Building Beyond the Billion: Lessons on Leadership and Legacy with Sarah Chen-Spellings

Meet Sarah Chen-Spellings: investor, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Beyond The Billion—a movement driving capital to female-founded companies. From her Malaysian roots to writing multi-million-dollar checks, Sarah shares how she’s breaking generational cycles and rewriting the rules of legacy and leadership.

In this conversation, we dive into:

 ✨ Her mother’s influence on her drive
 ✨ Why women still struggle to get funding—and how she’s changing that
 ✨ What investors really look for in a pitch
✨ How to own your legacy—even if you're just starting out

We also get real about awkwardness, networking, and social media… and yes, she calls me out (in the best way!).

If you're building a business, raising capital, or dreaming big—this episode will fire you up. 💥

Click >>PLAY<< to hear all of this and:

[00:02] How Jasmine and Sarah met: From Instagram DMs to SXSW keynote magic

[00:04] The generational story: Sarah’s mother’s rise from small-town Malaysia to CEO

[00:07] Why Beyond The Billion matters: Bridging the gender funding gap

[00:10] How to network intentionally (and why stalking amazing women online works!)

[00:14] Advice for female founders seeking funding—and how to pitch investors with confidence

[00:18] The power of partnership: Sarah’s personal and professional lessons on support

[00:23] Biggest myths about women in leadership and money

[00:28] How to think beyond success and start building a legacy

Listen to Related Episodes:

• A Playbook for First-Time Founders with Nancy Twine
• What Investors Are Really Looking For with Kim Perell

Connect With Sarah Chen-Spellings:

Sarah Chen-Spellings is the co-founder of Beyond The Billion, a global consortium dedicated to mobilizing over $1 billion in capital toward women-founded companies. Born and raised in Malaysia, Sarah’s journey took her from corporate boardrooms to the frontlines of venture capital, where she’s become a fierce advocate for underrepresented founders. Named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30,” Sarah’s work has reshaped conversations around gender, funding, and innovation worldwide.

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For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode550

Transcript

Jasmine Star 00:00:00  Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, a place where we talk about business. And today we get to mix that with empowerment. We get to mix that with philanthropy, and we get to mix that with an incredible woman who is changing the face of investing, family offices and just a powerhouse. I could not be more excited to introduce you to Sarah. Sarah, thank you to the Jasmine Star Show. Thank you.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:00:22  I'm so excited to be here. Jasmine. You know, I always say this I meet certain people where I feel like our frequency matches. Okay. Let's try. I'm just compelled to reach out and, I don't know, do things together. I feel like magic's going to happen somehow.

Jasmine Star 00:00:39  We are. We are new friends. But as people from the podcast. No, I don't bring people on the podcast without knowing them personally. I don't do the book tours. I don't have conversations. To have conversations, it has to be this person has to be in direct alignment. So let's chat about how we met.

Jasmine Star 00:00:54  Now there's two perspectives. There's your perspective and my perspective. So let's start there. How did we meet from your perspective?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:01:00  From my perspective. Well, I am the silent stalker on Instagram of great women. It is my hobby to find exceptional women doing exceptional things.

Jasmine Star 00:01:12  I didn't know we were starting there. Okay.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:01:13  And I've been following your journey. Your personal journey, because I was. Frankly, I'm new to America, and I wanted to find, you know, great women doing great things and what she up to, what she like and interesting. Building my network that way and sort of building that algorithm of great women. Because I think social media can be a positive place if we build it intentionally. And I know you believe in intentionality. So it started with that. And then, you know, create and cultivate is a group that I support. Jacqueline Johnson and Marina Middleton are building something amazing. And with the work that I'm doing beyond the building, of course female founders are the beneficiaries that we are driving, fueling women led innovation.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:01:53  So that community is very important to us. And when I saw that you were keynote. I was super excited. And then. But I didn't reach out. And then you DM'd me. And I was like.

Jasmine Star 00:02:05  Okay okay okay. The universe.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:02:07  The universe is saying something.

Jasmine Star 00:02:09  Here okay. Okay. So you're making references to create and cultivate and Jackson Johnson and Marine Middleton. Okay. So we're going to pause. So if people are not familiar creating cultivate is a female led and driven conference to empower business owners. And I was invited to speak during South by Southwest. And so after my keynote I'm behind stage and I am introduced and we start talking. And we had connected ever so briefly now before I went through. And I was looking at who's speaking and how we start connecting. And I just sent DMs to people. Some people responded, some people did not. So the fact that we were behind stage and then within the first five minutes, I thought to myself, you are lightning in a bottle.

