I had to really get into,
Speaker 1: But that really wasn't the hardest thing for me. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you what it was. Back then, women just weren't
Speaker 1: allowed a lot of places, weren't allowed to go to
Speaker 1: golf clubs and play golf with the guys, weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to go into certain parts of restaurants. We want to
Speaker 1: give you an example that people will understand. It has
Speaker 1: to be at Augusta National where the Master's Golf tournament
Speaker 1: has played. And in two I was able to license
Speaker 1: the rights to carry the Masters on Thursday and Friday.
Speaker 1: I was always trying to get more sports during the
Speaker 1: week and I worked with CBS that had the rights
Speaker 1: on the weekend. So I was there at the club
Speaker 1: the very first week of play. And they're on Thursday,
Speaker 1: which was the traditional day for the media lunch, and
Speaker 1: we were standing outside the clubhouse chatting UH and I
Speaker 1: was chatting with Hoard Harden, who was the chairman at
Speaker 1: the time, and there were about fourteen of us UH
Speaker 1: and the others were a bunch of guys from CBS
Speaker 1: and TVs from Japan. And now we're having a nice
Speaker 1: time in Hordes. Oh, let's go, let's go to lunch.
Speaker 1: Time to go to lunch. So we go into the
Speaker 1: clubhouse and we're going up the stairs and Ord is
Speaker 1: leading the way. I'm walking up the airs with him.
Speaker 1: We get to the top of the stairs and it
Speaker 1: turns around and he looks at me and he said, uh, okay,
Speaker 1: we'd allow women on the second floor, and I said
Speaker 1: to him, well, Hoard, what are we going to do
Speaker 1: about that? That's when women couldn't go to the men's
Speaker 1: lunch and room on the second floor. So what do
Speaker 1: we do? We turned around and went down to the
Speaker 1: trophy room to have lunch, where we proceeded to have
Speaker 1: lunch for the next ten years until the second floor
Speaker 1: was opened to women. So it just as illustrative of
Speaker 1: some of the barriers that I really had to face
Speaker 1: in building out the network. And it didn't really have
Speaker 1: so much to do with the network. Had had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with the culture. And so that wasn't
Speaker 1: the only time. I mean, there were a number of
Speaker 1: times that I went to meetings in different cities around
Speaker 1: the country. The meetings were scheduled at eating clubs that
Speaker 1: were men only eating clubs, or I would be invited
Speaker 1: to an event to participate in an event, uh and
Speaker 1: I would go to the event and a golf tournament
Speaker 1: for example, or golf outing of some sort, and the
Speaker 1: same thing would happen. So women were excluded from a
Speaker 1: lot of the places that men congregated to do business,
Speaker 1: and that probably culturally speaking, was one of the hardest
Speaker 1: things to overcome, but undaunted, I persisted, Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: Things have somewhat changed. Obviously there's other barriers today, but
Speaker 1: that's a straightforward barrier, not being able to be there.
Speaker 1: How do they respond to people? Understand you and how
Speaker 1: did they respond to you? In this people had to change,
Speaker 1: as I illustrated with the story about Augusta. They had
Speaker 1: to change. They had to do something differently because there
Speaker 1: I was to do business with them, and what were
Speaker 1: they going to do? Lock me out of the meeting
Speaker 1: that I was there to do business. That it that
Speaker 1: they didn't do that they generally thought of something else,
Speaker 1: you know, that they would do, or they would go
Speaker 1: someplace else, so to try oftentimes to be accommodating. But
Speaker 1: you knew that when you were personally standing there, that
Speaker 1: that cultural habits persisted for a long time and that
Speaker 1: for most women they were really frozen out. And that
Speaker 1: is a difficult thing to overcome. Actually, it's a cultural issue.
Speaker 1: You must have had this incredible ability to articulate your
Speaker 1: vision because when you're building new and bringing people along,
Speaker 1: that's always very difficult. And it seemed that many people
Speaker 1: showed up once you laid it out. I think there's
Speaker 1: one night where Bob It clicked for him and basically
Speaker 1: said something like, tonight your dream comes true today. Did
Speaker 1: I get that right? You got it right. It was
Speaker 1: September thirte the thrill of him and then it was
Speaker 1: his cable system. We're walking back to the hotel and
Speaker 1: he said, Okay, tonight your dream comes true and and
Speaker 1: indeed it did. Wow. And he was the one that
Speaker 1: I was working with, the partnered with to launch Metison
Speaker 1: Square Garden and then became the USA Network. So you
Speaker 1: ran USA Network for twenty one years. In the process,
Speaker 1: somewhere you launched the Sci Fi Channel. How did that
Speaker 1: come to be? Well, I was looking for I had
Speaker 1: really tried to launch a couple other networks, and at
Speaker 1: that point in time, early on five years after we launched.
