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She’s Ambitious AF

A bold and empowering podcast that turns up the volume on female entrepreneurship! We dive headfirst into the wild world of boss babes, where we spill the tea on all things ambition, success, and the occasional hilarious disaster. Hear stories from guests who have seen it all and from our host, Angelica Maestas, 3x founder and dedicated supporter of the entrepreneur.

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She’s Ambitious AF

Big Money Energy: Changing the Game for Female Founders

January 22, 2025 • Angelica Maestas • Season 3 • Episode 2

Naseem Sayani, Operating Advisor and Venture Partner at How Women Invest, is rewriting the rules of venture capital. From leading funds that champion female-founded teams to tackling the challenges of diversity in investing, Naseem is on a mission to make big money moves that drive real impact. Tune in for insights on breaking barriers, building impact, and unleashing Big Money Energy.

👉 Connect with Naseem Sayani on LinkedIn here .

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Angelica Maestas (Host): [00:00:00] Welcome to She's Ambitious AF, the bold and empowering podcast that turns up the volume on female entrepreneurship. Join us as we dive headfirst into the wild world of boss babes, where we spill the tea on all things ambition, success, and the occasional hilarious disaster.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Today I'm joined by guest Nassim Sayani. Nassim, why don't you introduce yourself?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Hi, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm Nassim. I'm an operating advisor and venture partner at HowWomenInvest, which is a Three, we're in third of the fun series. Now focus on series A and B rounds with female founded teams across healthcare, and future of work. I've been in venture for about seven years now.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I come from a venture studio, a product studio and consulting before that. and progressed into now running a fund because that was the best way to move [00:01:00] capital and have the kind of impact I wanted to have at the same time. So it's a, it's a good, fun place to be. And I'm excited to be doing it.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Awesome. Well you and I connected, I think it was over the summer at one of the Project W events and it was at a time when I was just evaluating hosting a screening of Show Her the Money and that was just a phenomenal film and I'm glad I was able to host that screening but you were a part of that and you've participated.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I think, what was it, pretty much all year you were off attending screenings, panel conversations. What was that like? I mean, I imagine the energy was amazing because it was electric at my event, but would love to hear a little bit more about your, your support and why that film was meaningful.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah, that's a good question. Top line, it was a lot of fun. It's one of those projects where it landed on our desks. And this was at my previous fund when I was at Emeline Ventures, landed on our desks as something that we could be part [00:02:00] of. And did we want to be associate producers on this film?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): That's going to talk all about increasing funding for female founders. We thought it was amazing. I thought it was such a great opportunity to tell the story of what we're doing

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): to put something into movie form. We know how stories move in beautiful ways

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Hi, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm Nassim. I'm an operating advisor and venture partner at HowWomenInvest, which is a Three, we're in third of the fun series. Now focus on series A and B rounds with female founded teams across healthcare, climate, and future of work. Uh, I've been in venture for about seven years now.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I come from a venture studio, a product studio and consulting before that. Uh, and progressed into now running a fund because that was the best [00:03:00] way to move capital and have the kind of impact I wanted to have at the same time. Uh, so it's a, it's a good, fun place to be. And I'm excited, uh, to be doing it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, top line, it was a lot of fun. Uh, it's one of those projects where it landed on our desks. Uh, and this was at my previous [00:04:00] fund when I was at Emeline Ventures, landed on our desks as something that we could be part of. And did we want to be associate producers on this film?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): That's going to talk all about increasing funding for female founders. uh, We thought it was amazing. I thought it was such a great opportunity to tell the story of what we're doing

