Transcript follows & video below. This is Part II Check out Part I here and Part III here
Women are a huge market & therefore it is powerful to enchant this market. Do you have any particular ideas about how we can enchant that market?
Who’s we, when you say we?
Guy Kawasaki
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs! Believe me, I’ve tried to enchant women for my book! This is my thinking, whether you agree or not. I believe that if you get a woman to buy your product, you can always get a man. A man is much easier. So if you can get a man, it’s no big deal. It’s not any predictor of your success with women. So what you should focus on is getting women because women is the harder test!
Guy Kawasaki
Why do you think that is?
Because women are smarter.
Guy Kawasaki
That’s wonderful!
I have another theory, not exactly perhaps scientifically confirmed. I believe that men have a predisposition to want to kill things. So men want to kill other people. They want to kill plants. They want to kill animals. They want to kill. They just have a predisposition to conquer.
Guy Kawasaki
It’s that testoreone!
Yes that’s in their hunter gatherer DNA, ok? by contrast women do not have this need to kill things. They’re nurterers. They’re mothers. So if you show a man anything & you say to the man, this is a way to kill Apple, to kill Microsoft, to kill Virgin America, to kill whatever, to kill the competition, almost every time the man will say ‘Yes it’s a good idea!’ Because men like to kill things! You show the same idea to a woman, a woman doesn’t have that disposition to want to kill things, you get a much sounder judgement. Therefore, my theory is when you have a product or service & you want to see if it would be successful, you should always ask women. But not waste your time asking men! That’s my theory!
Guy Kawasaki
You’re a champion of us!
I am a champion of women! I have a very strong wife & a very strong daughter. So what will make Enchantment successful, I think, are probably the mommy bloggers? And you know either women will like this book or not. I don’t know.
Guy Kawasaki
And I would give you feedback, that really all the points are very (I say the word feminine but not as in female, more the relating aspect of Life). It can’t be passed over, which many geeks try to. It’s incorporated in the heart of our lives because we’re all people.
What a concept!
Guy Kawasaki
So that’s why it’s such a great book, because all your points in the model are all about that. I don’t see any obstacle really for women taking up this book.
Your mouth to God’s ears!
Guy Kawasaki
Exactly & spreading the word! It’s also wonderful to see a man championing these values as well! As well as championing women because I think that that’s not done enough. Particularly in this world of startup, entrepreneur, vc, angel area, it’s not done enough & not valued enough. So I really appreciated it & I think it’s great. Thank you very much. Do you have any other ideas about how we can enchant & #changetheratio?
Well remind me to say 10/20/30. But first let me say something else which is: honestly the ratio, the percentage, the macro figure is not important. For anyone watching this, if your studies show that venture capitalists fund 95% men & 5% women, so what’s the deal? Why is it 20 to 1? First of all, you have to ask yourself, who comes into this room? Is it 50/50? So 50/50 come in & 90/5 go out? That’s not true. It probably comes in about 90 to 10, right? So then you have to ask yourself is it the venture capitalists’ fault? Do we have a sign on the door ‘Only Men Can Apply’. Absolutely not, anyone can apply. So the question is why are only mostly men applying? That is a bigger societal issue. That’s not because of a sexist pig venture capitalist.
Guy Kawasaki
And there are a lot of women’s groups that are encouraging technology training for young children & girls, yes & changing that!
Yes so Maths & Science, so it may start as young as that? It may be that women are smarter because it’s such a pain in the arse to be an entrepreneur. You know I have to tell you, it may be that raising children is more important than starting a company? I mean?
Guy Kawasaki
Adeo Ressi brought up a great point. He said that the startup culture was evolved through men. And that many women look at it & go ‘No Way Jose!’
Yeah just like I look at giving birth?
Guy Kawasaki
Yes No Way Jose!
Thanks, but no thanks, you can handle that!
Guy Kawasaki
So his suggestion was that we need to go into the startup culture & change how we run startups to encourage women.
Change society! So my point here is, let’s say you find out the figures are horrible 95/5. You can go into a deep funk ‘The odds are very much against me, that as a woman I will be funded!’ But really how you approach this, is that you don’t care about the macro statistic. All you care about is if you got funded. 95% of your women peers may have got rejected. Statistics are bad. You don’t care! All you care about is your $1m. A way to look at this is like unemployment. So if you wake up in the morning & The Chronicle says unemployment is at 10%. Next day you wake up & it says unemployment is at 5%. The next day you wake up & it says unemployment is at 15%. So the day you wake up & it is at 15% they’re quoting an Economics Professor ‘Worst unemployment since the Depression!’ So you think this is a horrible time to find a job. But you know what, it’s not the 15%. If you’re President Obama, you need to fix this, you need to get 15% down to 2% or whatever it is to make him happy as a politician. But you’re not Obama. All you care about is how many jobs? One job! So with unemployment you only hear about one job. With venture capital you only care about your funding. You don’t care if funding is up 50%. You know, if funding is up 50% in Q1 & you’re not funded. Are you happy? No. And the funding is down 50% & you are funded. Are you happy? Yes. All that matters is that you got funded! So ignore the macro statistics. All you care about is ‘Look out for number 1!’
Guy Kawasaki
Now the 10/20/30 rule. The thing that could improve most people’s pitches, male, female, gay, straight, black, white, brown or yellow, is if you use the 10/20/30 rule. Which is have about 10 slides, be able to give that pitch in 20 minutes. Use no font smaller than 30 points. 30 points forces you to just put the basics on the slide & you talk about the slide & you don’t just read the slide. If you just did that, you would be better than 95% of people that come into this room. If you add a compelling demo, you would be better than 99% of people in this room. It’s that simple.
Thank you for that, such pragmatic advice.
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