Welcome GFH Cohort Three!
I am so very pleased to announce that the third Good For Her (GFH) cohort has launched this week! Back in 2015, I noticed that there were a lot of male founders supporting each other. Some had informal monthly meetups for beers where they’d talk about leadership and fundraising challenges. Some were part of programs created by investors or startup accelerators. When I asked why there were so few women integrated into these groups, I got answers ranging from “I don’t know any women founders” to “It would be weird to have only one woman in our group”. I knew plenty of women founders, so I decided that if they were not getting invited to these groups, I’d create one for them.
The focus of GFH is to create an intimate community for like minded startup founders who identify as women. Each cohort of 8–10 founders is carefully curated to ensure a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, company stage and types of businesses. We have founders of B2B, D2C and B2C products. They’re bootstrapped to post series A. There’s no limit to where their businesses can go to be part of the group. The only requirements for a member are that they are a founder of their business (not all are CEOs), have a product in-market and they are good humans. All members are vetted by me and occasionally another GFH member before they are invited to join. Most of our cohort two and three members are in NYC, however with the pandemic, we’ve become more flexible and now have members based around the country.
Including an “Emerging Leader” in each cohort is something we started with cohort two and will continue to do for all cohorts going forward. These young women are aspiring leaders who would benefit from being among the incredible GFH women. They are part of the GFH family and included in every way.
GFH is fully funded by me. There is no fee, equity grant or financial obligation for any of our members. It is my way of paying-it-forward and I take great pleasure from watching these groups and individuals thrive. Pre-covid, I hosted events that ranged from dinners in my home to taking members to the theater and book signings to organizing pitch practices and how-to sessions (our most recent one was on the product roadmap process). I lead on topics I know well and bring in experts from my network as needed. During the pandemic, our connections are primarily in Slack and Zoom meetups — we’re hoping that’ll change some day soon! Meanwhile, in the GFH Slack, each cohort has its own private (and very active!) channel and there are open channels for cross-cohort connections around topics like fundraising, hiring and leadership. All members sign a code of conduct ensuring what happens in GFH, stays in GFH! I am also available (practically) 24x7 to every member for networking and coaching. Oh, and there’s a lot of fun too — the GFH community has a great sense of humor :-)
When a new cohort starts, I am very engaged in pulling the group together and fostering discussions. It is my goal that, over time, each cohort becomes its own “thing” without my routine facilitation. With two cohorts now well on their way, it’s time to welcome cohort three! Herewith are our newest members:
I am sooooo excited about partnering with this group! The buzz has already started on slack and they are receiving the much needed support they crave. Welcome cohort three!!
Check out our website for more information about GFH and pay attention to all of our members — they are doing amazing things!
