Visualize, Believe, and Achieve with Bridgette I. Smith

Empowerment begins when you embrace the unknown, overcome fears, and boldly pursue progress. Break the taboo about money, set clear goals, and say “yes” to new opportunities.

Together with Bridgette L. Smith, an award-winning talk show host, three-time CEO, and founder, we delve into the dynamic world of women’s entrepreneurship, the challenges of the corporate world, the dynamics of risk, and the transformative magic that happens when women lead startups. Her career shifted from journalism to a pioneering self-made investor who’s leveling the playing field in venture capital with investments in over 150 companies so far. 

Bridgette is very focused on helping women, people of color, and LGBT founders work their way up.

You hold the transformative power: accept it, live it, and use it to drive you toward a future in which your spirit of entrepreneurship knows no limits. The possibilities are endless, and the time is now.

Show notes:
🙌 Bridgette is “the Oprah of Investing”, advisor, visionary, disruptor, author and supporter of women and the LGBT community. 04:22
✅ You learn as you go: Bridgette embraces the unknown without fear. 08:06
❗ Don’t be scared to say yes: it helped Bridgette transition from corporate to entrepreneurship. 10:29
💜 People don't want to answer questions and help, but Bridgette bootstrapped her way into the ecosystem for venture capital and now is a huge investor who teaches other women, people of color, and LGBT founders to invest. 17:26
📈 Bridgette now has three companies and two angel groups: one of the companies provides funding to women entrepreneurs so they grow their businesses. 24:10
💵 it’s never too late to invest: we need innovation to make the world a better place, and improve women’s health, with important products and services.30:10
👉 Stay hungry and try to understand the world around you, join professional organizations and groups, build relationships with people, and keep saving. 34:25
🍫 You can create a vision board from old magazines that will help you stay focused on your goals for the year: if you care, test the products before you invest. 39:32
🧡 Bridgette will do live product demonstrations for diverse female founders with their products. 44:03
✅ Everyone has a personal touch, so we’re not competing with one another: if you think about competition, you’re competing with yourself. 46:04

Links:
 

 Connect with Bridgette: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bridgette-l-smith-%F0%9F%A6%8B-verified-page-5b902b92_from-tv-personality-to-tech-executive-to-activity-7141112956926300160-OzlI

  Connect with Adrienne: https://www.sheleadsmedia.com

  Listen to podcasts for women by women on the She Leads Podcast Network: 

  Resources/Data Mentioned: https://www.sheleadspodcasts.com

Shopify: https://bridgettelsmith.myshopify.com 

Creators & Guests

Host

She Leads® Media

👩🏻‍⚖️ ⭐️ Adrienne Garland - She Leads® Podcast Network - 4 women X women ⭐️ 🎧 Sugar Coated Podcast Host| Leadership Conferences, Retreats #SheLeads #Women #entreprenuers

What is The She Leads Podcast: Real Conversations with Women Entrepreneurs?

Discover the go-to podcast for driven women entrepreneurs ready to lead! Join host Adrienne Garland, CEO of She Leads Media, as she uncovers the unfiltered path to scaling your business to 7 and 8 figures. Each week, bold female founders share their raw stories, overcoming challenges, and proven strategies for explosive growth – all without sugar-coating a thing.
🚀 Why She Leads is Your Essential Listen:
Super-practical, actionable advice to conquer your entrepreneurial hurdles
No-holds-barred insights on leadership, scaling, and business growth
Real, refreshing conversations with industry-leading women entrepreneurs and leaders (and male allies!)
Impactful strategies to influence your family, community, and the world

At She Leads Media, we reject the notion that women must be deferential or pull back our opinions. Instead, we're creating a powerful platform where women are free to express their brilliance without restraint. Whether you're launching your venture or ready to scale new heights of revenue and profit, The She Leads Podcast: Real Conversations with Women Entrepreneurs delivers the unvarnished truth you need to thrive in today's competitive business landscape.
The She Leads Podcast (formerly Sugar Coated) is your ultimate resource for:
✅ Practical and actionable business growth strategies and tactics
✅ Authentic leadership development
✅ Transformative mindset shifts
✅ Genuine connections with like-minded women

