The below is a transcript of the Wonder Women podcast, which can be found on YouTube here. Content has been edited for clarity. See part four here.
Aparna Pujar:
I think with respect to the funder aspect of it, I feel that my challenges are really no different than say a male founder has. It’s the entire process of “Hey, is my idea right?” I mean, am I doing the right thing? Am I going in the right direction? Do I have the right team? Do I have the right marketing strategy? All these I tend to view as common for any founder that’s out there.
For women specifically, I think what my own personal experience has been so far is that there is a shortage of a support group. There are lesser role models of women entrepreneurs that one could go talk to and I’m making a conscious effort to build a network of women entrepreneurs so we could just get together, share our challenges, talk about our issues, and talk about our problems. I do network a lot with founders which comprises both men and women, but I often am the minority in that group.
Monica Antoki:
Well you’re in Silicon Valley, so yeah.
Aparna Pujar:
Yeah, and I think that is the challenge. We sometimes need sounding boards of people who have gone through this experience, especially as women. Those are very few and far between and I’m hoping that with more and more women taking to entrepreneurship, that will change and I want that to change sooner rather than later.
Monica Antoki:
Yeah, it’s awesome because actually I was talking to somebody about what she’s doing and how she’s building the community. What’s so amazing about what she’s doing is that she’s touched upon a very important point that women need community. Women have gathered around the fire for hundreds of thousands of years and we’ve been talking about what’s going on and we share knowledge that way and again, we’re missing that recently. I think that’s what you’re doing as well and I’m not saying that Enfavr is just for women, but I think it talks about our need for community so much.
I’m blown away about what you’re doing, but how do you run your company and do you think that’s different than how men would run the company, or how you’ve seen men run companies before?
Aparna Pujar:
I guess when you’re running a business, the demands of the business pretty much dictate how you run it. I am more of a team builder and I like to listen to many people before I make a decision. I think that’s the way I have evolved my work experience and how I tend to go about solving problems.
There are a lot of men who also believe in that approach, but I think as a woman, I try to focus on establishing good rapport with my team members. I lay into both their personal needs and their professional needs. I’m especially very supportive of working women who are on my team and I tend to honor their request for work-life balance even though this is a start-up and it’s hard to do. I think it’s important that we respect that for people and for both the men and the women who want to do what is right for their families.
Monica Antoki:
Fantastic, what do we need to do to encourage more women to come into business and tech?
Aparna Pujar:
I think it’s important for us to show them the path for those who are already in this. It’s important for us to show them a path to that they can succeed, and then there are possibilities they can eventually be successful and have a fulfilling life for themselves, regardless if they’re in tech or not. Tech just happens a little more tougher than maybe some other non-tech based businesses. But to me if you’re determined, if you’re dedicated and if you have the willpower, you can do it.
Monica Antoki:
I fully agree. So talking about women coming into the business world and corporate world and entrepreneurial world, do you think that this whole drive towards a sharing economy is a side effect of women coming into business more?
Aparna Pujar:
I don’t think so. I don’t think this is a women’s thing. The women certainly tend to create solutions and solve problems in a way that has a broader impact of communities. We always think about the larger impact on communities, but in reality, if you look at some of the popular sharing economy companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft, they were all started by men. So I don’t think this is a woman thing. I think it’s just a changing mindset of the generations and it may have to do with the fact that we are seeing a shift in how people view the world. We’re more conscious about what we want to contribute to the world rather than what we’re taking from it and the sharing economy just plays into that sentiment.
Monica Antoki:
I fully agree. What are you fighting for? What is your ultimate goal with Enfavr?
Aparna Pujar:
Somewhere deep down I feel like Enfavr is about genuinely making our societies more integrated with trust as an enduring fabric that ties us together. I recently came across this report from PR guru Richard Edelman, it’s called the trust barometer. The report says about two-thirds of the people in top-ten economies in developed economies of the world show a distinct lack of trust in institutions, whether is business, government, the media, or nonprofit I really liked one of the points he makes about us moving beyond the point of trust as being a key factor in product purchase or employment opportunities, which is where a large part of people-to-people trust is determined.
Banks give you loans if you’re credit scores are good; it’s measured with a very non-human aspect. Your bank balance is not an indicator of trust. And I feel like it’s time we change that. It’s time that we really thought of using trust for what it represents — a way of establishing a relationship between people. The point of Enfavr and its vision is to create trusted co-dependent communities and our vision is to use technology to quantify the meaning of that trust. I also feel as the world becomes more technologically driven, the need to reconstruct smart human connections is paramount. I also feel that technology can build trusted communities and I do really want people to feel less overwhelmed about life and live it up.
