Wen Zhang: Be the Change We Want to See
“If you are a female entrepreneur and you have something valuable that you want to share with the world, go out there and be the force of change you want to be seen. Do it so that our daughters and granddaughters don’t even need to have this conversation.”
Wen is a start-up advisor, pitch expert, and founder / CEO of INNW Institute. Wen has a wide breadth of experience in both start-ups and the corporate world. As a serial entrepreneur, she has successfully launched and scaled businesses. Today, she is using her passion to help mentor early-stage founders in developing their pitch deck, perfecting their pitch, polishing their presentation skills, and refining their strategy.
Coming from a mountainside town in China, Wen dreamed of exploring the world beyond the walls of her village. She was determined and committed to her own personal growth starting at a young age and took steps to lead a life that she would be proud of. She is ambitious, driven and introspective. She is the light that has illuminated many early-stage founders in finding their own path and accelerating the growth of their businesses.
Can you talk a little bit about INNW (If Not Now, Wen), an institution which you built to help entrepreneurs bring their dreams to reality? What inspired you to create the platform?
I grew up in a small, mountainside town in China and always dreamed of seeing the world outside of my village one day. Inspired by a library visit, I started teaching myself English using a cassette machine. A decade later, after two master’s degrees at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Duke, I hustled in both the start-up and corporate worlds. In start-up, I’m a serial entrepreneur with experience launching and scaling various start-ups. In corporate, I managed Dell Technologies’ Monitors business. During my time there, I delivered over $300 million in revenue and orchestrated winning marketing strategies across North America.
These experiences combined allowed me to see both sides of the world and confirmed my passion for ventures. I have always wanted to create something different and impactful to the world. When I thought about my skillset, I realized that I have built a professional career centered around marketing and strategy, business development, storytelling and pitching. Combining my passion and skillset, I created INNW (If Not Now, Wen (When)). The institution was built with an intention of helping other dreamers and entrepreneurs bring their innovative solutions to reality.
I think about a decade ago, someone gave me the shot to pursue my American dream/vision, and I would be incredibly honored to give others the same shot, specifically the know-how and the opportunity to really take their passion and heart to the next level.
When did you establish INNW?
I have had this idea and business plan since I started supporting entrepreneurs in 2018. It took me some time to bring it into reality. I asked myself very hard if this is something I wanted to commit to, and if yes, whether I was qualified to do it. As female entrepreneurs, we always way overprepare. In the end, I decided to go after it and filed my LLC in 2019.
Were you scared when you decided to pursue your passion in venture?
I was scared during this transition, but I also understood that if I wasn’t scared, that meant I wasn’t pushing myself and dreaming big enough. True courage is not anyone who is not scared, true courage is when you are scared and you still move forward regardless because there is no other way to live. I was determined to share my talents and authenticity. We all live only once.
Can you talk a little bit about the services that INNW offers?
We offer multiple services through INNW. One of them is the VIP Pitch, where we support entrepreneurs to develop and perfect their pitch to potential investors and customers. The focus is on helping them tell their story in a succinct and compelling manner, with the right balance of emotional and logical support.
I tell people that a perfect pitch is like peanut butter sandwich. There is peanut butter on one side, then there is jelly on the other side. Peanut butter represents the fundamentals of a business – the value proposition, the problem we are solving, the strategy, the go-to-market and other fun things. Then we have the jelly side, which stands for passion, the flow and the storytelling.
Oftentimes technical founders, who love solving problems and creating products, are challenged when it comes to telling the right story. When CEOs grow and scale businesses, their role is shifted from doer to seller. Their main objective becomes selling the business and inspiring others to see their vision. Where INNW adds value is that we help founders craft their stories and provide tools for them to tell their stories in an authentic way.
Secondly, we also offer Pitch Accelerator, which is a four-week intensive seminar helping entrepreneurs get their pitches ready for investors and customers. We help fine-tune their strategy decks and improve their messaging on their companies’ vision / mission statement.
As we enter a new year, we are launching a lot of exciting new initiatives including a new venture fund. At the heart of it all, I’m super proud about the fact that we are truly coming from a place of service. We are here to support founders grow and scale their businesses.
Can you talk a bit more about the venture fund you are creating?
Today we are supporting early-stage companies in seed and pre-seed stages. Regarding sector focus, we are agnostic. We have founders from education tech, healthcare tech, hardware solutions, cybersecurity solutions and others. So we do look at quite a wide breadth of sectors. We don’t really touch crypto or Web3 because I don’t know what I don’t know, and I’m not an expert myself in this space. Our investment is focused on pre-series A and typical check size is around $500k. It could be more or less depending on where they are in the process.
Our fund specifically targets international foreign founders. Think about founders who are like me or internationally born, coming from a technical background in building a solution or product, and having the desire to take this idea to the North American market. We are essentially trying to pick the winners who know how to build a great product, and our vision is to sell their story and bring their products to North America. In a nutshell, we are focused on great companies with technical, internationally born founders and minority-led businesses in various sectors.
How do you source these foreign opportunities?