Speaker 1: Originally the owners of the company, Bob burse Translas company
Speaker 1: was in a hostel takeover a bit and he wanted
Speaker 1: to get some money out. So the Universal and Paramount
Speaker 1: along with time Ache brought into the company and so
Speaker 1: they were each of them had a minority position in
Speaker 1: the USA, but they were the three of them together
Speaker 1: and I really actually had a deal to buy out
Speaker 1: the Financial News Network, which became a CNBC that was
Speaker 1: floarded by said Scheiberg from Universal, who when in the
Speaker 1: moment sitting in the conference room signing the contract with
Speaker 1: thal Jones to be my partner on Financial News Network,
Speaker 1: he pulled out. It was It was a devastating moment
Speaker 1: after it worked a year and a half to get
Speaker 1: it to fruition and so there when there were other
Speaker 1: opportunities that I had. So when it came to sci Fi,
Speaker 1: I thought, I know sci Fi fans are loyal and
Speaker 1: their vocal, they would be a good supporters of the
Speaker 1: sci Fi Network coming into being. And I had negotiated
Speaker 1: the deal to buy the title sci Fi Network from
Speaker 1: some people who had started as people from Florida who
Speaker 1: had started, and I was signing the contract to take
Speaker 1: them out because I didn't want any competition in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: John Malone at that time had a propensity to bring
Speaker 1: up competitors or vibe pistons and competitors. I was wanted
Speaker 1: to take them out of the window. And I had
Speaker 1: the contract negotiated, they were in the room reading it
Speaker 1: one last time before signing it. I got a call
Speaker 1: from Paramount, who had star Trek. You would think that
Speaker 1: they would love Sci Fi Network. I got yeah. So
Speaker 1: stand called me and he said, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think this is really a big enough idea for a
Speaker 1: network and all this sort of thing. Well, I learned
Speaker 1: something from my first experience of having a partner pull out.
Speaker 1: I said, well, it's just two bads down because we
Speaker 1: just signed the contract, so it's done. And actually I
Speaker 1: didn't know for sure they were going to sign it,
Speaker 1: but I didn't care at that point in time. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I just I just was not going to
Speaker 1: be thwarted again. And that's how it picked up Sci
Speaker 1: Fi and and developed it. So fast forward. You ultimately,
Speaker 1: USA Network, after you running it for twenty one years,
Speaker 1: was sold for four point five billion dollars. How did
Speaker 1: that whole deal come to be? Well, there have been
Speaker 1: the companies that were in the ownership of USA at
Speaker 1: that point in time kept getting bought and sold and changed,
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of different people, um uh
Speaker 1: in different companies out there. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: at the Universal challenged a provision in the contract with Viacom,
Speaker 1: which had been you know, after we had first had
Speaker 1: the people from Madison Store Garden and the paramount and
Speaker 1: so just became Viacom part and they want a contract,
Speaker 1: so they got control of USA at that point in
Speaker 1: time turned around. That was angered Bronford Jr. People were
Speaker 1: stounded that he could win a lawsuit against Viacom at
Speaker 1: the time. Uh. And it turned around the next day
Speaker 1: and sold it to Barry Diller. So that's how it
Speaker 1: came about. There was nothing I could do about that.
Speaker 1: I wanted to bube a company. It was not his choice.
Speaker 1: His choice was to solid to Barry Dealer, so he
Speaker 1: did and that sort of ended, you know, my association
Speaker 1: with the USA Network, which came shortly thereafter. So that's
Speaker 1: are those in the world of business. And I went on,
Speaker 1: you know, to do many other things after that. Well,
Speaker 1: we're glad you did, even though probably at that moment
Speaker 1: it didn't seem like the path you wanted to take.
Speaker 1: I would say for women in business, it was a
Speaker 1: great moment because at that time, after selling USA Networks,
Speaker 1: you pivoted. You were asked to chair the National Women's
Speaker 1: Business Counsel by President Clinton, and from there on you
Speaker 1: have been an incredible proponent for women's entrepreneur a ship
Speaker 1: founding First Springboard Enterprises, so can you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about Springboard Enterprises, its mission and how does
Speaker 1: it work. At that time, it was late into there
Speaker 1: was so much money pouring over the transform and venture
Speaker 1: capital and I didn't really know that much about the
Speaker 1: venture capital market, but I saw all this capital. None
Speaker 1: of it existed when I started Madison, Spare Garden Sports
Speaker 1: and k USA. So I thought to myself, where on
Speaker 1: the women. I looked around. There were no like five
Speaker 1: women maybe five, um that you know, we're in the
Speaker 1: market for venture capital, and I thought, why not? What's
Speaker 1: happening here? We decided we had to go find the women.
Speaker 1: We had to go out and see if they actually existed.
