When Carolyn Rodz, entrepreneur and founder of Circular Board, a digital accelerator created for fellow entrepreneurial women who are looking to grow their businesses, first met Elizabeth Gore, the entrepreneur-in-residence of Dell Inc., they were in an admittedly unexpected location for a gathering of two enterprising minds: a tent atop a Utah mountain. Both women were attending a Summit Series conference, an event bringing activists, artists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and more pioneers together to commiserate over ideas, strategy, and goals for the future.
Rodz and Gore had circled around each other for years—they both attended Texas A&M University, had plenty of mutual friends, and were members of Dell’s Women’s Entrepreneur Network—and when they finally met, there was an instant connection. So, when Rodz shared with Gore her idea for an artificial intelligence platform for women entrepreneurs, one that would provide them with the connections and tools they needed to get their business off the ground, it was only natural that Gore wanted to be involved.
After working night and day for the past year, the duo just debuted the beta version of Alice, the first AI platform for women entrepreneurs. For women looking to build a business, they can find the answers to questions about any financing, strategy, marketing, and legal needs by simply asking Alice. Ahead of the platform’s launch, Glamour chatted with Rodz and Gore about how it came about, what impact they hope it will have on women entrepreneurs, and, of course, how it got its name.
Glamour: You debuted Alice this week—how did this tool come about? And how did she get her name?
Carolyn Rodz: Alice is the answer to what I wish I had as a first-time founder [when I was 25]. As we started the Circular Board accelerator, we realized that the greatest value we could provide to founders was resource connectivity—getting them connected to experts, events, content, and tools that were relevant to their real-time needs. If we wanted to help millions of women, rather than hundreds or thousands of women, then technology was the answer. Through our partnership with Dell, we learned we were capable of building an artificial intelligence platform, but we needed to make it a more human experience. We decided that we needed a person, and that person was Alice. We considered a lot of different names, but when we looked at Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland titular character, it was quickly apparent that she was very entrepreneurial. She was adaptive when it came to new situations, creating quick solutions and thinking on her feet. It was a natural fit for what we were trying to provide for female founders.
Glamour: What kind of feedback have you gotten from the users who have tested Alice?
CR: We've gotten really great feedback. It’s been interesting to see how many times users are coming back for different answers. Founders needs are changing on a daily basis. What they need today isn’t necessarily what they need tomorrow. We’re seeing a lot of repeat visits, which is exciting. Founders who have used the Circular Board accelerator are also active on the new platform, and we’ve heard from them about how it’s helped them find solutions to their challenges. This gives us a chance to dig deeper and focus on the nuances of a company because they're getting those quick answers through the technology.
Glamour: Will there be any sort of membership fee with the service?
CR: We are exploring different opportunities. Right now the platform is open to everybody. There will always be a free model. Our goal is to create more inclusive entrepreneurship. In order to do that, we want to make sure every founder—regardless of what her economic status is, where she’s located, or what kind of company she runs—has access to the opportunities that she needs to grow.
Glamour: How do you hope a tool like Alice will change the way women entrepreneurs operate and build their ventures? On a broader scale, what are your hopes for how it will affect how women fit into the start-up economy?
CR: Inclusivity is our number-one goal through this—not only for opportunities it creates for individual founders but for those on a global scale. If we want to solve the big problems of the world, we need to get everybody involved. Women are reinvesting 90 cents on the dollar back into their families and communities. They are 50 percent of the population; it’s time they are 50 percent of the voice when it comes to innovation. There is a great desire for more diverse perspectives on innovation, but I think that the disconnect comes because there are very siloed communities. We’re trying to integrate women entrepreneurs into the current ecosystem to change the specifics more rapidly. That’s where we start to see potential power.
Elizabeth Gore: On behalf of Dell, we are so excited that women are starting businesses twice as fast as men, but we have to create the right infrastructure and ecosystems for them. We can’t just turn existing ecosystems pink. That’s not going to work. Alice was built for women: How do they do business? How do they relate to each other? How do they access capital? We’ve never seen anything like this, and Dell is the foremost expert in AI machine learning. That is why we stepped forward, both because of the social and economic opportunity it could bring and because we see this as one of the most important business decisions we’ve ever made. If we give entrepreneurs the tools they need to succeed, they will be the ones solving the biggest social problems. It’s so critical for young women, especially, to take that leap. What Alice will do is also provide a tool for everyone—not just those who have already started but those who want to jump into an idea.
