Female Founders: Sharmin Ali of Instoried On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Freedom is never free. It is a false statement when they say that when you are an entrepreneur your life is your own. That’s BS. It’s not. Your life is controlled by the stakeholders in the company. I thought if I start a company, I’ll have time for myself and I’ll be able to do things the way I want. I end up doing things the way my investors want. Freedom comes at a massive price, as an entrepreneur you end up paying that price.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharmin Ali.
Sharmin Ali is the Founder and CEO of Instoried, a software platform that helps enterprises and individuals create emotionally engaging content. She has written two books, a New Indian Express and Oxford bookstores best-seller. She founded her first startup, Art-Right-Is Productions, in 2012 in the media and entertainment space. Also, Sharmin has hosted multiple TED Talks, including “Put Your Anger to Constructive Use” and “The Idea of a NAKED World.”
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I earned an engineering degree in India that led to work in data analytics consulting. I transitioned to Wall Street, where I had the opportunity to work for Fortune 100 companies like Pfizer, Walmart, and Allstate. I also received an MBA offer from an Ivy League school. I didn’t think I’d be happy with graduate studies and couldn’t conceive of doing anything with my life except entrepreneurship. So, I decided to quit and create something from scratch.
Content is something I understand. The biggest challenge people face is they don’t know how to connect well with their audiences. They have a tough time building human connections and communicating with empathy. As a result, the whole world is flying blind. I decided I had to solve this problem using technology, because there is no way to accomplish it one person at a time.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
I had to go to London from Bangalore to raise $500,000 in a seed funding round. But I didn’t have any money, because we were bootstrapped and had put all our money into the company. I pawned all my gold jewelry, I broke all my investments, I took out an advance on my credit cards, and I still didn’t have enough money to pay my rent. I hadn’t paid my rent in three months. I used all that money for payroll. My parents wouldn’t give me any money either. I borrowed $1,000 from my co-founder, who took money from his wife. I was then able to raise $500,000.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
My first CTO was the funniest mistake. He asked for a $3,000 advance, which I gave to him being the idiot I am. He had written some part of the code. He then ran away with the money and the code. He blocked me from everything, changed his number, and disappeared. That was a stupid mistake, I needed a CTO, and I trusted a stranger.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I am grateful to my current co-founder and CTO, Sutanshu Raj, I could not have done what I have done or what we’ve achieved without his support. And of course I’m grateful to the larger team, the entire leadership team, yes, team, team, team, without them nothing would have been possible.
According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
This is a great question. Opportunities. The whole social and mental conditioning that women receive from a very young age. I can’t speak to how it is in the United States, but here in India, I have faced it a lot. Because women can give birth, they tend to lean toward becoming homemakers rather than business, even though they might be hungry to achieve professional success. But because of social conditioning or lack of support from their partners or their parents, they fail to pursue what they want. There are a lot of notions that most women, especially when it comes to tech start-ups, are more suited to the creative side rather than building something heavily tech oriented. I have faced it in India. When I went to pitch to a particular investor, most of the questions were tossed to my CTO. To his credit, he said to ask me because “she’s the man.” A lot of people out there think if a woman has children or is running a family, that she’s not well-suited enough to have a professional pursuit, which is totally baseless. Numerous women with ambitions don’t pursue them because of these things.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
We at Instoried are 60% women. We have intentionally decided we have to hire more women, regardless of the role. Such decisions must be made, we must reserve spots for women, we have to mandate that. Get more women on board, that has to be a conscious decision made by more companies, investors should ensure they invest in companies that have at least one female co-founder, one a woman in a leadership role. When they make that a mandate, men will be forced to have at least one woman co-founder. From a government perspective, there should be leadership roles reserved for women, they should ensure more women come to the forefront. From a company policy perspective, it should be mandatory for women to have work from home options and paid leave so more women are attracted to join such professional pursuits.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder, but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Evolution has wired us women to be much more calculating when it comes to taking risks or saving money. When it comes to running a company, especially when it comes to finance, we women are much better suited to handle pressure. A woman who is equally responsible toward a family and a professional role, we women are better suited when it comes to alarming situations, we don’t crack under pressure. My mother always told me that as a woman I had to be able to handle physical and mental pressure. Evolution has wired us women to be better leaders and we deserve to be on the forefront.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