Naseem Sayani (Guest): and to put something into movie form. We know how stories move in beautiful ways when they're, when they're told in film.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so was there, was this an opportunity to, you know, take the pedestal that we carry around and now do it in a bigger way. And you never know how a film is going to turn out, especially a documentary. You just wonder like it's either going to be really great or it's going to be super boring, but. We know why we care about it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And it was so closely aligned to like my personal thesis and the thesis of that fund and the one I'm at now, uh, that it was, it kind of was a no brainer. We had, I had to get involved, had to be part of it. And so I got involved as an associate producer. I'm also in the film, which is kind of fun. [00:05:00] So it's my, I like to call it my seven minute cameo in the second half.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And, and, and then we went on tour, right? Movie got done. It went, uh, premiered in Philly in October, and then we were in 2020. And then we were on the road for all of 2024, uh, touring the film, hosting screenings, doing great conversations with rooms of potential investors and budding founders to talk about why this opportunity was so big and so important and so necessary to spend time on, uh, and it's been tremendous.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): The momentum has been incredible. The stories have moved all over the world. I keep getting still LinkedIn messages from people who saw the film somewhere and like, Holy smokes, I would love to meet you. And then I've also had just a ton of friends in different parts of the world who happen to see the movie and then they take a photo when they see me on screen and they're like, Oh my God, I know you.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So cool. So that like that, that, you know, a little bit of stardom that came with it has been really fun because it's people I haven't talked to in like 10 [00:06:00] years and suddenly they're seeing the film somewhere. Uh, so that's been a lot, it's been a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. There's a book coming and then [00:07:00] there's some follow on content coming. We're all in the book. All these associate producers and the executive producers and the founders are all in the book. And so it's going to be, it's fun. It'll be like one of those coffee table things that you can just flip through.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. That should be coming in Q1. So we're all just waiting to hear when it's going to launch. Yeah,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): yeah, yeah. So I'll go a little further back. So I've spent a good bulk of my career in management consulting. I like to call myself a recovering consultant. I spent a lot of time on planes, a lot of time doing just really tremendous work, but all over the world with all the things that come with consulting.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and, but all of it was in digital strategy and innovation. So I started doing that work. In like [00:08:00] 2007, when we first had iPhones in our hands and all of my clients had no idea how the world was going to change and didn't know what digital strategy meant and didn't understand how engagement might shift now that we had this device in our hands that did so much more than many personal computers were doing at the time.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so it was, the shift to that personal device in our hands was a big, big deal. A big move for every industry. And so I got to very, you know, serendipitously be part of teams that were solving this for consumer, for media, for healthcare, for financial services. Uh, and I did that work for a number of years and what happened a couple of years into that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So like maybe circa 2011, 2012. We started to realize that my teams that I worked with at the firm I was at, that our clients were, they were understanding strategy, they could read through like a really beautiful 100 page PowerPoint deck, but they couldn't execute things because building a prototype, understanding [00:09:00] UX and UI, thinking about product.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And the way you need to think about product, uh, what a scrum looks like. Like these are just things that were very unfamiliar at the time and even more so to big corporates, right? It's just not a skillset that sat in the building yet. So we launched a product studio inside the consulting firm to help our clients build product and actually turn things on and take the stuff that was in the PowerPoint deck and like, make it real and put it in market.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Um, So we launched that product studio. I ran that product studio for a couple of years, uh, and I hired in the product talent, the tech talent, the UX, UI talent. And then we started to realize that the products we were testing, the prototype we were doing, these were actually needed different business models than the client's business model.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So it needed to move faster. It needed different culture. It needed different KPIs. So we started not just building product. We were actually building new businesses. So the product studio grew into being a venture incubator [00:10:00] by like 2015, 2014, 2015, it was now the starts of the venture incubator that it grew up to become.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so now we were building startups at scale with client money. Uh, and that was tremendous because everything that I know how to do now, I learned the combination of my strategy background, the studio, and then the incubator because it all kind of went full circle with how the market was evolving as well.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and so it was great, just deeply rich experience. The. The pivot point for me happened where there were two things happened. One, increasingly realizing that there just wasn't enough diversity in that building. There weren't enough women, there weren't enough women in leadership. I was one of like two or three who was senior enough to be, you know, leading teams and selling work.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And then we just didn't have enough people of color. We didn't have enough intersections of women and people of color, like those things weren't in the room. So when you're building product and designing businesses, if 90 percent of the table looks the same, you're [00:11:00] missing a lot. We're just leaving entire use cases off the table and we're not solving for it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so it became one of those flashpoints for me where I was like, we just, we're missing something. Right. And then we're also, this was early stages. Of like B2B SaaS being the big lever for everything that grew. And so we weren't necessarily getting deeper into the nuances of women's health. We weren't getting deeper into financial inclusion.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): We, because we were still at the top level of what was driving innovation from a technology perspective. And so, but I wanted to be involved in those things. So I started, I started angel investing probably 2015, 16 ish. Uh, went out looking for female founders. So went out looking for diverse teams that were building things where I could help, where I, you know, there was some real emotion and passion attached to the money making that could come from it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and then that kicked off what became a larger pivot point where I literally woke up one day and I was like. Something [00:12:00] has to change. Like I'm, I'm working really hard, really like all hours of the day. And yes, you know, as a consultant, you make good money. It's fine. Um, but I wouldn't, I wasn't feeling the human impact of the work I was doing and I really wanted to.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so that became, okay. Angel investing is one thing. Can I do that in a bigger way? And is there an even bigger way? Like, is launching a fund the thing that I should be doing? Maybe that's the thing that I should be doing. And so that's what I did. Uh, took the leap and said, you know what? Like, let's actually just move bigger capital around.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And let's have bigger influence on what happens. Founders are able to do, and let's be really deliberate about who we want to write checks to. And in that same, you know, mind shift moment is when I met my two partners that I launched Emily in Ventures with. We got that off the ground in 2020. We started to write bigger checks into our pilot fund.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): We wanted to really test thesis. We launched the full fund in 2022, raised, you know, just shy of 10 [00:13:00] million, wrote some really great checks. I know all those founders extremely well. Uh, and then October of last year, I got the opportunity to jump to a much bigger fund and take all of that learning experience and actually kind of graduate myself into not from, from seed into series a check writing, uh, still female focused teams, healthcare is still a big part of it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): We also do future of work and climate in this new fund I'm at. But now it's Series A focused. Now it's like, it's much bigger checks. It's later in the funding stages. Uh, and it's great because there are so many different kind of problems in the ecosystem. And one of them is the progression from seed to Series A for so many female founded teams.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Like it can be really hard. It's really hard to raise capital anyway, let alone to raise it as Series A. Because the diversity problem gets worse as the rounds get bigger because there just aren't enough people that look like you and I writing those checks at later stages. So if I could be one of those [00:14:00] people that was, it's like, you can't say no to things like that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So took the leap, jumped. I'm now a leading fund three at how women invest. We're focused on series A and B rounds and writing bigger checks. And so it's, it's good. It's, it's good. It's been fun. It's been fun, crazy and adventurous, but it's been fun.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yes. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh boy. Yeah. Now there's some [00:15:00] magic, right? There's always some magic. So becoming a GP was a weird thing. It was, it was both parts, a lot of fun and also like extremely hard. It's like potentially one of the hardest things I've ever done is get a fund off the ground because there are so many different things you have to solve for.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And then you have to fundraise. And like, it's, if people aren't out giving money away, right. And so like, if only, and so the, that part was probably the hardest is the fundraising. And it's not because money's not available. It's just that so many of us as diverse GPs and as first time fund managers, you know, we are brand new to this ecosystem.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And a lot of this has been working. The flywheel has been built. [00:16:00] Uh, you know, for at least the last 50 years, and it's been a lot of white men funding white men funding white men and that that is and that's just how it built. It was built. And so you put women into rooms like that. And there's like a semantics problem.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): There's a lived experience problem. There's a, you know, sectors that we care about are different. The way we evaluate businesses are different. The way we team with founders is different. And so a lot of that language has to get synthesized in order to have good conversations with the investors who might write a check to a fund like mine.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so that it just, it took a lot of, Trial and error and rinse and repeat and testing out different talk tracks. Get to messages that worked, uh, when I was at Emily Ventures and even now at how women invest, like it works. We're in a much bigger fund now. And there's, you know, this is the third fund. So there's good track record in place.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, but even so like the storytelling is. What it all comes down to and how you talk about [00:17:00] the sectors that you're after, why you're after them, what you expect to see, what's your point of view on the future? Like that, all of that stuff for me was a lot of fun to figure out, but it was, it's like the fun in the middle of a really like messy wrapper.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Um, because it's, it's a lot of work. And the other thing is like launching a fund is no small feat. It like, you cannot underestimate the level of effort, time, the amount of money. You need to have to sustain your life for at least two years to get a fund off the ground is, is not small. And so I've had a lot of very ambitious young people say, Oh, I'm going to launch a fund and I love it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I, we need it, but you're going to have to pay for your life for at least two years before you can do that. And so just make sure you're ready for it because until you raise the fund, you don't have the feats. So you can't, you can't rely on it. And I don't know that everyone fully understands the business model of the fund until you get into doing it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And that's, we just need to have more education on it. [00:18:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, right. No, it never goes as planned. It's, it's going to be completely different than you expect for sure.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Absolutely. [00:19:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. So I think there, it's a good question. So a couple of different thoughts. So from a pure, like almost retail investor perspective and, and When I say retail investor, I mean, the everyday human who wants to invest in a fund, right? Uh, if, if you're curious about investing in funds and you've heard about venture capital and you're seeing things on LinkedIn and you're going, Hey, I want to learn more about that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, there are a number of funds that have really great resources on their websites where you can join virtual calls and ask questions. You can meet other people. You can potentially join something live if they're doing something in town. Uh, how many invest has a lot of that content on the website. So you can go check out our investing FAQs.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, you can join a session with somebody from our team. And it really comes down to asking questions and finding people who [00:20:00] literally will sit down and like, talk you through like, what in the world is a GP and what's an LP and what does a capital call mean? There's a lot of semantics. To, to learn and get comfortable with, and none of it, none of it's hard.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): It's just not words that we've been surrounded by. And so you just have to spend some time learning it. That's where I would start. And then I would say, meet, try to meet a handful of funds before you make a decision, because it's half relationship and half thesis, I think, because you want to find a fund that cares about sectors and opportunities that you care about, but you're also investing in that fund manager.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You also are trusting your money with either a solo or some team of people who are going to deploy it and their, you know, their job is to get you returned. So you have to make sure that you have trust in that team. So getting to know those fund managers is also important and that can happen at events.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You can listen to them on podcasts like this, like that's where a lot, a lot of that can happen. If you're looking, if you're also, as a individual investor, [00:21:00] Looking to invest in startups. So let's say you want, you've heard this term angel investing out in the wild and you're like, Hey, what does that mean?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, there are similarly resources out there and groups like, uh, investment communities and investment clubs that are coming at the angel investing, uh, with, with more people, right? So that you don't individually have to source and find anything, but they're doing this in groups. And there's a handful of them.