Veteran Investor Tracy Chadwell Bets on Women and Silver Tech
Show Snapshot:
Venture capitalist Tracy Chadwell makes good bets – early investments include Beautycounter, recently valued at $1 Billion. But after facing the double-whammy of sexism and ageism in the venture capital world, Tracy made her biggest bet of all—launching her own investing fund, 1843 Capital. Now, she leads an all-female team in closing the gender investing gap and investing in diverse founders.
Named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's "100 Powerful Women in Business," Tracy gives us a primer on venture capital and shares her take on why less than 3% of all VCs are women. Plus, she walks us through why Silver Tech—companies serving the aging consumer—represents the next great investment opportunity.
In This Episode We Cover:
1. The genesis of Tracy’s investment fund 1843 Capital.
2. A quick primer on venture capital and why it matters.
3. Factors that make women VCs rare to this day.
4. Why diverse perspectives are critical to making smart business bets.
5. Tracy’s inclusion on the first-ever Forbes Women 50 Over 50.
6. Why Silver Tech and the over-50 market is the next great business opportunity.
7. How sexism, ageism, and the so-called mommy-track can impact a woman’s career.
8. Want to be on a board? Consider this one surprising step.
9. The benefits of being 50.
Quotable:
We’re super excited on anything that touches the customer 50-plus because this is an underserved area, first and foremost. None of the advertising, none of the product development has really gone to this direction, but there’s suddenly this great awareness that, ‘Oh my goodness, the baby boomers are out there.’
People 50-plus control 83% of the wealth in this country. It’s where everybody with money is, so if you’re building a product, why not build a product to target that demographic? It’s just a really exciting space.
More Resources:
Word of Mouth. Tracy recommends:
If a woman is developing a product and she’s looking for funding, I just love IFundWomen. I think that does a really good job and is really helpful. But first, pad your nest first and make sure you have some capital to work with. And I find that women when they run out of money, they end up giving away so much of their company. I’ve seen that happen so many times. Too many women don’t even own their company anymore because somebody has given them a couple hundred thousand dollars and that is crazy. So, I really encourage you to keep as much equity as you can and keep as much control as you can, and only really get that extra capital when you’re ready to put fuel on the fire.
More Resources:
How Tracy Chadwell Found Balance By Becoming Her Own Boss With 1843 Capital
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty (00:00):
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women on life after 50 who are unafraid to age out loud. I’m your host, Katie Fogarty.
It’s been famously said that numbers don’t lie. Today’s guest is a woman with some very impressive numbers. Veteran investor Tracy Chadwell was just named to the first-ever Forbes 50 Over 50 list. She’s one of Entrepreneur Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful Women. She’s the founding partner of 1843 Capital and when you consider that only 2.4% of all venture capitalists are women, you realize just how extraordinary a career Tracy has carved out for herself. She joins me today to talk about closing the gender investing gap, why the all-female leadership team at her fund prioritizes investing in diverse founders, and why she’s laser-focused on investing in silver tech and in companies serving the aging consumer. Welcome, Tracy.
Tracy Chadwell (00:51):
Thank you, Katie, this is so exciting for me because I’m such a big fan of yours. I really love your podcast and I think, wow, how timely. It’s really exciting that you’re doing this, so thank you for that.
Katie (01:02):
Thank you so much, I love hearing that people listen to the show because it’s such a labor of love and it’s fantastic to have guests on who actually listen, so I appreciate that.
Tracy (01:11):
You’re doing a really great job, really fun.
Katie (01:13):
Thank you. I’d love to start with a little stage setting. What made you launch your own fund and can you share why your firm is called 1843 Capital?
Tracy (01:21):
Absolutely. We decided to raise the fund because you know, at the time, women were able to raise capital and raise venture capital funds and before that, I was a partner with a billion-dollar growth fund named Baker Capital and when I was there, you know, I hadn’t seen anyone raise a VC fund. And suddenly, it was acceptable for women to raise a fund if you can believe this. A couple of years later now, there’s a lot of us. But we couldn’t do it before, it just wasn’t a thing that was done. I know that sounds so strange in this day and time but it really is true.
