Female Founders Conference - Mountain View

Y Combinator Female Founders Conference Overview

• Hosted by partners Kirsteen Nathoo and Carolyn Levy, the event convened 350 female founders in Mountain View.
• The conference has run for five years, connecting over 4,000 women and funding companies formed by attendees.
• The agenda featured keynote speeches, a panel on startup advice, and live office hours with two startups.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins (CEO, Promise)

• Background & Motivation: Raised in poverty; her mother's transition from waitressing to a county job transformed their financial stability, inspiring Phaedra's focus on dignity for working families.
• Career Path: Worked in labor organizing (representing janitors/teamsters), managed Prince's masters rights acquisition (resolving a 30-year battle in 90 days), and ran revenue/operations at Honor.
• Company Mission: Promise reduces jail populations by addressing the issue that 74% of people in jail are awaiting trial and often have bail under $500.
• Market Data: In their Midwest pilot state, 85–90% of the incarcerated have bail under $500, and two-thirds are non-violent offenders with technical violations.
• Y Combinator Experience: Accepted in the Winter 2018 batch without a technical co-founder, prototype, or initial funding; realized a missing digit in their phone number prevented a callback.
• Fundraising Strategy: Raised seed funding from Kapor Capital, 8VC, and Jay-Z's Roc Nation; learned to prioritize investor alignment over brand name validation.
• Growth & Traction: Secured 6 government clients before leaving YC; currently raising a growth round to bring data-driven decision-making to criminal justice.
• Key Lessons: Founders do not need to know specific technologies (e.g., React, Java) if they can hire experts; belief in one's worthiness is critical to securing investment.

Panel: "Make Something People Want" & Startup Execution

• Christina C. (CEO, Vanta): Automated security compliance for startups; validated product demand by manually performing audits in spreadsheets before building software.
• Tiffany H. (Co-founder, Remix): City planning software; realized traction when a prototype gained traction on Twitter, leading to 250+ inquiries from global planners.
• Ashley W. (CEO, GemNote): Corporate gifting platform; pivoted from handwritten cards after feedback from Udemy highlighted a need for managed gift logistics.
• Strategy: All three founders utilized "do things that don't scale" (manual processes) to validate ideas before coding.
• Customer Love Metrics:
  • Vanta: Users tolerated a "brutalist" HTML website and reported bugs, indicating high demand despite poor design.
  • Remix: Tracks "wins" (customer policy decisions or communications) rather than traditional SaaS retention metrics.
  • GemNote: Focuses on Lifetime Value (LTV), repeat business percentage, and Net Promoter Score (NPS).
• Customer Firing: Vanta fires clients requesting features outside the current roadmap to preserve product focus; Remix lost the Vancouver transit agency due to inability to support international data standards initially.
• Hiring & Funding: Vanta and GemNote secured funding by proving manual viability; Remix secured funding via early customer base despite the "no paying customers" phase.

Alexandra Zatarain (CMO, Eight)

• Company Background: Sleep technology firm that raised $27M from VCs; tracks over 15 million hours of sleep data.
• Narrative Arc:
  • Romance: Founding story began with husband/co-founder Matteo seeking a solution for sleep disorders; launched via crowdfunding.
  • Dissolution: Faced manufacturing hurdles, rejected twice by YC, and dealt with investor skepticism regarding their marital co-founders.
  • Reconciliation: Accepted into YC (Summer 2015) after demonstrating traction; learned to measure weekly growth rather than relying on launch spikes.
• Key Metrics & Outcomes:
  • Crowdfunded $1M in 45 days (Jan 2015).
  • Shipped 8,000 units to 67 countries despite no prior hardware experience.
  • Currently a 30-person team focused on sustainable growth and "creating lasting love" with the product.
• Lessons:
  • Customer Discovery: CEO conducts 15+ customer calls monthly; direct access drives loyalty.
  • Hiring: Prioritize passion and cultural fit over raw skills for early-stage teams.
  • Metrics: Focus on sustainable growth/revenue over vanity metrics (press coverage, social followers).

Jess Lee (Partner, Sequoia Capital; Co-founder, All Raise)

• Career Trajectory: Former PM at Google; left for Polyvore (fashion platform) as first PM, eventually becoming CEO; Polyvore acquired by Yahoo in 2015 and shut down later.
• Transition to VC: Motivated by the desire to help female founders and correct funding disparities; founded All Raise to increase female representation in VC.
• Fundraising Advice:
  • Pitch the "dream" (upside maximization) rather than relying on empathy or conservative assumptions.
  • Men often pitch hyper-aggressive revenue projections; women should match this confidence with similar data-backed vision.
• All Raise Goals:
  • Double the percentage of senior women in VC (currently 9%).
  • Increase funding to female founders from 15% to 25% in five years.
  • Shift the narrative from "fear" (avoiding bad actors) to "greed" (the financial opportunity of investing in women).
• Leadership Advice: Leaders must be authentically themselves rather than mimicking male prototypes; accountability and clear metrics foster meritocratic cultures.

Holly Liu (Co-founder, Kabam)

• Startup History: Founded Kabam, which pivoted from a workplace social network (Water Cooler) to fan communities, and finally to mobile gaming.
• Pivots & Failures:
  • Initial Failure: Water Cooler failed to gain traction; returned to school at UC Berkeley before launching Kabam.
  • Facebook Pivot: Moved to Facebook developer platform when organic growth stalled; built fan communities (Grey's Anatomy, etc.) reaching 60M users.
  • Recession Pivot: Shifted to mobile gaming (Kingdoms of Camelot) in 2008 during the financial crisis; launched before the 30% Facebook tax killed their ad model.
• Exit: Sold to Netmarble/FoxNext for over $1B in 2017; Kingdoms of Camelot grossed over $250M.
• Strategic Decisions:
  • Sent co-founder to China to build a mobile team due to lack of local mobile talent.
  • Emphasized the importance of launching early rather than "polishing a turd."
• Personal Insight: Overcame an internal narrative of incompetence; asserts that all founders are "right people" for their vision regardless of background.

On-Stage Office Hours

• Pat Piper (Pad Piper):
  • Business Model: B2B housing marketplace matching interns with furnished rentals; charge $300–$600 per intern match.
  • Traction: Piloted with 20 interns; focused on Bay Area (30,000 annual interns) with a goal to scale to 12M US interns.
  • Challenges: Supply-side friction; overcoming landlord hesitation to use a new platform versus Airbnb or corporate housing.
  • Advice: Leverage real estate lawyers to target landlords restricted by SF tenant laws; utilize corporate employee housing as a supply channel.
• Nifty (Tiffani):
  • Product: Chrome extension aggregating data from productivity apps (Jira, Slack, GitHub, Confluence) into a single sidebar.
  • Value Prop: Claims 15–20% of engineer time is wasted on context switching; saves time by surfacing relevant data at the point of action.
  • Status: Launching in two weeks; previously over-scoped in Startup School.
  • Challenge: Messaging clarity; shifting from a "vision" description to a clear utility statement (tab switching, alert unification).