Jasmine Star 00:02:47  And we had a very short conversation. But in that short conversation you broke down female funding, female founders, Investment family offices. How? What type of debt? Female founders should be getting. And I'm sitting here and I literally stopped you and I said, I am so sorry. We just met. I need you on my podcast. And I said, whenever you're in LA and then, lo and behold, you say, what are you doing on March 27th? Can you be in New York City? To which I replied, I'm not sure what I'm doing on the 27th. And you said that you are co-hosting an event with the Gloria Steinem Foundation at Gloria's house, along with all of L.A., and all I knew was I had to be in New York, and I had to have you on the podcast, and everything works for us. And so I want to say thank you for being here. I want the audience to know that I wanted you on this podcast because there is very specific reasons.

Jasmine Star 00:03:36  And I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, because I think that you are absolutely going to change and empower so many lives in this conversation. So thank you.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:03:43  Oh, I appreciate it. I'm excited to do the work. Okay. Now that we're setting the bar high.

Jasmine Star 00:03:47  That's right. Okay. So let's give a little bit of context. I really want to break down what you do, what you're most known for. And then I want to contextualize it for most of the listeners, because last night I had the opportunity to hear you speak from a lot of different perspectives. So before we talk about the work that you're doing with Beyond the Billions and how many unicorns do you have in your portfolio? Because all of that is brag worthy. But there was a story that you shared yesterday that I thought would really set the groundwork that you had said, you are from Malaysia, a small town, not even in a major city, and your mom had aspirations of being a secretary.

Jasmine Star 00:04:20  Can you pick up that story there for us? Because I think it really sets the stage for who you've become.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:04:24  Yeah. So, Jasmine, just two very quick corrections beyond the billion without the s.

Jasmine Star 00:04:28  Okay.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:04:29  That's important from a branding perspective. You know what? Thank you. You know what? Thank you. Thank you. And, I wasn't from a small town. It was my mother that was from a small town. So I'm from the capital, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. And I think the suburbia in me continues. So I did grow up in a little bit of a nice, suburb of Malaysia in Sarah. So I guess, you know, starting with my mother, because I think, you know, I've started to realize so much of our lives don't begin the moment we're born. It's actually generational. So you talk about it, and it's the good and the bad, right? Good being, you know, the hidden dreams, the bad being, generational trauma. And I think I've only come to understand and take full perspective of that in my recent years, in my adulthood.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:05:14  But my mother has been a huge role model for me. As mentioned yesterday, she started in about two paha, which is a small town south of Malaysia, and her biggest dream because she was one of nine children, the last of nine children imagined the generation before me and her biggest dream was to be a secretary. I mean, she didn't really go to university, you know, and picked up a bags, took the leap of entrepreneurship. I genuinely still today believe that immigration is the biggest form of entrepreneurship that ever is. And my mother did that in Malaysia. But still, that's a big leap of faith where she had no one else but her brother to support her and encourage her. And she really just started from ground zero, built herself and within, you know, her career. It was promotions. It was challenges all along the way. I was with her because I mentioned this yesterday, Asian style. We talk about our issues as a family at the dinner table. That's where things are solved over food.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:06:17  There's always an element of food being comforting, but it's also a good way to bridge the conversation. Yeah. At the end of her career, she was CEO of a Japanese automotive company and ultimately a holding company that owned Volvo, Daihatsu, Volkswagen and a couple of other brands as well. And, you know, I saw, frankly, my father being an amazing partner in coal co-parent in every single way and supported her. You know, she will always attribute my father encouraging her, saying, okay, now I'm the general manager. I think I'm happy. This is my mom speaking. And my dad would say, well, what's next? Why not go for it? And she did, and she did. And she did again and again. So one step forward ahead of her time. And, you know, just some context where you listen as the Japanese culture expects women to be a little bit more submissive, I'll put it that way. We're not expected to lead. She has had instances herself where she was the boss attending the meeting, and I was told this.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:07:21  She was asked to make coffee and she said, well, you're meeting me. You can make your own coffee. Thank you very much. And so I've experienced female leadership without realizing that it's different growing up. And so I had an interesting microcosm of the world early on, and that shaped me to who I am today. Absolutely.

