I’ve been having issues with a large number of news items related to women lately. From Trump’s obscene comments about women and Kim Kardashian being blamed for her attack in Paris, to female-related news in retail such as the pink tax and the plus-size debate, women just can’t seem to catch a break.
As a woman, it’s distressing for me to see our beliefs, looks and even shopping habits being either ignored or attacked outright.
While mainstream media has done enough coverage on Trump and Kardashian, I’d like to shed some light on female entrepreneurs in retail and the media outlets that are guiding them to bigger opportunities. I recently spoke with Aihui Ong of a cool start-up called Love With Food, and Samantha Skey, CRO of SheKnows Media, about its Pitch program for female entrepreneurs. Ong’s innovative approach to Love With Food resulted in her winning the Pitch program competition and receiving guidance to further grow her business.
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Women helping women succeed in their business ventures, in a world where women still earn about 80 cents for every dollar men earn? Now that’s female-related news I can get behind.
Female Entrepreneurs Gain Strategic Advice Through The Pitch
SheKnows Media started its Pitch program two years ago in an effort to help women looking for advice on launching their businesses.
“We had an amazing opportunity to work in a more strategic way with female entrepreneurs who are coming to us through various channels,” said Skey. “We had a growing group of women looking for advice when they were launching their businesses, such as how to market themselves, gaining consumer insights and help with venture capital. We thought we can organize our efforts to empower female entrepreneurs under a program called ‘The Pitch.’”
Ong founded Love With Food, a big data marketing platform that helps food manufacturers connect with consumers directly through a subscription box service. The service partners with health food companies to send products to consumers who are eager to find out what’s coming out in the market.
The customers then provide feedback through pre-curated multiple choice questions about the products. The companies get insight into what consumers like and dislike, in order to make product improvements or get ideas for future product development.
“Consumers love that their voices are being heard by manufacturers because they’re helping brands understand what goes on inside the minds of consumers and help them form the future of food,” said Ong. “Their feedback helps get actionable insight to help brands improve on their current products.”
Honing The Elevator Pitch
Skey said The Pitch is an umbrella program that allows SheKnows to support female entrepreneurs across a range of businesses, including food products, family and parenting products, and health and beauty. “A problem a lot of women had was how to describe their business in short-form elevator speech, so we work on that first,” she said.
The company works with women on editorial coverage to help them build their brand through its audience of women. SheKnows also hosts a Pitch competition during its BlogHer events, which invites mentor feedback and allows the audience to vote on which company receives a marketing package from SheKnows.
“We look for products and services that were not only relevant to our users but would solve a specific problem,” said Skey. “We look for people who are diverse and represent different backgrounds. We also make sure it is a viable business that provides solutions to a big chunk of our audience. Love With Food has all that.”
Making Mom Understand Your Business Plan
As The Pitch program’s big winner, Ong received invaluable guidance for her business. She shared a major learning point in terms of pitching a business: being very clear in your talking points.
“If you explain it to your mom and she doesn’t understand what you do, then nobody else will,” said Ong. “You have to break it down to really simple terms — everyday terms — to make the business easily digestible and understandable within less than a minute.”
“I think the point of The Pitch is really focused around condensing your company description into a very salient, short, accessible description,” Skey added. “That’s something that we see female entrepreneurs in particular struggle with because they want to be thorough and explain all aspects of their business. That’s hard to do in 30 to 60 seconds.”
Ong concluded our conversation with her own piece of advice for female entrepreneurs:
“At the end of the day, it’s really about grit and perseverance. I always say entrepreneurship is ‘raining sh*t with a chance of sunshine,’ because every day is always a crisis with very, very little good news. It’s like a roller coaster ride. But, at the end of the day, going through that with grit and perseverance to keep on going and believing in your passion is what makes the business that you’re building.”
