Navigating Tech, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership with Cynthia Nelson

(00:00:00) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Leadership isn't just changing. It's evolving in ways we're only just beginning to imagine. And women, we're not playing this game anymore. We're the ones reshaping the entire field, building models, movements, and businesses that serve more than just a few. On the She Leads podcast, you'll hear real conversations with women who've broken through all kinds of barriers, revenue, identity, borders, and expectations. There's no sugar coating here, just the truth told by those who are living it. I'm Adrienne Garland, entrepreneur, strategist, educator, and creator of live experiences, gathering women leaders together for over a decade. And this is the Sheile Leads podcast.

(00:01:00) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Welcome back to the She Leads podcast. (Topic Shift: Introducing the guest) I am so excited to welcome my next guest. Her name is Cynthia Nelson and she is in New York City just like me. She is a strategic growth executive. She is focused on capital mobilization and sustainabilitydriven innovation. Cynthia is an entrepreneurial leader with over 25 years of experience architecting high impact growth strategies at the intersection of sustainability, capital markets, and consumer innovation. She's got a track record spanning startups, global corporations, and family offices. And she's consistently launched and scaled initiatives that bridge industry silos, align mission with market, and mobilize capital to drive meaningful, measurable outcomes. I cannot wait to speak to Cynthia today because we are super focused here now going forward on women that are launching and growing businesses and supporting other women that are launching businesses and growing them past the million-doll mark or more. So, welcome to the Sheile Leads podcast, Cynthia.

(00:01:40) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Thank you so much for having me. I feel really old all of a sudden with all the I've done this, I've done this. It's like I get, you know, it's never it's never the straight line, right? It's always the road less traveled and it's never straight.

(00:01:55) HOST: Adrienne Garland: No. And, you know, with with the years comes wisdom and it's definitely hard one and all of the things that I've mentioned and there's more those are your accomplishments and so many people look up to that and I think it just goes to show the the capacity that women have to to truly make a difference in the world. (Topic Shift: Asking about Cynthia's personal background/journey) So I would love to sort of rewind it back a a little bit and and understand who is Cynthia and how did you get to this illustrious position that you're in today?

(00:02:26) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: So definitely by chance for sure. I'm originally from Southern California and I started in the tech industry. I I thought I was going to be an artist. So I went to school to be a fine art major and realized, wow, there's a lot of people really great. I'm not as good as they are. So I switched to business and this was in the mid 80s and I found myself looking at computers for the first time and got a job as a receptionist at a computer component level repair company. There used to be those companies out there where you take your computer in and you'd get it fixed at the component level versus just getting a new computer which everybody does now, right? So I learned kind of the ins and outs of what that new industry was going to become. So I saw like the first Apples and the first PCs and you know all of that growing and thought wow this is a really interesting industry to be in there was no real background for it because it was so new and I I loved the technology side of it. I ended up growing in that position and being a partner in that position and a co-owner of the company and unfortunately my partner at the time decided to siphon all the money out of the company and send it back to his parents. and and so that didn't work out but it made me really realize that you know it was an early hard lesson but it didn't devastate me, right as it could have as as I got older.

(00:04:29) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: I went into work for Ingram Micro in the sales department so I led big clients like Egghead and CompUSA computer city some of those companies again that that are not like blast from the past again on the resell and distributor side and then moved into the kind of new web internet extranet working for an advertising agency basically out of San Francisco and then repositioned myself in New York as well during a merger and that was fascinating because it was again everybody was now developing websites and internets and extranets and I saw kind of from the beginning how production worked creating these visual displays at that time not even really commerce of what was actually happening. So I found myself again total twist. I had also worked at home shopping network but on the internet side. So it was the first internet shopping network was the first it was the precursor for for eBay and the precursor for Amazon.

(00:05:40) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah that's right. I remember that early days owned by Barry Diller. He was putting money into it. We were in Silicon Valley and I thought this is a such a great idea but it was so early.

(00:05:57) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: It was just really really early. So I got back into advertising and worked on the executive side and strategy for tribal DDB when they had about three or four offices. So they're part of DDB corporate now. They have 500 offices probably at least and saw that whole growth of the traditional advertising agencies having to spawn off internet groups to start to look at this is presocial media.