Speaker 1: Uh so that you know, we thought they were ready
Speaker 1: for equity investment like venture investment, and we've been a
Speaker 1: call out. It was just a handful of us just
Speaker 1: called out to our various networks and webout three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty applications and we were overwhelmed. We ultimately selected
Speaker 1: twenty six of those companies to go through our first
Speaker 1: scelerated boot camp, and they presented in January of two thousand.
Speaker 1: The amazing, amazing thing is that twenty two of the
Speaker 1: twenty six of them got funded and we've been doing
Speaker 1: that ever since. A lot of times people think of
Speaker 1: women's entrepreneurship. Well, first of all, we do know that
Speaker 1: women have trouble access in capital and that has been
Speaker 1: something that's plagued women entrepreneurs. But we also know that
Speaker 1: people think about women's businesses often as small. What's your
Speaker 1: reaction to that. Oh, it's like fingernails on the blackboard.
Speaker 1: I cannot stand the words tall and women in the
Speaker 1: same sentence. It is that it's just just a monkey
Speaker 1: on the beasts of women that they've had to carry
Speaker 1: around for so long. And we are about women buildings,
Speaker 1: companies to scale and sustainability. We are about going big.
Speaker 1: We are about creating wealth for women by their own
Speaker 1: work and product that they're deliving into the marketplace. That's
Speaker 1: what's really important. We need women to think big because
Speaker 1: we are able to do this. I know after building
Speaker 1: a company uh to afford and a half billion dollar
Speaker 1: or value, that women can do this. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not impossible. But what women need and what we are
Speaker 1: providing to women is the ecosystem that is supportive. I
Speaker 1: saw that in the first year of sperm Board Enterprises.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just entrepreneurs and funders, investors, it was the
Speaker 1: whole ecosystem. It was the lawyers, the accountants, the business partners,
Speaker 1: the mentors, it was everybody that you needed in the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: That's what we built a Springboard Enterprises, and that's what's
Speaker 1: so important to the entrepreneurs. So many times women have
Speaker 1: come to our accelerator program and in the first day
Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, I have never been in
Speaker 1: a room with so many bright women who are willing
Speaker 1: to share their experiences for my benefit. I'm overwhelmed with this.
Speaker 1: That's the important thing. Another thing that you've done which
Speaker 1: I find amazing because I think you just very well
Speaker 1: dispelled the myth that women businesses are small. That next
Speaker 1: layer of capital as they move into growth and expansion
Speaker 1: capital has also been hard for women to get to.
Speaker 1: Is that why you created Springboard Growth Capital? Well, my
Speaker 1: two partners in on that are in Springboard Growth Capital
Speaker 1: are investing in girlth stage companies generally speaking, and get
Speaker 1: its targeted in the digital consumer space. Uh And largely
Speaker 1: we're looking for the growth capital level of companies that
Speaker 1: are raising twenty million dollars in up We're targeting that
Speaker 1: so that the capital and the growth stages there to
Speaker 1: continue to build and get to profitability and get to
Speaker 1: value for either a M and a sale to a
Speaker 1: strategic or an I PO. So that's where we are
Speaker 1: investing capital at growth capital to bring companies up the
Speaker 1: growth curve, which is very important. You may not know
Speaker 1: this intuitively, but when we started Springboard Enterprises, only about
Speaker 1: one percent of the angel investors or women. Today it's
Speaker 1: about eight percent of the angel investors are wait. So
Speaker 1: capital is around at the early stage levels and a
Speaker 1: lot of women are investing in women led companies. There
Speaker 1: is capital there and it can be accessed, but getting
Speaker 1: up into the next stages of institutional capital and then
Speaker 1: getting up the stack what I call up the stack
Speaker 1: later on as they are growing, it's really important to
Speaker 1: see that capital come in. That's where Springboard Growth Capital
Speaker 1: is focused. Can you give me an example of that. Sure.
Speaker 1: The first company that's remembered Growth Capital invested in was
Speaker 1: The Real Real in two thousand and sixteen. The Real
Speaker 1: Real is the leading company and consignment of luxury goods,
Speaker 1: and we subsequently invested in We've did four rounds of
Speaker 1: investment in the Real Real between two thousand and sixteen
Speaker 1: and two thousand and eighteen. It went public as an
Speaker 1: I p O in June of two thousand nineteen, so
Speaker 1: it's now been a public company for a little over
Speaker 1: a year. It's an amazing story of someone looking at
Speaker 1: a disaggregated marketplace, little consignment shops and neighborhoods in different
Speaker 1: cities and saying, I could make this a much bigger business.
