Moment 152: The Top 4 Most Successful Stories From Women in Business!

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0:33I think it brings me on to a wider point about... And as you say, the reason why you're in Saudi is this battle that I know you've had through your career with men kind of underestimating your sexism, which I guess started when you first got the job at Birmingham. Yeah, I mean, I remember my first away game. I think it was Watford. And I turned up and I saw how could you tell me where the boardroom is. And this little boy little steward on the desk, he went, oh, director's wives over there. And I saw this interesting, but where is the boardroom? And he said, dear, you don't understand the director's wives go in the latest room.

1:07And I said, no, I don't think it's you, understands. I am the managing director, so I wouldn't know where the boardroom is. And this little boy put his little glasses on, he went, oh, yes, he said, yes. You're that woman. Stay here and I'll find out what to do with you. Because there were no other women in football. So there was never a woman in the boardroom and women weren't, you know, weren't welcome in boardrooms. Because it was meant to be the place where the directors or men, of course, they were all men. And I remember thinking that it was the very first door I'd kicked down. And I was determined that I would keep that door open as wide and as long as possible to get as many other women through as possible.

1:46And that is something I've spent my last 30 years doing. It's really important to me. It's really important that there is a sense of equality and equal play and equal respect for everything that you do regardless of where you're from, what sex you are, what your beliefs are, how you look, where you're educated. Equality is very important to me. Why do you think it's so important to you in particular? I think because, look, at 23, I was given the challenge and chance of a lifetime and I took that. And I knew that that started with someone having trust in me. And I knew that there were so many talented people out there that didn't have someone that had that trust in them.

2:32And I wanted to be that person. Going back to the question which I kind of took us off an tangent away from about why you think Bumble 1 or was successful was able to break through into that very small category of dating apps or dating sites where there's really only like a handful of real players. Why? Why? Because I know, you know, I have to say something. I know that the other dating apps, because I was sometimes in the room, tried to launch a dating apps of themselves. So they took their existing network, they tried to launch a new dating app into it and they didn't work. I've seen it happen over and over again.

3:09I know Michelle from peanuts. She's one of the people who used to work with them when we were doing the marketing at Purdue. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, I think what she's done is awesome. Yeah, I love peanut. It's great. But I know it's not easy. And I know it's not chance. I know it's not luck because I've seen I can't tell you at social chain how many times we had dating dating apps come to us and say can you do our marketing maybe 200 times. There's 5000 dating apps in the app store. It's impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible to start anyone because of the network effects and all of those things.

3:41It's impossible. Impossible. So why you how you how?

3:51Every other dating product until Bumble had been solving for the wrong side of the coin. They've been thinking about men. That's all. They woke up in the morning and thought about how to make a dating app good for guys. And they had it backwards. Why are you solving for men when this is all about what women need? And what women want? No one was asking women. You think women want to get abused on the internet. Think again. Like find me a woman that enjoys being harassed on a dating app. Not one. But for some reason that problem didn't strike anyone as a problem. So it's not that hard to say, wait a second.

4:34This is a double sided marketplace. This product can't survive without women yet. We're exploiting and degrading women on a lot of these products not naming any names. What? And so for me, it was all about taking that original concept of mercy, a kind space for women, a safe space for women. And to Andre's push, got to give him some credit for being so interested in dating. I was so turned off of dating. I wanted nothing to do with dating. When Andre was like, oh, let's do a dating. Come be my CM. I was a first of all, I'm not for hire. I'm starting my own company. I must be founder and CEO of whatever I do next.

5:16I cannot work for someone. I just I have to be my own boss. And you know, I got to give him a lot of credit because he trusted that. And he said, okay, do whatever you want to do. But it just my once depulation is has to be dating because I know dating. And I want to get behind a dating product. So when I was sitting there, you know, we were we kind of agreed to, okay, we're going to do this dating app. What's going to be? What about mercy? I want it to be mercy. I want it to be about women. And I want to be women only I want it safety and kindness and accountability. There's no internet spaces for women.

5:51Nothing's been built for women. We have to do this for women. And then it kind of just all clicked. And I sat there and within literally minutes it all just wrote itself. I said, wait a second. I know the problem. Women don't go first men do men message as many women as they can. Women are getting in and dated. They never respond. The lack of responses causing a rejection. And the rejection is triggering aggression. And that aggression is now translating into. And this is why women are being abused on the dating apps because if only they would go first. The man wouldn't feel rejected. They'd feel empowered.

6:37It would totally calibrate this whole experience. And I said, okay, great. I know we're going to do women have to talk first on this product. And they'll need 24 hours to do it. I knew nobody else could conceptualize the way I would explain it. So I was like, think Cinderella, the pumpkin and the carriage. And men can send one extend on time of day to capture their attention if they want to. Now we have to also call out something. This was back in 2014 in a very heterosexual oriented dating app experience. The landscape has evolved. We have to be inclusive to all. And so of course we are. And of course we are currently as we speak spending countless time and putting all of our heart and soul into how to make the experience better for non binary for the trans community for anybody that identifies as a woman as well.

7:28And so that's a big portion of the future. But that was really how I would say we became successful because of two things. Women making sure that we were solving for women's real problems on the internet. And so when I went back to those sororities and fraternities, instead of going in with, you know, whatever we had gone in at Tinder, I went in with things for women. I went in with items women wanted cute yellow cookies. Like I understood that we are going to build a cute brand, not a sexy brand. And that's what set us apart. I wanted it to feel warm and cozy and inviting and soft and feminine and safe.

