Anshika Arora – The founder of Eternity talks about the importance of adaptability, being surrounded by inspirational people, and how to deal with the bad days.
Adaptability, resilience and patience are essential qualities for a female founder. I’m definitely better at the first two as opposed to the latter.
When you keep hearing the same problem time and time again, you understand that there is demand for a product.
My story started when my sister was getting married. We’re a business built to streamline the fragmented wedding industry using event management software. Hearing from my peers and those around me also facing the same problem gave me the push.
I’ve always been surrounded by really inspirational people who have that entrepreneurial spark – my parents, my family, my friends, and then ultimately in my career as well.
Working in private banking for two and a half years with high-net-worth individuals and seeing them go through that journey – from bootstrapping something from scratch through to exit – was extremely inspiring.
You’re going to have your good days and you’re going to have your bad days. For me, when I’m having a bad day, speaking to fellow founders is really what gets me through it.
Make founder friends. Join a community like Female Founders Rise, or just reach out to your network on LinkedIn. It makes such a difference. It can be really reassuring when you’re going through the same problem that someone’s either been through already or is going through. It can also be really motivating seeing a founder who’s had that same issue at one point in their journey, and then made it out the other end.
If you thought you were going to be following path A but something’s not going right then switch to path B sooner rather than later.
Be adaptable. Not just in the business but in the fundraising journey.
The biggest struggle I faced was definitely around fundraising for the business. We got faced with that vicious cycle of “well, where’s your traction?”. But we needed the money to redo the product to get that traction. I’m really lucky with the investors we have on board now because they believed in me and they believed in the vision.
Don’t just treat female founders like a tick box on your diversity metrics. Support and advocate for female founders in the way you would for any founder, whether they are male or female. Both financially and non-financially.