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Out there, you know, you can look in California, there's something called Stella angels. There's another group called she's independent. There's a few out there. And once you find one, you'll find the others. You have to look for angel investment groups. The thing about that decision though, I, and this might, you know, might be contrarian to what you hear in the wild is that I really, really want first time investors, especially women to invest in a fund before they angel invest.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Because a lot of what there's a, There's a lot of work goes into evaluating a company. And if you're a single angel investments are much higher [00:22:00] risk than a check into a fund, let's say you have the wherewithal to write two 25 K checks into two different companies. Both of those could fall to zero because you just don't know, right?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You don't have as an individual enough time or bandwidth to do enough diligence to really know for sure. But that same 50 K into a fund, Is not likely to go to zero and you'll get the opportunity to learn from the GPs. You get to be part of a community in that fund. You get to see a lot of companies. It is not your job to diligence.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): It is the fund manager's job to do. That is literally what I do every day. You get the benefit of learning the framework. And then once you've learned that and seen it, then you can go angel invest because now you've got a framework in your head. I, and I, I think we're potentially doing ourselves a disservice if we go angel invest a lot first, because it's just, it's just riskier, right?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. [00:23:00] Yeah. And I also think for the purposes of showcasing how good women can be at investing, we, we need women to invest in funds so that we do get the returns so that we can build our own version of the flywheel if we don't, and we spend a lot of money angel investing in some of it, let's say 50 percent of it pays off, but 50 percent of it doesn't we're, we're delivering on the trope.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): that women aren't good at math, like the things that society tells us. Right. And like those things are not true. Uh, but we run some risk of ending up in that lane if we aren't being really strategic about how, where we start.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. [00:24:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. We could have a whole long conversation on that. So I'll get top line. Uh, I am deeply focused and steeped in women's health. I just think there's tremendous opportunity. To change care delivery, to bring better insight to our health care, to help women not feel gaslit by their providers every day, all day.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and it's, it's a matter of reimagining how care gets delivered. It is, it is, developing new data sets that we can actually run insight on and be smarter about diagnoses. It is getting more women into clinical trials so that we actually test things on women. I just saw a commercial, I forget the product, but they said in the commercial that this, if you are female and or, Over [00:25:00] 65 or something like that, this may be harmful to you.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And the message out of that sentence is that it was never tested on women. Like the, now they said it in this commercial. And I was like, I told my husband, I was like, But that's because it wasn't tested on women. He's like, I know I've learned from you what that means, the fact that they said it, right. And more often than not, it doesn't get said, but like that, that is real and it's way more common than we think.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So we have to, I want to be part of resolving those gaps. Uh, there's also, you know, there are more and more care deserts across the country in terms of OB clinics that are closing, maternity care centers that are closing, hospitals that just don't support women's health appropriately. Yeah. Absolutely. And so our ability to deliver remote care and telehealth care is becoming that much more important.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So there's a lot of solutions we can support that can resolve that gap for women in parts of the country where their closest OB is three hours away. And so I'm spending a lot of time thinking about the kinds of solutions that can resolve those kinds of problems and bring more [00:26:00] data and insight to the experience.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And AI is going to be a big part of that. And so that the intersection of women's health and AI. Uh, it is especially interesting for what I'm looking for. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. You know what, Mackenzie?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Mackenzie says it's a trillion dollars. So that's, that's what I'm running with.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, that's a good question. So, uh, I will say real clarity on what they're solving for. [00:27:00] I know it sounds simple, but the founders that I have written checks to, uh, are usually founders that I've known for at least a year. I've spent some time with them, but the reason I've spent that much time with them is because when I first met them.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): They said one or two sentences and I was like, Oh, you're doing what now? And then they tell me more and they tell me more, but they, they got the words down quick up front. Uh, and so now you, you're going to dig in and you're going to learn more. And so that real clarity of what they're solving for and being able to deliver it in one or two sentences makes a huge difference.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, really understanding business model and knowing how they're going to make money So there, of course you're going to pivot and test things, but there, especially let's say in healthcare, like there are really new opportunities around accessing CPT codes from a reimbursement perspective that help the provider make money [00:28:00] while you as a startup also make money.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So otherwise it's coming out of their bottom line, right? But there are some startups that have really been thoughtful about how I'm going to help the provider. Get reimbursed against these new codes that they haven't been able to build before, and because they're getting an extra X, Y, Z dollars a month, paying me a portion of that is not a big deal anymore.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So like the incentives are aligned. So hearing really smart business model approaches is also great. Uh, strong, of course, strong teams, but strong teams who really understand their superpowers. So they know what they're really good at and they know what they need on the team. So they can tell me, well, I need to hire this.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I need to hire this and I need to hire this and I can help them source those people. And then having really clear vision on the transformation that they're after. So I always like to ask founders. So in five years, what does the world look like when you succeed? What does the world look like? Who has it changed for what's different tomorrow?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And if they can [00:29:00] answer that question thoughtfully and with real strategy and trends, right, embedded in the answer, that's great. Uh, and then my, my flip side on that question is, so where's the, where's the anxiety? In that, what keeps you in getting to that vision? What keeps you up at night and the founders that are really transparent and willing to be open about what keeps them up at night will really tell you they're like, well, I'm worried, I'm worried about sales.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I'm worried about making sure I have the right head of engineering. I'm worried about like the more transparent. They'll be in that question is really telling because it means that we're going to be able to work together and like, I'll be able to help because you're telling me what's really going on.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I'm not getting kind of rosy glasses all the time. So I just, it's a couple of questions I use to really understand what they're after and to get a sense of teaming and coachability and transparency, uh, that then lead, you know, to other conversations.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): [00:30:00] Yeah. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes, uh, so the thing that I think not a lot of founders always realize is that we meet as GPs, you meet a lot of founders. Like we're hearing out 10, 15 pitches a week minimum. And so you're very likely not the first company doing X. that I have talked to. And so when I, when I start to ask questions, I'm like, well, what about this?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And what about that? And didn't this happen? And wait, isn't there a problem with this? And if it, if the response is very open and transparent and collaborative, that's one thing. But every now and then you'll get a little bit of the defensive response and you'll get a little bit of like, Oh no, no, no. It just doesn't work that way.[00:31:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and for me, that's a total red flag because I'm like, okay, well, no, you must know better than I, but I've literally, I've talked to five other companies using the same words, so I just, I need to understand what's different. Uh, and I don't think, uh, that's, so that's red flag territory, right? Is the kind of response you get to a question like that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): The other is not really having a good handle on the business model. So, you know, B2C. A lot of companies want to start B2C and it can be very hard to do B2C. It might be really great for the first six months, but it's, the scale is tremendously hard. The marketing dollars that have to go into a B2C business model are enormous.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so if you, if you aren't thinking, if you can't prove that B2C is going to be the anchor, and there's some really great way that marketing is not going to explode in terms of spend, um, what's the B2B path, how's that going to grow? How's that going to balance what you're doing in B2C? And if they haven't thought through all the different levers, uh, in a good, thoughtful way, then that's also red flag territory.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): There [00:32:00] should, or especially early on, there should be some good testing, some really good, uh, like robust problem solving when it comes to go to market and what channels are going to make sense. And then the third is, uh, is on exit strategy. So there's a handful of founders pre seed and seed. This is better at series A, but pre seed and seed, if I ask them, so what's the exit strategy, they'll say, well, oh, well, I haven't really thought about that yet.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Well, you can't, you have to, you have to, right? And so my feedback is, is always like, well, even if you're pre seed, you have to have a sense of it because my entire job relies on you exiting. And so I can't write a check unless you know how you're going to exit. And I don't think, I think what happens is a lot of founders think, Oh, it's pre seed.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): It's too early. I don't have to worry about that. I'm like, well, you have, you have to have a sense of it. Right. And so like those things end up being big red flags and then we'll say, we'll go, go figure those things out. And then let's talk again. [00:33:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Um, that hasn't happened yet. I have stayed in touch with a handful of them. So we do follow up. Um, Um, but not yet. Usually the ones that I've written checks to have a lot of that figured out up front.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Okay. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, I'm at 80s, 80s, 90s, like coming of age movies are my favorite.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh goodness. Uh, if I'm thinking about it, then there isn't really one. I spent a lot of time, uh, playing games. So I New York times, I do a lot of reading, but then I also play wordle every single day. So that might be the one if I had to pick something.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, I like to, I like to do a glass of wine or a champagne or something and just [00:34:00] toast. I think we have to take a minute just to breathe in the winds, uh, and let it soak in a little bit and do that. I like to do that with other people. I like to, you know, share in the joy with other people, whether it's on a Zoom call or in person, uh, and just say, Hey, we did that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Let's just sit with it for a minute.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh goodness. Uh, Glass of wine. Also, uh, you get a sense for how I do with think about things. Uh, I think a lot of it is just, uh, reflecting, sitting and thinking about what the setback was, how you got there, what could have been different, uh, and then not staying in that place, but pivoting forward and saying, okay, well, For me in particular, like I have to keep moving.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, my journey doesn't stop. So what do I take with me from it? Uh, and, and what do I know I'm still good at and where do I [00:35:00] take that next? I think that, that for me is the most important part of it is like, what's, what's the next bridge? And how am I going to walk across that bridge differently than I walked across the previous?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Because this won't happen again, right? I have to be ready for a new problem and not have this happening.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I'm going to pick, uh, Unstoppable by Sia, because that I listened to it. I like that song a lot always, but I listened to it a lot over the break. And I'm just like, man, there's the power in that song. And especially heading into a year like this after the election we had last year. It's like, has to be the energy we put into everything.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yes. Yes. You [00:36:00] have to really feel it. I agree. Yeah, absolutely.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, their ability to hustle. It's, it's, you know, they, the female founders I know because of how much they're juggling. And how much they're sacrificing to build the business that they're building. Uh, they are not going to let this thing fail. Like it is coming from their belly in a way that it often isn't with other founders.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so, you know, they're after it. She's going to figure this out. And I don't think the industry understands that fully. Oh,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I like that question. Uh, so I'll say two things. One, I am always, always happy to meet great founders. So if you are a female founder building in health care, climate or future of work, and you are close to and or raising a Series A, Find me on LinkedIn and let's talk. [00:37:00] It's the easiest way. Uh, if you are a potential investor and you're curious to learn what all of this is, and you want to understand what we're doing at how we're going to invest, or you want to just talk about investing and ask me a bunch of questions so that you can figure out if you want to do it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I'm happy for that also. So find me on LinkedIn and let's talk, uh, because the more education we spread into the female side of this ecosystem, the better and the more women we can bring in writing checks, that's where the change will happen. And so let's just all talk more and it doesn't have to be scary and it's totally accessible.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, you just have to find people to talk to you about it. And we're all here.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yay. Good.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): [00:38:00] Absolutely. Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): when they're told in film.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so was

