Siddhi Mittal – Co-founder of yhangry, on taking risks, believing in yourself and the changes needed to make funding fairer for female founders.
All through my life, I just really wished I could start a company of my own. My dad is a businessman in India. I’ve seen what it’s like to have to really figure out a way to build a livelihood.
At the beginning people will think you’re crazy. Just keep going and knocking on those doors.
Be wildly optimistic. You have to believe, for yourself and everyone else.
You’ll have to do things where most people would probably be very afraid or shy. But just go and ask people those questions and do that stuff that others aren’t willing to do.
When I met my co-founder Heinin on the sales and trading floor, and we had this idea, it just became very obvious that we needed to give it a go in the real world.
People are really nervous when they think of starting a business. The brain starts thinking of everything they’ll have to do in the future.
Break down the problem into really small parts and just tackle one tiny problem one day at a time.
There’s a lot of fear of failing. Can I do it? Should I do it? Do I have enough savings? What if I run out? Once you sort of overcome that and you know you’ll be financially secure for, let’s say, like, a year or two, then it becomes easier.
I’ve had to repeat to myself that it’s okay not to have a pay cheque for a while, and I’ll still be a strong, independent woman.
Female founders still get asked more questions, which casts doubt on their vision or their ability to execute. Being asked a question that asks you to prove yourself or metrics traction versus your male counterparts sort of makes you less confident, and I think that probably then shows itself in less funding for females.
It’s a very weird loop that we all need to really break out of. And I think the beginning of that is just believing that both females and males are able to get the job done.
Ultimately, it’s funding that’s going to change the game.