Katie (02:04):
And why is that? Is it because people just weren’t willing to see women in that role?
Tracy (02:09):
I think that there’s unconscious bias. And you know, fair enough, I did leave the workforce and stay home to raise my children so I was out of view, right. So a lot of women who had experience when we were younger in venture, maybe a few of us left the business to go home to raise children. Which is something I absolutely don’t regret and wow, I’ve been incredibly lucky to do sort of a U-turn and get back into my field. But also too I will tell you that when I decided to go back to work when I found that it was time, I interviewed with quite a few venture capital firms that were established and I was told some very nice things which were, “Tracy we don’t hire partners from the outside, we grow them from within.” And then also there was some intonation that maybe I wasn’t a fit because of my age, and that lead me to the realization that if I wanted to do this, and do it at the level that I was comfortable, I was going to have to start my own firm. And so that’s what I did and boy, now I’m never looking back.
Katie (03:14):
You know, that’s been a theme on this show. Women were sort of denied the opportunity to either re-enter the workforce because of time off for perhaps motherhood or caring for aging parents, or simply because they got older in their industry and then were denied the opportunity and then created their own opportunity.
Tracy (03:34):
Exactly. You have to get creative.
Katie (03:36):
You have to get creative. It’s absolutely astonishing. And we hear, right now it feels so buzzy, the idea of closing these gaps, getting women back to the workforce, efforts to close the pay gap, we hear about efforts to close the gender gap on public boards, we look at what California did, mandating the inclusion of women on boards. Yet still, less than 3% of all venture funding goes to women, which is astonishing because I’ve seen studies and I know you know this, that women-founded start-ups have better returns than those started by men quite often. So why aren’t more investors following those returns?
Tracy (04:14):
It’s really interesting and I would say that in some cases, but not all, they may be working in a space that is not well understood by the traditional venture firms. Like say, let’s talk about menopause which is something that I know you talk about a lot and you have a lot of really great founders on. That’s kind of a tough one because if you’re a guy unless you paid really close attention to your wife—and maybe she’s not talking about it because she’s uncomfortable—you really don’t understand what the symptoms are, what technology is out there, what drugs and devices are out there. So that’s a really extreme example, but it is what a lot of women are facing. Sometimes the pain points that they understand, and I would say that this is true for people of color too, I understand that there have been some really, really successful people in hair care for people of color, but if you don’t have those hair problems, you don’t understand it so it’s not something you’re going to invest in.
Katie (05:13):
So you miss the opportunity. You would think that smart men would say, “I need women on my team who understand these pain points because there’s an incredibly large market.” I just had Catherine Balsam-Schwaber come on, the CEO of Kindra who was on this month early and kicked it off. She talked about menopause being a 600 billion dollar opportunity globally. So you would think smart men would be like, I need people on my team who get these markets.
Tracy (05:40):
Yeah I know her and she is fantastic. I really love her products, especially the lotion has been terrific. But it’s really true. And I think you’re right, I think a lot of smart firms are getting the message and they’re starting to hire… The sort of unfortunate piece of it is that they’re hiring younger women. That’s fortunate for them, and heck, let’s get lots more women in the pipeline and lots more women understanding finance. And we actually have an internship program so that we can expose young, young women to the areas of venture capital and finance. But there are you know, a lot of younger women that are interested in getting into the space that are in their twenties and thirties and bravo, but I think there is still less inclination to hire those of us with a lot of experience who are over 50, which is why thank god for the Forbes list, right? How exciting is that?
Katie (06:34):
It’s so exciting to surface women who are at the peak of their careers or knocking it out of the park in this next chapter. I actually read that list, I was so happy to see your name on it.
Tracy (06:48):
Oh, thank you!
Katie (06:48):
And I was so happy to read all the other 49 names, but I love that Forbes said, you know, we had 10,000 submissions and we’re gonna roll out some extra lists this summer because there are so many wonderful women to spotlight.
