Don’t tell Kristine Smith that Orange County’s a tough market for entrepreneurs to get their visions realized, projects funded, and companies launched.
And definitely don’t tell her that it’s even harder for women entrepreneurs.
“It doesn’t matter if I’m a female,” said Smith, who’s ramping up work at Brevvie, a service company she co-founded last year.
“It doesn’t matter what I am. If I’m good enough, I will get funding.”
Recent headlines bear that out.
A pair of women entrepreneurs from the Business Journal’s OC 500 Directory of Influence disclosed within two weeks of each other sales or planned sales that put their combined companies’ value at more than $1.1 billion.
• Tiffany Masterson is considering a sale at private equity-backed skincare maker, Drunk Elephant LLC, in a deal that could value her company at $1 billion (see story, page 74).
• Last month came word former Irvine Co. exec Lori Torres sold Parcel Pending, which uses electronic lockers and proprietary software to securely store delivered packages, for more than $100 million.
Neither of the local companies—both among the biggest recent success stories in OC—was in business in 2012.
What’s more, a third woman-owned upstart company—Jobot, an AI-based recruitment platform—in January announced one of the area’s biggest new job pushes in recent months, with 100 new positions coming to OC.
Founder Heidi Golledge is on her third—at least—entrepreneur-go-round; the biggest to date was job site CyberCoders, which sold for $105 million to a $2 billion market cap suitor in 2013.
There’s plenty more women entrepreneurship waiting in the wings, along with Smith’s Brevvie, whose short-term tool and product rental company is in a pilot program at several locations; it taps trends similar to Parcel Pending and is the brainchild of another ex-Irvine Co. executive.
Other notable upstarts include Alissa Wolters, a linguistics researcher at University of California-Irvine and founder of education software firm Maven, working out of UCI’s The Cove, as well as Natalie LeFlore and Eileen Dukes Beamish, who are barely out of the prelaunch phase with Planfull and Mane Beauty Lounge, respectively (see separate story, page 34).
Business rules are the same, regardless of gender, the entrepreneurs tell the Business Journal.
Here are some of their stories.
Like Rabbits
Golledge’s first venture didn’t sell for $105 million; it was more important.
The Jobot chief executive began breeding rabbits at age 11, selling them to local pet shops to help her single mom, Virginia, who worked two jobs to support four kids.
Her father was a fighter pilot in Vietnam who never made it home.
She recalls her mother saying in West Virginia, where her mom grew up, “You either owned the coal mine or you didn’t.”
In the late 1990s, Golledge saw a shot at something like the former: an emerging internet environment, “where you didn’t have to literally own the coal mine; you could get a dot.com name and … a great idea.”
The idea was CyberCoders, co-founded in 2000 with Lance Miller and sold a baker’s dozen years later to Calabasas-based On Assignment Inc.—now ASGN Inc., a NYSE-traded, IT and professional services firm with a $3.3 billion market cap.
Golledge had a five-year noncompete clause after the sale and ran CareerBliss, a site launched about the same time as CyberCoders that provides an online career community for job seekers.
In October, she started Jobot in El Segundo, which melds artificial intelligence with real recruiters to pitch companies to highly sought candidates.
Jobot is adding an office and moving the company’s headquarters to OC, where it plans its hiring push.
At least four businesses counting the bunnies; what gives?
“I don’t golf,” Golledge said. “Building a unique culture and helping people and mentoring them … that’s exciting for me and fun.”
Power Tools
Kristine Smith has about two decades of residential real estate experience, including five years at the Irvine Co., and currently as vice president of marketing at Surterre Properties in Newport Beach.
Over that time, she saw living spaces getting smaller, with less storage space for residents, who nonetheless still owned items—tents, coolers, luggage, party games, cameras, vacuums, tools, etc.—used occasionally but stored constantly.
She co-founded Huntington Beach’s Brevvie, short for Briefly Rent Everything, so people could rent rather than buy—an ever-growing take on consumer choices today.
She’s targeting denizens of high-density spaces—apartment buildings, say—Marie Kondo followers and a lot of millennials, who are completely comfortable with the “sharing economy.”
There’s an ecologically economic element as well.
If it can keep trash out of the landfill, “I’m happy about it,” she said. “We can stop consuming for the sake of consuming and really think about what we’re buying, why we’re buying it, and if we really need it long term.”
Brevvie is friends-and-family funded so far to the tune of about $70,000. She’s working with startup accelerator OCTANe to pursue backing.
The idea is akin to fellow Irvine Co. alum Torres’ Parcel Pending—a system for packages, often delivered to young residents of apartments.
Backed by Tech Coast Angels and others, Torres cashed out last month after five years, selling to France-based Neopost for a figure “more than” $100 million. It will stay local and Torres remains chief executive, to help Neopost expand in the U.S.
Smith’s year-old effort is being tried at The George apartments in Anaheim near Angel Stadium, owned and managed by Lyon Living, and The Runway complex in Playa Vista.
The proof of concept intends to attract investors and Brevvie wants 20 additional OC multifamily installations this year.
Class Acts
Wolters’ Maven taps software for language learning. It’s grown from her work in teaching English to international students and others: they struggled with vocabulary and Wolters struggled to find a way using existing materials to help.
So, in the entrepreneurial refrain, she launched her own.
Maven generates learning material based on selections users make as they read. The startup in June was accepted into UCI’s Applied Innovation Wayfinder program.
She and a team of 10 volunteers are coding software, building a website, doing market research. A pilot program is slated for May, ideally working with schools to get feedback on the offerings.
She doesn’t want “just another product, but a tool that meets people’s needs and is really helping.”
Wolters is Maven’s chief executive and learning every day what that takes, especially when it comes to selling and marketing herself.
Estimates of how much venture capital funding goes to women runs in the single-digits, on a percentage basis.
“Everything we do is a challenge,” Wolters said. This is “just one more.”