(00:06:33) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: It just was the internet side again display but now commerce came in. So they were starting to actually sell DTC directly to consumers and that was again really unique and different. I was in New York at the time spending half my time in New York and half my time in Raleigh because I had IBM as a client and I got married and I moved to Miami and my husband was Latino. We'd known each other quite a long time so I understood the culture of a Latin family and when we got divorced in Miami I was thinking okay What am I going to do? Sitting around going to sell this house. I'll have a little bit of capital to sit on. (Topic Shift: Introduction to Todobebe) And someone said, you know, you need to meet this woman. She started this company called Todobebe. And I said, oh, Todo, everything baby. All things baby. That's really interesting. What is it? And I stalked her for probably six months. And set her the tipping point. And she laughed hysterically and said, "You're you're crazy. This is going to take 10 years. The market is not there yet to understand that the Hispanic family and the organic mom is a viable consumer for big clients like Walmart, Clorox, PNG, so on so forth.

(00:07:54) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: And I said, I'm in because you're going to build a media company. So we built a 360 media company all around pregnancy and parenting in Spanish. We were the first ones to do it. We had global infrastructure, content syndication. We were on Telmundo for four years and on Univision for three years. We we produce 52 original EP hourlong episodes a year, which is year in production. production basically every day.

(00:08:31) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Wow.

(00:08:33) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: For that obviously we had the dot side which was all informational. We didn't sell products. We ended up doing radio deals at the very end. We did licensing deals. But we did raise a substantial amount of capital, private equity, but only after we had grown the company for four years and basically taken no salaries.

(00:09:07) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Wow.

(00:09:09) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Which I don't I don't tell any do not recommend that to anyone. But at the time the four of us all women by the way, had the capital and the time to sit on it and be able to grow it out. So, we did our deal. It was a very quick one big wire transfer of $15 million and really no control of the company other than if we wanted to buy something, buy another company for more than a million dollars, we'd have to go to the board and get approval.

(00:09:56) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: But that was a great 10-year ride and we ended up exing the company to a publicly traded company in 2012.

(00:10:10) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Wow.

(00:10:12) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: So, it was a long It felt like dog years sometimes. Not every day is a good day in those 10 years, but I look back and I just realize I look at just the press releases that we did and it was unbelievable. I I I get exhausted. We all talk sometimes. I'm like, I'm just exhausted. I look at these like I can't believe we didn't stop along the way and kind of embrace the success, right? Versus was just go go go go go. That's all we did for 10 years. And I gave up vacation times with friends and didn't do Christmases and didn't do all those things. I would again would not do again. It's not healthy. It does not make you a better executive or in any way, shape or form to miss out on those things and not take some time to yourself.

(00:11:27) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: (Topic Shift: Transitioning to consulting/current work) So those were kind of hard one lessons. And then the last 10 years I've been back in New York and consulting. So I've always had my own entrepreneurial business consulting. So I've done Apple and Amazon and you know Sony Music and Sony Music Latin US and Bose Ventures and work with private equity. I work with foundations. I'm kind of the plugandplay fractional CEO COO. Sometimes I come in and do capital raise as a CFO or chief strategy officer, you know, marketing I'll help them with. So I've been able to kind of spread my wings and touch on a lot of different companies over the last now it's been almost 13 years.

(00:12:08) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Wow.

(00:12:08) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: And it's been really really fun. Challenging at times but also super fun. So I'm I'm you know I'm blessed and happy and you know excited that I can do what I want to do. I work at home most of the time. Don't always go into an office with other people. I'm perfectly content.

(00:12:28) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Oh my gosh, your journey is so incredible and I think it just speaks to, you know, pivoting, changing, and all along the way picking up a variety of different skills that you sort of put in that skill backpack in order to help what's next.

(00:12:50) HOST: Adrienne Garland: And everything that you've just spoken about just really reminds me of the growth mindset, the entrepreneurial mindset, the ability to not only spot opportunities but then you know take those opportunities and execute on them to really create value and I'm I'm sort of curious you know actually if you think about it yeah your artistry has has just transformed from fine art into creating and building something that in a different category, but it's art nonetheless. So, I hope I hope that that you recognize that as such because that's not always, you know, talked about.

(00:13:46) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: I don't think about it in that way, but I think about it in the way that I was always curious.