Jasmine Star 00:07:41  Speaking of who you are today, I want you to talk more about Beyond the Billion, but then also let the audience know to put this in context. To see a strong father and a strong mother working together. And always him asking her, so what's next? And so then I intersect. And I know a little bit about your story. You're cutting millions of dollars of checks in your 20s, right? So this is a little bit unexpected. You are far ahead and above of many people your age. How did you get there? And then what was the thesis for what you're building today?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:08:10  You know, I was in a cog in a wheel, obviously getting started at the lowest level, but very quickly I was ambitious.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:08:17  My ambition was always something within me. And I looked around and I was asking my friends, hey, who is someone here that's a senior vice president or someone of some sort of, like, huge pal in the company that's young, you know, not in their 60s, because a lot of the version of leadership in Malaysia back then looked older of a certain gender, of a certain, you know, skin color. Even I'll say that. And so I looked around and the youngest person then was actually Rosalie. He was 42 I think at that time 40 something. Anyway, he was one of the youngest and I reached out to him like a DM, but an internal company DM for coffee with the one intention of gaining inspiration. Like how did you build your career in this humongous company with 13 billion market cap at that time? You know, we were in, I think, 30 countries at that point in time and shape your career like, I want to be you basically. And I entered his office.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:09:14  We had a couple of, you know, quick, quick conversations, and he realised I did law as a degree. And very quickly I could see the gears moving in his mind, and he very quickly turned it into an interview. He asked me this question, hey, if you don't mind, tell me, how many ping pong balls can you fit in a Boeing 747? And then I knew because I've studied business cases before, it's a typical MBA question where they're looking not for the answer, but how you get to that answer. And I answered it in a way that was satisfactory, I suppose, because the next thing I knew, he said, all right, tomorrow you report to me, I'll sort out the paperwork. We're starting a corporate venture capital unit. Nothing's really been done yet. We have a strategy paper. We're getting approvals. But because you have a legal degree that you're going to be helpful in the team. So by then I was hired number three or number five. And I have to go back, sir.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:10:06  Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:10:07  How did you answer the question. Do you remember how did you how do we feel.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:10:11  How do we how do we. Yeah. So so I'll give the formula. The concept of it is you think about a ping pong ball. It's a sphere. Right. So you look at the total volume of that, that ping pong ball and you sort of break down a Boeing 747 as a cylinder, and then you sort of calculate that, you know.

Jasmine Star 00:10:30  Your spheres within cylinders are how many.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:10:34  How many spheres can fit into a cylinder. And then you make sure you cover like the top as well. We including so you ask smart questions like are you including the cockpit. You know, is there anything else, any other information I should know? So it showcases your qualities? Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:10:48  Oh, yeah. Yeah yeah, yeah. Okay.

Jasmine Star 00:10:50  So they're starting these new venture arm and he has unexpectedly, to your surprise, and probably his. Yes. Brings you on that team because you're going to be useful.

Jasmine Star 00:10:57  Yes. And how long are you there. And then how does that get to the next.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:11:00  So I am there for quite some time, actually, I want to say close to five years in the company. And then I think we were doing it for about three years. and.

Jasmine Star 00:11:10  One of the things that I remember you saying yesterday was you were often the only woman in the room, right? So how does that shape where you are now and why you're so passionate on the other side of it?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:11:20  What I realized was that I was put in a position that was super unique. I was hired number three and number five, right, of this 100 million and then 150 million unit. And because we were so small and nimble, and I was the only one with the law degree, I was sent to all the legal meetings. And because I was so young, I was probably not qualified to be there and negotiating with our head of legal. That was, you know, this woman who's super, super sharp and she's done the work.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:11:45  She's got the credibility. But, you know, my boss is like, you take the meeting like you're supposed to just report back to me, which was maybe a little bit irresponsible on his part. You know, some that there was some politics there, but it gave me a huge opportunity. And in these rooms where I was negotiating term sheets and working with the entrepreneurs, you know, what got me here was I realized we were cutting, like $30 million checks, and all the deals that I was looking at in diligence did not have a single woman on the management team. And again, this was not like once or twice it happened. Like, you know, we were looking at multiple deals to make that that one check. You have a huge funnel. And I was like, where are the women? And any time I would negotiate, yes, you know, there would be women, you know, that were in supporting roles. But I was hungry for women that were carrying panels that were leading the innovations that we would invest in.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:12:38  And I just did not see them. And I looked around me and this this really piqued my interest. And I looked around, even within my company, in terms of women holding personnel, there were very, very far, few and far between. And that eventually led me to become an accidental feminist, accidental activated feminist, I suppose, because I've always been a feminist. But I looked around me and I, you know, I was talking with some of my peers that didn't work in the company. Like, what's the situation in your company? Are that women at the top and they're like, hardly, you know, see you as a guy. Like all the top C level positions are filled by men. You might have finance legal by women, but driving businesses driving growth in a way that I wanted to see myself in, hardly any. And then we looked at the stats and it was at that time in Malaysia, only 5% of CEOs in Malaysia were women. So go figure. Of course, we were not seeing them and we asked the bigger question where are the women? And could I see myself in this for the future? And that question led me to actually being a co-founder of what was what is now Lean in Malaysia.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:13:43  And it brings Sheryl Sandberg's Lean and brand, which I know has mixed connotations for different people here in America. But what I would say is, you know, the way it was implemented in Asia because I was then instrumental in shaping a lot of the circles in Asia. It helped us think about leadership and women taking a seat at the table, taking up space and empowering each other, leaning into each other to want more for ourselves. And so I had my corporate career where I was investing, trying to encourage more women in leadership in my realm of influence, which was not much at that time. Because, remember, I'm still in my 20s then building myself in Malaysia to be this advocate for female leadership. You know, doing the work with policy activations, community, all of that. So I had almost like that two things at once. Right? And as I guess fate would have it or God's design. Whatever you believe. In 2016, 2017, as I was, you know, coming to the US, visiting portfolio companies and all of that, I met my husband along the way and we had to decide what next for our lives and America was it.