So, a quick question for you Tracy. I love that you’re training the younger generation who might be coming up in the VC space, but for my show’s listeners who might be unfamiliar with venture funding, who might not know sort of the terms of art, can you give us sort of a quick primer? Because I know that your firm invests primarily in Series A, is that correct?
Tracy (07:26):
It is. Sure, I can give you sort of a really quick two-minute overview…
Katie (07:31):
Yes, please.
Tracy (07:32):
…why this is such an interesting space. But it’s really just discrete, we get all the news, we get all the press. I think it’s because we have this huge big winners. I’m very proud to say, Beautycounter. I realized 20 times my investment in seven years, which is just huge. But really, it’s a very, very small sector in finance and a small piece of what’s used to fund businesses and I like to bring awareness to the fact too that there’s not just venture capital out there. There are great new loan programs, we actually on my website, 1843capital.com, we have a list of all the resources, whether it’s federal grants, or loan programs, or accelerators like IFundWomen or GoFundMe. These are really great places to fund your business as well.
Back to what’s venture capital. Venture capital, because we have such high loss ratios, these are really high flying, high risk, high returning companies, so a lot of the companies in our portfolio fail. At the Seed Stage, 90% fail, at my stage, Series A which is when companies have about 2 million in revenue or above, you know, the failure rate is about 50%. So, we have to take these long shot bats and we can only invest in long-shot bets because, I don’t want to get too far into the weeds, but the way that my returns end up being calculated, if I don’t have some six, seven, eight, ten times my money companies, I can’t balance out those losses and I look like I’ve done a terrible job.
Katie (09:07):
Sure.
Tracy (09:08):
So if you’re saying to me, you can double my money in two years, that may sound good, but I need you to also support my losers, so I gotta make sure that you can really, really return my whole fund by my investment in you. That’s why some people get frustrated when they’re like, “I have a really great business, why can’t I raise venture capital?” Well, it’s only for those companies that could someday be a Salesforce or could someday be an Uber. We’re looking for those companies that have over 100 million in sales, within 5 years.
Katie (09:40):
Amazing. So that sounds, very hard to find by the way. I love that you were an early investor in Beautycounter. That’s a household name, I’m a big fan of their dew skin tinted moisturizer, I’m wearing it—
Tracy (09:51):
Oh, I love it, I know.
Katie (09:52):
[laughs] I’m wearing it right now. So how do you pick your Beautycounters? Because you said you’re making a bet. What are the criteria that help you decide if your bet is a good one?
Tracy (10:04):
So first of all, looking for that huge market opportunity, let’s just use Beautycounter as an example. This is, the beauty space, super high margin, large, large, billions and billions of dollars of beauty products are sold every year. From a personal standpoint, I loved what Gregg was doing in terms of taking toxins out. We’re not mission-based, but I love companies that have a mission as well and I think that there’s timing for that too now. People are becoming aware and want to buy mission-based things. So, it had a huge market opportunity. Had a great, great founder, Gregg Renfrew, who is a woman. Also too, she had experience because she had started and sold a company already to Martha Stewart, so I knew she knew how to do it. Then, she had something different. This is the hard part and this is where people always say, “Our differentiator is brand, or our differentiator is this or that,” and you really have to have a clearly defined competitive advantage. And Gregg’s was her distribution system. Nobody else was doing nontoxic body care in a peer-to-peer sales model and I saw that that was doing really well in a company called Stella & Dot, they’re selling bracelets. Gregg’s selling body lotion, so if you like it, you’re gonna keep buying it over and over again, I don’t know how many bracelets people are gonna buy.
Katie (11:27):
[laughs] You’d be surprised, but still. I agree with you, because this is like, renewable. I’m on the dew skin train, I get it every couple of months, I’m a repeat customer.
Tracy (11:36):
Yup. Exactly, exactly.
Katie (11:38):
That’s so interesting. So, keep going.
Tracy (11:42):
So, that shares a little bit about venture and how we work. But now specifically, we’re very excited about, and this is very particular to your podcast, we’re super excited about anything that touches the customer 50 plus because this is an underserved area, first and foremost. None of the advertising, none of the product development has really gone in this direction, but there’s suddenly this great awareness that “Oh my goodness, the baby boomers are out there.” And guess what, people 50 plus control 83% of the wealth in this country. It’s where everybody with money is, so if you’re building a product, why not build a product to target that demographic? It’s just a really exciting space?
