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Before building her multimillion-dollar business, Daniella Pierson said she was “the poster child” for “do not invest in.”
Now, she aims to help other “uninvestable” women secure financing for their ideas with her new organization, CHASM, where she wants to help close the gender gap in VC funding.
“I had zero investment, not because I didn’t want it. I wanted it very badly,” Pierson told Business Insider. “I went to dozens of VCs, and I was rejected, rejected, rejected, laughed out of every room.”
One “household name” told Pierson she spoke too much and too quickly, and didn’t know what she was talking about: “I cried the whole Uber home.”
Despite the setbacks, Pierson made a name for herself with her newsletter, The Newsette, which she founded in 2015 during her sophomore year at Boston University.
Until graduation, she would write the entire newsletter between 6 and 10 a.m., covering the latest news in beauty, fashion, and business, before rushing to classes. Then she’d work on it in the evenings and weekends too.
“Even after we made a million dollars, I still wrote it,” Pierson said. “I didn’t have fancy VC money to fall back on.”
In 2021, The Newsette had a team of 14 and brought in revenues of $40 million in one year and made a profit in the tens of millions. The following year Pierson launched another newsletter, Wondermind, cofounded with Selena Gomez and the actor’s mother, Mandy Teefey.
That year, Forbes named Pierson the world’s youngest, wealthiest self-made woman of color.
Numerous barriers
It took Pierson more than five years of hard work to become successful beyond her “wildest dreams.”
Pierson said she grew up as “the dumb twin — that’s not a nickname I gave to myself. That’s something my lovely teachers and peers called me in public to my face.”
She faced numerous barriers and challenges as a female entrepreneur. She failed her business project at college and was almost kicked out a semester before graduation. She was diagnosed with OCD when she was 14, and also lives with ADHD, depression, and anxiety.
Pierson doesn’t want it to be this hard for other women like her.
The amount of funding all-women teams receive is low. In 2022, they accounted for 2.1% ($5.1 billion), BI previously reported. In 2023, it dropped to 1.8% ($3.1 billion).
“That made me really mad,” Pierson said. “So I was like, what am I going to do? I’m going to close the gender gap.”
CHASM
CHASM, which launched on May 20, has a “mentor-to-many” business model. Fifty high-profile entrepreneurs and investors, both men and women, pay a $25,000 membership fee to help aspiring female entrepreneurs from pitch to exit, offering insights, networking opportunities, and grants.
Pierson said she wanted to provide women the tools, knowledge, and connections they need to thrive as entrepreneurs without facing the same roadblocks that she did.
Wider gap
Pierson said women start out “50 feet below the playing field” when launching a business. She believes men are part of the solution.
“The gap has opened wider because we’re isolating men,” Pierson said.”That could be a controversial statement, but I don’t think it is, because guess what? If 99.999% of the money, power, wealth, all of that belongs to men, we need some of them on our side.”
Pierson said she doesn’t want to “just throw money at the problem.”
“I’d rather teach a woman how to fish than just give her a fish,” she said. “I want to put them in the best position for success by giving them the ultimate Bible of everything.”
Some members already signed up for CHASM include Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx and Sneex; singer Lionel Richie; Fidji Simo, the CEO and chair of Instacart who is joining OpenAI later this year; and Tony Robbins, a motivational speaker and coach.
“This is putting my heart and soul, and my time, where my values are, and I hope people really use this to become the most successful versions of themselves, no matter what industry they’re in,” Pierson said. “If I can do it, anyone can.”
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