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): how a film is going to turn out, especially a documentary. You just wonder like it's either going to be really great or it's going to be super boring, but. know why we care about it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And it was so closely aligned to like my personal thesis and the thesis of that fund and the

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah. Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): kind of was a no brainer. We

Angelica Maestas (Host): hmm. Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): to be part of it. And so I got involved as an associate producer. I'm also in the film, which is kind of fun. So it's

Angelica Maestas (Host): hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): call it my seven minute cameo in the second half.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And, and then we went on tour, right? Movie got done.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): premiered in Philly in October, and then we were in 2020. And then we were on the road for all of 2024 touring the film, hosting screenings, doing great conversations with rooms of potential investors and [00:39:00] budding founders to talk about why this opportunity was so big and so important and so necessary to spend time on,

Angelica Maestas (Host): right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): been tremendous.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): also had just a ton of friends in different parts of the world who happen to see the movie and then they take a photo when they see me on screen and they're like, Oh my God, I know you. So cool. So that like that, that, you know, a little bit of stardom that came with it has been

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah, how funny.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): film somewhere. so that's been a lot, it's been a lot of fun.

Angelica Maestas (Host): That's awesome. It

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Angelica Maestas (Host): attracts the kind of people that, that, you know, The mission is the same. So there are people who care about investing in women. And I guess for listeners who may have not heard of the film or seen it themselves, it is about the, [00:40:00] the less than 2 percent of venture capital that goes to female founders.

Angelica Maestas (Host): And that's not a new statistic. We're all, you know, very familiar with that and aware. But, but the film was about, The conversation inspired is how do we change that? And well, we get more women investing and we educate on what it means to invest and how to go about it. And women will invest in other women.

Angelica Maestas (Host): And so it's been, it's been inspiring to, to be a part of it. I know they have some fun things planned for 2025. So excited to see what comes with that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. There's a book coming and then

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh, it's there.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): coming. We're all in the book. All these associate producers and the executive producers and the founders are all in the book. And so it's going to be, it's fun. It'll be like one of those coffee table things that you

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh, that's awesome.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): should be coming in Q1. So we're all just waiting to hear when it's going to launch.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Nice. Awesome. Well, prior to becoming a film star, what [00:41:00] was your, so you said you were, you worked in a venture studio and then eventually became GP at Emily Inventors. Can you talk a little bit about that transition? And I know you said impact was kind of the draw. Huh.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah

Naseem Sayani (Guest): and, but all of it was in digital strategy and innovation. So

Angelica Maestas (Host): Huh Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): In like 2007, when we first had iPhones in our hands and all of my clients had no idea how the world was going to change and didn't know what digital strategy meant and didn't understand how engagement might shift now that we had this device in our hands that did so much more than many personal computers were doing at the

Angelica Maestas (Host): hm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): so it was, the shift to that personal device [00:42:00] in our hands was a big, big deal. A big move for every industry.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah

Naseem Sayani (Guest): got to very, you know, serendipitously be part of teams that were solving this for consumer, for media, for healthcare, for financial services. and I did that work for a number of years and what happened a couple of years into that.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): building a prototype, understanding UX and UI, thinking about product. And the way you need to think about product what a scrum looks like. Like these are just things that

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah Ohh

Naseem Sayani (Guest): right? It's just not a skillset that sat in the building yet. So we launched a product studio inside the consulting firm to help our clients build product and actually

Angelica Maestas (Host): Wow

Naseem Sayani (Guest): on and take the stuff that was in the PowerPoint deck and like, [00:43:00] make it real and put it in market.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So we launched that product studio. I ran that product studio for a couple of years and I hired in the product talent, the tech talent, the UX, UI talent. then we started to

