Women Tech Founders

Terri is an entrepreneur, connector, and community builder. She is the founder of TeacherCare, a nationwide agency for families in need of private educational care, and Women Tech Founders, a leading voice for the startup tech ecosystem around female entrepreneurs.

 Through Women Tech Founders, Terri builds opportunities that advance innovation and leadership in underrepresented communities. In this role, she's helped thousands of female founders across the nation and globe. Her community-building work has been honored by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and former Mayor Rahm Emanual. She has been recognized as the Tribune's Most Remarkable Woman, WGN's MVP, the Herald's Influential Woman in Business, and as 50 on Fire's Civic Leader. Terri has been featured in Crain’s, The New York Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Forbes among others.

 She is a speaker and leads panels on diversity, innovation, and community-building, and is a founding member of the Women’s Entrepreneurial Institute.

The problem Women Tech Founders is committed to addressing is gender inequity in the startup tech ecosystem. Despite national conversations about gender diversity in tech, the numbers show women are still underrepresented, underpaid, and often discriminated against in the tech industry. For example, women account for 2.5% of all VC funding, 9% of general partners at VC firms, and 24% of senior leadership roles in the tech sector. 

Women Tech Founders proposes to continue to strengthen and expand its diverse, inclusive, and collaborative community of female tech founders, funders, and leaders. Since our inception, our work has focused on creating a platform that centers the stories and successes of female tech leaders. By creating an army of role female models, Women Tech Founders has brought a diverse community of women together to elevate each other and in doing so, elevate themselves, their communities, and humanity overall. 

The problem Women Tech Founders is seeking to address is gender inequity in the startup tech ecosystem. Despite national conversations about gender diversity in tech, the numbers show women are still underrepresented, underpaid, and often discriminated against in the tech industry. 

Globally, only 14.1% of tech founders are women.  In the US, only 2.5% of all venture capital funding goes to all-female founder teams. Moreover, Latinx and Black women-led startups have raised .4% and .06% of all venture capital raised between 2009 and 2017 respectively.  Worse, startups with at least one female founder reported more difficulty finding funding, with 87 percent saying it was “somewhat or extremely challenging,” while only 78 percent of startups with no female founder said the same.  

Overwhelmingly, research shows that the lack of women in leadership roles has long-term consequences across every industry and negatively impacts the business outcomes, work cultures, and levels of innovation required for greater financial performance.   According to IDC, the percentage of women in senior leadership positions in the tech sector grew to 24 percent in 2019.  However, women reported being significantly less confident about their senior leadership prospects citing lack of support, self-confidence, and mentorship as challenges. 

Women Tech Founders is a grassroots, Chicago-based organization of tech startup leaders who challenged the status quo in the startup tech ecosystem and continue to be a leading voice in the tech community.  

Our events are the backbone of our community and are designed to highlight today’s and tomorrow's underestimated leaders.  Our annual Awards Gala and Conference are our signature events and have had an organic reach around the world. In addition to highly accomplished tech leaders, our events have been attended by Governor Pritzker, Former Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, Senator Tammy Duckworth, Angie Hicks, among other highly respected supporters. 

Beyond our events, Women Tech Founders has a membership program, a monthly newsletter (WTF Digest), and a library of videos and online content. All of these aim to strengthen connections within our community and facilitate resource sharing and learning.  The Elevate Prize will along Women Tech Founders to further strengthen its existing products and services and amplify our impact. 

Over 22,500 innovative startup founders, entrepreneurs, aspiring founders, tech leaders, technologists, investors, and students are plugged into our network.  Together, we are creating an army of female role models from diverse racial, ethnic, and socio-economic backgrounds and perspectives. A significant majority of our community falls between the ages of 25 and 44 years. Though many of our members are based in Chicago and the Midwest region, we have organically grown to have national and global reach. The collaborative spirit of our community is characterized by a “lift as you climb” ethos.  

We are constantly soliciting feedback from our community members in both formal and informal ways to ensure we are continuously improving our products and services to better meet their needs.  We use a variety of data collection tools including feedback surveys, membership applications, one-on-one phone interviews, informal polls, and informal focus groups.  

Beyond soliciting feedback, we have actively engaged and mobilized many members in our community as volunteers to co-create events and experiences.  This grassroots approach has allowed us to amplify our impact and collectively realize our vision for equalizing power in the startup tech ecosystem.

Several years ago, I attended a roundtable discussion convening other women founders in Chicago.  I was taken aback by the lack of resources, community, and funding for women founders.  Ever since leaving the meeting, I've focused on building what a I envisioned as the solution, which is in essence what Women Tech founders is today.  I co-founded the organization with other women founders and leaders, including Riana Lynn, Founder of JourneyFoods. 

