Chairman Mom Advance: Call For Underrepresented Founders 📣
By: Sarah Lacy
Tags: Startup, Entrepreneurship, Founders, Women In Tech, Accelerator

We have a core value at Chairman Mom: We don’t want to play nice with the world as it is, we want to remake it so that it’s more fair. And, we believe, if it’s more fair it will also be better for everyone.

Today, we are introducing something that will change the world for 10 founders. But we think the ripple effects will be huge.

Chairman Mom is partnering with Janice Fraser to launch Chairman Mom Advance, a virtual startup accelerator that’s designed specifically to give a leg up to underrepresented founders. In this proven and incredibly powerful 10-week program, we are going to teach you to play to your strengths and be clear-eyed about your weaknesses so you can address them head on. It’s a playbook tailored exactly for you and your startup. Because you are not a young, rich, white dude in a hoodie.

With less than 3% of funding going to women and underrepresented groups, it’s clear that the current playbook isn’t working. We need to play by a different set of rules. Women need to support women, queer folks, and people of color in ways we haven’t before. We need to support underrepresented founders the way white men support other white men, by believing in them when there’s promise but still a world of risk, not once something is already de-risked and a proven success.

The people behind this program are part of that < 3%. We’ve beat the system in our own ways and will help you do the same.

Before I get into the details of what makes our accelerator dramatically different, a word about Janice and Advance.

This accelerator program started life as part of a company called Luxr that Janice co-founded. It was one of the first programs to teach the lean startup methodology and was a darling of many Silicon Valley VCs. You got your seed money, and they told you to call Janice. While running Advance at Luxr, dozens of startups were coached, many going onto huge success. (Like, uh, $15 billion powerhouse Lyft…Heard of ‘em?) It was a pricey program at $10k. But it paid such dividends for startups that Luxr itself was acquired.

Janice then took the program to Seneca VC, where they ran several successful cohorts, including Venus Aerospace, co-founded by Sassie Duggleby. Here’s what she had to say about the program: “We have a second term sheet heading our way from a big-named firm and are about to have our seed round closed, and Advance was instrumental in starting us off right from the beginning of our journey. I’ve met other badass female founders that I talk to regularly because of Seneca. Janice talked me down when I’ve been overwhelmed at this process. Her wisdom, advice, and friendship is invaluable.”

I’ve been chatting with several entrepreneurs who’ve been through her program for weeks, and while each person has a unique story of why Janice was so invaluable to them, every one said the same thing: “You are so lucky she is bringing this program to Chairman Mom.”

Yes. Agreed.

And we’re adding our own power to the program. Last fall an investor said to me, “You complain that we don’t back more women. You must know the best female founders. Introduce us.”

Uh, challenge accepted!

And here’s where it gets really exciting: Not only do we have contacts in the venture world, but Chairman Mom itself is a community of thousands of phenomenal women who want to support other women. So in addition to the usual investor demo day, we’ll be doing a demo day for Chairman Mom users.

The hope? Our community will rally around these 10 startups that we’ve lovingly picked and Janice has worked her magic on for 10 weeks. We can’t all be venture capitalists, but we can all support 10 female founders.

Imagine: What if Janice could coach you, I could introduce you to relevant Silicon Valley folks, and our community could become your market research, your beta testers, maybe even your first 100 customers?

Now that is an unstoppable combination in addition to your brilliant idea and your hustle.

Because if I’ve learned anything as a serial entrepreneur, it’s that underrepresented founders need traction. Traction is the only thing that cuts through the bias and the BS. And if I’m intro’ing VCs to female-founded companies that have been Janice-coached and have real traction from a community of badasses rallying around them? Well, then they are taking those calls all day long.

This is a small corner of entrepreneurship that together we will change, 10 companies at a time. Sometimes real change has to start small and build. As we build a track record — together, this entire community — we will change more lives until we rewrite a pattern and change an industry. Let’s stop waiting on someone else to do it for us. Let’s do this now.

This program is not for everyone. It is highly competitive. It costs $5,000, because we have costs, but also because we want to make sure you have skin in the game on this. If we’re bringing all of our contacts and experience and sweat and tears and tough love to bear, we want to know you are equally committed. Your company has to be at least 51% owned by an underrepresented founder. And you have to have a co-founder. (Janice’s rules! They work, so I’m not messin’ with them!)

Oh, and we are not taking any equity, unlike other accelerators, because we want you to keep all of that. We are here to support you, coach you, advise you, introduce you, and hopefully get you your first customers. But this is your baby and you deserve to get rich when you make it. Just give back to the ecosystem when you do. That’s all we ask.

Help us find the 10 best underrepresented founders in the world for this first cohort, so that we start to build that credibility and that track record. We promise, we’ll do everything in our power to make them a success.

If you are one of those 10 teams we are seeking, apply this second. The program starts February 1st, but we’ll do rolling admissions starting immediately. Don’t let someone else take your slot.