Key Takeaway
The team at Alice has had enough of the setbacks faced by female entrepreneurs in a male-dominated startup world. Alice, powered by Pivotal Software Inc., Dell Technologies and Circular Board, is leveraging AI to help connect female entrepreneurs with the investors, mentors and the resources they need to make their businesses a success. The algorithm predicts hyper-targeted content as the user engages with Alice on its friendly interface.
Entrepreneurship among women is on the rise. According to the 2016 State of Woman Owned Business Report commissioned by American Express, in the United States there has been a 45% increase in woman-owned businesses in the last decade.Research also suggests that women-run businesses employ nearly 9 million people and generate annual revenues of more than $1.6 trillion.
However, being a female entrepreneur can be extremely challenging in a male-dominated climate. Finding the right mentors, investors and advisors, and building the right network, has always been a roadblock for many women wishing to set up their own business.
In a Forbes article, journalist Geri Stengel writes about the concept of “homophily”, the idea that men are more likely to invest in business ideas pitched by men than by women.
In order to integrate more women into the startup ecosystem and to level the field for female entrepreneurs, Pivotal Software Inc., and Dell Technologies Inc, partnered with The Circular Board to create Alice. Alice is the first artificial intelligence-powered virtual advisor for women entrepreneurs. The platform adopts cloud technology and machine learning capabilities to compile data, and to mentor and assist female business owners via tailored recommendations in an effort to help them scale their enterprises.
Alice is run by two female entrepreneurs–Elizabeth Gore and Carolyn Rodz–who came up with the idea while discussing the social and economic opportunities and challenges that women face globally. Gore is a former entrepreneur-in-residence at Dell, while Rodz launched female-centric business accelerator program Circular Board.
Rodz says, “The current startup ecosystem continues to cycle resources among a very small percentage of well-connected entrepreneurs, making it difficult for less traditional founders to navigate. Alice instantly filters millions of resources down to the personalized, verified content that enables founders to scale to the highest heights, no matter where they are located or who they know.”
What is Alice?
You can imagine Alice as Siri for female entrepreneurs, with a very specific mission: to give every innovator, disruptor and promoter of good the road map they need to change the world. From the Main Street baker to the high-tech disruptor, from rural hilltops to urban centers, Alice opens the doors that help business owners execute their visions. She’s the ultimate connector, offering up event invitations, mentor introductions, growth hacks and expert advice for founders.
The AI technology behind Alice provides female entrepreneurs with a network of other business owners, government resources, and potential investors and mentors to connect with, pulling from top entrepreneurship resources, including The Case Foundation, The Kauffman Foundation and the U.S. Small Business Administration.
How does Alice work?
Although it is not restricted to women, Alice is indeed created with the female entrepreneur in mind. The first step is to create a profile based on parameters like industry, start-up stage, revenue and location.Founders can register for free. Alice then provides a curated list of resources, suggestions and contacts for requirements they may have, including tech tools, recommended organizations to join or suggestions for professional services.
The results are customized per user, and the primary objective is to connect business owners to appropriate networks and resources that aren’t necessarily on their radar.
As more entrepreneurs join Alice and use the service, the machine-learning algorithm will channelise itself and predict specific user needs in advance, recommending certain events or connections that might be useful. Each user will have a personalized dashboard that is conversational in style, allowing easier user engagement with business aspects such as finance and marketing.
It’s even more important for entrepreneurs just starting out to look outside their own network, resources and knowledge and evaluate external data to set themselves up with the right mentors and support. Without the help of AI, however, sorting through all of the information available for useful insights would be far too difficult. Products like Alice offer founders the added value of vetted contacts and recommendations, specific to their individual needs.
Watch a short clip about Alice here:
