“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

So this just happened! We won the Seattle Angel Conference yesterday. It was a big moment for the entire team, as going into the 10 week long process we had no idea how we would fare. At the end though, our team, our culture and our hard work paid off. I am humbled by the fact that I work with such a great team. I am also inspired by the group of investors that invested in us. A group that had 44% women investors and an incredible amount of diversity, pulling in people from all walks of life.

As we were celebrating our win, John Sechrest, the founder of SAC came up to me and said “You know this is not just about your team winning, it is also an important moment for women founders, moms and other pregnant women who are wondering if starting their own company is a good idea”.

John could not have put it more aptly in that moment. When we launched Xemelgo my daughter was a year old. At that point based on traditional wisdom starting a company seemed like a bad idea. So, when I got pregnant with my second, we were definitely going against the tide. The first three months of my pregnancy I constantly worried if I would be able to pull this off. I wondered if investors would invest in us if they saw that I was pregnant. I put in a deliberate effort to hide my pregnancy for the first 6 months during all customer as well as investor meetings, just in case.

I have a very supportive team and an incredibly supportive family, despite that there were moments where I doubted my decision. I tried to look up stories of pregnant women founders or women founders with young kids but barely found anything. That was not the most damaging though as I already know the stats are poor with women and diverse teams getting funded. More damaging were the articles from men with successful startups. The stories were either about young founders with no familial responsibilities or men who had supportive wives who gave up their careers to take care of the kids, so that they could then go and chase their dreams. I could not find myself or relate to any of those stories. The funny part was that on a everyday basis I don’t think the amount of work that I did went down but the emotional burden that I was carrying definitely went up.

So yesterday when a 7 month pregnant version of me walked up to present to all of the investors and got the praise and accolades that we did, it meant a lot. It meant that we as a society are ready to change and support diversity in the ideas and entrepreneurs that we stand behind. As John says, if we are to solve all of the worlds problems we need a diverse set of people to start companies and a diverse set of people to invest in them, as only then are we solving problems that impact entire populations and not a specific set of people.

I am putting my story out there today so that next time someone like me starts to wonder, they have one more story to support them and encourage them on their journey. We all have our devils and societal preconceived notions that we are up against every time we try something new. It is on us then to overcome them or to stand back.

So here is my shout out for everyone out there, women and men, old and young, white, black or brown, if you have an idea that can impact the world and you know like minded people that can join you on this journey, then go give it a shot. The world will be a better place because you tried.

PS: For all my women friends out there. I have to talked to several women about joining a startup and the response that I typically get is — Startups and Kids don’t go together. Most women that I know work incredibly hard at their day job managing work and family and startups IMO are no different. One benefit of joining ground stage companies is that it gives folks an opportunity to truly express themselves and explore their creativity which may otherwise be held back in a big company.