(00:13:52) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yes.

(00:13:53) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Intentionally curious. And and by the way, I dropped out of college after three years because I started in this entrepreneurial kind of journey before entrepreneurs were entrepreneurs. There was no name for it. My parents were just like, "You're a college dropout. That's not what we wanted. not really happy with me whatsoever.

(00:14:15) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah,

(00:14:16) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: now it's cool. But, you know, it was it was definitely not cool. And I always had the ability, I think, to kind of raise my hand and say, "I'll do it." Like, I'll even at Ingram when I was in my like mid 20s, 20, 27, 28, I was known for the one who would go to the executive office because they would ask questions and who's going to work on this really weird project? And I was always like, "Oh, I'll I'll do it. I don't care. Right.

(00:14:55) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: And they and they gave me enough rope to hang myself. And I've thanked them for that. And they said, "Yeah, you didn't quite hang yourself, but there were a couple times you were getting out in the in the curves." And I'm like, I know, but thank you because you allowed me to grow and make mistakes and was I was supported along the way and I got great exposure not only to the executive suite there, which many people did not get. I mean, it's a company of 10,000 people. Yeah. Globally, but also to learn from really amazing people. I had a CTO that said, "I work for you.

(00:15:37) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: You don't work for me. I actually work for you. You're working on the Egghead account. It's $8 million now. What do we need to do?" And I said, "Well, they want these interesting EDI transactions that are custom." He said, "No problem. We'll make them custom." We went from $8 million a year to $90 million a year the following year just because we did that. And the CEO thought I was some brilliant person. I'm like, "No, the CTO did this for me." For me and he's like, I work for you.

(00:16:17) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Gosh.

(00:16:17) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: And I that's like the attitude of technology that I've tried to hire along the way as well because it's not always like that.

(00:16:30) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:16:30) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Tech companies, tech people can seem to think that they know everything and they build against what they believe and not really what sales or customers want and it's always a fatal flaw.

(00:16:47) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yes.

(00:16:48) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: I've seen it over and over and over.

(00:16:49) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yes.

(00:16:50) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: And sales really is the front line. for what customers actually really need. Not the tech technology is just the engine that drives it. It has to do what the customer wants. It doesn't need everything in it. It needs everything that's in it to work perfectly.

(00:17:15) HOST: Adrienne Garland: (Topic Shift: Importance of Customer Interviews) So, I teach entrepreneurship NYU and at Rice University and a key component of what we teach is customer interviews and really deeply understanding the customer because everybody falls in love with their brilliant idea.

(00:17:34) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Oh, always, always. The baby is ugly sometimes.

(00:17:38) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yes. And yet it is something that many entrepreneurs skip over or think that they know better or that they're the, you know, the focus group of of one. Yeah. When a company is in in a place where they might be struggling to get to the next level or they're looking to, you know, make a bigger impact or maybe enter a a new market.

(00:18:18) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Going out and talking to customers that might not be your customers yet, your ideal customer. Can you give just some advice on what are some really great ways to do that to to to be able to step outside of your your mind, yourself, your the love for what it is that you're doing and truly listen to what your potential customers are looking for.

(00:18:41) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: I mean, I definitely I'd go back to Todobebe in a way because we we had a database of probably 500,000 parents, moms mostly in the database and we intently listened to things that they were talking about. These were chat rooms by the you know by the way and email forums and we would intently listen to what they were talking about and and wanting to understand and to know and that became content creation for the show for all the programming. We could probably decorate the inside of a house, wallpaper it with that many s and it kept us going also because they would send in thank you so much I didn't really know I I shouldn't hit my kid but my mom hit me but now I realize there's a whole another way of this sit you know dealing with this particular situation or whatever it happened to be or now I know how to get my husband more involved with raising the baby which I didn't really understand before because my dad wasn't involved at all but the the type of listing that we did and we did a lot of research with that database as as well. You know, you get pregnant, you're having a baby, everything changes.

(00:20:36) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:20:36) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Everything is new. So, the kind of car you drive, what insurance that you need, what you're buying at the store, it's kind of the first time you think about the food you're putting in your mouth, your nutrition, their nutrition, like everything changes and they become big questions. So, I think that was a a great lesson in really listening to your customer and understanding how they were even evolving over those 10 years in order to create and continue to create content that was educational but entertaining at the same time.