Katie (12:23):
I absolutely agree. And we’re gonna talk about silver tech and what it means and what the opportunities are and what you’re particularly focused on in just a minute after our quick break.
[Ad break]
Katie (13:36):
Tracy, we’re back from our break, we were talking about silver tech and why you’re excited about it. Can you give us a definition of silver tech and share a little bit about the angle and opportunities that you see in this space?
Tracy (13:49):
We see a lot of different companies named “such and such tech”. You’ve got mobility tech, you’ve got agriculture tech, you’ve got future of work tech, and we really hadn’t seen people building companies to focus on aging, and then when we did—and we just started seeing this happening over the last two years—they were calling them age tech and elder tech, which I really didn’t think encompassed the whole opportunity because we’re talking about not only about the end of life care and Dementia, but we’re also talking about people in their fifties who are really vital and want to maximize and make the rest of their lives really fulfilling and continuing to do what they do well and so thought that silver tech better encompassed that whole really vibrant opportunity.
Katie (14:39):
Yeah, I’m with you on the branding [laughs]
Tracy (14:42):
[laughs] Thank you.
Katie (14:43):
Silver tech sounds just more glittery and more fun than elder tech too.
Tracy (14:49):
It is, it is fun!
Katie (14:50):
And you just shared such a fantastic and fascinating statistic. What is it, that 83% of household wealth is in the 50 plus space? I learned something myself on one of my recent podcasts that we are on track in the US to have more people over the age of 65 for the first time in our history than under the age of 18, our population is aging. So this is such an enormous opportunity. What are some of the companies that your fund is investing in that you’re most excited about?
Tracy (15:23):
It’s really true. First of all, we’re really a fan of Joe Coughlin and the longevity economy. He’s the head of the MIT Age Lab and if you haven’t checked out any of his things, podcasts on YouTube, they’re great. He’s really terrific. He really focused the MIT age lab firstly on mobility so, so did we, we just followed him. We did two investments in the mobility space. One was HopSkipDrive, which we found was the best company with what we call care drivers. These are people that spend extra time and energy and also have five years of caregiving experience, 90% of whom are women, helping people as they get from place to place. Like an Uber doesn’t have someone who’s trained to help you out and stay with you in an appointment. HopSkipDrive does and they are also driving at-risk children, children from foster care to schools, which is really terrific.
And then Main Mobility is an electric, autonomous shuttle and they’re now located in Providence, Rhode Island; and Indianapolis; and Arlington, Texas; and Ann Arbor, Michigan where they were founded. What was really important to us with this company was not only did we really love the technology but also too, they’re wheelchair accessible so we thought that was really exciting. They are autonomous shuttles that are actually running. The reason why they can run, you hear about the Tesla ones that are having trouble, is that these are closed tracks. So they only go around, and around, and around, and around. And they’re very safe doing that and they’re low speed, they’re only at 25 miles an hour. So they’re incredibly safe, incredibly useful, so we’re excited about it.
The most recent investment we’ve made in this space is a company called Cariloop, which has these care coaches, which are fantastic. It’s sold into human resources as a benefit. If you have a mother who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and you’re working for say, BlackRock, or Procter & Gamble, or Pfizer who are customers of this, you’ll be able to access Cariloop services to help you through that journey. Because so many people don’t know, “Do I put my mom in senior living? What’s the difference between senior living and memory care? And wait a second, skilled nurse, what are these? Can we have somebody come to the house? Do we need sensors? And by the way, how do I pay for this?” And Cariloop navigates all of that for you, so you can go back to work and do what you do best.
Katie (17:52):
That sounds absolutely amazing.
Tracy (17:54):
I know.