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Hi, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm Nassim. I'm an operating advisor and venture partner at HowWomenInvest, which is a Three, we're in third of the fun series. Now focus on series A and B rounds with female founded teams across healthcare, climate, and future of work. Uh, I've been in venture for about seven years now.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I come from a venture studio, a product studio and consulting before that. Uh, and progressed into now running a fund because that was the best way to move capital and have the kind of impact I wanted to have at the same time. Uh, so it's a, it's a good, fun place [00:44:00] to be. And I'm excited, uh, to be doing it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, top line, it was a lot of fun. Uh, it's one of those projects where it landed on our desks. Uh, and this was at my previous fund when I was at Emeline Ventures, landed on our desks as something that we could be part of. And did we want to be [00:45:00] associate producers on this film?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): and to put something into movie form. We know how stories move in beautiful ways when they're, when they're told in film.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And it was so closely aligned to like my personal thesis and the thesis of that fund and the one I'm at now, uh, that it was, it kind of was a no brainer. We had, I had to get involved, had to be part of it. And so I got involved as an associate producer. I'm also in the film, which is kind of fun. So it's my, I like to call it my seven minute cameo in the second half.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And, and, and then we went on tour, right? Movie [00:46:00] got done. It went, uh, premiered in Philly in October, and then we were in 2020. And then we were on the road for all of 2024, uh, touring the film, hosting screenings, doing great conversations with rooms of potential investors and budding founders to talk about why this opportunity was so big and so important and so necessary to spend time on, uh, and it's been tremendous.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So cool. So that like that, that, you know, a little bit of stardom that came with it has been really fun because it's people I haven't talked to in like 10 years and suddenly they're seeing the film somewhere. Uh, so that's been a lot, it's been a lot of fun. [00:47:00] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. There's a book coming and then there's some follow on content coming. We're all in the book. All these associate producers and the executive producers and the founders are all in [00:48:00] the book. And so it's going to be, it's fun. It'll be like one of those coffee table things that you can just flip through.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. That should be coming in Q1. So we're all just waiting to hear when it's going to launch. Yeah,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and, but all of it was in digital strategy and innovation. So I started doing that work. In like 2007, when we first had iPhones in our hands and all of my clients had no idea how [00:49:00] the world was going to change and didn't know what digital strategy meant and didn't understand how engagement might shift now that we had this device in our hands that did so much more than many personal computers were doing at the time.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And the way you need to think about product, uh, what a scrum looks like. Like [00:50:00] these are just things that were very unfamiliar at the time and even more so to big corporates, right? It's just not a skillset that sat in the building yet. So we launched a product studio inside the consulting firm to help our clients build product and actually turn things on and take the stuff that was in the PowerPoint deck and like, make it real and put it in market.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So it needed to move faster. It needed different culture. It needed different KPIs. So we started not just building product. We were actually building new businesses. So the product studio grew into being a venture incubator by like 2015, 2014, 2015, it was now the starts of the venture incubator [00:51:00] that it grew up to become.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And then we just didn't have enough people of color. We didn't have enough intersections of women and people of color, like those things weren't in the room. So when you're building product and designing businesses, if 90 percent of the table looks the same, you're missing a lot. We're just leaving entire use cases off the table and we're not solving for it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so [00:52:00] it became one of those flashpoints for me where I was like, we just, we're missing something. Right. And then we're also, this was early stages. Of like B2B SaaS being the big lever for everything that grew. And so we weren't necessarily getting deeper into the nuances of women's health. We weren't getting deeper into financial inclusion.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and then that kicked off what became a larger pivot point where I literally woke up one day and I was like. Something has to change. Like I'm, I'm working really hard, really like all hours of the day. And yes, you [00:53:00] know, as a consultant, you make good money. It's fine. Um, but I wouldn't, I wasn't feeling the human impact of the work I was doing and I really wanted to.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): We wanted to really test thesis. We launched the full fund in 2022, raised, you know, just shy of 10 million, wrote some really great checks. I know all those founders extremely well. Uh, and then October of [00:54:00] last year, I got the opportunity to jump to a much bigger fund and take all of that learning experience and actually kind of graduate myself into not from, from seed into series a check writing, uh, still female focused teams, healthcare is still a big part of it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Like it can be really hard. It's really hard to raise capital anyway, let alone to raise it as Series A. Because the diversity problem gets worse as the rounds get bigger because there just aren't enough people that look like you and I writing those checks at later stages. So if I could be one of those people that was, it's like, you can't say no to things like that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So took the leap, jumped. I'm now [00:55:00] a leading fund three at how women invest. We're focused on series A and B rounds and writing bigger checks. And so it's, it's good. It's, it's good. It's been fun. It's been fun, crazy and adventurous, but it's been fun.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yes. Yeah. Yep. Absolutely.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh boy. Yeah. Now there's some magic, right? There's always some magic. So becoming a GP was a weird thing. It was, it was both parts, a lot of [00:56:00] fun and also like extremely hard. It's like potentially one of the hardest things I've ever done is get a fund off the ground because there are so many different things you have to solve for.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And a lot of this has been working. The flywheel has been built. Uh, you know, for at least the last 50 years, and it's been a lot of white men [00:57:00] funding white men funding white men and that that is and that's just how it built. It was built. And so you put women into rooms like that. And there's like a semantics problem.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, but even so like the storytelling is. What it all comes down to and how you talk about the sectors that you're after, why you're after them, what you expect to see, what's your point of view on the future? Like [00:58:00] that, all of that stuff for me was a lot of fun to figure out, but it was, it's like the fun in the middle of a really like messy wrapper.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And that's, we just need to have more education on it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. [00:59:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, right. No, it never goes as planned. It's, it's going to be completely different than you expect for sure.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Absolutely. [01:00:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, you can join a session with somebody from our team. And it really comes down to asking questions and finding people who literally will sit down and like, talk you through like, what in the world is a GP and what's an LP and what does a capital call mean? [01:01:00] There's a lot of semantics. To, to learn and get comfortable with, and none of it, none of it's hard.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You can listen to them on podcasts like this, like that's where a lot, a lot of that can happen. If you're looking, if you're also, as a individual investor, Looking to invest in startups. So let's say you want, you've heard this term angel investing out in the wild and you're like, Hey, what does that [01:02:00] mean?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Because a lot of what there's a, There's a lot of work goes into evaluating a company. And if you're a single angel investments are much higher risk than a check into a fund, let's say you have the wherewithal to write two 25 K [01:03:00] checks into two different companies. Both of those could fall to zero because you just don't know, right?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. And I also think for the purposes of showcasing how good women can be [01:04:00] at investing, we, we need women to invest in funds so that we do get the returns so that we can build our own version of the flywheel if we don't, and we spend a lot of money angel investing in some of it, let's say 50 percent of it pays off, but 50 percent of it doesn't we're, we're delivering on the trope.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. [01:05:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and it's, it's a matter of reimagining how care gets delivered. It is, it is, developing new data sets that we can actually run insight on and be smarter about diagnoses. It is getting more women into clinical trials so that we actually test things on women. I just saw a commercial, I forget the product, but they said in the commercial that this, if you are female and or, Over 65 or something like that, this may be harmful to you.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And the message out of that sentence is [01:06:00] that it was never tested on women. Like the, now they said it in this commercial. And I was like, I told my husband, I was like, But that's because it wasn't tested on women. He's like, I know I've learned from you what that means, the fact that they said it, right. And more often than not, it doesn't get said, but like that, that is real and it's way more common than we think.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And AI is going to be a big part of that. And so that the intersection of women's health and AI. [01:07:00] Uh, it is especially interesting for what I'm looking for. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. You know what, Mackenzie?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Mackenzie says it's a trillion dollars. So that's, that's what I'm running with.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, that's a good question. So, uh, I will say real clarity on what they're solving for. I know it sounds simple, but the founders that I have written checks to, uh, [01:08:00] are usually founders that I've known for at least a year. I've spent some time with them, but the reason I've spent that much time with them is because when I first met them.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So otherwise it's coming out of their bottom line, right? But there are some startups that have [01:09:00] really been thoughtful about how I'm going to help the provider. Get reimbursed against these new codes that they haven't been able to build before, and because they're getting an extra X, Y, Z dollars a month, paying me a portion of that is not a big deal anymore.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And if they can answer that question thoughtfully and with real strategy and trends, right, embedded in the answer, [01:10:00] that's great. Uh, and then my, my flip side on that question is, so where's the, where's the anxiety? In that, what keeps you in getting to that vision? What keeps you up at night and the founders that are really transparent and willing to be open about what keeps them up at night will really tell you they're like, well, I'm worried, I'm worried about sales.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. [01:11:00] Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, and for me, that's a total red flag because I'm like, okay, well, no, you must know better than I, but I've literally, I've talked [01:12:00] to five other companies using the same words, so I just, I need to understand what's different. Uh, and I don't think, uh, that's, so that's red flag territory, right? Is the kind of response you get to a question like that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): There should, or especially early on, there should be some good testing, some really good, uh, like robust [01:13:00] problem solving when it comes to go to market and what channels are going to make sense. And then the third is, uh, is on exit strategy. So there's a handful of founders pre seed and seed. This is better at series A, but pre seed and seed, if I ask them, so what's the exit strategy, they'll say, well, oh, well, I haven't really thought about that yet.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Um, that [01:14:00] hasn't happened yet. I have stayed in touch with a handful of them. So we do follow up. Um, Um, but not yet. Usually the ones that I've written checks to have a lot of that figured out up front.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Okay. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, I'm at 80s, 80s, 90s, like coming of age movies are my favorite.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, I like to, I like to do a glass of wine or a champagne or something and just toast. I think we have to take a minute just to breathe in the winds, uh, and let it soak in a little bit [01:15:00] and do that. I like to do that with other people. I like to, you know, share in the joy with other people, whether it's on a Zoom call or in person, uh, and just say, Hey, we did that.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Let's just sit with it for a minute.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, my journey doesn't stop. So what do I take with me from it? Uh, and, and what do I know I'm still good at and where do I take that next? I think that, that for me is the most important part of it is like, what's, what's the next bridge? And how [01:16:00] am I going to walk across that bridge differently than I walked across the previous?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Because this won't happen again, right? I have to be ready for a new problem and not have this happening.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yes. Yes. You have to really feel it. I agree. Yeah, absolutely. [01:17:00]