(00:21:28) HOST: Adrienne Garland: (Topic Shift: Questioning the initial belief in Todobebe's potential) How did you how did you sort of know and maybe you didn't know but how did you know that this would be such a big opportunity and not not only from an exit perspective but from just a sheer value creation perspective with this growing audience of Hispanic consumers. How did how did you know that that you should spend your time and and not take a salary for all of that time? What what inside of you said this is worth my time?

(00:22:10) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Well, I had married the mob. Remember, I had already been married to a Latina. So, I understood really well the family dynamic and I also understood the matriarchal tendencies of a Latino family. And I understood that if you go on any given Saturday to someone's house, there's a party happening. It's huge. And they spend. And they also collectively spend. So the family goes shopping together. Go to a Walmart parking lot in Doral in Miami and Dal on or Houston or San Antonio on any given Saturday and you'll see an entire family shopping together. So there's a collective buying power. that happens. And I knew that there was also nothing out like that. I mean, What to Expect When You're Expecting had been out for many, many years as a book, but never written from a Hispanic perspective, Latina. So, we actually published a book art, one of our co-founders, Janette Kaplan, who's a amazing journalist, English, Spanish, and a great I'd say not even influencer talent at this point, wrote a book from a parent, from a Latina mom's perspective about, you know, everything you want. know, you know, about raising your child from her perspective as a Latina American and it was really groundbreaking and the type of content that we had and originally, you know, the heads of Telmundo and NBC thought, "Oh, this is really great. No one's ever going to watch this. They don't really care that much." We're like, "Okay, that's great. We'll just go buy spots in all the local major stations and we're going to do this anyway." Because we already had the show before we got funding. We had already funded the show and episodes and already had clients. like at that time AOL and we had Ford Motor and three or four other big clients.

(00:25:19) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:25:20) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: So they were funding the paying for the show basically. And as soon as we did that they thought wait a minute you can't do that. We're going to take you to the upfronts. We're going to make this a weekly show on Saturdays which is a kind of a dead time anyway. Yeah. Saturday mornings besides cartoons. So it was a Saturday morning show. (Topic Shift: Summary of skills learned/groundbreaking nature) But I saw that a I didn't know anything about content production like that. television production at scale. Yeah. Or production budgets or filming. I didn't know anything about radio radio syndication. I didn't know anything about product licensing. I didn't know anything about scaling large events in Walmart parking lots and then doing virtual events at scale. So, all of those things were new opportunities to break ground and to be the first. And it's not always easy, but our clients bought 100% of our inventory every single year. Walmart, PNG, Clorox, you know, Disney, all of them bought out all their competitors. They bought every piece of inventory we had available. We were sold out every year because it was the only place you could get that content and organically integrate their brands into storyline opportunities.

(00:27:32) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: So, that's a lot of It's a lot of work.

(00:27:35) HOST: Adrienne Garland: That is a lot of work. It's absolutely incredible. And what what do you think gave you the you you you have confidence, but it's so much more than that because it just speaking to you, your confidence comes from curiosity. It It's almost like confidence doesn't even factor into it because you're just looking to sort of explore, to learn, to to see if something is possible. And I I think that's an incredible characteristic. (Topic Shift: Confidence vs. Curiosity for women entrepreneurs) So, Many women get in their own way with the idea of feeling like they need to know it all in order to progress.

(00:28:44) HOST: Adrienne Garland: What What do you think sort of made you like you are? And how can more women sort of lean into the curiosity to just obscure anything having to do with confidence?

(00:28:57) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: I had nothing to lose. I always felt like I had to work because I had dropped out of college. I always felt like I had to work harder than everybody else. It was that feeling of I'm not quite good enough. That drove me to take on new challenges and learn new things faster and better than anybody else was doing it. So, it was that part of that drive for a long time that drove me and then I realized, yeah, that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

(00:29:41) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:29:42) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Because I didn't have the walls around me of you've gone to school to do these things. And if you don't do those things, you failed because you just spent four years or six years or got an MBA and did and I was talking to one of our lawyers at Wilson Sonsini with a client the other day and he's like every time you come you have everything lined up. It's already like legal ready. Were you a lawyer? I'm like no I just played one on TV. I said I've done like a thousand contracts so I understand what needs to be in them. But that's not because I went to law school but because I've done had to do so many and execute so many contracts. It's just out of pure requirement and in a startup as a COO I did everything you know I had technology marketing research sales our digital teams everything was under me with the exception of finance which I co-shared with my CEO and production which was under our chief creative officer.