Glamour: Face time is such a crucial part of networking and, by extension, helping entrepreneurs build connections and ultimately build their own businesses. How does an AI platform serve as a substitute for person-to-person contact and connections?
CR: There are certain benefits to human interaction, but there are also certain benefits to technology. We’re certainly not trying to replace human engagement, we’re trying to supplement that and ultimately facilitate human engagement so founders are connected to the right people. One of the common pain points that we hear from founders is that they’re spending an inordinate amount of time learning about the start-up ecosystem. They know their business and they know their industry, but what they may not know is how to raise capital, how to brand a company, or where they should be turning to for legal advice. They’re spending tens, if not hundreds, of hours trying to find the right person to talk to. But with Alice, we’re aiming to immediately connect founders to the resources they need so they can spend 30 minutes of quality time with someone helpful instead of having 10 coffee meetings that don’t lead to the right person.
Glamour: To go back to your work together through Circular Board—can you share some of the success stories of that endeavor and how using digital connections has helped women entrepreneurs build their businesses?
CR: A lot of the founders we work with are mothers. They have families. They go food shopping. They're moonlighting with other careers. They don’t have the flexibility to uproot and move to Silicon Valley, New York, Austin, or Nashville. Suuchi Ramesh, for example, is a founder who lives in New Jersey. She is an Indian immigrant who came to the United States with no personal net worth but incredible knowledge of garment manufacturing and how to use technology to really disrupt that industry. In her first year she hired 60 employees who are primarily women on welfare. She has generated millions of dollars in revenue, and she‘s working with some of the top companies across the country. She’s raised capital and been able to broaden and expand her network beyond what she’d be able to do by herself.
Glamour: Elizabeth, I know that, beyond your role at Dell, you're the chair of the U.N. Foundation’s Global Entrepreneurs Council. Carolyn, you just met with members of the House Small Business Committee to talk about empowering small businesses. Glamour has recently spoken with several congresswomen about what role the government should play, if any, in bolstering women entrepreneurs. I was wondering, based on your experiences in these areas, do you think there's any room for governments both here and around the globe to provide women with the resources they need for success?
EG: From a global perspective, the number-one issue is access to capital. That can be a $50 microloan in Bangladesh or getting your seed capital here in the United States, where less than 3 percent of women are getting venture funding. Getting access to capital is our number-one hurdle that we have to get over. Partnerships all over the world that are trying to overcome that are really critical. That’s the interesting thing about Alice—she will direct you how to get over that hurdle based on your geography and your industry. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the access to capital piece. It is regional and it is industry-specific. That’s what we’ve been working on, and that’s what we’ve been tapping into with Alice.
CR: It’s important to note that there are commonalities among certain types of companies when we see them being more successful. Being able to show a founder what opportunities are most relevant to them helps them eliminate a lot of the pain points. A lot of times people have struggles raising capital from the venture community, and the fact of the matter is the venture community wants to support women who have the right types of companies. It’s both connecting them to the right resources but also helping they find things beyond traditional venture capital.
Glamour: As a final note, what is the one piece of advice you'd offer to any woman who's thinking about starting her own business but hesitant to do so?
CR: Build the right team. So many times women want to operate when they are 100 percent ready. Women tend to be a little more perfectionist because we tend to be more realistic about what we’re ready for. But that can also be a hindrance. Getting a cofounder and building a strong team from the onset helps maintain that momentum and forces founders to put themselves out there, build a partnership, seek out customers, and create the right technology to move their companies forward.
EG: Put purpose into profit. Figure out what your purpose is, and you will be profitable. If you are passionate about your product, your services, and your customers, you will scale—keep that purpose in mind and you will be profitable. Purpose can also be your social values and making sure you're making the world around you better. But you can monetize that. Turn purpose into profit.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