Jasmine Star 00:14:52  So this was in person in the United States. So how did you guys meet? Just randomly side.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:14:56  Random side note because this is important, I do believe this should be part of the conversation because choosing your partner is the biggest investment you'll make. Absolutely. And you know, this is by no means we're not perfect people. My husband is not perfect. Neither am I. But we met when I literally missed my flight and I met him at the closest bar. Yeah.

Jasmine Star 00:15:18  Wow.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:15:19  So my number exchanged my number. We exchanged numbers, and then we, followed through and did long distance.

Jasmine Star 00:15:26  For a while. Chemistry. If you guys are just.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:15:28  Have this kind of thing like this. So I genuinely believe in it. Like, if it's meant to be, it's meant to it.

Jasmine Star 00:15:33  Oh my.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:15:33  God. So immediate chemistry, you know. I had like, history with other long distance relationships, so I didn't have much hope. I was like, all right, let's see. And this this guy was pretty persistent.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:15:43  Michael was pretty persistent. And. Yeah, proposed to me within nine months. Okay. And and.

Jasmine Star 00:15:48  So he is the reason that the catalyst to.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:15:50  Is the catalyst.

Jasmine Star 00:15:51  Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:15:52  So my trajectory.

Jasmine Star 00:15:53  Yeah.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:15:54  I didn't really have America on my books at all. I didn't study here, so I didn't really have a network here. If anything, it would have been London, right? London would have been the natural choice. Or Europe if I wanted to be out of the country. Okay. So.

Jasmine Star 00:16:06  Okay. I think, I think I remember recently on Instagram seeing like an anniversary post. You know, you guys got married in Bali or.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:16:12  No, in Malaysia.

Jasmine Star 00:16:13  Malaysia.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:16:14  A wedding blessing in Malaysia, by the.

Jasmine Star 00:16:15  Way. Yeah. Okay. Okay, okay. So I'm watching this. And so I put me in the in your shoes. You come to the States without a network, but a litany of experience. You've built out strong. You're multi passionate. You have investing.

Jasmine Star 00:16:29  You have a very big network of women in Malaysia. And you get to the States. And then what?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:16:34  And then I have to hustle.

Jasmine Star 00:16:36  What is that? Like, literally what does that look like? Explain it to me like I'm five.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:16:39  I started with people I knew, and this is, you know, a question people like to ask me. What's one of your favorite investments or best investments? And one of it was a big failure from a dollar perspective, but from a relationship and trust perspective was my highest return. So my portfolio companies that we invested in, that was my starting point, right? So good. So because I was always, you know, look, I was not the final decision maker in my 20s. It was a board of really, you know, smart people in my company. We had advisors, all of that. I was facilitating a lot of the work behind the scenes. But what I always helped myself to was a high a very strong and high work ethic, strict work ethic.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:17:24  I would be I try not to play the game too much. It's necessary in corporate, but I try not to do that. And I was truthful. And people appreciated that. So, you know, if a deal went through my portfolio companies knew that it was because Sarah pushed it through. Sarah worked on it. Sarah brought in the right people around the table. And yes, I was only in my 20s. I didn't feel like I had a lot of power because I wasn't the final decision maker. But people see through, you know, authenticity. And because of that. Even without my title and the checkbook of the public listed company, just as Sarah, people just wanted to help me. And so I, you know, sucked my ego up. Asked for help. Who do you know? Who can I speak to? And of course, you know, because this was a personal move. It wasn't strategic. It wasn't like, all right, I want to continue my career in venture capital.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:18:17  I got to go to Silicon Valley. I was in DC. Yeah. Right. The political capital. Yes. There's investing and all that, but it's more skewed to defense. It wasn't in the worlds I felt that I fit in and so I networked like crazy, showed up, you know, in different places. I had really good women who opened doors for me. And ultimately I met my co-founder, Shelly.

Jasmine Star 00:18:39  Let's go there. Like that's where I wanted Shelly.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:18:42  And, you know, she became ultimately my co-founder for what started as the Billion Dollar Fund for women. And, you know, I was starting out, I knew I wanted to continue in venture and investing. I knew I wanted to continue in female leadership, women leadership. And here she was over breakfast telling me what she was up to, and it was called the Billion Dollar Fund for women. My ears perk up and I realized, women investing? I know something a little bit about that. Like, you know, I frankly, I was waiting for my green card at that time.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:19:12  Let me volunteer my time. Let me be free labor for you, show you my value. Let's see where this goes.

