No Longer Overlooked - Issue 31 | Letting Go 🍃
POV: You're a founder building a startup
Hi there 👋 Welcome to No Longer Overlooked, a newsletter, curated by me, Janine Sickmeyer, a tech founder turned investor. Follow me as I share startup tips, industry news, founders you should know, and investors putting their money where their mouth is.
What's In This Issue 🗞
A brief look into what you'll be reading about
Refreshed Annual Planning Workbook
OV 2021 Year in Review
What’s In the News
Women Founders Supporting Women Businesses & Health
What's On My Mind 💭
I’ve been thinking…
Happy New Year! We might be halfway through January, but this is the first No Longer Overlooked Newsletter of 2022. At this point, you’ve probably already settled into the new year, and maybe even forgotten your New Year’s Resolutions. But the new year is still fresh, and we have 11 and a half months to achieve our mission for 2022.
During the holiday break, I disconnected from my work to focus on the year ahead I headed to Nemacolin Resort in Pennsylvania for a relaxing (mostly remote) retreat where I spent some time filling out the 2022 Annual Planning Workbook (and drinking a lot of champagne, if we’re being honest). I reflected on my previous year, visualized what I wanted out of 2022, and created actionable goals for the new year. During these exercises, I realized I wanted to spend less time on social media and return to my passion for reading. So far this year, I’ve been reading poetry and short stories along with other works of nonfiction to start my 2022 with different perspectives.
In addition to reading more, I’m diving back into book editing mode. As many of you know, I am writing a book about my journey as a startup founder. Over the last year or so I’ve been openly and honestly writing my book and now I’m finally ready for the next step - editing! While so much has happened since I concluded the writing step, I realized that not every part of my story needs to be written. It’s been therapeutic to put all of those years down on paper and has allowed me to honor that part of my life. But it’s also okay to let it go.
This year, I’m excited about leaving my last entrepreneurial journey in the past and focusing on my work at Overlooked Ventures to help other entrepreneurs on their journey. And 2022 is also the year that I put more time and resources into Cobble, the founder-first app that I’m building to make entrepreneurship more accessible for ALL entrepreneurs. Be honest with yourself this year about what you want to leave behind and what you’re in pursuit of. It’ll help make the journey more meaningful.
What I’ve Been Working On 💁🏻♀️
Things I care about that I want to share
The refreshed annual planning guide is here! We updated this favorite guide to be founder-centric. The Annual Planning Workbook helps you reflect on the previous year with thought-provoking questions and guides you through the goal-setting process. Download your copy exclusively in the Founder’s Library on Cobble for free. Get access here.
2021 Overlooked Ventures Year in Review
2021 was Overlooked Ventures’ founding year, and it went even better than we expected. We made it closer to our goal of raising a $50M fund with $10M in LP dollars committed and invested in 7 startups with overlooked founders (2 announcements on the way)! 2022 here we come
Featured as one of the 55 rising stars in VC
I was mentioned in Business Insider’s list of 55 rising-star VCs who shook up the industry in 2021. It was a great honor to be listed as an emerging investor alongside Paige Doherty, Sherman Williams, and Iynna Halilou.
Big, small VC firms to build on, broaden record 2021
Columbus-based venture capital is booming, and Overlooked Ventures is part of it. We were profiled along with Drive Capital, Zell Capital, and Loud Capital for raising $10 million for our $50 million Fund I and seven making investments since our founding in May 2021.
Women-Led Businesses Are Poised For A Comeback In 2022
While previous years haven’t proven to be strong for women in startups, 2022 could be the year that changes. In prior years, layoffs and unemployment rates have been much higher for women, setting us back. The venture capital industry can shift the narrative if we start backing women founders. Read what I have to say about women-led businesses and VC’s contribution in this Forbes article!
Recently Hit the Stands 📰
Things in the news you should check out
2021 in Review: Looking Back on NYC Tech’s Banner Year
This year was a notable one for the startup world. Primary, a venture capital firm that invests in New York City startups, reports that 2021 was a year like they’ve never seen before. The firm put together a recap of moments, achievements, and trends of tech startups in NYC.
Was 2021 a tipping point for startups’ board diversity?
Bumble, Spanx, and 23andMe went public this year, making each of their women founders billionaires. It’s clear that women founders, and those who invest in them generate large returns. With these exits, the board of directors play a huge role in “calling the shots” and benefit from those startups. Gender diversity is becoming more of a priority in the board room with Nasdaq and Goldman Sachs leading charge.
Top 30 Companies Founded by Black and Latinx Entrepreneurs That Raised the Most Funding in 2021
Crunchbase, the author of the 2020 Crunchbase Diversity Spotlight Report, released a list of the 30 Top-Funded Black- and Latinx-companies in 2021. In order to shed light on the progress made by these diverse entrepreneurs, Crunchbase profiled these founders and their startups.
Silicon Valley’s share of US VC funding falls to lowest level in more than a decade
Who said venture capital funding was locked in Silicon Valley? The Beyond Silicon Valley report from Revolution found that “the proportion of seed- and early-stage capital invested in Bay Area Startups is on pace to drop below 30%.” The report also covers the cities attracting investors, and impacts and insights from regional investors.
Sequoia Capital picks up first cohort of its Sequoia Spark Fellowship
The venture firm Sequoia Capital launched its Spark Fellowship program where they are granting $1,000,000 equity free to 15-women founded startups in India and Southwest Asia.
Following $40MM Series B Raise, Career Karma Charts Growth in Enterprise, Higher Ed Partnerships
Career Karma helps individuals land a job in tech by providing the info, tools, and support needed. The organization is helping reskill America with coaches, community, helping you design a career plan, and matching you to bootcamps and schools. Now, the company has $40M in Series B funding, is working with Fortune 5000 companies to offer Career Karma as a benefit, and is experiencing all around high growth.
This Exclusive Women’s Network Is Going National
Chief, a private membership network for women executive leaders, was opening new offices in major cities just before the pandemic hit. They had to pivot quickly and lean into a virtual offering, at least until physical office spaces reopened. What seemed like a setback actually created a huge opportunity - Chief’s business grew exponentially with its new virtual offerings and is now expanding nationwide.
Young investors like Paige Doherty are on the rise and are making VC more transparent and accessible. Forbes released their list of 30 founders under 30. You can view the profiles of the 30 venture capitalists here.
Female founders face disadvantages raising capital in male-dominated industries
In the enterprise software industry, women are under-represented as both employees and founders. In this article from Private Equity News, they analyze the lack of women in enterprise software and found disadvantages for women as founders and software developers.
How First Impressions Work against Women
Women founders, and women in general, face many challenges in the business world even before they say a word. Alexander Todorov from Chicago Booth researched biases that come from first impressions and found that peoples’ “faces prompt automatic judgments and impressions laden with gender stereotypes.” Read more information about the study and how first impressions affect women and men differently.
Toxicity in Digital Design: A Status Report
Lisa Angela, a design evangelist for better process and education, published Undoing the Toxic Dogmatism of Digital Design a year ago, which explains the problem in digital design and how we can dismantle and rebuild the system. In this Medium Post, she debriefs the responses and reactions she received from the original article.
A Little Birdie Told Me 🐦
Tweet of the moment
Hot Take of the Moment 🔥
Somebody had to say it
Founders You Should Follow 👀
Keep an eye on these founders making moves
Narsha Njoya | CreateHERs
Narsha Njoya is the founder and CEO of CreateHERs, a marketing agency for women entrepreneurs that specializes in strategy, branding, and web design. She is a caribbean-gal (Guyana) and fell in love with web design and marketing strategy in 2000 and launched her career in marketing. Now she specializes in creating website designs, and more specifically, strategic design with one-page websites and blog designs for content marketing. If you’re an entrepreneur looking for help on your marketing strategy and web design, check out CreateHers!
Crystal Adesanya | Kiira Health
Co-founder and CEO of Kiira Health, Crystal Adesanya had personal health emergency during college and it was caused by lack of resources and internet self-diagnosing. Crystal created Kiira Health to provide resources and professional medical advice for college students so that they can receive the support that she didn’t have. Kiira Health is a smart virtual clinic for women that provides primary care, mental health care, and women's health care 24/7. Crystal was born and raised in Nigeria, Crystal attended the University of Houston and worked in real estate and law before venturing into healthcare tech.
New Funds Announced 🚀
Offline Ventures: Brit and Dave Morin (entrepreneurs, investors, and married couple), co-founded Offline Ventures, partnering with James Higa, former senior director at Apple, and Tonal co-founder Nate Bosshard. Apple is an anchor investor in the fund.
Initialized Capital: The firm just raised $700 million and launched 2 funds. Initialized Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm, has been around for 10 years and has companies like Instacart and Coinbase in its portfolio.
Black Ops VC: This new fund, led by Heather Hiles, Sean Green, and James Norman, launched with its first close of $13M in investments, led by Northwestern Mutual and Bank of America. They are investing $1M to $1.25M in Black-founded startups.
Variant: Crypto venture capital firm Variant is led by Jesse Walden and Li Jin, Andreessen Horowitz alumnus. Since its founding in 2020, the firm has seen great success investing in crypto startups.
Maple VC: Although Maple VC is headquartered in San Francisco, their second fund of $16.5 million is almost exclusively for Canadian startup founders.
Chapter One: The new $50 million fund is betting on Web3 as the “next evolution of the internet” and will be backing Web3 innovators with funding and by elevating their products and design.
TMV: Formerly Trail Mix Ventures, TMV just raised their second $64 million fund backed by Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. The firm was founded and is ran by Soraya Darabi and Marina Hadjipateras.
Startup Bookshelf 📚
The 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 | Time
Looking for a good book to read in the new year? Times released a list of 100 must-read books of 2021, including fiction, nonfiction and poetry titles. These books were chosen because they shifted perspectives, uncovered essential truths, and encouraged. If you need some inspiration to start reading, here it is!
Founder Tips
What you need to know
Steve Schlafman released the 2021 edition of The Ultimate Annual Review, a six-step reflection journey. Download it for Notion or PDF.
There’s an enormous amount of opportunity in the startup world, don’t let analysis paralysis get in the way.
Ever thought to base your copywriting off of negative competitor reviews?
Pivoting your startup can be powerful. Here’s how Harold Hughes did so with his company Bandwagon.
Long Time Listener 🎧
Audio and podcasts
Seed to Harvest | Paige Doherty x Shuo Chen
Paige Doherty, GP at Behind Genius Ventures and author of the children’s book on venture capital, launched a new podcast called Seed to Harvest. This podcast is sponsored by Stripe, and is focused on stories & methods from investors, founders, and startup people. Her first episode features Shuo Chen, general partner of IO VC.
Chacho Valadez | Running in Public
Chacho Valadez, principal and chief of staff at Backstage Capital, launched a new podcast called Running in Public. The first episodes released January 1st, and will encourage you to build a running routine while listening to great conversations with startup people.
Before You Go 🚪
What you might have missed.
Decentralized autonomous organizations are the next big thing in the labor movement.
There’s a lot that goes into managing a venture capital fund. My thread transparently uncovers it.
Sequoia Capital launched a new website, and it’s founder focused.
Here’s what to do if your startup failed and you’re looking for a new job.
It’s not hard to find Black speakers. In fact, there’s a website for that.
It’s never too late to try something new.
Success isn’t zero sum. Bring others along for the ride.
What investors come to mind as the next generation of VCs?
Here are 4 qualities that can make you the next Arlan Hamilton.
We’re buying NFTs while big corporations are still relying on excel sheets.
Startup Notus has an algorithm that identifies the most impactful journalist for your audience.