Katie (17:56):
That’s so needed and I can’t believe that this didn’t exist before, because that’s such a smart business. I know so many people in my life who are, we’re in the sandwich generation. We’re balancing the needs of your family, your young family but also aging parents. And people are leaving the workforces in droves, as we’ve learned during COVID, to manage…
Tracy (18:18):
Three million. Three million women left the workforce and most of them for caregiving responsibilities.
Katie (18:24):
Absolutely. So this is something that’s so needed and I love that you’re investing in it. That’s going to be a gigantic business. So you mentioned that it’s with some very large companies right now, is there the opportunity, are they looking to bring it to maybe to smaller, maybe SMB, smaller to mid-sized businesses? Or is it just for bigger?
Tracy (18:40):
Absolutely. And I think the reason to go to larger businesses first is, of course, if you have a BlackRock or a Procter & Gamble as a customer, it’s easier to get the smaller businesses. But also to they have a direct-to-consumer option if you wanted to go to their website. That’s not the core of their business but they will do it for you if someone’s having trouble and they want to investigate it they can call and see if it’s right for them.
Katie (19:04):
So amazing. So quick question for you. I don’t know if you’re in the business of giving advice to people who want to get into the market, I’m sure you’re giving a lot of advice…
Tracy (19:13):
Oh my gosh, I give advice all day long. [both laugh] And you know what, it’s worth what you pay for it.
Katie (19:18):
Oh, that’s so funny. I’m sure your portfolio companies benefit from your knowledge. But if somebody’s listening to this show and thinking, I have an idea, I definitely see a gap in the market in this sort of elder care, silver tech space, what advice would you be giving them to meet the needs of this burgeoning market? Where do you think the opportunities lie for somebody who is looking to get in this space?
Tracy (19:42):
Sure, absolutely. The first piece of advice I always give and I think it’s really important is to take a step backward before you even look for opportunities, make sure you have your financial house in order. It is incredibly important for you to have about three years of cash or the ability to do this because the first couple years are going to be really lean and you have to bootstrap it and you have to get some traction. A lot of people, I think, are under an impression that you can just have a great idea and someone will fund you and that’s not really true of equity, which is what I do. I take anywhere from 5 to 20% of a company. Or debt, you know, you have to have some traction, so you have to be able to fund a little bit of it yourself.
But in terms of white space, places we are really looking where there is a lot of need for a venture capital quality company would be something in the fall detection and prevention is something we’re really excited about. Even though we made the investment in Cariloop, we are really excited about caregiving because we feel like, my gosh, there are 50 million unpaid caregivers in this country and we really need to help them out, you know, through technology is a really efficient way to do that.
But there is, there are just all kinds of white space in terms of whether you want to build sort of a venture capital level company or if you just want to build something that says spinning off half a million or a million dollars in top-line revenue for you, that could be a really great company for you and that could be in the loneliness, caregiving, or quality of life for people as they age as well.
Katie (21:17):
Absolutely. With 50 million people, that’s quite a big number so there are probably so many different ways to take a bite of that apple. It’s a pretty big apple.
Tracy, you said at the beginning that you’ve made some bets that didn’t work. I was actually surprised to hear those numbers about you know, the number of businesses that don’t even make it to 50%. You’ve made some bets that didn’t work, obviously. What did you learn from them? Does it make you better and smarter about your future bets?
Tracy (21:46):
Oh, of course, Katie. And I am learning every single day. You know, I’d rather learn the easy way instead of the hard way by making these investments that don’t work, but it does happen a lot. Something people don’t realize about venture capital too is that we can not be successful because a company runs out of money or is mismanaged. But we also can not be successful because of the way that the deal is structured. So, I’ve been learning a lot both on that side and on the company failure rate.
But I would say the number one reason that companies don’t succeed is sales, obviously. And sales are a function of two things. Having the successful sales teams that are selling to the right people that are interested in what you’re doing, and then having a product that is differentiated and really needed. A lot of people come up with something in their head and think, “Oh this is really, really needed,” but they haven’t talked to the customer. You have to go talk to the customer first. And we do that. We spend a lot of time talking to customers saying, “Where are your needs? What are your holes? Where should we be looking out there in the marketplace?”
Katie (22:49):
Yeah, it’s so interesting. I had Sonsoles Gonzalez on earlier in the month and she is the CEO and founder of Better Not Younger, the first hair care company, the first—
Tracy (22:56):
Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know her!
Katie (22:58):
Yeah, she’s wonderful and her company is targeted to the 40 plus market and she said they do a lot of social listening. And they have expanded into the brow and the eyelash space because women were like, “I’ve got more hairs than just on my head, I need some help with these other things." And they really listened. When I said, “Why did you extend your product line?” And she said, “My customers asked me to.” And I thought, she is a very smart cookie, I thought that was terrific.
Tracy (23:27):
Talk to your customer.
Katie (23:27):
Do that social listening, talk to your customers and figure out what they need.
Tracy, I’m curious. So you’ve been in this space for a while, what year did you launch 1843 Capital?
Tracy (23:42):
So, we started 1843 three years ago.
Katie (23:46):
So three years ago, but you had a history in this space—
Tracy (23:49):
2018.
Katie (23:50):
Exactly, but you’ve had a history in this space for a while. I know you took some time off to be home with kids and you’ve re-entered and you’re obviously going like gangbusters, Beautycounter was a great investment. Has your investment thesis, or what you look for in a founder changed at all, as you yourself have aged?
Tracy (24:09):
Oh, absolutely. And honestly, it’s just changed I would say in the last three years as well. I’m really placing an emphasis now on founders with prior experience.
Katie (24:23):
I love that by the way. I just have to interrupt you to say, I love that. Because my unofficial mantra is, "hire experienced women." [laughs]
Tracy (24:31):
Right. And you know, there is this massive brain trust of experienced women in this country that is absolutely incredible and I’ve loved tapping into it, not only in companies that we invest in but I have a phenomenal advisory board and so I’m constantly asking them for their opinion and their experiences. But you know, the younger founders, while there are all these accelerators out there and there are all these seed-stage funds and they’re all investing in these aggressive, excited, enthusiastic young founders, but you know, the fact of the matter is when the rubber hits the road and you have some real issues, you need those people that have failed before and have learned from those experiences, rather than have to go through it again. So we’re really placing our emphasis now on people who’ve built businesses before.
Katie (25:21):
Okay, that’s fascinating and I’m so glad to hear that. Do you feel that you could have started this fund when you were younger? Has your own midlife wisdom, your own midlife resilience help you do it at this stage of life or could it have been done by you earlier?
Tracy (25:40):
First of all, it wasn’t even an option Katie. We talked about that before, that maybe there were like three women VCs that were running their own funds when I was—in fact, actually I’m not sure that that’s even true. I think that there was one. One venture capital fund when I was back with Baker Capital around 2000, 2001. So it wasn’t really something that was even on my radar. And I absolutely would not have had the confidence at that time. But you know, I hate to say this, but managing kids and managing a household [both laugh] has given me the confidence to manage a team. It's really funny how some of these skillsets that you learn when you’re in the home become really applicable when you’re back out there again.
Katie (26:30):
I absolutely agree and I don’t think it sounds funny at all. I think every single woman listening to this show realizes that being a parent being a mom, gives you this insane, diverse toolkit that you can tap into. And even for all the listeners who are not mothers, because not every woman becomes a mother either by choice or by circumstance. But I think that becoming somebody, women manage so many of the relationships in their families, their extended families, their communities, their companies, there’s that sort of mentoring. You learn a lot and you have so much confidence and high EQ that you can use to get the ball rolling.
Tracy (27:12):
How about just managing the guy coming to fix your dishwasher at the right price?
Katie (27:18):
[laughs] We’re good bargainers, right? We’ve been shopping our whole lives. We know exactly what things should cost and we are the consumers too. We are making the bulk of the buying decisions. It always astonishes me that when we talk about these numbers, of VCs or investors or female founders or on boards, women are making the majority of the buying decisions in this country and I don’t know why they’re not given a seat at the table because it would make so much sense to get the people who are so close, who are the customer, why aren’t they? People should be beating down our doors.
