Women Tech Founders' United (WTFU)

Leveraging our strong community of female tech leaders, we will launch Women Tech Founders’ U (WTFU): (1) an accelerator to equip women, especially from underrepresented communities, with the hard skills of tech entrepreneurship--derisking female-founded companies and enabling women to fast-track their careers through tech-related intrapreneurship and innovation; (2) a proprietary online platform housing scalable, interactive curriculum, including a video library of diverse female founder stories; (3) WTF Engine, programming and networking services that delivers tangible outcomes for our community members and corporate partners advocating for women. 

The problem Women Tech Founders is committed to solving is addressing the gender gap in the tech startup ecosystem. Within the tech industry women are still greatly underrepresented, underpaid, and often discriminated against. Globally, only 14.1% of tech founders are women and 24% of senior leadership roles in the tech sector. 

In 2019, only 2.7% of total investments in the U.S. startup ecosystem went to women founders, and worse--less than 1% went to women of color founders. Relatedly, the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in America is Black women, but only 56% were able to raise capital, which only averaged at a total of $36,0000. 

COVID-19 has shocked the startup economy in two ways: capital crunch and market demand. A global survey found that 40% of startups have 3 months of runway or less and about 72% of startups have experienced significant drops in revenue. A recent survey indicates, two-thirds of female founders reported they’ll be disproportionately affected by the pandemic compared to their male peers. In addition to lack of capital, women tech founders also face the unique challenges of market misperceptions and network exclusion. 

WTFU, an accelerator and programming designed to equip women with the hard skills to build stronger products, revenue, and business execution, will help derisk and accelerate female-led companies and fast-track women into leadership roles. Through hard skill development in product, marketing, sales, operations, and finance, WTFs will enter the marketplace and the investor pitch faster and more successfully. Through founder-created curriculum, instruction, and assessment, WTFU participants will validate their business assumptions faster and document and showcase strengths, accelerating the pace of business development and increasing the confidence around founder investability and the promotability of women in tech. Throughout their journey women in tech will have access to WTFU’s Online Learning Platform, which will leverage and white label existing interactive career development technology platform that skill building and career navigation into one comprehensive system, deliverable online or offline as a browser-based or mobile app. WTF Engine, a proprietary network with the mission of continuously accelerating WTFU’s members and their companies. The Engine will close the network gap by facilitating introductions to service providers, mentors, investors, strategic partners, and potential employees, and board members.

Since 2015, Women Tech Founders has been convening women tech entrepreneurs from various stages through various events, including our annual conference and awards gala. Through these events and post-event evaluation surveys, we have gained insight into their challenges as well as the type of support women founders are seeking. For example, in a recent survey with 520 respondents, 42.9% indicated they were interested in being mentored and 42.2% indicated they were interested in professional development and training. 

Building on our events, our Chief Learning and Innovation Officer (CLIO) conducted 28 unstructured interviews and provided one-on-one coaching with startup founders (include 15 women founders & 6 BIPOC founders) at various stages. Through this this process, the CLIO identified the key challenges startup founders often face when building their companies. These findings have in turn been used to inform the curriculum design of our online accelerator. Because all the curriculum is designed by women founders for women founders, it can directly address the unique challenges and nuances that are often lacking in other accelerator and training programs. 

Women Tech Founders' (WTF) proposed solution is strongly aligned with the Reimagining Pathways to Employment in the US Challenge, with particular relevance to 1)driving resources and support to BIPOC entrepreneurs and innovators and 2)increasing access to affordable hard-skill building and training opportunities for women and women of color seeking pathways into tech entrepreneurship.  From the onset, WTF has been very intentional and diverse community of tech founders, funders, and leaders. WTFU will remove barriers to tech entrepreneurship primarily through hard skill development training and a proprietary learning platform that makes access to this learning easy for women everywhere. 

4 Part-time staff: CEO (part-time), SVP of Strategy & Operations (part-time) Chief Learning & Innovation Officer (part-time); Development Strategy Consultant (part-time) 

3 Contractor staff: Social Media Marketing (contractor); Content development & Community engagement strategist (contractor); Graphic designer (contractor) 

1 Senior Advisor/Board Member (volunteer) 

Once our organization is able to secure more capital to invest in infrastructure, we will be able to transition part-time staff to full-time roles. 