Jasmine Star 00:19:18  I actually didn't know that part of the story. So $1 billion fund for women. And you say, despite my legal training, Despite my experience, despite having navigated all of these other multi-million dollar deals. I'm going to volunteer because.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:19:34  You have to start somewhere. And, first of all, I wasn't legally allowed to work yet. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay. So I had the green card. That was an important part. But of course I was setting myself up for the future. But I thought that because I had this mindset of I'll have my nonprofit. You know, usually you think about your life. Most women, I'll say that's like your philanthropy or stuff that you volunteer for, and then you have your cash cow, right? That's your your revenue generating, like, this is your career, blah, blah, blah. And so I had that kind of bifurcation thinking in my life and got it.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:20:05  I thought the billion dollar fund for women was something I would just volunteer for to get started.

Jasmine Star 00:20:10  And how do you become her co-founder?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:20:11  Well, I sat down and Shelly will say this, I we sat down, I got really excited and I said, okay, well, I know how to do this. Like I've structured things, you know, I'm really one of my I think my superpower is I can bring a big vision to life with military precision and execution. And I did that with the Billion Dollar Fund for women, where it was Shelly's idea, because she came as a serial entrepreneur investor, similarly saw, you know, women not getting funding. So let's talk about that. You know, less than 2%, less than 3% in the last decade. You know, we've not moved at all in a big enough way. And so when I was talking about my background, we really connected on that, right? So that the frequency was right. And I said, well, let me help you.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:20:53  The next day I had a website design. I had the framing. I designed the initial pledge, how it would look like as a capital campaign around the world. And because I had co-investors I've done this work before, people have invested with me. I have some sort of credibility, you know, in the world. I brought a lot of Asian investors, you know, multi-billion funds to the table. And she just looked at me and she said, gosh, Sarah, you got to be my co-founder. So there were other women involved in the early, you know, when you're baking an idea together. But ultimately, she saw just what I delivered. You know, I don't just talk a big game like I do the work, and I think that's so important. We realized the big idea could be working with investors, signaling to the market that, hey, we have. Wouldn't it be great to have $1 billion committed to women signaling to the market that we all believe this is not charity, but this is an investment strategy with good returns? And so we set.

Jasmine Star 00:21:49  Out on a pause.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:21:49  There. Yes.

Jasmine Star 00:21:50  An investment strategy with good returns. Yes. It is not charity. And I just wanted to pause there and let that sink in, because there's sometimes conversations around what it looks like and what it feels. And so I was particularly struck by your story because no founder as a female wants charity. No. Every every female founder simply wants the chance. Somebody had said yesterday, and I believe it was Gloria. And she had said, we are all given equal measure of talent, but we are not all given equal measure of opportunity. And so I wanted just to pause there and I want to pick up the story, but I want to be very clear. That's a line of delineation. It is not charity. This is an investment strategy with high returns. Okay. So you say $1 billion is a big, lofty, audacious goal, right? Is $1 billion. And so what happens?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:22:36  And so this was back. Back of the napkin. Right.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:22:38  $1 billion, you know. And just to give some sense of scale here. Back then women were getting like 2.2 billion. So $1 billion, half of that we thought would be a noble goal. Maybe we'll achieve it in ten years. You know, this was like I still have like the back of napkin initial design of how we would bring this to, to life. And so we set out on this mission. We start pounding the pavement, dialing for dollars, getting VCs to commit a dollar amount that they described to be invested into women founded companies. Now we do not control that amount. So we're not money managers at this point in time. But it's a capital campaign, right? A pledge campaign to get them to do more. And we were off to the races very quickly Within nine months, we got to the billion dollar goal.

Jasmine Star 00:23:22  So you thought ten years? Yes. And in nine months. Yeah. $1 billion.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:23:26  So we I mean, what what really? You know, triggered this whole thing.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:23:29  Was Shelly through her friends, had an opportunity at the world Bank meeting in Bali in 2018 to present a big idea for gender equality. So this was the concept paper that we put together in front of institutional investors. Right. So that was a trigger point for us to do something great. And we said, okay, you know, by October we met August, September. So it was not long. Let's see what we can do. Maybe 100 million. Maybe we'll come and be there and just announce the big idea. But we start with early commitments. We showed up. I believe it was more than 400 million at that point in time already when we arrived. Wow. So we what we proved was that designed correctly. VCs definitely wanted to do the right thing. And the messaging was clear that the capital is out there to be allocated in the right way. So of course, you know, it still has to meet the mandate of the fund. It has to have all these profiles of returns, you know, recurring revenues, potential blah, blah, blah.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:24:29  But it was by taking that simple exercise into the firm. That's where the change, I believe, happened and the impact of our work, because it that meant if I have a multi-billion firm or even like a $50 million firm, I'll come. If you're my co-founder, we'll have to make this proper and have a discussion. All right. How much do you think we can do for women? What's in our pipeline? Are we having. So you start to ask the right questions. And the way that they've not been asked before. And with that, you know, we were on the roll. We you know, we started working with really, really big VCs who struggled with this, frankly, you know, in terms of how do we get to the right pipeline, how do we measure, how do we make sure that we're also, you know, doing the right thing by our limited partners, our investors. Right. So the fiduciary responsibility and I always argue that you are not achieving, you know, your responsibility by excluding half the population.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:25:30  Like, you know, as a fiduciary, it is your job to ensure you're maximizing your return and having a big enough sample set to review.