8:13And that's the beginning. And still the current through line of bubble. You know, starting a business like that at 53, a lot of people have a like a stigma or a stereotype that you can't start a business in mid life. You know, you shouldn't be doing that at that point or that, you know, you won't be able to raise in all of those kind of stigmas around starting a business in mid life. Crap crap. Yeah. I started a business at 16 called what's my first business? Bows on the mishit when I was at school. I saw hair bows. I know. And then I started business at 53. So it's like there's no other way to put it that that ages is a number.

8:52It is just a fucking number. And you can either mention that number endlessly or you can look at what energy do you have at that moment in time to execute on your dream. That's all it's that's all you need. Energy. All you need when you need a lot, but you know, you need to feel that you need energy, passion, drive, relentlessness, perseverance, resilience. Pick yourself off and just get fucking on with it. You need all of those things, but you need the energy so that you jump out of bed in the morning and you are on it. Did it take time for you to cultivate that in the passing after after joining past?

9:35Was there like a, do you know what I mean? Because I did, I did already to before and for that I was, you know, I did 18 or 18 for two and a half years. It's like it, you know, it's it's in me that I've been a graft for quite a long time. So you'd been mulling this idea for many, many, many years. And then you finally put it into action. I heard you say I started pitching in 2014 and it took me three years to launch. Yeah. I'd say pitching in 2013, I think. And what were you pitching? I was pitching. What was the elevator pitch? The elevator pitch was to create portable cream based personalised make up for women.

10:18I was in 35 plus. And how was that pitch received? I did 48 pitches before one person bit. I must have sent 300 emails. What kind of negative feedback did you get? I had lots. I had, I had, you don't have enough followers. Fine. I had like, I think 50 ,000 followers. I had your two old start of business. I had who's going to really run the business classic. Oh, that's a nice. I love that one. You live in this neverland. It's not like it's never going to happen, but it's never going to happen. But there's, you don't put words to either you sit like this place. And I had that feeling. I thought, I'll be ever going to get it.

11:01But I thought I'm never going to give up. So they're both sat side by side really starting you give up. Because I knew it was a fucking good idea and I knew it would work. I just had to find the right people who would get it. But if I'm telling you, everyone's telling you to. I don't care if everyone's telling me, you know, I know. And I know enough and I believe in myself enough to know, I know it's a good idea. I just know it. I just got to find somebody who has the vision to understand it. How do you know it, though? Because I know women. As you look forward at your your mission and your future and what you hope to achieve in the next chapter of your life, what is that tangibly?

11:41If I had to measure success, if I was to say that you're you're you know all the things you write about, the change you write about in this book, if I was to measure and say it was successful, what what what what would the world look like? Then we have true equality. You know that that that little girls can be everything and anything. Honestly, you know that they can be president or prime minister that they can launch a company, you know and get seed funding that they can be a scientist that they can literally or they can be a stayed home mom. That they can be whoever and whatever that they want.

12:17And I think my hope for mothers is that they too don't see their their their biggest dreams die on the vine that they don't live a life of regret and envy and should have been would have been because they let they let things happen to them rather than change things that we live in a world we respect and we dignify women and girls. We're not there yet. You know, we're so we're so far from being there in many ways and I think part of it again is because of the things that we've sold women that we've we've basically told women that the problem is you think about all the books that women and we confidence code I learned how to a power post I got a I got a leaning all of it is about women thinking that your wrong.

13:02The amount of times that women come to me and say I have imposter syndrome I'm like no, they didn't let you in you're in there because you are the best. But now you're made to feel like you stuck through the back door. And so it would you know what I am saying in many ways is really radical and it's you know very deeply seated in us and it's not just it's women is people of color it's poor people anybody who is not you know who has really you know had to had to do grit perseverance you know found themselves in rooms that people don't look like them. We're still asking ourselves do I belong here should I be here and we're constantly being fed information book podcasts movies that tell ourselves that we just have to change one more thing about ourselves.

13:52And you know it's just simply not true I I always say that I feel so lucky that you know through the work that I've done I've been able to be in almost every single powerful room. I've probably met every single powerful person in the world. And you know I used to be that girl at Yale Law School in my constitutional law class going like this. And you know a few years ago I got asked to give a speech at Bill Gates is summit. And the slot that they had given me was between Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. And it was the only speech that anyone was giving it was a summit of Fortune 100 CEO so you can imagine who was in the room.

14:35And I remember them saying you know this is a really hard speaking slot Rashma because most people are really intimidated because Bill and Warren are sitting in the front row and it can be a little scary. And I remember I was as I was sitting there in the backstage they had given me 10 minutes to speak. I'm thinking man I wish they gave me 12 because I really had some more stuff to say. And then I remember thinking how did I become how did I become this woman when I used to be that girl. And I remember thinking yeah it's because I've been in every single powerful room. I've met every single CEO, every president, every minister.

15:15And when I meet them I'm like you. You're running what? Me and my girls we can run circles around you. And I realized that it's never been about whether we're qualified, whether we're prepared, whether we're ready. That we've really never really dissected all of the undeserved unearned privilege that so many people have. And that we have literally bought and been fed you know basically this propaganda that we're not good enough, that we're not smart enough, that we don't belong. And the real resistance in this moment is saying no more. I'm not reading those books, I'm not taking those courses, I'm not taking that class, I'm not buying into that bullshit.

16:06I'm here and I can lead to.

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