WTF is dedicated to supporting diverse female founders from the earliest stages to the later stages of tech entrepreneurship. With intersectional gender equity as a core value, all of our programming, including the WTFU, is designed to benefit and cultivate cisgender women, and transgender, non-binary, and genderqueer people as leaders. Beyond gender identity, our focused efforts ensure our membership base and leadership team include a diverse representation of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and disability. Whether engaging partners, our team, or our community, WTF has adopted a margin-to-center approach to everything we do because we deeply understand how diversity drives innovation. We have demonstrated our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in numerous ways including: offering free admission to our events and programming, centering the stories of underrepresented women tech founders in our video library, and providing closed captioning in our videos. 

Women Tech Founders' United (WTFU) offers an innovative solution for address gender and power imbalances in the tech startup ecosystem for three key reasons. First, the curriculum is designed by successful VC-backed women founders specifically for women as the beneficiaries. Second, our community of women founders come from a diverse range of racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and non-traditional backgrounds, thus making our content more accessible. Third, the curriculum spectrum of support that offers flexible delivery of content to meet the varying needs and learning styles of our program participants.  

WTFU builds on our existing video library paired with educational in-person and virtual events, which include panel discussions, pitch competitions, annual conferences, and awards galas. The WTFU will bolster our learning & development unique to women tech founders, founder-created content, and action network building strategies outlined in our Theory of Change and will differ in that it will offer a more structured environment to build the next generation of women tech entrepreneurs. 

Our CLIO, Eileen Murphy, is a VC-backed, founder of ThinkCERCA, with over 25 years experience in curriculum design and edtech, will be spearheading the design for WTFU’s curriculum. Key features in that our curriculum will include a cohort-based, hybrid learning model that combines in-person and virtual learning; top-notch templates, scripts, and video library of founders’ stories; and exclusive access to a diverse cadre of female tech entrepreneurs, investors, and subject matter experts as mentors.

For WTFU's online learning platform, we will be leveraging existing technology created by Workbay, an interactive career development SaaS platform that links recruitment, skill building and career navigation into one comprehensive system, deliverable online or offline as a browser-based or mobile app. 

Workbay's platform includes a suite of tools including:

• Learning Content Management System (LMS/LCMS),
• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)
• Competency Management
• Career Pathway Network
• Internal messaging system with mobile text tools
• Integrated IOS and Android mobile applications, and
• Online site (ADA Compliant)

Workbay's Learning Management System provides a platform administrators to build their own courses and  link online and local classroom courses to nearby current job postings. Workbay offers teachers numerous lesson plans and personalized learning tools that can be used in the classroom or accessed anywhere on students’ smartphones.  Teachers can upload online content, view their students’ activity in the platform, integrate with lesson plans to incorporate the career materials to deliver learning objectives across the curriculum especially in career and technical education. Teachers can view high demand jobs in the community and message with employers about their jobs and the relevant skills needed to pursue those careers. Students and job seekers see job posts, career pathways, and credentialing resources. 

Workbay offers a comprehensive library of online training courses relevant to a wide variety of industry sectors.  Each course has an assessment of learning and learners earn training badges upon successful course completion.

Workbay is used by corporations, sector councils, municipal, state and national organizations to provide greater scale and access to opportunity, invitations to interviews, and pathways to promotion. Workbay's economic development clients utilize the system to build community pipelines of high-potential candidates for targeted workforce and to promote career pathway initiatives. Workbay's corporate and sector clients utilize their system for speed to performance, speed to safety, and speed to engagement through pre-hire training and on-boarding for improved retention and promotion.

The Workbay Platform has successfully:

•  Created a library of over 100 work skill courses; 
•  Provided over 1400 occupation portraits;
•  Delivered training internationally in several languages including Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, French, and Mandarin;
• Created and delivered over 10 million employee hours of custom-built online content and assessment for frontline workers across a variety of industries;
• Implemented a city wide program for over 10,000 users within 100 days of contract award

Given all its capabilities and features, WTFU is truly excited to partner with Workbay. Its platform's infrastructure has the capacity to showcase our curriculum and courses to broader base of workers and students, thus further amplifying our impact and reach. 