Jasmine Star 00:25:38  Okay. So now yes, when you look at your portfolio and last night they had mentioned how many unicorns. Yes. Okay. So a unicorn is over $1 billion evaluation. And so you begin this journey. And how many are in the portfolio now.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:25:53  So we have so this is a capital campaign still right. So the capital campaign from the we did our first round of reporting at that point in time, $1 billion pledge that were about 86 funds that took the pledge. And from the first billion 638 million of that was deployed into 795 companies, Means of which 14 emerged as unicorns. And now, of course, you know, depending on the rate, frankly, the market valuations go up and down. But we, you know, have 14 or 15 unicorns. Huge. Yeah. Massive invested by all partner funds.

Jasmine Star 00:26:27  That is.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:26:28  Just.

Jasmine Star 00:26:28  Such a testament to the quality of the work that you are doing.

Jasmine Star 00:26:32  And I now want as a flash fire, a flash fire away. There's a listener, a female founder right now who probably isn't on the path to becoming a unicorn. And so there are business owners right now that are saying, okay, how do I set myself up? How am I in a smaller microcosm, making money, getting money, getting funding? And so I put the question out on social media. And people are like, how do I best determine the type of funding that I should be taking in this stage of my business? So let's talk about a female founded company. Now. You live in both a world of funding and funding, so can you bridge the gap for a female founder scaling to eight figures? This is a totally different mindset from the people that you are actually serving. But you've been there, you've done that and you've seen it many, many times. What's what are three key considerations that they should consider when it comes to the type of funding? Yeah.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:27:21  So, you know, I had this conversation on my podcast Billion Dollar Movies with Robert Herjavec from Shark Tank.

Jasmine Star 00:27:28  Right. We love Robert and we love Shark Tank.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:27:30  We always ask, you know, what's the I asked him this question, and this is something that I asked myself often, what's the difference between $1 million business and $1 billion business? And it is drastically different. It is from the founding, driving reason that you're building the business, that shapes whether it becomes $1 million business or $1 billion business, and both have value. And I'll say, right. You know, we have lifestyle entrepreneurs where you just want a cash flowing. You know, you want a cash cow that delivers your stable revenues to draw an income to pay for your lifestyle. And you don't want the additional pressure and stress of growing it to be sold to someone else. You actually want to do this for a long period of time. In that case, frankly, bootstrapping. So doing it your own way and keeping your equity, this is a very big topic because with venture you give a lot of your company away. Right.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:28:24  So I'm sure you've heard stories where they exited for a huge multi, you know, million or even hundreds of millions, but they're still having to work the next day because they didn't structure their equity properly and gave too much away. So coming back to to the options lifestyle entrepreneur, you can bootstrap it. You can get friends and family investments. So angel investing that's you know depending on I've had friends that I think Jacqueline Johnson, you know, a common friend said she started one of her first few angel checks at 10,000. Right. So that would be friends, family, angels. Those are small checks that help you, you know, get to the next level but may not necessarily want you. Or maybe you don't want to be that billion dollar business with a different expectation, that sort of thing. There's also that, of course. Right. Depending on your appetite, your risk appetite. A lot of female entrepreneurs take on working capital loans. A lot of entrepreneurs, I'll put it this way.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:29:19  A lot of entrepreneurs also look at working capital loans, because maybe what you just need is inventory, right. And you just need that capital to get going. And therefore you need a loan. And you when you do the math, it checks out that you're able to pay whatever that percentage debt is, right. And that's very important to think about. So you're not giving away equity. And this is, you know, an important tool for you. Right. All these things I would say yes, we think about funding is a big thing. But these are just tools for your business, right. So don't let it overshadow what you want to build. These are tools. So think about it. You know don't be caught up in the ego of I need to be on the cover of TechCrunch raising X amount. Because, look, that also meant that you gave away a lot of your your company. That's right. So working capital loans helps you, you know, manage cash flow, you know, if you need to have upfront buy ins that you don't have the capital for at this point in time, but you can pay back once you make the sale.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:30:14  That works as well. Now, venture capital is something that works for companies that are scalable. And usually these are tech based company, tech based companies. Because you think of a I mean you think of Oliver, right? The brand that I'm wearing today where we co-hosted with Gloria Steinem yesterday, there are technology and marketing play, right? They're not they don't own the inventory. Actually. They're a platform which enables us to make purchases. And once you figure out the formula for your acquisition, right, making sure your cost of acquisition is low, you have the platform for scale where you're able to reach a large amount of people. And usually tech is that enabler, which enables tech and media. Right. I'll say this. These are two big assets of our generation where if you hit it right, It has that level of skill. Some businesses which are more brick and mortar, you think of like. And Maxim's. Right. And from solar company. Solid core for a good amount of money.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:31:16  I mean, she said she had $80 million wired to a bank account. So that's still a valid way of of building your business. But hers was a brick and mortar business, which, yes, you can scale, but it's a little bit harder. Yes. And takes a little bit more capital. Right. So she'll talk about even her financing options where she went to Angel. So she had her first investor, I believe, from her nonprofit, when she worked with him, put in some money and then she had friends and family. And then what else did she do? She had took on loans because she had to buy those equipment, the Pilates equipment, and then she had private equity. Right. So along the way, did she really have venture in the traditional sense? I'm not sure. But typically venture capital looks for scalable businesses that have that leverage with a little bit of capital, you can scale, right? And from a female founders, from a founders perspective, that means that what you're building looks very different.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:32:13  It means you're looking for efficiencies in your business where you can have that level, that platform to scale, which for more brick and mortar businesses, it's typically a little bit harder. And so venture capital funds often not. It's not a black and white shy away from that. Because now let's talk about the business of venture capital right. How it works. It is a 220 model, which means it's a 2% money management fee. So let's say tomorrow, Jasmine, you give me $100 million, I'll charge you 2% to, to pay my salary, to pay for my cost of the business and all that. And then I make a couple of investments for you. You're my limited partner. And we sold, you know, one of your companies within there that, you know, you've also helped me build. We sold it for A5X return Heard from that prophet. I get 20%. You get 80%. That is the business of venture capital. Right. And so what that means is I'm looking for the five x returns.