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so, you know, they're after it. She's going to figure this out. And I don't think the industry understands that fully. Oh,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I like that question. Uh, so I'll say two things. One, I am always, always happy to meet great founders. So if you are a female founder building in health care, climate or future of work, and you are close to and or raising a Series A, Find me on LinkedIn and let's talk. It's the easiest way. Uh, if you are a potential investor and you're curious to [01:18:00] learn what all of this is, and you want to understand what we're doing at how we're going to invest, or you want to just talk about investing and ask me a bunch of questions so that you can figure out if you want to do it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Uh, you just have to find people to talk to you about it. And we're all here.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yay. Good.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Absolutely. Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): realize that the products we were testing, the [01:19:00] prototype we were doing, these were actually different business models than the client's business model.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So it needed to move faster. It needed different culture. It needed different KPIs. we started not just building product. We were actually building new businesses.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm hm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So the product studio grew into being a venture incubator by like 2015, 2014, 2015, it was now the starts of the venture incubator that it grew up to become.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so

Angelica Maestas (Host): Wow

Naseem Sayani (Guest): building startups scale with client money.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah

Naseem Sayani (Guest): because everything that I know how to do now, I learned the combination of my strategy background, the studio,

Angelica Maestas (Host): That's awesome

Naseem Sayani (Guest): because it all kind of went full circle with how the market was evolving as

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so it was great, just deeply rich experience. The. The pivot point for me happened where there were two things happened. One, increasingly realizing that there just wasn't enough diversity in that building. There weren't enough women, there weren't enough women in [01:20:00] leadership. I was one of like two or three who was senior enough to be, you know, leading teams and selling work. And then we just didn't have enough people of color. We didn't have enough intersections of women and people of color, like those things weren't in the room. So when you're building product and designing businesses, if 90 percent of the table looks the same, you're

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm hmm Yeah Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): off the table and we're not solving for it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so it became one of those flashpoints for me where I was like, we just, missing something. Right. And then we're also, was early stages. Of like B2B SaaS being

Angelica Maestas (Host): hm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): lever for everything that grew. And so we weren't necessarily getting deeper into the nuances of women's health. We weren't getting deeper into financial inclusion. We, because we were still at the top level of what was driving innovation

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right Thank you.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): technology perspective.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mhm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): but I wanted to be involved in those things. So I started, I started angel investing probably 2015, 16 ish. Went out [01:21:00] looking for female founders. So went out looking for

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mhm. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): emotion and passion attached to the money making that could come from it. and then that kicked off what became a larger pivot point where I literally woke up one day and I was like. Something has to change. Like I'm, I'm working really hard, really like all hours of the day. And yes, you know, as a consultant, you make good money. It's fine. But I wouldn't, I wasn't feeling the human impact of the work I was doing and I really

Angelica Maestas (Host): Ah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): to.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so that became, okay. Angel investing is one thing. Can I do that in a bigger way?

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mhm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And is there an even bigger way? Like, is launching a fund the thing that I should be doing? Maybe that's the thing that I should be doing.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): did.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Wow.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): took the leap and said, you know what? Like, let's actually just move bigger capital around.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And let's have bigger influence what happens. Founders are able to do, and let's be really deliberate about who we want to write checks to.

Angelica Maestas (Host): [01:22:00] Mhm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And in that same, you know, mind shift moment is when I met my two partners that I launched Emily in Ventures with.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): that off the ground in 2020. We started to write bigger checks into our pilot fund.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): We wanted to really test thesis. We launched the full fund in 2022, raised, you know, just shy of 10 million, wrote some really great checks. I know all those founders extremely well. And then October of last year, I got the opportunity to jump to a much bigger fund and take all of that learning experience and actually kind of graduate myself into not from, from seed into series a check writing still

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Teams, healthcare is still a big part of it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): We also do future of work and climate in this new fund I'm at. But now it's Series A focused.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): it's much bigger checks. It's later in the funding stages. and it's great because there are so many different kind of problems in the ecosystem.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): them is the progression from seed to Series A

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): many female founded [01:23:00] teams.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Like it can be really hard. It's really hard to raise capital anyway, let alone to raise it as Series A.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Because the diversity problem gets worse as the rounds get bigger because

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh, yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): enough people that look like you and I writing

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): at

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mhm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So if I could be one of those people that was, it's like, you can't say no to things like that.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah, heck no.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): took the leap, jumped. I'm now a leading fund three at how women invest. We're focused on series A and B rounds and writing bigger checks. And so it's, it's good. It's, it's good. It's been fun. It's been fun, crazy and adventurous, but it's been fun.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I love the the progression because it all just seems like complete universal alignment from the consulting to the studio to the angel investing to the fund and now how women invest. I think everything's just kind of taking you on a path to have greater and greater impact, which, you know, is, is meaningful to all of us.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Is the focus still on women and women founders?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yes. Yeah.

Angelica Maestas (Host): okay.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Absolutely.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Awesome. [01:24:00] Well, tell me a little bit about the journey of, of becoming a GP. And, and you all made it look kind of easy.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh

Angelica Maestas (Host): Which is awesome, but I know it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): is get a fund off the ground because there are so many different things you have to solve for.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): There is. You have to figure out what size you want the fund to be. You have to figure out what kind of companies you want to invest in. You then have to get all the legalese done and you have to make sure you have the right business partners from a fund formation, tax, legal, all that stuff has to get sorted. And then you have to fundraise. it's, if people aren't out giving money away, right. And so like, if only, and so the, that part was probably the hardest is the fundraising. And it's not [01:25:00] because money's not available. It's just that so many of us as GPs and as first time fund managers, you know, we are brand new to this ecosystem.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And a lot of this has been working. The flywheel has been built. You know, for at least the last 50 years,

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): it's been a lot of white men funding white men funding white men and that that is and that's just how it built. It was built. And so

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): women into rooms like that. And there's like a semantics problem.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): There's a lived experience problem.

Angelica Maestas (Host): yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): a, you know, that we care about are different. The way we evaluate businesses are different. The way we team with founders is different. And so a lot of that language has to get synthesized

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): have good conversations with the investors who might write a check to a fund like mine.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so that it just, it took a lot of, Trial and error and rinse and repeat and testing out different talk tracks.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Get to messages that worked when I [01:26:00] was at Emily Ventures and even now at how women invest, like it works. We're in a much bigger fund now. And there's, you know, this is the third fund. So there's good track record in place.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): but even so like the storytelling is. What it all comes down to and how you talk about that you're after, why you're after them, what you expect to see, what's your point of view on the future? Like that, all of that stuff for me was a lot of fun to figure out, but it was, it's like the fun in the middle of a really like messy wrapper.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Because it's, it's a lot of work. And the other thing is like launching a fund is no small feat. It like, you cannot the level of effort, time, the amount of money. You need to have to sustain your life

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): of very ambitious young people say, Oh, I'm going to launch a fund I love it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I, we need it, but you're going to have to pay for your life for at least two years

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): can do that. And so just make sure you're ready for it[01:27:00]

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): you raise the fund, you don't have the feats. So you can't, you

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): it. And I don't know that everyone fully understands the business model of the fund until you get into doing it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And that's, we just need to have more education on it.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I think so, and I think to your point, you don't understand it until you're in it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I knew how hard it was going to be. I had done all my research. mentally understood this is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done professionally, but not until I felt it and had some, had some of the big setbacks and I'm like, oh my god, like, and finally things start working, but it, it involved some pivots and none of it went how it went in my head.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, right. No, it never goes as planned.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): be completely different than you

Angelica Maestas (Host): yeah, yeah. And, and we do need to get more ambitious people who want to raise funds, but with the knowledge of, of what it's going to take and, and [01:28:00] it is financial sacrifice for sure.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Absolutely.