Speaker 1: And that was Julie Waynewright. Julie is a an alum
Speaker 1: of Springboard. She did come through in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight with a different company, but decided that wasn't the
Speaker 1: right way for her to go. She launched this company
Speaker 1: subsequently and has taken in public. So it's one of
Speaker 1: those great stories of entrepreneurs and women who see a
Speaker 1: marketplace and can act on it. And I've had to
Speaker 1: go through and her she would tell you that it
Speaker 1: was very hard to raise capital in the early days
Speaker 1: because guys who comprised over of the until recently or
Speaker 1: of the investors just didn't get it. They didn't I
Speaker 1: been wanting thing to do with the consignment that didn't
Speaker 1: get why it would be a very good market for them.
Speaker 1: And of course the luxury good markets is important. We
Speaker 1: need more women investors, We need more women on the
Speaker 1: investing side. That that will change the equation because when
Speaker 1: a woman is in the investing team at a venture
Speaker 1: capital company, that company is se more likely to invest
Speaker 1: behind a woman entrepreneur than a firm that has no
Speaker 1: women and its investing team. It's a really stark realization
Speaker 1: that we need more women on the investing side makes
Speaker 1: so much sense, right, because you know, women have a
Speaker 1: perspective that they need to share, and I'm a customer
Speaker 1: of the real real I would have totally invested in that.
Speaker 1: One thing that you had also mentioned more on the
Speaker 1: individual investor side is that we need more women investing
Speaker 1: more generally, not just adventure capital, but we need more
Speaker 1: women putting their money to work. Can you talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about the trend of what women
Speaker 1: control in terms of wealth and how much they invest.
Speaker 1: It's such a large figure of the amount of capital
Speaker 1: that women have control of today in the United States,
Speaker 1: twenty two trillion dollars, trillion dollars amazing, and it comes
Speaker 1: from family wealth. It comes from maybe husband's wealth or
Speaker 1: partner's wealth, and also earned wealth with women who are
Speaker 1: building companies of size and scale, so it comes from
Speaker 1: different sources, but that is a movement that is going
Speaker 1: to increase over time because of women living longer than
Speaker 1: men generally speaking in the environment, which has challenges on
Speaker 1: the other end of how much women have saved, but
Speaker 1: actually building wealth. The wealth is even going to accumulate larger,
Speaker 1: So how do you access that is the real question
Speaker 1: and what we need to see are like say, for example,
Speaker 1: family offices, which are becoming a bigger source of capital
Speaker 1: not only for women entrepreneurs, but for men entrepreneurs as well,
Speaker 1: and particularly in companies that have the value of the
Speaker 1: same value structure, the same value focus that they have.
Speaker 1: They're not only putting their money in philanthropy, they're putting
Speaker 1: their money behind and investing in companies that meet the
Speaker 1: same value structure. We need to see more of that
Speaker 1: happening because women actually do have access and control of
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of wealth in this country. We need
Speaker 1: to have them feel comfortable about investing decisions so that
Speaker 1: it is going to take education, and I think it's
Speaker 1: an important one, and I think our entrepreneurs that spring
Speaker 1: are learning the value of investing in other companies that
Speaker 1: are coming behind them. That's really important. Well, hey, we
Speaker 1: are so grateful for everything you're doing, have done, and
Speaker 1: continued to do for the overall communications business, but clearly
Speaker 1: for women entrepreneurs. You're unleashing a whole another generation of
Speaker 1: great companies and we look forward to seeing what Springboard
Speaker 1: Enterprises continues to do. Thank you, and there's a pleasure
Speaker 1: to join you today. Thanks so much, Kim, I want
Speaker 1: to thank you for sharing her incredible experience and insight.
Speaker 1: Three pieces of advice really had an impact on me. First,
Speaker 1: follow your instincts and your vision. As an undergraduate, k
Speaker 1: heard a lecture by science fiction writer Arthur C. Clark.
Speaker 1: It sparked a lifelong interest in satellites that, she says,
Speaker 1: quote wouldn't let her go. That interest allowed her to
Speaker 1: see and sees all the untapped possibilities that cable TV
Speaker 1: could offer. Second, ask why not in the early days
Speaker 1: of TV sports sports were only on the weekends. K
Speaker 1: asked the question why not every night? And the rest
Speaker 1: is TV. His three Finally, think big about your company.
Speaker 1: While entrepreneurship certainly has its ups and downs, and people
Speaker 1: often love to characterize women's businesses as quotes, small case
Speaker 1: career shows us what happens when you think big. Kay
Speaker 1: thought big about satellite technology. She put her ideas to
Speaker 1: the test. Now k is encouraging other women entrepreneurs to
Speaker 1: think big about their own businesses through Springboard Enterprises and
Speaker 1: Springboard Growth Capital. To learn more, go to Springboard Enterprises
Speaker 1: dot org. Made by Women is brought to you by
Speaker 1: the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with
Speaker 1: support from founding partner PNG