Jasmine Star 00:33:13  That's right.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:33:13  Huge returns and a lot of more. I want to say brick and mortar businesses don't have that return profile. Which technology plays do. And so that's where the bifurcation of types of capital occurs.

Jasmine Star 00:33:29  I love.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:33:29  That. And when you flip it to the mind of the founder it's oh okay. So I take a venture capital check. The expectation is I need to grow my company by three x by five x in a short condensed amount period of time. And there are a lot of businesses which are still very good businesses that just don't have that return profile because they're not built on leverage. Right. So that leverage tool of media and technology. That's right. So when you're thinking of the type of capital, I think it really boils down to what is what is your end goal, right? But why I'm so passionate about venture capital is because if this is what you want to do, you're capable of. And frankly, I'm encouraging so many of your listeners to think about this. And this is why I'm here to think bigger, because we can do hard things.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:34:18  We need to manage our mental health. All of this, yes it applies. But gosh, I've been in so many rooms where mediocre men have pitched lame ideas and got $10 million just like that without, you know, proper traction. And there's systemic issues that come from that. But it's also they had been successful in selling that big dream, right? I don't know if you want to.

Jasmine Star 00:34:44  Yes. I think this is going to be a good way to really hone in the whole core. And the thesis of this show and the episode should be about how does one become better at selling their dream? Because the person who I believe is listening right now is I want this female founder to. Hear and know that she can absolutely do a friends and family round. She can get small cheques written to her and once her LTV to cash ratio is in place, she then has the option to say how much equity do I want to hold onto right now? She can. Absolutely. If you have a low cost of acquisition in a very high LTV and you would like to pursue a bank, great.

Jasmine Star 00:35:17  Let's start there and then see what happens after that. But when she gets a place to scale, if there is a tech component that can come in there and she could put gasoline on an already great fire, how does she sell that idea? What are three things? This is a flash fire. Close this episode. Let's bring it out. How do how do we get better at selling the dream to venture capital?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:35:36  How do we get better at selling the dream to venture capitalists? So I think first of all, it starts with you need to do the work right. You need to show numbers, traction, whatever you're selling out there. The numbers tells a story, right? So you can have a lofty dream. But I think having that ability to showcase that this works, and I'm the most suited to execute on this vision because I have a unique perspective. I've done this in my past life in this way, that way, and this is how I'm taking that into the vision that I have.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:36:12  Baking that vision, I think, is very important, that billion dollar vision. Right. You know, oftentimes we as entrepreneurs, even myself, I catch myself, gosh, it's such a full day. We've got this back to back and I'm caught in the minute. But you can't lose yourself in the minute and not execute on the big vision and continue to tell that vision to others and bring it to life.