Angelica Maestas (Host): so you're, you're an inspiration to a lot of women, a lot of women look up to you and they say, Oh, okay.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Nassim did it. What, what advice would you give as far as, you know, , maybe dipping your toes in, into learning about investing. Like what's, what's a good way? What are resources?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So I think there, it's a

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So a couple of different thoughts. So from a pure, like almost retail investor perspective and, and When I say retail investor, I mean, the everyday human who wants to invest in a fund, right? If, if you're curious about investing in funds and you've heard about venture capital and you're seeing things on LinkedIn and you're going, Hey, I want to learn more about that. There are a number of funds that have really great resources on their websites where you can join virtual calls and ask questions. You can meet other people. You can potentially join something live if they're doing something in town. How many invest has a lot of that content on the website. So you can go check [01:29:00] out our investing FAQs.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You can join a session with somebody from our team. And it really comes down to asking questions and finding people who will sit down and like, talk you through like, what in the world is a GP and what's an LP and what does a capital call mean? There's a lot of semantics.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): To, to learn and get comfortable with, and none of it, none of it's hard.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): It's just not words that we've been surrounded by.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): have to spend some time learning it. That's where I would start. And then I would say, meet, try to meet a handful of funds before you make a decision, it's half relationship and half thesis, I think, because you want to find a fund that cares about sectors and opportunities that you care about, you're also investing in that fund manager.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): to know those fund managers is also important and that can happen at events.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You can [01:30:00] listen to them on podcasts like this, like

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): a lot, a

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): can happen. If you're looking, if you're also, as a individual investor, to invest in startups. So let's say you want, you've heard this term angel investing out in the wild and you're like, Hey, what does that mean? There are similarly resources out there and groups like investment communities and investment clubs that are coming at the angel investing with, with more people, right? So that you don't individually have to source and find anything, but they're doing this in groups. And there's a handful of them. Out there, you know, you can look in California, there's something called Stella angels. There's another group called she's independent. There's a few out there. And once you find one, you'll find the others. You have to look for angel investment groups. thing about that decision though, I, and this might, you know, might be contrarian to what you hear in the wild is that I really, really want first time investors, especially women to invest in a fund before they angel invest.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): a lot of what there's a, There's a lot of work goes [01:31:00] into evaluating a company. And if you're

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): a single angel investments are much higher risk than a check into a fund, say you have the wherewithal to write two 25 K checks into two different companies. Both of those could fall to zero because you just don't know, right? You don't have as an individual enough time or bandwidth to do enough diligence to really know for sure. But that

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): K into a fund, not likely to go to zero and you'll get the opportunity to learn from the GPs. You get to be part of a community in that fund. You

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): lot of companies. It is not your job to diligence.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): It is the fund manager's job to do. That is literally what I do every day.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You get the benefit of learning the framework.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): once you've learned that and seen it, then you can go angel invest because now you've got a framework in your head.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I, I think we're potentially doing ourselves a disservice if we go angel invest a lot first, because it's just, it's just riskier,

Angelica Maestas (Host): yeah, that's a [01:32:00] really great point Very valid points there for sure Yeah Mm hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): we, we need women to invest in funds so that we do get the returns so that we can build our own version of the flywheel if we don't, and we spend a lot of money angel investing in some of it, let's say 50 percent of it pays off, but 50 percent of it doesn't we're, we're on the trope. women aren't good at math, like the things that society tells us.

Angelica Maestas (Host): You're right, right? Mm hmm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): but we run some risk ending up in that lane if we aren't being really strategic about how, where we start.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right. Well, I think that's a great point. The The reinventing our own flywheel. And a lot of that is demonstration of, of outcomes that we, we can invest and make wise decisions and in founders that will go on to succeed and scale and [01:33:00] generate returns. Well, I would love to, to hear about what you're excited as far as industry and impact.

Angelica Maestas (Host): What are you excited to invest in, in 2025 or what are you looking for? Yes.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): opportunity. change care delivery, to bring better insight to our health care, to help women not feel gaslit by their providers every day, all day.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And it's, it's a matter of reimagining how care gets delivered. It is, it is, developing new data sets that we can actually run insight on and be smarter about diagnoses. is getting more women into clinical trials so that we actually test things on women. I just saw a commercial, I forget the product, but they said in the commercial that this, if you are female and or, [01:34:00] Over 65 or something like that, this may be harmful to you. And the message out

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh my God.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): is that it was never tested on women. Like the, now they said it in this commercial. And I was like, I told my husband, I was

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh my God.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): it wasn't tested on women. He's

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I've learned from you what that means, the fact that they said it, right. And

Angelica Maestas (Host): Wow!

Naseem Sayani (Guest): get said, but like that, that is real and it's way more common than we think.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So have to, I want to be part of resolving those gaps.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): you know, there are more and more care deserts across the country in terms of OB clinics that are closing, maternity care centers that are closing, hospitals that just don't support women's health appropriately. Yeah. Absolutely. And so ability to deliver remote care and telehealth care is becoming that much more important.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): So there's a lot of solutions we can support that can resolve that gap for women in parts of the country where their closest OB is three hours away. And so I'm spending a

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): thinking about the kinds of solutions that can resolve those kinds of [01:35:00] problems and bring more data and insight to the experience.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And AI is going to be a big part of that. And so that the intersection of women's health and AI. It is especially interesting

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yes. Yeah, it's really an exciting time for us. One is because I think women's health is finally getting the right attention. And I know a lot of people still think it's not a big enough market, but we won't get, we won't go down.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Mackenzie says it's a trillion dollars. So that's, that's what I'm running with.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh, well, so you've you've had experience writing different sizes of checks now into female founders. What is it about A, a pitch meeting when you meet that founder and you say, this is a woman, or this is a team that we want to invest in. Like, what are, what are some of those ahas?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, that's a good question. So I will say real on what they're solving for. I know it [01:36:00] sounds simple, but the founders that I have written checks to are usually founders that I've known for at least a year. I've spent some time with them,

Angelica Maestas (Host): Okay.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): the reason I've spent that much time with them is because when I first met them. said one or two sentences and I was like, Oh, you're doing what now?

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): tell me more and they tell me more, but they, they got the words down quick up front.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so now you, you're going to dig in and you're going to learn more.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so that

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): of what they're solving for and being able to deliver it in one or two sentences makes a huge difference. really understanding business model and knowing how they're going to make money So there, of course you're going to pivot and test things, but there, especially let's say in healthcare, like there are really new opportunities around accessing CPT codes from a reimbursement perspective that help the provider make money while you as a startup also make [01:37:00] money. otherwise it's

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): of their bottom line, right? But there are some startups that have really been thoughtful about how I'm going to help the provider. Get reimbursed against these new codes that they haven't been able to build before, and because they're getting an

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Y, Z dollars a month, paying me a portion of that is not a big deal anymore. So like the incentives are aligned. really smart business model approaches is also great.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Okay.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): strong, of course, strong teams, but strong teams who really understand their superpowers. So

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm,

Naseem Sayani (Guest): what they're really good at and they know what they need on the team. So they can tell me, well, I need to hire this.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I need to hire this and I need to hire this and I can help them source those people.