Relevant links for Workbay Platform:

Demo:

https://www.workbay.net

Features & Benefits:

https://www.workbay.net/platfo...

A program designed by VC-backed female tech founders who have successfully built multi-million dollar, scalable technology will transform and equalize power in the tech startup ecosystem. The ultimate goal of our proposed solution is a diversified startup tech ecosystem, with a critical mass of women who have equitable access to the training, support, and funding to build, grow, and lead innovative tech companies. Our strategy includes a three-pronged approach that fastracks women into tech entrepreneurship, successful business growth, and improved leadership: 1) accelerated business execution training, 2) continuous professional learning through agile founder-created content, and 3) outcomes-driven network building.  Key outcomes resulting from these strategies include: a strengthened and expanded pipeline of women pursuing tech entrepreneurship successfully, increased visibility of female role models in the startup tech ecosystem, a robust network that supports women tech entrepreneurship, and a scalable, rich, and relevant knowledge base for women tech entrepreneurs.  

Women Tech Founders’ U builds on our existing foundational work, which has included 35+ events with over 3300+ attendees, 100+ videos of diverse female founders’ stories and lessons learned, and 22,500+ individuals plugged into our network.  We’ve successfully cultivated partnerships across Chicago and beyond, including accelerators, universities, and corporations. From introductions to investors to expert advice from a successful female founder to referral to a service provider, our work has shown promising signs of early success.

Our work has helped Chicago remain a global leader for women startup founders, where the current percentage of startup founders who are women is nearly twice the national average. We designed our key strategies to directly address the unique challenges the women tech founders face: market misperceptions, lack of capital, and network exclusion. Research shows that promoting female role models, offering training and mentoring, and facilitating access to capital are critical for closing the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship. There is also evidence that shows that professional networks are most beneficial to women tech entrepreneurs and increase their businesses’ financial performance when they are built around principles of intent, inclusion, and interaction--all of which underpins Women Tech Founders’ network building and resource sharing strategy.

This project will take 5 years, with progress evaluated both quarterly and annually. Y1 key milestones include: Complete the curriculum design for WTFU Accelerator & Online Learning Platform, edit and curate 100+ videos for WTFU Online Learning Platform, launch WTFU’s Online Learning Platform, and reach 1800+ members through through our WTFU corporate programming (4, ½ or full day training events), and WTFU Engine events (to include 1 networking event and 1 investor day, as well as Conference and Awards Event).  Y2 key milestones include: Launch WTFU Corporate Training Accelerator and reach 5,000+ total members by doubling participation through WTFU Engine events (to include 4 networking events and 4 investor days, as well as a Conference and Awards Event), online learning platforms (adding an additional 15-25 videos) and accelerators (6, ½ or full day training events). Y3 key milestones include:  Reach 10,000+ members and participants and focus on evaluation and measurement. Y4 key milestones include: Reach 14,500+ members and generating over $2M in sustainable revenue; Y5 key milestones include: Reach nearly 20,000 members, including 16,000+ participants in WTFU Online Learning Platform and generating ~$3.7M in sustainable revenue.

Beyond our meeting our measurable annual milestones described above, we plan to ensure we continue to track the quality of programming as we scale. As such, we aim to maintain an average Net Promoter Score of 70 or higher for all of our WTFU Engine events and WTFU Accelerators & Programming.

The primary barrier that currently exists to realize our goals for the next year and in the next five years not securing sufficient funding. Without sufficient investments and funding early on in infrastructure and building out the learning platform, it will be quite challenging to create sustainable revenue streams and maximize our social impact.  Over the next years, we anticipate an increase in online accelerator programs entering the market, thereby increasing potential competition. As a hybrid organization with the non-profit and for-profit entities we will need to be continuously vigilant that we are in compliance of the law as we navigate legal complexities. How our entities are structured may need to change and evolve over time as our programs and services reach new stages in growth. 