We are not good when it comes to being in relationships because we are always working. I don’t think that’s true. Mark Zuckerberg is married with children. We are definitely well-suited when it comes to having a personal life, but we just need partners who are much more understanding. Whenever I have put myself out there, I’ve been told that I won’t have time to date because I am a founder — if I want to make time for you, I will.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Founders must have that ultra-level of risk-taking capacity, impulsive mindsets, you decide first then you act. I am going to do this. Most people first act then make a decision; founders are the opposite. They start from the end, not the beginning. This is completely personal, but it is not easy being a founder, you are always under mental pressure. You need to be able to raise money. If you don’t have the constant influx of money coming in from sales, you need to be able to raise capital. You must have that attitude that nothing is going to stand in the way of your vision, stay focused and be able to handle that pressure. Not everyone has that mindset. Anyone who is worried about taking care of their family, buying a house or car, or has a fixed life plan, is not suited to be a founder. There is risk at every point. You need the mindset that no matter what happens, I am not going to break, I am going to be into this, and I am going to perform. This is not an employee mindset. Being empathetic and honest with the people you work with is also a must, if you are not, you don’t need to be a founder. You might make a lot of money, but you don’t need to be a founder for that. It’s not just about you getting rich, it’s about getting everyone rich and walking along with them.
Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- No one taught me how to build a team. I didn’t know that hiring a team, the right set of people, how important that is, that governs the journey of the start-up because it is not a one-man show, it’s a full team show.
- I didn’t know that a CEO is not the Chief Executive Officer, it’s the Chief Everything Officer. You end up managing HR, finance, marketing, sales, fundraising, you have to have one finger in tech.
- I did know about raising money, but I didn’t know that it was a full-time job. It’s not that easy. It really needs a lot of hard work. You talk to 100 people and end up raising money from one.
- No one told me that the customer is king. Without customer validation you can’t sustain. It doesn’t matter how great the product is, unless you have validation from the customers and a steady sales process, you might end up raising a few rounds of capital, but for you to be a successful company, there must be that steady inflow.
- Freedom is never free. It is a false statement when they say that when you are an entrepreneur your life is your own. That’s BS. It’s not. Your life is controlled by the stakeholders in the company. I thought if I start a company, I’ll have time for myself and I’ll be able to do things the way I want. I end up doing things the way my investors want. Freedom comes at a massive price, as an entrepreneur you end up paying that price.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
It is important to define success. For me it is the ability to influence someone’s decision making. I have been able to influence the decision making of my customers, my investors, and my team. There’s an element of success that we have accomplished. The best thing that has come from success is being able to create jobs and more opportunities for people, that’s what we’ve been able to do. When salaries go out at month’s end, I feel good about it. We have 35 employees right now; I sleep well knowing that 35 households are running because of me. That is very rewarding and fulfilling, that ability to make someone’s life a happier place. Running a company from the start, having my brain invested in each avenue of the business, one thing I have understood, even if my company fails, I know I will start another one. The kind of lessons I have learned along this journey during the past three years have been tremendous. It has been a huge boost to my confidence. I know I won’t crack under pressure. I know that if I were stranded on a deserted island, I would at least be able to make fire. I will not die.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Instoried is my true calling, and that goes without saying. For me, with climate change, I’d like to invest in the climate tech space, that would be life changing.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
Elon Musk. I would have said Steve Jobs, but he is no more. There is one thing Elon Musk has said in numerous interviews: do not ever attach yourself to a human being, attach yourself to a goal, to a company, to a dream, which I also personally believe in. I wonder how he has managed to build so many companies, and how he gets the time to stay invested and so focused.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Female Founders: Sharmin Ali of Instoried On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.