Last week, I got to dive deep on a favorite topic at Women + Tech in the Atlanta Tech Village —> building BIG companies!

We talked about:

• What “big” means
• Why it matters
• How you actually do it
• And —**BONUS** — the 2 secrets that make all the difference

Here’s the FULL SLIDE DECK with a bulleted summary below.

The only thing missing are my awesome jokes (LOLZ) and the great audience questions.

You have to be in-person for those! 😂

GO BIG: The What, Why, and How of Building a Billion Dollar Business

The Ah-Ha → Think Bigger!

• Where are all the women (in VC and large startups)??
• Many social, external things holding women back
• Within our control? More women thinking big!
• Look in the mirror → I need to think bigger too.
• BHAG set: 10 female-founded unicorns in the Southeast in the next 10 years

The What → Unicorns

• $1B valuation
• $100M ARR
• ~10 years to build
• 500-1000 employees
• 10% employee option pool
• 10% - 75% owned by the founder (depending on funding rounds)

The Why → Huge Impact

• $100M to employees
• $100M - $750M to you (founder)
• Help thousands/millions of customers
• Make the world better
• Be an example, open doors for others
• Generational wealth, philanthropy, investor

The SECRET → Bigger Is Not Harder

• It’s hard to build a small company too. (Ask any entrepreneur!)
• Building a big company is not 10-1000x harder.
• But the impact is 10-1000x bigger.

P.S. Women do tons of hard stuff all the time!

The HOW → Big Market, Start Small

1. Pick a BIG market

• Small but growing. Think billions + trillions!
• Software has great margins + scale.
• Competition is good.
• Small slice of a big pie.
• Be in the path to revenue.

BIG Market Examples: aging in place (and more here), robotics, creator economy, healthy fast food, carbon tracking

2. Start SMALL

• Read “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzgerald
• DO NOT build tech to start!!!!!!
• Follow the money.
• Look for authentic demand.

3. Start a Tech Company…Without Tech

• Social post (Greenzie)
• Waitlist sign up (Atlanta Ventures Studio)
• Community of target users (Salesloft)
• Manually solve it (Carpool Logistics, AdPipe)
• Consulting (Unboxt, Zinnia)
• Customers pay upfront

Spoiler Alert: You can learn tech or find a co-founder! Many tech founders and CEOs are not engineers.

THE HOW → 10 Tips To Raise Money

1. WATCH: The real reason female entrepreneurs get less funding (Dana Kanze)
2. Talk about The Money
3. Show **real** customer traction (not pipeline or hypotheticals)
4. Know your metrics & industry metrics
5. Go to Pitch Practice → pitchpractice.co
6. Prep for Q&A
7. Pitch your worst first
8. Lines not dots
9. Who has $$ that cares about this problem?
10. HAVE YOUR CUSTOMERS PAY YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE HOW → Unicorn Founder Traits

• Learning - grow as your company grows
• Selling - sell to customers, investors, employees, future employees. You cannot outsource this! But you can learn it.
• Resilience - successful founders leave high paying jobs (and don’t go back 😜)
• Authenticity - do it in your own style, lean into your strengths
• BIG MARKETS! - great people who pick small ideas don’t build unicorns

THE (other) SECRET → Everyone Has Doubts

They seem wildly confident but even the most successful founders have doubts.

• “I got lucky.”
• “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
• “We’re making it up as we go.”
• “I hate public speaking.”

They do it anyway.

So can you!

What other advice do you have for building big???

If you attended, what was your favorite takeaway? Any that I didn’t mention in the recap?

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