(00:31:07) HOST: Adrienne Garland: (Topic Shift: Discussing Cynthia's current podcasts) amazing so now you have two podcasts right?

(00:31:12) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: and I do and you speak to women about their their journeys and just the the important things that they have to say. So, we're on the same page with making sure that we're sharing women's stories. It it's it's almost like we everybody must do this because we're so under represented. Can you talk a little bit about why you decided to start these podcasts and also how you help women to launch and and grow successful ventures? Sure. So, the first podcast, let's talk about was launched almost two years ago. at actually just out of curiosity from my perspective on video commerce because it was becoming such a big thing and having been in commerce for so long, seeing this new kind of explosion happening in China first and then moving to the US, I just started calling all the company CEOs that were running these companies, you know, Bamboozer and and Talk Shop Live and Fuse Fireworks or Firework and started calling and saying, "Hey, I'd like to interview you. I'm doing this podcast on video commerce. I want to get your perspective on what's happening, how the US audience differs." It was out of real curiosity and clients were asking about video commerce. So, I wanted to become more educated about it and and get the right people on the show. So, the first probably of the 80 or so episodes on that, the first 20 are all about video commerce. And then I started looking at, well, what are marketing people saying? Like, how is marketing changing? How is digital change? How is the creator economy changing? What we're actually doing, going out and looking for. So now it I get a flood of emails a week from people all over the world who want to be on the show. So I don't ever have to go out and search for people. I now I just have to sort through them and and say that's really not for the podcast.

(00:33:46) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: But the other one and then the other podcast, The Innovators, is 50 badass women, 50 episodes. And that's just it was Christmas vacation last year. and I said, "No one's doing this." And this is kind of my love letter to all of my executive friends and their friends and other people that I meet. So that's one how that one actually started as well. And that was just again my love letter to women to continue to support and promote women of all different generations and you know individuals who've done you know who've been in foundations forever, started at Sesame Street, who started multicultural companies who we companies, like you name it, they're kind of in the podcast and it's fascinating because I learn something every single time and we can share that struggle, but also I want to reward them and and put joy into the life of other women who are doing things like this and make sure that we're heard and because I had so much going with the other podcasts and and quite a big following that organically grew on LinkedIn, I have a voice to tell those stories.

(00:35:16) HOST: Adrienne Garland: I I love that so much. And what a brilliant strategy for everybody who's listening in. It's, you know, we talked about customer interviewing. Really getting to know your customer. Inviting them on to a podcast and having an indepth conversation for 35 minutes or more is an excellent way to truly understand your customer if you know how to ask the the right questions. So, you know, Sometimes people are starting podcasts so that they can get however many thousands millions of of listeners.

(00:36:01) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:36:02) HOST: Adrienne Garland: You can use podcast podcasts and the podcast strategy strategically in order to literally grow your business. It's brilliant.

(00:36:17) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Yeah, I I definitely used it with the first podcast and then I wrote a a book, an ebook and then a second chapter of the ebook on video commerce as well during that time period and definitely propelled my LinkedIn profile dramatically and organically it grows. I mean 200 300 a month whatever it's doing now not really watching as much but it grows just as people watch those those pieces of content and then being able to take as I video it and also audio it so I take the videos and I drop them into opus clip and I clip a bunch of clips so that I can replay them and I always send them the full file if they want to do that as well. So They're taking clips and using them for promotion for themselves and like look this is a great area. You said something really amazing here. You should use this in on your profile to tell people how smart you are and to get more business. So I always encourage them to go off and do the same thing with it.

(00:37:40) HOST: Adrienne Garland: (Topic Shift: Challenges women face scaling businesses) Oh, I love it. I just love it so much. So how are you helping women today to grow and scale their businesses and and with that what are the major challenges that you see women face and Maybe we can talk about early on when they're launching their companies and then when they're approaching, you know, getting over those hurdles and the hurdles are the, you know, 250,000 in revenue, 500,000, then a million. What are what are the challenges that that women in particular are facing at those different revenue marks?