Our team includes a cadre of successful women tech entrepreneurs who have built VC-backed, multi-million dollar companies, and gain extensive experience in managing technical or logistical obstacles over the years. Armed with the foresight to mitigate risks and assess obstacles, we have mapped out a plan and budget accounting to avoid any potential pitfalls that may impede success by ensuring our project model is: credible, with observable results, relevant, more effective than existing solutions, easy to transfer and adopt, and testable. We also plan to build WTFU’s Online Learning Platform so that it scales and generates revenue and ensure long-term sustainability. Collectively, implementing these steps will help ensure our project model can easily scale up. We have also created continuous feedback loops from our constituents and stakeholders to make necessary course corrections. We accounted for unanticipated challenges and expenses in our budget by creating a contingency fund. In addition, created a detailed budget that would allow for creation of MVP with less features while still generating revenue and thus still allow to reach financial sustainability.  We also have planned for key staff to be serve in a part-time and/or contractor capacity until we are able to transition them to full-time roles. 

As a grassroots nonprofit organization, the Women Tech Founders' team been rather limited in its capacity to collect outcomes.  With additional funding and resources, the WTF team would employ a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, our evaluation of WTFU will be guided by several process questions on how the program will be  implemented, and by impact questions that will measure the effect WTFU is having on the startup tech ecosystem as well as on individual participants and the WTF Engine, our action network. Key data sources to measure progress towards macro indicators will include: (1) interviews with project participants, alumni, advisors, leading women tech entrepreneurs, leaders and experts, (2) follow-up & social network analysis surveys to project alumni, (3) case studies, and (4) information gathered from training evaluations, pre and post assessments, observations, social media data, and document  & video library review.

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In 2015, WTF launched as a grassroots movement to change the status quo in the startup tech ecosystem. Our call to action united diverse female founders, investors and tech leaders across Chicago and beyond, to raise the next generation of tech innovators. In doing so, we found we raised each other. Today, our team includes a powerhouse of diverse, VC-backed female tech entrepreneurs who have successfully built and scaled multi-million dollar companies. We have created an army of role models, and amassed a wealth of knowledge, insights, and lessons during our startup journeys - key drivers for founder’s success. Because of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles we faced when starting our own companies, we are deeply committed to paving a more accessible and equitable path for future female tech entrepreneurs. Since our inception, thousands have plugged into our network and helped make Chicago a global leader for women founders. Given our past success and our network within the broader tech startup community, we are uniquely positioned to build a replicable, scalable, comprehensive model for creating pathways for women into technology entrepreneurship to further amplify our impact and expand our geographic reach. Moving forward, we intend to leverage our expertise in entrepreneurship, technology, startups, education, curriculum development, instructional design, leadership development, workforce development, fundraising, operations, program evaluation, equity and inclusion, intersectionality, and gender equality. Collectively, we have the experience, capacity, skills, and relationships to effectively build and scale a comprehensive program that will transform and equalize power in the startup tech ecosystem.

WTF serves as a critical tech innovation hub and development meaningful partnerships with a diverse range of stakeholders in Chicago tech startup ecosystem. Key partnerships with City of Chicago and World Business Chicago have been instrumental with promoting our programming and events more broadly across the city. We have also partnered closely with several incubators/accelerators such as 1871, mHUB, Founder's Instiute, and Techstars for which we often cross-promote and support each other programs. In addition, we have partnered with several non-profit partners including Black Women in Science and Engineering, i.c. stars, YWCA, and Chi Tech Academy to ensure we reaching diverse range of communities in the Chicagoland area.  We have several educational and university partners including DePaul University's Women Entrepreneurial Institute and Illinois Institute of Technology. Our technology partner, Workbay, has been critical for building out educational online platform with all the key features we are hoping to have. 

WTF’s business model is built on both sustainable earned revenue streams and philanthropy. Sustainable earned revenue streams include cohort-based learning modules that can be purchased through WTFU, event sponsorships, and corporate training programs.  Philanthropy helps to create a collaborative and inclusive tech ecosystem by supporting accessible events, programs, and training.

Leveraging the team’s prior startup experience, WTF will avoid common pitfalls that impede scaling and financial sustainability by leveraging technology, generating sustainable revenue streams, and prioritizing effectiveness, efficiency, and growth.

Currently, a core focus for the WTF team is to leverage technology to building internal capacity and then to subsequently launch membership offerings to create earned revenue streams and enhance the member experience. 

