Author and angel investor Catherine Gray will soon mark one year living in the Coachella Valley. While she and her wife have settled into life in Rancho Mirage, they may have to celebrate their milestone on the road: Gray is on a 50-city tour to promote Show Her the Money. She is an executive producer of the award-winning documentary that aims to entertain while convincing women—and their allies—to get involved in the world of venture capital.
Show Her the Money follows four entrepreneurs as they seek out investors to take their businesses to the next level. The film will screen at the American Documentary and Animation Film Festival, aka AmDocs, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center, at 11:30 a.m., Friday, March 22.
Audiences will recognize Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award winner Sharon Gless, who appears in the film. They may also be familiar with a sentiment Gless expresses in the film, “I was raised to believe that talking about money was in bad taste (for women).”
Gray and writer/director/producer Ky Dickens are out to obliterate that narrative. They’ve assembled a powerhouse team of women uniquely qualified to talk about the world of high finance.
Gray has been advocating for women to get into big money for years. She founded She Angel Investors, a multimedia platform that combines education, entertainment and investment opportunities with one mission in mind: getting women business owners funded. Her weekly podcast Invest in Her has almost 400 episodes.
In addition to Gless and her friend Dawn Lafreeda, Wendy Ryan and Diana Greshtchuck are also co-executive producers. Gless witnessed Lafreeda’s climb from restaurant owner to rock star investor; Lafreeda is now one of the most successful franchise owners in the country. Lafreeda highlights her journey in the film, but she said her obsession with venture capital investing is simple: “I like money.” With more than 75 Denny’s restaurants in her portfolio, Lafreeda said it’s a gift to help other women get to where they want to go.
The film also features Pocket Sun, co-founder of SoGal Ventures, the first women-led, next-gen venture capital firm, and Jasmine Jones, co-founder and CEO of Myya, the only online direct-to-consumer, insurance-billable, post-mastectomy intimates brand.
In the film, Gray cites a study by investment firm Mackenzie, which says investable assets controlled by women are expected to rise to $30 trillion by the end of the decade. “What are they going to do with that money?” Gray said. She spoke with the Independent about the film’s mission and how audiences are responding to the film.
You also screened Show Her the Money to a packed house at the Palm Springs Cultural Center last month. The panel discussion afterward was riveting; no one left early. Now you, Sharon Gless and the cast and crew of the film are on tour. How are women responding to the movie’s central idea of becoming investors and venture capitalists?
We’ve been overwhelmed with such enthusiasm and excitement about the film. I think it’s because this is a story that’s never been told. People are interested in learning about venture capital, but they want to learn in an engaging, storytelling way.
We’re doing the tour so that more women become investors in venture capital. The reason we only get 2 percent (of venture capital funds) is because people tend to invest in people they identify with, and if it’s all Caucasian men sitting at the table deciding who gets the money, then that’s why women aren’t getting the money. We need more women and BIPOC and LGBTQ people sitting at that decision-making table. Awareness obviously creates change, and I do believe it’s film and television that changes culture. That’s why we’re engaging people in conversation (after the screening), so they can ask questions and learn in a fun, entertaining way.
When you talk about encouraging women to become investors, I assume that means women who have enough money to invest?
The interesting thing is, there are all levels of investment opportunities out there. There are angel investment clubs, which is different from venture capital. Typically, they will have opportunities that start at $1,000 to $5,000; that would be investing in a specific company. It doesn’t even matter if you have $50; you could go to a crowd-fund opportunity. IFundWomen has crowdfunding. Wefunder and Republic (are others), and there are several out there that allow people to come in at that entry level. This is something (President Barack) Obama did with the JOBS Act that allows people at any income level to be able to invest in another business. That was not possible until he passed that law.
Venture capital investing sounds like a lot bigger deal. Can you explain it to me like a 5-year-old?
