“Over-mentored, but under-sponsored.”

 –BIG 2018 applicant response to the question “Why are you applying to BIG 2018 Incubator?”

Earlier this year, as I reviewed over 200 applications for our BIG 2018 Incubator, I noticed a theme that I could not ignore. When it comes to their entrepreneurial journey, Black and Latinx women entrepreneurs (BLWE) want more than a periodic coffee chat or email exchange.They are looking for someone to not just tell them to keep knocking on doors, but someone who is willing to take them by the hand, walk them to the doors, show them the keys (and where to find them), unlock the doors, and walk them in.

Mentorship is important, but sponsorship is key.

No place is this more true than in the innovation economy. Black and Latinx women have been an important factor in the growth of the innovation economy. While the rise of technologies like cloud servers, machine learning, and mobile devices reduce the unit economics of entrepreneurship; structural, cultural, and financial barriers limit the participation of BLWEs in the rewards of the innovation economy. Entrepreneurs don’t need a bank loan to start a website. They don’t even need a computer. But they do need training, support and money.

This is where we come in.

digitalundivided (DID), a social enterprise founded in 2013, takes 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 Latinx women founders and their communities. Our theory of change is rooted in the belief that providing innovative women founders from these communities with the training, capital and networks they need to build and scale their businesses, impacts the economic development and growth of their communities and prepares them for professional and personal success.

DID is focused on three primary goals:

1. To develop a vibrant, data-driven ecosystem that tracks, assesses, and expands the current body of data and insights about Black and Latinx women founders.
2. To create Confident Founders who can demonstrate their ability to grow a company, attract customers and investors, and articulate where they are going, what they need to get there, and how they can manage risk.
3. To empower Black and Latinx technology women for career, personal, and life success.

DID uses data from #ProjectDiane, digitalundivided’s on-going research initiative that gathers data on women of color in tech, to take an evidence-based approach to the development of our programs. Surprisingly, prior to #ProjectDiane, much of the research in the tech startup space didn’t include research on women founders, let alone Black and Latinx women CEOs. As a result, most of the data on women of color in tech was anecdotal. Over a six-month time period, DID conducted the primary research necessary to build the largest repository of data on Black and Latinx women startup founders. Analysis of this data continues to uncover alarming statistics that highlight the inequality and lack of opportunities for Black and Latinx women in the startup world.

And as the saying goes: numbers don’t lie.

Women of color, specifically Black and Latinx women, are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States, creating over 80% of the new women-led small businesses since 2007 (AMEX, 2016). Yet, there are only 88 U.S.-based Black women-led tech startups (#ProjectDiane, 2016). These startups represent only 4% of the women-led tech startups (compared with 35% of the U.S. female population) and receive less than .2% of all venture funding (#ProjectDiane, 2016). The average Black woman-led startup raises $36,000, while the average (mostly) white male failed startup raises $1.3 million (CB Insights, 2015).

The good news is that the data is improving. ProjectDiane 2018 will be released this summer, and we’ve found that the number of Black women-led startups that have raised more than $1 million in funding has more than doubled since 2016.

The #ProjectDiane data inspired what’s now our BIG Incubator program (BIG) – a nine-month incubator for high potential Black and Latinx women who are not currently served by traditional (mostly white, mostly male) business incubator and accelerator programming. We recruited our third cohort this spring. Applications were nearly double the previous cohort and graduates have made it to the finalist stage of accelerator and fellowship programs like Techstars, 500 Startups, and Echoing Green.

I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire life (my first business was selling friendship bracelets to classmates after school). It can be tiring, thankless, and filled with moments of doubt. But the work we’re doing at digitalundivided and the success of our cohort graduates gives me hope that women of color with big, bold dreams and innovative ideas are finally becoming a visible and viable part of the innovation pipeline.

I know our work is far from over. But this is bigger than me. And it’s bigger than digitalundivided. If we stay the course at digitalundivided and if we are joined by those who believe in our mission and understand the importance of inclusive entrepreneurship to the economic stability of communities of color, then Black and Latinx women founders can no longer be dismissed, ignored, or overlooked. And anyone who tries will find him or herself on the wrong side of history.

Here's to the future!