Tracy (28:00):
Yeah, you know a lot of this though stems from relationships. And this is when people say—this is something I’ve noticed, and it’s a gross generalization, so please don’t, I hope no one gets offended by what I’m about to say because I realize that there are individuals where this doesn’t happen. But I would say many women think that "If I am the best if I have straight As they will notice me and they will want me on the board.” And you know what, just because you’re doing a good job, it doesn’t mean that that translates. Whether it’s a senior position or a board position, it’s a hundred percent about relationships. These are trust relationships. If they don’t know you, even if you have a gold star resume, there’s a fear there, there’s a fear that you’re gonna come in and make them look stupid, there’s a fear that you’re gonna come in and uncover things that they’ve been trying to hide for a long time.
Katie (28:55):
Interesting.
Tracy (28:55):
There are lots of different fears. So, when they’re playing golf with someone on the golf course or know someone from coaching the soccer team on the sidelines, there’s trust there. So that’s why traditionally a lot of these boards and a lot of senior management has been with people that they trust and that is people that they just happen to know through their networks and happen to be other guys. And now we’re starting to stop that, we’re starting to mandate it, as you said in California but I also encourage women to get creative and buck the system and get to know, in a relationship, other men who are on boards because that is how you’re gonna end up on boards, that is how you’re gonna end up on senior management, is by getting them to trust you.
Katie (29:38):
That is such a fantastic piece of advice. It makes so much sense. Because you do want to have a team that you can trust. You do want to make sure that you feel that the people either on your board, in your company, your senior management team, have your back. But as you pointed out, the problem is that then you wind up with the same sort of closed group of people, so you really have to find a way to bust into that inner circle. So, how would you do that? What would you recommend to somebody who wanted to find another board role, or maybe have senior leadership? What are some opportunities to sort of engender that trust and sort of, put yourself into the right mix?
Tracy (30:21):
Well, you could be a little Machiavellian about it where if you find out someone is on a board of a company where you think you’d be a good board member, find out what their passions are for philanthropy and help out on that and get to know people through that way. Or volunteer to—I know, listen, I know that women don’t have any time because they’re doing the caregiving, they’re doing their work and they just want to fall into a bathtub at night—but also, a lot of work does get done on the sidelines of children’s games, you know. And I know that we have the work of talking to the other moms about what schools to go to and what coaches to get and this and that, but we also have the work of talking to our other male peers who are in businesses on the sidelines as well, to figure out where we should go next, or where we belong.
Katie (31:10):
Yeah, that makes so much sense. I don’t think it's Mach…Machiavellian, I can’t even say that word [both laugh]. It’ll be interesting, I’ll have to figure out how to spell it when I put it into the show notes. But I do think it’s just about bringing intention and a little rigor to the process, to say, “If I want to be at point Z, what’s the A, B, C, D, I have to do to get there?” And just bringing some intentionality around it, which is smart. We need to manage our career, we need to manage our networks even though we don’t like to think of it as so transactional, but I think that if that’s a goal, if it’s a goal to expand your network, if it’s a goal to have a certain position, that you need to just be strategic about how you get there.
This is just a quick pitch for LinkedIn because I do a lot of my work on LinkedIn, and I think LinkedIn is a phenomenal way of figuring out who in your network you know, and this is a great tip for even just for job hunters. I work with clients, and I say, “If somebody’s got a career you admire, you can go look at their LinkedIn and see the roadmap that got them there. You can see what they did to arrive at that spot you want to be in, you can sort of educate yourself about what they did and what they share and how they manage their own career.” So it’s a wonderful tool and we should bring intentionality around our careers and in our choices and stuff.
Tracy (32:33):
That is such a great point, Katie, I love LinkedIn and I use it probably every single day. I would recommend too that people are a little bit intentional about their LinkedIn account too and not just accept connections from every single person that reaches out, but more, just keep it a little tighter, that you’ve actually met the person or had a phone call with the person. So then, when you go to use it and you go to reach out to someone, you’ve actually had a phone call with them before to see that you’re connected.
