Rebel Girls Awesome Entrepreneurs: 25 Tales of Women Building Business

Rebel Girls Awesome Entrepreneurs: 25 Tales of Women Building Business — page 5
6 AILEEN LEE FOUNDER AND INVESTOR Once there was a girl who dreamed of unicorns But her unicorns weren't mythical creatures They were incredible businesses In 1970 in New York an immigrant couple from China had a baby named Aileen Throughout her girlhood Aileen heard stories of how hard her family had worked and how many jobs they'd held She listened and understood how important it was to respect their achievements By the time she was in high school Aileen had started several businesses of her own With friends she made and sold tie-dye T-shirts with bright yellow sunbursts and splashes of blue and green They even tried selling egg rolls at busy nearby street fairs My parents probably spent more money on the gas driving me to different jobs than I made she said Aileen wasn't afraid of hard work And she had a knack for knowing which businesses would succeed and why She's now the founder and managing partner of Cowboy Ventures a firm that invests money in entrepreneurs to build new businesses It's one of the first female-led venture capital firms in the world To girls who are interested in starting companies Aileen suggests investigating problems that you have a personal connection to then finding a solution But the solution can't just be a little bit better it has to be a lot better than anything that already exists Aileen knows the hard truth Most businesses fail To succeed she says a founder must be willing to work through the highs and lows She coined the term unicorn to refer to companies valued at 1 billion or more They're rare but with investors like her there are sure to be more soon BORN FEBRUARY 6 1970 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA