Teaching Moments

I spoke to a female founder from Senegal this past week.  A few times a month I find emails that pique my interest or inspire me and I set up the asked call.

This young woman who one of the 30 Senegalis to graduate from Harvard. I figured I might be able to give her some clues on how to navigate the start up world.  I am not interested in investing but was happy to talk.

She had prepared questions around her product and how to find investors. We were about to wrap up and I piped in and gave her a mini session on fundraising for seed investments.  

She couldn’t have been more thankful. What she said to me is why I did it.  She said that I was giving her the inside scoop like I was telling the secrets of the tribe.  Kinda loved that.

Particularly now as we are all laying low and thinking about navigating the next day we should all think about how others around the world are navigating this too. How we each look at the world particularly people who are raised in a country on the other side of the world and find themselves putting roots down in America. To realize not everyone was taught the way you were. To understand and embrace different cultures and behaviors not only from abroad but from right inside our own country. 

To have that melting pot in our country is something we should behold and applaud. It makes us all better.