Katie (33:03):
Yeah, it’s a true network. My filter is: have we worked together in the past or might we work together in the future? Those are the people that I allow into my inner network. So I think that’s terrific.
Tracy, we’re gonna be wrapping up in a little bit, but before I let you go, I do want to hear a little bit about sort of your personal take on aging. I know that you’re in the silver tech space and that you are on the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. Would you be willing to share your age with us and your outlook on this time of your life?
Tracy (33:35):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m 55 and I actually started my firm when I was 52, so I just caught the tip of the 50 Over 50 and Mika Brzezinski was on MSNBC and was talking about how people were lying to get into the list. [both laugh] They were actually saying, you know, they were 49, and she’s like, “No, no, no you’re not 50, you can’t be on the list.”
Katie (33:59):
I love it. It’s a very hot club to be in, I’m here for it.
Tracy (34:03):
Isn’t that funny? I just thought that that was the cutest thing. But listen, I think aging is just a benefit if we take care of ourselves. We have all the wisdom, we have all the network. I always say, “God the best thing about being old is that all my friends are successful too,” so I can pick up the phone and call somebody who is also 50 and just get stuff done, you know? It’s really wonderful.
We’re looking for all kinds of companies in the aging space, whether it’s fabulous regenerative skincare that’s really gonna change the way your skin looks or your health. We looked at a marketplace that was doing Telehealth for aging as a disease. There are these really interesting things out there now, supplements that people can take to kind of stem off aging, all the way to care when you need help for it, later on in the day.
Katie (34:59):
So many exciting things. And I agree, there’s so many— I actually read a quote recently it was saying something to the effect of your age, but you don’t have to get older. We’re all gonna age, but it’s your chronological age and your biological age. You can’t do anything about the years but you can be biologically younger. You can maintain your body, maintain your skin. There are resources and tools and products that help you live a fitter healthier life. I love that you’re working in this space.
Is there a particular product or resource that you would direct our listeners to if they were a female founder looking for funding or looking for, it sounds like you have some resources on your website but is there anything else that you want to direct people to?
Tracy (35:44):
Oh gosh. Definitely look at my website because it has tons and tons of resources. But if a woman is developing a product and she’s looking for funding, I just love IFundWomen. I think that does a really good job and is really helpful. But what I said too, sort of pad your nest first and make sure you have some capital to work with. And I find that women, because they do run out of money, they end up giving away so much of their company and I’ve seen that happen so many times where they don’t even own their company anymore because somebody has given them a couple hundred thousand dollars and that is crazy. So, I really encourage you to keep as much equity as you can and keep as much control over it as you can and only really get that extra capital when you’re ready to put fuel on the fire.
Katie (36:29):
Excellent advice, excellent advice. Tracy, how can our listeners keep following you and the work of 1843 Capital?
Tracy (36:36):
Oh my gosh, thanks. So first of all, LinkedIn is a great thing and it’s probably where I’m the most active and I’m posting things that we’re investing in and what we’re doing. But then also too, I have a personal Instagram account where I share pictures of my dogs [both laugh] it’s @tracy_chadwell for Instagram and then Twitter @tchadwell on Twitter.
Katie (37:02):
Thank you so much, Tracy.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women over 50 who are aging without apology. And this also wraps our June shows and our month-long look at women building powerhouse businesses and brands. We kicked off the month with Kindra CEO, Catherine Balsam-Schwaber, who shared why menopause companies are finally having a moment and what it takes to build a next-gen wellness brand. Sonsales Gonzalez came on to talk about age-proofing your hair and how she launched her haircare company, Better Not Younger, the first hair care company dedicated to women over 40. Valerie McMurray, the founder of luxury sun care company Soleil Toujours shared how she pivoted from investment banking to launch a company creating products she wanted for her own beach bag.
Next week, and all of July, A Certain Age is taking a short summer break. And while we’re on vacation, we will be resharing several of our favorite shows from earlier seasons. We’ll be back with brand new shows the first week of August, with a very special month of summer fun, creative guests, and a special anniversary show to celebrate one year of podcasting and aging out loud.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time, and until then: age boldly, beauties.