Venture capital is people pooling their money together into a fund, so it’s almost like a mutual fund. The angels investing in the fund are called LPs, limited partners. The people who are running the fund and raising the money from the LPs are called general partners. They vet and decide where that money is deployed, to maybe 10, 20, 30 different companies, just like a mutual fund, so that makes it more risk-averse than investing in just one company. That typically would be a $25,000 minimum. People often invest $100,000 or $250,000, if that’s the level that they’re in, but a lot of people don’t know they can invest as little as $25,000, if they’re an accredited investor. Accredited means that they earn more than $200,000 a year, or that they have $1 million in assets outside of their home. Even though that’s a smaller sector, it’s still a very significant sector of the population, and the majority of women in that sector have not been privy to understanding what venture capital is and how important it is to our future.
Dawn Lafreeda, one of the film’s executive producers, was initially an entrepreneur. She’s featured in the film, showing how she started as a multi-restaurant owner, then became an angel investor, and now Lafreeda is “rock star” funder. Can you talk about the venture-capital ecosystem?
There are three types of women that make up this ecosystem. It’s the women who are starting their own funds, who I call the rock stars of the industry. They are the unsung heroes that nobody knows about, until this film. They’re raising $25 million, $50 million, $100 million or more to invest in women and BIPOC and LGBTQ (businesses). It’s also the women who are investing in these funds, making this possible, and their amazing stories. And finally, it’s the entrepreneurs and their great innovations that are getting funded from these women-founded funds, who otherwise would not be getting funded. The women who fall into those sectors are all incredibly interesting and amazing in their own right. The movie shows how they come together and intersect.
More than 12 million small businesses are owned currently by women. But what if you’re just starting out? At what stage—a great idea, LLC set up, good sales, business plan and analytics—are you ready to go to the next step and approach investors?
Traditionally, venture capital has been for scaling a company. So, you already have a successful company, but you want to take it to the next level, nationwide or global. However, now there are more venture capital funds that will look at startups. It’s really expanded, so as a startup, you have many options of how to raise your money; venture capital would only be one of them. We have a whole resources page on our website. I created an e-course called Six Ways to Fund Your Business; that’s on our site. We do that (because) when people see the movie, and they have so many questions and they want to learn more about venture or about how to raise funding or how to invest, we want them to have those tools. We don’t want it to be a documentary that says “here’s the problem.” We want it to be very solution oriented, so that we no longer get 2% of venture capital funding. The movie is really, really helpful to get started learning about it and then the resources page is a great follow up.
The companies featured in Show Her the Money are very wide-ranging. From the unisex clothing line Dapper Boi to the India-sourced skin care product Inde Wild to Archer Roose wines now in Target and Sprouts; there’s even a post-mastectomy intimates brand. Are there types of businesses that are not a good fit for venture capital investment?
Traditionally, a lot of venture capital money (has gone) into tech. That’s how Uber started, Facebook, all these apps that you would be familiar with today. But any sector can get venture capital, including real estate. There are funds for consumer product goods, and when you’re out there seeking funding for your projects or your businesses, it’s really important to investigate who that fund invests in, so you’re not wasting your time or theirs. If they invest only in health care, and you have retail clothing products, you don’t want to contact them. That’s where a lot of time is wasted. For people looking for funding, they just need to connect with the right venture-capital fund, or they could be getting funding in so many other different ways. It could be through (Small Business Administration) loans; it could be through angel groups. It could be through pitch fests.
The film has a tone of empowerment, it’s very “I’m Every Woman.” Is this a crusade?
We want to pull back the curtain and tell the story of something that most people don’t know about. We need more women angel investors and more women at the decision-making table in order to change this scenario. We need those who are eligible to understand and educate themselves about venture capital, and why it’s an important part of their portfolio to invest in. For people looking for impact investing that can also be profitable, venture capital is something they should absolutely take a look at, because it can be a very lucrative asset class, and it can leave a dramatic impact on the world. We’re on a tour around the world, and we do film outside of the country; we film in India and Canada, so it is a global film coverage. And we’ve showcased a diverse group of people of various ages, ethnicities and sexual preferences, so that people sitting in the audience see themselves in the film. I think that’s very important.
Show Her the Money will screen at AmDocs Program 8, at 11:30 a.m., Friday, March 22, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center, 2300 E. Baristo Road, in Palm Springs. Tickets are $10. AmDocs takes place from Thursday, March 21, through Monday, March 25. For a complete schedule, tickets and more information, visit www.amdocfilmfest.com.