Since the pandemic, we have demonstrated our tenacity for growth by pivoting programs to virtual, while attracting attendees from across the nation and globe, and obtaining high average net promoter scores. WTF has aggressive goals to support women in technology and our scalable ramp-up will include us reaching financial sustainability within the next 2-3 years, and will overall ensure our meaningful impact over the next 5 years and beyond

Since launching WTF, the organization has successfully raised money through events (both tickets and sponsorship).  With anticipated plans for growing programming, WTF is currently expanding fundraising efforts both through philanthropic funding pipelines (applications pending), event sponsorship, and generated revenue from program modules.

WTF’s philanthropic fundraising efforts include submitting grant proposals (current pending applications: Equity Can’t Wait, Chicago Foundation for Women, & Upwork Foundation), funding collaborations with other nonprofits (such as mHUB, 1871, and other women-empowerment groups), and individual philanthropy. 

$399,300

Early on, our team led by our CEO will make its largest investments into technology, staffing, and infrastructure. Our technology development will be led by our Chief Learning and Innovation Officer who will facilitate the design and execution of our curriculum, learning platform and network, with contract staff added in (1) web and product development, and (2) additional staff for video creation, graphic design, and UI/UX development. Our budget also includes event costs, marketing/public relations/social media, member outreach monitoring and evaluation, and an intern program to develop our own tech pathways. Our budget was designed to manage the growth of the organization. A portion of infrastructure costs include team technology, sales management system, invoicing, and contingencies. WTF will progressively increase investments as we ramp up revenue generation capacity, and expand membership and partnerships. Current projections estimate $200K+ of revenue once the platform is up-and-running in Year 2. Our budget emphasizes early investment in developing the systems and resources necessary to ensure the project’s success beyond the grant. 

Given that securing more funding to invest in infrastructure and build out our online educational, receiving a $125,000 grant will help significantly and reach our goals. In addition to the grant funds, we are hoping that Morgridge Family Foundation, New Profit, and other Challenge partners to identify and/or introduce us to other potential funding opportunities.  Our team is looking forward to MIT Solve facilitating partnerships with innovative US Workforce Boards to explore and test how our proprietary curriculum can benefit displaced workers more broadly and expand our reach across the US. Our team is particularly interested in gaining insight into how displaced workers across various sectors can benefit from our curriculum and learning platform. We also looking forward to partnering IBM for virtual coaching and cloud credits as we begin scale our proposed solution. 

Though our organization has generated revenue, we aim to further diversity and strengthen our revenue streams to ensure we are moving toward long-term financial sustainability.  As we begin building out our non-profit board, we are continuously identifying and seeking highly qualified, prospective board members and advisors who will realize our organizational vision and goals over the next five years.  As hybrid organization with a nonprofit and for profit entities, we continuously seek legal expertise and support to navigate legal complexities and nuances as we continue to grow the organization. While our work has been featured in various media outlets (including Forbes, Pitchbook, The Chicago Tribune, the Daily Herald, and WGN Radio) we are always seeking ways to increasing our marketing presence and media exposure, particularly on a national front. 

Women Tech Founders seeks the following types of partners to support access to capital and mentoring for women founders in our community:

• Venture Capital interested in investing in women-owned startups
• Corporate Venture Capital Firms that can provide funding and mentoring 
• Corporate programs focused on supporting tech innovation, startups, and entrepreneurs 
• Financial institutions that can increase access to capital for women tech founders

Women Tech Founders seeks the following types of partners to increase the capacity and support the infrastructure of our non-profit operations:

• Foundations and institutional funders that support gender parity in technology and entrepreneurship
• Research-based organizations that specialize in startup tech ecosystems to support measuring the impact of our work
• Software development and tech companies that offer products and services that can support women tech entrepreneurs and their companies
• Professional service providers that can provide technical, legal, and financial expertise
• UI/UX designers to support product and website development

Women Tech Founders seeks the following types of partners to help promote our programs services more broadly:

• Other accelerator & incubators programs
• University-affiliated programs focused on gender parity in tech entrepreneurship and IT fields 
• Tech companies committed to building a gender diverse pipeline 
• City and state government agencies
• Workforce development service providers