Articles

01 Mar

The gig: Eva Ho, 44, is a general partner at Susa Ventures, a technology fund she started that invests mainly in data-focused start-ups. Susa raised $25 million as a seed fund in 2013 and is aiming to raise an additional $50 million. In March, she became one of two entrepreneurs in residence at Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, where she works with teams looking for solutions to the city's homelessness problem. She plans to move on to another venture capital gig in the next few months but can’t divulge where for legal reasons.

A world away: Ho was born in China, but a year later her family moved to Mozambique to escape communism. There, her parents ran a farm with cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and fish until the property was razed in the late 1970s by soldiers fighting in the country’s civil war. At 7, they moved to Boston; her parents later opened a small Chinese restaurant near Fenway Park.

The transition from Mozambique, where her family lived in relative comfort, to a housing project in Boston was intense. Ho watched her parents cope with the stress and physical illness that accompanied a hard work life. “It wasn’t even the shock of just being poor, and the fact that we went from a desert that was 100 degrees to snow. It was more the amount of struggle [my parents] were going through.”

LA Times

Tanya Raukko
22 Feb

SMARTY in its heyday. Had I followed the “Never Give Up” advice, these events would still be happening, at a loss, without the critical mass they needed to thrive. And, this blog would not be happening.

Never give up.
Just be yourself.
Go with your gut.
Just hang in there.
Follow your passion.
It’s meant to be.
Something better will come along.

Smarty People

Jenifer Maxwel
15 Feb

I talk with a lot of people who want to start a business “someday.” And as a result, I often think about the factors that determine which “someday” entrepreneurs will actually become business owners , and which will continue to say “I wish” for years to come.

Surprisingly, the ability to take the plunge has a lot less to do with people’s personalities, and a lot more to do with how accessible and familiar the experience of entrepreneurship is to them. Those who can picture themselves running a business often do. And those who continue to think of entrepreneurship as a big, scary thing that other people (perhaps more gregarious, sales-oriented, or risk-tolerant people) do tend to never move forward.

The Muse

Jenifer Maxwel
08 Feb

Bian, a psychologist at the University of Illinois, read this story out to 240 children, aged 5 to 7. She then showed them pictures of four adults—two men and two women—and asked them to guess which was the protagonist of the story. She also gave them two further tests: one in which they had to guess which adult in a pair was “really, really smart”, and another where they had to match attributes like “smart” or “nice” to pictures of unfamiliar men and women.

The Atlantic

Jenifer Maxwel

Thank You

Thank you for supporting Built By She and for your interest in our beta community. We would be honored to help you in your endeavors and are energized by your commitment to advance your companies.

As we continue to grow ourselves, Built By She will be taking a short hiatus to assess the next steps in how to best cultivate and support our community. Rest assured, we will be back with a vengeance but need to briefly hit the ‘pause’ button on our growth to better understand how we can best serve you. That said, for the next few months we will not be producing content, holding events, or performing assessments.

Please stay tuned, as we will announce our plans for the relaunch in the near future. We look forward to coming back better equipped than ever to help develop your businesses! Thank you again for all of your support.