(00:38:43) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: They don't always have the group around them, you know, a support group that actually not just loves them, but will say the baby's ugly and that business model is not going to work.

(00:39:00) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:39:01) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: That's That's a big one at the beginning because again you fall in love with it. You think it's great. I my door is always open. So I get calls from friends that say, "Hey, she started this little company with lotions and potions in Brooklyn and you know she doesn't have a business plan." I'm like, "It's okay. You don't need to write a long one, but you need to kind of know where you're at, where you're going, what the competition is doing." So I try to give them advice or documents or contracts or, you know, anything that I have in my arsenal, I always provide.

(00:39:51) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: But think it's at the beginning stages when you don't have that team around you and I don't mean hired team I mean team that's going to shoot your ideas down and make you rethink them I think it's really critical you can have a vision and being able to drive the vision forward for years and years and years and being able to sustain yourself for those years is that's when everybody drops off.

(00:40:27) HOST: Adrienne Garland: yeah

(00:40:28) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: they go for the first couple years I mean I've had friends leave corporate, want to be consultants. And I'm like, yes, you have to go out and get the business, and then you have to do the business, and you have to go out and get more business to do the business. That's actually what what it is. Yeah. You know, AI can do some things for you now. But it does not replace the work that you're going to need to do. And if you're not ready for that kind of lifestyle, don't get into it, right? Go back to a corporation. If you need health insurance and you need you have kids that are going to college, what? Fine. There's no shame in that. There's no shame in that I'm getting a paycheck. Just know that this type of lifestyle over here is going to be very different in starting a business and you won't have those safety nets, so to speak.

(00:41:45) HOST: Adrienne Garland: (Topic Shift: Struggles for women raising capital) Yeah.

(00:41:47) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: I also go to women in VC and try to attend meetings. I'm doing one today, Fabric VC, which is out of LA, but they're in New York as well.

(00:42:01) HOST: Adrienne Garland: An event for women founders and women funders.

(00:42:03) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Yes. To talk about what's happening in the market, who's getting funded right now. It's been an incredible struggle for the last year at least. I mean, it's always been a struggle for women. We're getting like 3% right of of the money that's out there. It's always been an incredible struggle no matter what. But now it's even worse. And the amount of, you know, investors are nervous.

(00:42:50) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah,

(00:42:51) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: investors are nervous. The market's jittery, political, you know, geopolitics, I mean, you name it. There's a whole host of things that are happening. Pulling back on DE&I, which I think is incredibly stupid. But, you know, there's all of that happening at the same time and cutting through that. You already had to cut through being a female entrepreneur, trying to, you know, raise capital and grow a business and convince people. And the types of things that I've experienced and I've heard from other women is still appalling.

(00:43:51) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:43:52) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: You know, you're pregnant. Really? Could you could you run a business and be pregnant? And the woman's like, I have I raised three kids in a restaurant. Do you know what that actually is like? Like a restaurant business is 24/7. Yes, I can do that. Yes, I can do this. Or you're too pretty to want to raise capital. It's like, yeah, yeah, no. I mean, like just, you know, nuts, nuts stuff, but stuff that still happens. And I always tell them, you're interviewing them. First of all, do your homework when you're looking for capital. No matter if it's angel capital and if you start to get into the VC world, very different. Know your audience. Know what they're looking for. Know what they've invested in. Understand your business inside and out. Know your CAC. Know your LTV. You know, know how you're going to grow. Not everything is the next Amazon or the next Uber or the next and that's okay, too. But I see a lot of great investments going into health tech.

(00:45:15) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:45:15) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: And women's health tech, which I think is phenomenal.

(00:45:22) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah, that is definitely a big area.

(00:45:24) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: It's it's a really big area now. And AIA Ventures is another one that I work with.

(00:45:34) HOST: Adrienne Garland: AIA. Yeah.

