Gender equality through technology entrepreneurship can help solve many of our problems
Israel’s startup scene highlights women’s ability to play an active role in entrepreneurship. Noa Mutzafi’s #FeministFriday post looking back on 2016 describes that strength.
There are significant differences between men and women in Israel, including in the labor market. The table below uses Central Bureau of Statistics data for 2015.
Employment rates for women and men differ substantially across many parts of the Israeli economy, with variations between occupations.
For example, the table shows nearly twice as many male managers as female managers. The pattern was international: women made up about 47% of the workforce in Western countries, but held only about 25% of jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM.
One success story I know firsthand concerns two fascinating women entrepreneurs and their company, StellarNova. They wanted to change that situation and promote educational gender equality by addressing social expectations from an early age.
At a startup, everyone does everything
At the 2016 MassChallenge conference, I met Margot Stern and discovered the brand she had developed with Yael Schuster: Dr. Mom. Yael and Margot formed the company’s team and led a management culture combining outsourced work with internal management, which I will discuss below.
A few months later, I contacted them to learn more about the Kickstarter campaign they had launched. What I found was a wonderful entrepreneurial story guided by fun, and a perfect illustration of the cliché that everyone at a startup does everything.
The sunshine that day was deceptive, and the aroma of maté added to the atmosphere. It came from the table where Margot, Yael, and I sat with a mathematics education specialist from Ecuador who had been accompanying the founders everywhere for weeks.
Their management style begins with smiling and giving to the people around them, with success following afterward. The specialist had asked to join them to learn new approaches to creative teaching and experience Israel’s startup scene.
In return, Margot and Yael were enthusiastically learning mathematics teaching methods from him to incorporate into future products.
The new products formed part of a concept they were building from the ground up: an innovative media company for the 22nd century, combining physical products with brand intellectual property and licensing. This was how they were putting into practice gender equality through entrepreneurship.
A venture with a double bottom line
StellarNova, a name they described as meaning “superstar,” was another Israeli initiative in this field that embodied impact investing.
The founders wanted to build a company with two bottom lines: financial returns and improvements in children’s lives through high-quality, equitable education.
Yael and Margot created a whole world of content around a distinctive experience with physical products. Four different female characters represented personalities that any child could connect with.
They had done an excellent job of segmenting and defining their target audience, a prerequisite for successful physical product development.
They stayed in constant contact with that audience and made substantial user testing an integral part of development.
The aim was fast, useful feedback. In their experience, children reacted most strongly to physical products compared with digital ones, reinforcing my conclusions about the differences between physical and digital products).
Micromanagement or multidisciplinary work? To move forward, they delegate
Their management style used the principles of Lean Startups Cycles, but differed from many other Israeli startups.
Margot and Yael faced a substantial learning curve, even when it slowed them down. They first learned everything themselves, then delegated or outsourced the work.
“We usually work with outside suppliers, such as industrial and graphic designers, who are relatively inexperienced,” Margot explained. “Less experienced suppliers are often more creative, think outside the box, and are much less rigid about how we work and what we ask for.”
To manufacture StellarNova’s physical products, they worked with Israeli intermediaries responsible for finding manufacturers in China. They also used Israeli suppliers they had met through the industrial designer working on the product. Most of the product was Israeli-made.
“One of the biggest lessons from developing and manufacturing our product was discovering very quickly that the costs were about ten times what we originally expected,” Margot said.
Is getting married during a Kickstarter campaign efficient?
Yael and Margot launched their Kickstarter campaign in August 2015 and successfully shipped 300 kits in April 2016, “only” two months later than their target.
“The purpose of our Kickstarter campaign was to validate the feasibility of our product quickly—a proof of concept,” Margot explained.
Their biggest surprise was understanding what a campaign really involves. “It’s like having a baby. You don’t really understand until you have one,” Margot continued.
“Despite all the pressure and warnings about the campaign’s 30 days and the workload, I got married while it was live. Apparently anything is possible,” Yael told me.
Their two main takeaways were familiar lessons for founders who have experienced crowdfunding.
First, calculate and check precisely how campaign revenue will be used, alongside the customer price and product costs. Then calculate and check again.
Second, in the future they would use crowdfunding platforms for publicity and promotion, rather than as a business model expected to generate profits.
“We checked shipping costs in advance and stayed within budget. Israel Post was a pleasant surprise,” Yael said when I asked about the logistics of shipping campaign orders.
They assembled 300 kits in their living room, packing the components from China and Israel, instructions, and stickers with their own hands. It was a genuine lean cycle, and one I believed could help advance gender equality through technology entrepreneurship.
How does a startup scale sales of a physical product?
They continually assessed future sales and distribution options. For example, Amazon Launchpad was an alternative they were seriously considering instead of another crowdfunding campaign.
Amazon Launchpad was then a new Amazon concept for startups selling innovative products: a platform designed to market products to millions of relevant Amazon customers.
Amazon’s platform promised a faster launch through access to its specialists, retention of the startup’s branding, promotional support through Amazon’s internal discovery systems, and access to the customer trust associated with Amazon suppliers.
At the time, I saw it as an interesting potential accelerator for physical product startups and encouraged founders to investigate it.
Contact with the market revealed a possible new profit center
Another business insight came from a reward, or perk, offered during the crowdfunding campaign.
Most crowdfunding campaigns offer different rewards at different prices. One of theirs was a Dr. Mom workshop for corporations, and demand for it was particularly strong.
Yael flew to Facebook’s headquarters in the San Francisco area and ran a workshop on equitable education through science for senior employees and their children.
That strong demand led StellarNova to sell more corporate workshops. They became a significant profit center and slightly changed the company’s business model.
Gender equality through a technology startup, at scale?
The campaign’s lessons helped the founders decide they wanted a business model that was as scalable as possible.
They launched, or planned to launch, new books, stage productions, online video content, T-shirts, and other physical and digital products with high margins and the potential to grow revenue without a comparable increase in resources.
After experimenting and researching how to bring products into the public education system, they also realized that the semi-public education sector was a more practical target because it had greater freedom to make curriculum decisions.
For me, the central point was not simply that two women entrepreneurs demonstrated effective management and achieved results: a successful campaign, shipped products, workshops at major global corporations, and the 2016 MassChallenge Diamond Award, among others.
What was truly impressive and inspiring was the fun that guided their work. This was not just a profit-making company or a venture aimed at a quick exit. They assessed each activity by how much enjoyment it brought. If it was not fun, it did not happen.
We can learn from them how to combine enjoyment with everyday work, make a positive difference, advance gender equality through technology entrepreneurship, and grow a brand from the ground up. We can also hope for a day when equality between women and men reaches every sector of the economy.