We have a lot of entrepreneurs today going through our pipeline through VIP Pitch and Pitch Accelerator, so we do see a lot of deal flow through these two channels. I personally evaluate over 100 opportunities each week. Additionally, one of our GPs has connections with foreign start-up ecosystems, so we get a lot of visibility on that end as well. The pandemic has made the world a smaller and closer community, which has created an opportune time for entrepreneurs to create new product / solution ideas.
Is there a playbook you use to evaluate investment opportunities?
First, we look at the founder market fit. We are focused on the founder’s background and his / her knowledge in that specific market and industry. We ask questions such as how many years of experience do they have in the sector? Do they have an intimate knowledge of the industry they are operating in? Do they have proof points and is there a market for their product? Because our entrepreneurs are so early stage, we take a holistic approach in evaluating the situation.
Second, we look at the hustle index, where we look at different aspects of the founder’s soft skills, and we try to quantify these skills into something tangible that we can evaluate. We are passionate about founder-led businesses, and we love it when founders are driven and hungry. These incredible founders can easily find a job that makes great money, but they choose a different path. Therefore, I think the founder’s level of ambition, drive, passion and fire are very critical in the evaluation process. But most importantly, given the early nature of these companies, we have to be flexible and take a more holistic evaluation approach. There is no one size fits all.
At this stage, you have seen many different profiles of companies and management styles. At a high level, what are some factors you believe contribute to the continued success of early-stage ventures?
Companies that are successful at this early stage usually have founders who are confident and humble at the same time. They are confident because they know exactly who their ideal customers are and how their solutions will address their customers’ pain points. They are humble in the sense that they are prepared to pivot based on market feedback and data collected early in the process. Truly successful founders have a healthy obsession with their customers and products. They are always ready to fine-tune products and business models to better serve their customers. It’s never just about the founder’s ego and company valuation. At the heart of it all is the founder solving problems.
From a gender equality standpoint, why do you think there are not as many female-led founders?
Today still less than 2% of businesses backed by venture funds are led by women. I work with both female and male entrepreneurs. Through my own experience, I will share my observations and then I will share my assumptions underlying the phenomenon.
Both genders are equally talented and passionate about what they do. Female founders oftentimes overprepare and underestimate themselves. Let me give you a simple example. Equally speaking, if both genders go pitch an idea, both in early stage and don’t yet have an operating track record, but they are building their hockey stick in financial projections, the male founder would sound something like this:
Well, my business is very exciting and successful. We have not started yet, but I mean no worries. My plan is to enter the Austin, Texas market this week. Next month, we will conquer the entire southern region of the United States. By the year 2024, we will reach the entirety of North America. We should probably think about our international expansion as well. By 2026, we will expand into major parts of the world. This is who we are, we are so awesome.
With the same exact idea and product, the female may say:
Well, I’m very excited about my product. I love it, but there are a few challenges we are experiencing today. There is the operational issue, the supply chain issue, and we haven’t figured out the unit economics yet. We are optimistic about our go-to-market strategy next year. If everything goes well, we may acquire the Texas market, but once again, it depends on if we have solved all the challenges mentioned above. If no mistakes are made, maybe we can start thinking about the Florida market in 2024, assuming we receive funding, our COO is performing, our unit economics increase, and we scale our products.
For female founders, we are holding ourselves accountable for making sure we hit all financial forecasts. Female founders will spend one dollar like two dollars and will deliver above and beyond. That’s why from a psychological perspective, men are always a step ahead.
From my perspective, I don’t care if you are male or female. The only thing I care about is whether you are building a great product that solves a problem. It’s so important that we don’t play into the stereotype. For females, if you are building your business and you know it’s a great product, you should have the courage to pitch. Know that there are investors who will fund your idea.
Lastly, we need to be the change that we want to see in this world. If you are a female entrepreneur and you have something valuable that you want to share with the world, go out there and be the force of change you want to be seen. Do it so that our daughters and granddaughters don’t even need to have this conversation.
Besides continuing to incubate businesses and growing INNW, what’s next for you?
We are continuing to grow our business and raising a fund to invest in early-stage companies. On a personal level, I’m writing a book. I feel the calling to share my story with a bigger audience so that I can show others the possibility of dreaming big.
Life is long and there are so many possibilities. While I don’t know what the future holds, one thing I know for certain is that whatever the universe has in store for me, I’m always ready. At times, I will be scared, but that doesn’t matter, because I let the path guide me.
I truly believe the world is a reflection of who we are inside. I think that true authenticity is not to naively believe the world is perfect. It has its darkness, but that’s precisely why the light is so much more meaningful. For me, it’s all about how I can be the change I want to see, how I can live a life that’s true to myself. Life is short and I may die tomorrow, but that’s totally fine as long as I have lived today to the fullest.
How do you balance your busy life schedule?
When you do what you love and you love what you do, there is no balance at all. This is just how I live. I’m not suggesting we should work until we get burned out. I have a routine that I follow. I work very long hours, but I’m also intentional with how I spend my time during the day. I never see myself getting tired from working because this is how I live, and this is how I have fun.
For those who are interested in finding out more about the services that Wen provides, check out https://www.ifnotnowwen.com/. She can also be reached at wen@ifnotnowwen.com.