(00:45:35) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: That I've done scoring, you know, in the scoring system done scoring for a bunch of them and a lot of them I've seen over the last four years since I've been doing it, a lot of it's turned to health tech, which is not my background, but then I just go ask people that are smarter than me in that area like what, you know, what do you think of this. (Topic Shift: Women becoming investors) good strategy? More and more women are becoming investors in order to I don't know if it's even out, but in order to sort of give back in that way. So women that have come through corporate, women that have had successful exits, they are becoming angel investors and even venture capitalists on their own. Do you see a a difference? And and I'm sort of surrounded by that world because I try to curate my social media feed to make sure that I'm there. And so it seems like everybody is every woman is becoming an angel investor, venture capital capitalist, but I also know that that's not really true.

(00:46:51) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:46:53) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: So, some of the women that are becoming investors of their own, do you see them investing in different areas than traditional angels and and venture capitalists or are they sort of following the same playbook? I think I do think they will look at other ventures but with the same critical eye that they would do in traditional investing. There's a woman out of Aandra out of LA or Orange County that created a company OIA Ventures that really taught women how to invest.

(00:47:40) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:47:41) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Versus just, hey, let's put our money together and let's go out invest in these these early stage, you know, very angel early stage. There's actually a whole teaching about how to invest, why you invest, what you can expect, and if you can't lose, then don't get into this because these are very risky, you know, early stage. Investing is extremely risky and it can go one way or the other. You don't have to invest a lot to make an impact and I think you learn a lot by investing. I don't see as many women who have really had an ex big exit go back into investing. I mean it does happen not usually they'll go back and create another company not always going back into investing or maybe they're doing some angel investing. There aren't enough out there for sure. And I think they also feel like it's kind of a maybe a scary proposition putting their money into something they're not exactly sure. Again, they don't have the education going into it of what it should be. If you've been on the other side of investing where you've been invested in, you also know the pitfalls, which I think makes your advice and advice much more valuable to other women who are starting companies because again, your interviewing them as much as they're interviewing you. And if you don't like what you hear, you have every right to walk out. Just be like, "No, you're not listening. You're on your phone. You don't give a s***. I'm out of here."

(00:50:23) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:50:24) HOST: Adrienne Garland: You know, I don't Yeah. This is not for me. I don't want to waste any more of your time. I We'll just leave. (Topic Shift: Funding vs. Self-funding through revenue growth) Yeah. It's I often wonder if it's worth I mean, it really depends on what your venture is, but I wonder sometimes if it's worth spending the time going out and seeking funding or if that time is better spent in your business funding yourself via revenue growth.

(00:50:56) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Yeah, I think that it it's changed so much. It used to be all about growth, growth, growth and no meta and now it's the opposite.

(00:51:11) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah,

(00:51:12) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: it's people want to see actual MR, you know, they really want to see that the business has some traction and they want to know you have skin in the game. There's no more walking in and getting a check and not having your own skin in the game or safe notes from friends and family. It just doesn't it's not happening anymore. There could be a potential unicorn out there doing it, but it doesn't it doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned.

(00:51:50) HOST: Adrienne Garland: (Topic Shift: Post-exit focus/Impact Investing) Interesting. And one final question. I I feel like I could talk to you forever, but I'm I'm wondering out of the women that you see that are, you know, successful, they they've had an exit, they're, you know, they're they're making a solid hefty profit in their business and you know they they've sort of got the systems down, they know how to scale, that they know how to run their business.

(00:52:43) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Where do you see women sort of turning their attention toward when they get to that point in their business and in their lives? And that could be anything. It could be business. It could be personal. I'm just kind of curious what you know some of the women that you're you're talking to and and working with, what are the things that they're starting to think about at that stage?

(00:53:05) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: I think it becomes a little bit different as you get older as well. The impact that you can make. I think now people are looking towards not so much foundations maybe but some of that but some of it more impactful. What am I investing in that's actually making a difference and making the world a better place not polyiana but like what are the new technologies out there that are going to make the world a better place that are going to change you know help change climate you know help reduce emissions bring healthare to women to a better level for so all women have the right kind of health care. They they start to look at things that are impactful that they didn't have versus when they were running and driving a business. But once a entrepreneur always an entrepreneur they always end up saying I'm never going to do this again and then they always end up doing it again.

(00:54:26) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Right.

(00:54:27) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Almost almost always.

(00:54:30) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. Sarah Blakeley is a good example of that too. I never thought she she would do anything else and I guess Yeah. You just you can't you can't help yourself. You're a builder.