Angelica Maestas (Host): mm-hmm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And then having really clear vision on the transformation that they're after. I always like to ask founders. So in five years, what does the world look like when you succeed? What does the world look like? Who has it changed for what's different tomorrow?

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And if they can answer that question [01:38:00] and with real strategy and trends, right, embedded in the answer,

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): that's

Angelica Maestas (Host): Hm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And then my, my flip side on that question is, so where's the, where's the anxiety? In that, what keeps you in getting to that vision? What keeps you up at night and the founders that are really transparent and willing to be open about what keeps them up at night will really tell you they're like, well, I'm worried, I'm worried about sales.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I'm worried about making sure I have the right head of engineering. I'm

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): the more transparent. They'll be in that question is really telling because it means that we're going to be able to work together and like, I'll be able to help because

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): going on. I'm not getting kind of rosy glasses all the time.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): it's a couple of questions I use to really understand what they're after and to get a sense of teaming and coachability and transparency, that then lead, you know, to other conversations.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Got it. Those are great pointers. I'm going to [01:39:00] note that just for myself or for personal use.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. Yeah.

Angelica Maestas (Host): flip side of that, is it as far as red flags when you're in pitch meetings, is it anything that's counter to all of those things you look for, or are there other things that kind of pop out and get you?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes so the thing that I think not a lot of founders always realize is that we meet as GPs, you meet a lot of founders. Like

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): hearing

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): out 10, 15 pitches a week minimum. And so you're very likely not the first company doing X. that I have talked to. so when I, when I start to ask questions, I'm like, well, what about this?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And what about that? And didn't this happen? And wait, isn't there a problem with this? if it, if the response is very open and transparent and collaborative, that's one thing. But every now and then you'll get a little bit of the defensive response

Angelica Maestas (Host): hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): bit of like, Oh no, no, no. just doesn't work that way. and for me, that's a total red flag because

Angelica Maestas (Host): [01:40:00] Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): no, you must know better than I, but I've literally, I've talked to five other companies using the same words,

Angelica Maestas (Host): Huh.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I need to understand what's different. And I don't think that's, so that's red flag territory, right? Is the

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): the business model. So, you know, B2C. A lot of companies want to start B2C and it can be very hard to do B2C. It might be really great for the first six months, but it's, the scale is tremendously hard. The marketing dollars that have to go into a B2C business model are enormous. so if you, if you aren't thinking, if you can't prove that B2C is going to be the anchor, and there's some really great way that marketing is not going to explode in terms of spend what's the B2B path, how's that going to grow? How's that going to balance what you're doing in B2C? they haven't thought through all the different levers in a good, thoughtful way, then that's also red flag territory.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): There should, or especially early on, there should be some good testing, some really good [01:41:00] robust problem solving when it comes to go to market and what channels are going to make sense. And then the third is is on exit strategy. So there's a handful of founders pre seed and seed. This is better at series A, but pre seed and seed, if I ask them, so what's the exit strategy, they'll say, well, oh, well, I haven't really thought about that yet. Well, you can't

Naseem Sayani (Guest): you have to, you have to, right? And

Angelica Maestas (Host): That's the goal. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): is always like, well, even if you're pre seed, you have to have a sense of it

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm-hmm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): because my entire job relies on you exiting.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Right?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I can't write a check unless you know how you're going to exit. And I don't think, I think what happens is a lot of founders think, Oh, it's pre seed.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): It's too early. I don't have to worry about that. I'm like, well, you have, you have to have a sense

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And so like those things end up being big red flags and then we'll say, we'll go, go figure those things out. And then let's talk again.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah. And do you ever have them who you do end up investing in after they figure some things out and come back? That hasn't [01:42:00] happened yet. Okay.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): in touch with a handful of them. So we

Angelica Maestas (Host): Okay.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): up. But not yet. Usually the ones that I've written checks to have a lot of that figured out up front.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Gotcha. Okay. All right. Well, I'm going to transition us to some rapid fire questions.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Yeah.

Angelica Maestas (Host): All right. Favorite movie genre?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, I'm at 80s, 80s, 90s, like coming of age movies are my favorite.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Nice. App you can't live without?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh goodness. If I'm thinking about it, then there isn't really one. I spent a lot of time playing games. So I New York times, I do a lot of reading, but then I also play wordle every single day. So that might be the one if I had to pick something.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Best way to celebrate a win?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I like to, I like to do a glass of wine or a champagne or something and just toast. I think we have to take a minute just to breathe in

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And let it soak in a little bit and do that. I like to do that with other people. I like to, you know,

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): joy with other people, whether it's on a Zoom call [01:43:00] or in person,

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): And just say, Hey, we did that. Let's just sit with it for a minute.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah, I love it. Best way to address a major setback.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh goodness.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Glass of wine by yourself. Yeah. Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): about the setback was, how you got there, what could have been different and then not staying in that place, but forward and saying, okay, well, For me in particular, like I have to keep moving. my journey doesn't stop. So what do I take with me it? And, and what do I know I'm still good at and where do I take that next? I think that, that for me is the most important part of it is like, what's, what's the next bridge? And how am I going to walk across that bridge differently than I walked across the previous?

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yes.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): this won't happen again, right?

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): for a [01:44:00] new problem and not have this happening.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah, I love that. It's because just the path changes. It doesn't mean you fall off a cliff. You just have to plan a different route. If your 2025 had a theme song, what would it be?

Naseem Sayani (Guest): I'm going to pick Unstoppable by Sia,

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh, I love that one.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): that I listened to it. I like that song a lot always,

Angelica Maestas (Host): too. Yes, I 100

Naseem Sayani (Guest): that song. And especially heading into a year like this after the election we had last year. It's like, has to be the energy we put into everything.

Angelica Maestas (Host): percent agree. And I also, with that song in particular, it has to be really loud. Like, you really feel it.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): You have to really feel it. I agree. Yeah, absolutely.

Angelica Maestas (Host): One thing the VC world underestimates about women founders.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Oh, their ability to hustle.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): you know, they, the female founders I [01:45:00] know because of how much they're juggling. And how much they're sacrificing to build the business that they're building.

Angelica Maestas (Host): hmm. Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): not going to let this thing fail.

Angelica Maestas (Host): hmm.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): coming from their belly in a way that it often isn't with other founders. And so, you know, they're after it. She's going to figure this out. And I don't think the industry understands that fully.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah, 100 percent agree. And last but not least, what should listeners do to support you? Mm

Naseem Sayani (Guest): question. So I'll say two things. One, I am always, always happy to meet great founders. So if you are a female founder building in health care, climate or future of work, and you are close to and or raising a Series A, Find me on LinkedIn and let's talk. the easiest way. If you are a potential investor and you're curious to learn what all of this is, and you want to understand what we're doing at how we're going to invest, or you want to just talk about investing and ask me a bunch of questions so that you can figure out [01:46:00] if you want to do it. I'm happy for that also. So find me on LinkedIn and let's talk because the more education we spread into the female side of this ecosystem, the better and the more women we can bring in writing checks, that's where the change will happen.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yes.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): all talk more and it doesn't have to be scary and it's totally accessible. you just have to find people to talk to you about it. And we're

Angelica Maestas (Host): Mm hmm. Amen. And thank you for being such a good champion advocate. You've inspired me to be bolder and more vocal in spaces that I was, I was not previously. And so I love it. And I love the message. Really, it was just a pleasure having you on.

Naseem Sayani (Guest): Absolutely. Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Angelica Maestas (Host): And that's a wrap on another episode of She's Ambitious AF. Remember to dream big, hustle harder, and show the world that when it comes to success, we're not just ambitious, we're Ambitious AF.