Founders of longstanding women's network are making a case for the 'female focus'

The New York Fashion Tech Lab wasn’t your typical accelerator.
For one, it was geared specifically at startups operating in the fashion tech space.

Two, the biggest draw — at least for Veronika Sonsev, CEO of New York-based digital marketing company inSparq — was the focus on mentorship, with fashion tech startups paired strategically with big-name fashion companies.
How big is big? InSparq was paired with Kate Spade and Alex & Ani.
“It really only takes building a relationship with one of those companies to be life-changing for a business,” Sonsev told me recently. “We doubled our pipeline just from participating, and I anticipate getting two direct deals because of it.”
And sure enough, just a few weeks after we spoke, a deal came through: InSparq was acquired by Adiant, one of the companies Sonsev and her team met as part of the Fashion Tech Lab. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but it was a huge coup for a 4-year-old startup that originally thought the biggest takeaway would be stronger retailer relationships.
Despite all that, what Sonsev kept going back to in our interview was the amount of women involved in the program: six of the eight companies involved had female founders. “That’s unheard of for an accelerator in tech,” she said.
And it didn’t happen by accident. The Fashion Tech Lab is an incubator run in part by the 15-year-old nonprofit Springboard Enterprises — which is dedicated to promoting and supporting female entrepreneurs.
These days, organizations dedicated to helping women in business are popping up everywhere. But it’s also a time when women are starting to question the need for women-only programs and business groups— for women-only anything, really (yes, bathrooms included ).
The pioneering women who founded Springboard have strong thoughts about those questions: No, they say. They don’t foresee a time when the world won’t need women-focused organizations. Because what they do can be really effective. And Springboard is a prime example.

‘A sleepy thing to do’

Springboard Enterprises was founded 15 years ago by two women: Kay Koplovitz, the founder and former chairman and CEO of USA Networks, and Amy Millman, now the president of Springboard Enterprises.
The impetus came from their service on the National Women’s Business Council during the Clinton administration. Then-president Clinton had appointed Koplovitz to serve as chair of the council, and Millman was serving as executive director.
As Koplovitz recalls it, the council had a mandate to collect information and report to Congress.
“To me, that was a sleepy thing to do,” she told me. “I like to do something big. I like to make an impact, and I like to make results.”
One area they agreed was ripe for change was the venture capital market, which invested a whopping $104 billion in 1999. Just 1.7 percent of that went to women.
“And I said, ‘That is a problem that has to be solved,’” she recalled. “We went to Silicon Valley because that’s where the money was, and we got some people who said they would help us.”
They put together an incubator, whittling a pool of applicants from 350 companies to 26. Those companies went through a bootcamp and mentoring program and then made their pitch to investors in January of 2000, Koplovitz recalled.
When it was over, 22 of those companies got funded. Two of them merged. One sold her business, and one wasn’t funded.
“That was a very strong opening in the market, and we’ve never looked back,” Koplovitz said.

The Hotel California

Springboard’s accelerator programs have been fine-tuned over the years — hence their endurance in a swiftly changing business environment — and they remain the core of what Springboard does, Millman said. And not just in New York and the fashion tech industry. Springboard's reach extends across the country and in Australia and Israel, too.
But the goal from the start has never been focused strictly on helping women get funded. That’s great and, of course, vital, Millman said. But what Springboard is doing in the process is building an expert network of female entrepreneurs.
What does that mean? Springboard gets these women in front of investors. Then it taps their talent and expertise for all kinds of purposes, from filling board seats to serving in advisory roles for other companies.
After 15 years, this is what that network looks like, according to the Springboard Enterprises website: "589 women-led companies have participated in Springboard’s accelerator programs, raising $6.7 billion, creating tens of thousands of new jobs, and generating billions of dollars in annual revenues."
“We call Springboard the Hotel California: You can check out but you never leave. And that’s because we’re building an expert network,” Millman told me. “People always say women don’t help other women. That was what we were really trying to dispel.”

‘We are an affinity group’

Fifteen years is a long time. A lot has happened in the world of business. A lot has happened to help women in business specifically.
But progress doesn’t mean there isn’t a need for Springboard or other women-centric organizations, Millman said. Women and men are different — physiologically, psychologically — and those differences aren’t going away. Neither should groups dedicated to serving their particular needs, she adds.
“We are an affinity group,” she told me. “That’s how I look at this. … Should we not have a chamber of commerce? Should we not have an Indian industry group? Should we not have the Rotary of Champaign, Ill.?”
That doesn’t mean Springboard works to exclude men, Millman said. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. While Springboard’s charter only allows the organization to manage those companies that have a woman in a senior position with an equity stake, men are welcome to invest in those companies — and reap what Koplovitz says have been significant returns.
On their website, the founders brag about the 81 percent of Springboard companies that are still in business as independent or merged entities, and their 11 IPOs.
“VC firms to some degree are thinking that they’ve got to find young guys who quit college and want to work 20 hours a day and drink Red Bull. We’re going against the grain with the image,” Koplovitz says. “Our portfolio of companies is showing great, great returns with liquidity events. We’re going to win the foot race.”

 source:bizwomen