(00:54:47) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: You're you're a builder and an operator and a grower. And some people like it at the beginning. They get it to a certain level and then they're like, I don't I don't have the skill set and I don't want to have the skill set to continue to, you know, take something public or sure, you know, get around be in there and you're just you're not the right person also to run a much bigger company. You don't have that experience a lot of times and growing into that can be extremely painful. We've seen it over and over and over and it's to me it's kind of crazy that You always see these bad stories of The Wing or you know the like the or Outdoor Voices or you know she was like 20 these people were really young when they were doing this and everybody there were the prized you know unicorn and then something went wrong and then they were you know shunned and fired out of their own companies and you know and they learned a lot from that. We don't hear about the guys who get these massive checks blow all the money and then go out and raised another $350 million, but like you did this already and it didn't work out at all for anybody, but we're willing to give you more money to potentially go do that again. I don't understand that. Yet the women get get villainized.

(00:56:19) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yep.

(00:56:20) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: In the press for making mistakes and and yet they spent the money the right way. In fact, they always spend less. Yep. They're always more on budget. Yep. They return the returns are higher. to investors in any kind of exit. So it doesn't make a lot of sense until until more women are in really big positions at VC firms and at big investment firms where they are not afraid of investing in women's companies and taking a stand that this is a good investment. It's not a women's investment. It's a good investment.

(00:57:22) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah.

(00:57:23) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: A lot of times that happens too where like yeah if it doesn't work I'm on the partner track and you know it might not work out for me if this doesn't work. So I got to stick with what know, which is what all the guys are doing over here.

(00:57:39) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Pattern matching. Yeah.

(00:57:43) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Pattern matching happens in Silicon Valley all the time.

(00:57:48) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. Yeah. All the time. Yeah. That Yeah. And I don't think that, you know, that any of the challenges are going away. So, we just need to make sure that we're making smart decisions, that we're starting and growing businesses that we feel like we can sort of grow on our own and, you know, get advisors around us that can can help us to achieve what we we are setting out to do.

(00:58:24) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: And I think most women are good adviserss. They will give advice. You you know reach out to anybody on LinkedIn or ask anybody. I would say 99% of the women who have had any kind of success at all are more than willing to take the phone call and give you give you a half an hour of their time, you know, for advice. I I think it's it's our job to do that. I think women are just we're kind of just built that way anyway.

(00:59:02) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Yeah. We're is better.

(00:59:03) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Let's say it. We all go to the bathroom together, so we might as well give each other advice on everything else anyway because it's I think it's just part of our nature.

(00:59:16) HOST: Adrienne Garland: (Topic Shift: Contact Information) Agreed. Agreed. Cynthia, how can people get in touch with you if they if they want to ask you a question?

(00:59:23) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: Oh, you know, LinkedIn is probably the best way to get a hold of me. My email address is in there and you can, you know, click on my website as well instead of contact form, but my LinkedIn is the easiest way to get me. I'm on it all the time. I look at it and I I try to respond to messages there as well as much as I possibly can. But, you know, if you have any questions, just drop a DM in there or if there's a post that you like, drop a DM in there. Give me your information and I'll get back to you as fast as I can.

(01:00:23) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for spending your time with me here today and giving me all of your advice and your journey is so so impressive and interesting. And we'll be sure to put all of the links to the podcast and and all of that in the show notes. And thank you so much, Cynthia.

(01:00:46) GUEST: Cynthia Nelson: No, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Great show.

(01:00:50) HOST: Adrienne Garland: Thank you. (Topic Shift: Host sign-off/Call to Action) If this conversation moved you, inspired you, or made you think differently, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's not just about boosting the show. It's about amplifying the voices of women entrepreneurs who are leading with vision, building with purpose, and sh escaping what's next. We need more of these conversations in the world right now, don't you think? And if someone came to mind while you were listening, someone who matters to you, send this episode to them. If there's something on your mind about leadership, legacy, or what's next, I want to hear it. Head to sheleadsia.com/voice and leave a voice memo or note. Your insight might just help shape a future episode. Make sure to follow the show and come back next week for more conversations. you won't hear anywhere else. Thank Thank you so much for listening. This is the Sheile Leads Podcast Network.