Jasmine Star 00:36:36  I love that point to.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:36:37  So point two. So point one is do the work traction numbers right early numbers, whether that's a pilot or whatever, proving your thesis out that this works. Second is of course, then telling the big story without losing the big narrative and being lost in the day to day, because that's important. Right. And, you know, I think this is an exercise anyone can do today, five years from this and not ten years because ten years is too long for venture capital. Five years. What do I see? Good. What are the numbers? Good, right.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:37:06  Today, I don't know, I'm at $1 million. But next year, if you give me all I need is like X amount to spend on, I don't know, performance marketing conversions to bring this conversion to, to bring in a technology player to invest in it. With this amount I can definitely do you know, three x that. And then the next year with this I can do another three x. So from 1 million you're not selling me $1 million business anymore. You're like all right.

Jasmine Star 00:37:31  That's right.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:37:31  You've got loyalty in your customers. You've built community. You will return me this amount. I give you 100 million in a couple of years. I see an exit. And this is probably the third point for venture capital. How we make money is we need to have a liquidity event, which means an exit to either some sort of a buyer, an IPO, a listing. Right. Or, you know, depending on on how you think about it, some kind of trade sale where either you merge with another company, blah, blah, blah.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:38:00  So ultimately sell IPO, right? What does that look like? Is your business. Are you even building it clean enough. This is your books need of clean by the way, from day one. Is it clean enough where the equity is clear? I don't have random people that have random decision making power over your business that could influence it to then be sold to a real buyer, right? And what does that look like? So having that vision to exit is the third thing I would say is a very important step, which for a lifestyle business, this is where, you know, going back to is it suitable for me. Some people, maybe they don't want to sell the business and that's fine. You want to do it for the rest of your life. And I think that's respectable as well. Small businesses built our economy and continue to do so in America. But I want to encourage today, you know, all our listeners to think about. Thank you. How can I be the next Airbnb, Be Uber right, or even solving the incredible problems that we're faced with today in climate and health and education, where women get disproportionately affected.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:39:03  And ask yourself, how am I uniquely positioned to solve this big problem? And what I would say, and I think this is important and probably why I'm here today, because when I reached out to you, I was like.

Jasmine Star 00:39:12  Well.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:39:13  Let's see how this conversation goes. But I think this is this is where where I want to drive it home. We can do hard things. We must challenge ourselves. The world is in a challenging place right now, and all of you are so skilled in so many different ways that men out there don't even understand. We run circles around them like I've been in rooms where I see women just doing the damn thing. No excuses. Challenges. Yes, people underestimate her, whatever. But she's still doing that damn thing. If we take all that power and solve the hard problems, not incremental problems that you and I like. I don't know skincare, all these things. Beauty. Yes, I believe it's important. But challenge yourself to also create an impact that will change generations after you, because that is the kind of innovation that we need right now and women has have so much to offer.

Jasmine Star 00:40:10  Ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Felling on the Jasmine Star show. It was an intention and a deep drive to have us connect have you impact. And one of the things that I want to loop back to was that whatever cup we pick up we can put down and for us to add to taste more salt. Is that what you said? More taste.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:40:29  More salt. Eat more.

Jasmine Star 00:40:30  Salt. May we eat more salt and put glasses down as we see? And may we challenge ourselves to solve big problems because we have the capacity and the capability. How do people find you and go deeper with your relationship and building a relationship?

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:40:43  Yes. Thank you. Well, you can follow me on my social. Sarah Chen Global Beyond the Billion is the company name, and the U.S. Billion Dollar Movies podcast is actually where I get tactical. So I interview billionaires, unicorn founders, and funders with this very reason so that you don't have to guess. I've already done the work for you because and this started because I was already having these exact conversations on how do I fire my co-founder? What do I do after I exit? I had a 780 million exit, and I don't know what to do with my life.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:41:13  Let's have more of these problems. How do I create an impact? How do I, you know, get to scale? Because I'm stuck, right? Like I'm stuck at these numbers. So I've already done that work. We've got Robert Herjavec, we had the co-founder of YouTube, we had Anjali Sood, you know, really, really good women and men that are building. And that's part of my thesis of what we need to do. We need to normalize how success looks like. And it looks like you and I. And that's part of why I start $1 billion moves, because there are great women doing great work investing, building, innovating. And frankly, I didn't even see them in a lot of the VC podcasts that I was listening to. And I said, well, girl, you got to be the change. Walk the talk. Bring the women on your show that are doing the work. And we have a core series where we even go down to what were the strategies in their leadership.

Sarah Chen-Spellings 00:42:01  So everyone from Serena Williams that I met at inbound to Lisa Su at AMD, right, with AI and all of that. So, you know, give it your time because it gets tactical, it gets technical, it gets hard. But behind everything that we see that we enjoy that's being built is a human behind it. So why not you? This is my question. Why not you, Jasmine? What's next.

Jasmine Star 00:42:26  For you? Why not me? Ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Spellings. She came here to dispel any notion that we have that we are not enough. And that then challenged us that we can actually do even more. Connect with her online. Connect with her on her podcast. Thank you for watching and listening to The Jasmine Star Show.