Women Tech Founders is a grassroots, Chicago-based organization of tech startup leaders who challenged the status quo around the startup tech ecosystem and continue to be a leading voice in the tech community. Our leadership includes diverse female founders, investors, and leaders of many of the most respected innovative organizations.  This diverse and supportive community was made possible through the collective efforts of so many members, leaders, and partners.  

As a Women Tech Founder, I have experienced and seen firsthand the challenges and obstacles that women have to overcome as tech entrepreneurs.  As an entrepreneur, I’ve been drawn to the stories and lessons of great founders and leaders: the heroes, and she-roes who, despite their flaws and failings, have risen to great heights and changed the world in meaningful ways. Building an army of female role models within the Women Tech Founders community is critically important for inspiring the next generation of female tech innovators. By using Women Tech Founders as platform to center the stories and successes of female founders, we are shifting the narrative on who and what defines tech innovation.  Entrepreneurship is often a lonely path, so building a supportive community is paramount for female tech founders to thrive in the startup tech ecosystem.  Since our inception, we've seen the percentage of female founders increase tenfold, making a Chicago a global leader for women-led startups. 

As a Women Tech Founder, I'm painfully aware of the challenges that women founders face in the startup tech ecosystem.  Since 2015, I've cultivating partnerships and relationships with various stakeholders in the startup community so that everyone feels they belong and can meaningfully contribute.  As a women of color, I've always been intentional about building a community that benefits and involves all women, regardless of their race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status.  It's one of the reasons why Women Tech Founders is recognized for its diversity. Through our work, we are collectively trying to advance women in and into tech leadership.  By leveraging the power of technology, we believe women can truly change the world. 

When I first started Women Tech Founders, I encountered so many people who convinced me not to do it.  Undoubtedly, I have faced challenges every step of the way when building Women Tech Founders.  Most recently, we had to transform our annual conference into a virtual event in the span of six weeks. Though daunting at first, our talented team was able able to successfully pull off a virtual conference with 20+ speakers. We received a lot of great feedback from the event attendees and were able to expand our global reach.  In spite of all the challenges, I'm encouraged the tremendous amount of support we have received over the years. I've always focused on what's working well and how we can continuously improve and innovate.  It's important to maintain a positive mindset and not be thrown off by any challenges we may encounter along the way. 

As a young child, my mother instilled in me very important lessons that have shaped me into my leader I am today.  My mom’s most memorable stories came from her teen years, as a political prisoner in an underground prison in Kolya, Siberia. During that time, my mother was alone in a makeshift hospice/morgue caring for the dead and the dying.  During her prison years, my mother lost nearly everything--her family, her friends and and even her hair. But she never lost her determination of building her future for herself.  When life and business was its hardest and most lonely, my mother's stories echoed in my head and kept me pushing forward  And often I find, at the heart of these stories are the same lessons I learned as a girl growing up in the shadow of a warrior mom, “Don’t let fear determine your future. Create a clear vision, and do everything in your power to reach it. You can figure it out.”  

The Elevate Prize will provide an amazing opportunity increase the capacity of Women Tech Founders, refine our products and services, and amplify our impact in the startup tech ecosystem.  Since our inception, the percentage of women-led startups has increase ten fold in Chicago, making the city a global leader.  We are hoping to replicate what we have built in Chicago in other parts of the country and the world.  We are at a critical juncture in our growth as an organization.  The Elevate Prize will help catalyze and accelerate the impact of our work. 

Though our organization has been generating revenue via our sponsorships, event ticket sales, and membership subscriptions we have had to adapt our revenue model in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  We are in the process of revamping our membership platform and revenue model and would appreciate guidance and coaching as we pilot newer products and services.  Though our organization has received media coverage in various media outlets, we’ve noticed that our coverage is mostly local. We are a tipping point in our organizational growth and would greatly benefit from having more national and global coverage. 

We are hoping to further strengthen our partnerships with types of organizations and entities:

• Venture Capital interested supporting women-owned startups
• Corporate Venture Capital Firms 
• Corporate programs focused on supporting startups and entrepreneurs 
• Financial institutions that can increase access to capital for women tech founders
• Accelerator & Incubators programs that support women founders
• Software and Tech Companies that offer products and services that can support women tech entrepreneurs and their companies
• University-affiliated focused on gender parity in tech entrepreneurship and IT fields 
• Tech companies committed to building a gender diverse pipeline 
• Foundations and funders that support gender parity in technology and entrepreneurship
• Research-based organizations that specialize in startup tech ecosystems