Don't miss out on game-changing wisdom from Adrienne Garland - fearless entrepreneur, innovative media producer, and inspiring professor. Subscribe now and join a community of women who refuse to hold back their voices, thoughts, or opinions. Your journey to 7-figure success and beyond starts here – no sugar-coating required!
#SheLEADS #WomenInBusiness #FemaleEntrepreneurs #BusinessGrowth #LeadershipPodcast #WomenEmpowerment

Adrienne (00:01.014)
Hi everybody and welcome to Sugar Coated. I'm your host, Adrienne Garland, and I am very excited today. It's the beginning of 2024, and I have my very first guest of the year. Her name is Bridget Smith. And Bridget is, I don't even know how to capture this amazingness that is Bridget. I'm gonna just start with

a little bit of a bio and I don't normally do this, but I wanted to do this because Bridget is so accomplished and she has her hands in so many different things that I know that everybody's going to be so interested in. So Bridget Smith is an award-winning talk show host, three-time CEO and founder. She's an investor, a keynote speaker, a board advisor and an author. She's worked at

Google as an executive, and she's now a self-made trailblazing investor who's leveling the venture capital playing field. She's the CEO and founder of Founder Pitch Week, and she's established an ecosystem that connects diverse female founders with investors, facilitating entrepreneurs opportunities to pitch and potentially secure funding.

She has so many other ventures underneath her umbrella, and she does so much to help women entrepreneurs to secure the funding that we all need. She has a passion for inclusivity and investment that's further exemplified by her creation of two angel groups, which I cannot wait to hear about, Investing with Confidence Angels and Investing with Confidence Future Angels.

and she is as committed to diversity as anybody that I have spoken to. And she is very focused on helping women, BIPOC women, LGBTQIA founders, and everybody else. It's completely inclusive.

Adrienne (02:16.246)
And we actually had somebody that is part of that documentary as well speak at the She Leads Media Conference back in November. And we have had prior guests on the show that are part of that documentary as well. So we have our own little ecosystem going here as well. I cannot wait to talk to you. Bridget, welcome to Sugar Coated.

Bridgette L. Smith (02:39.205)
Thank you so much. What a warm intro. I really appreciate that. I know it was long, but I can help people kind of understand how it all connects together because there really is synergy across the whole board.

Adrienne (02:53.29)
I love that. And I think that so many women and women in this audience can relate. We might be doing a multitude of different things, but it always seems to have that thread that goes through all of it. So before we maybe dive into everything that you're doing and how you're helping women to start and grow and scale businesses, let's wind it back. How did you get to here?

from where you started. Tell us a little bit about your background.

Bridgette L. Smith (03:27.005)
So my origin story, well, I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a...

very racially divided place to live and grow. I didn't know any of that when I was growing up. I was very much into reading books and I was very nerdy compared to my older brother, younger sister. And I love my favorite place to go was the library and the park. And so little did I know I had planted some early seeds. I also really enjoy watching the news, which again, as a young child is a little awkward,

Adrienne (04:03.646)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (04:05.095)
But again, little did I know it was early seeds that were being planted. And so fast forward, as I got up in age in high school, I decided I wanted to pursue journalism. And so it was because at my earlier age, I was fascinated by Connie Chung.

And Connie Chung to me was like, it was pre-Oprah. Didn't even know Oprah existed. And I was just fascinated by Connie Chung. And so when I went to undergrad at UW-Milwaukee, I decided to study journalism. And that started me on my journey into the world of print journalism, television journalism, on-air talk show host, on-air commentator, so many jobs behind the camera, from audio to director to teleprompter person.

Adrienne (04:26.634)
Oh yes.

Bridgette L. Smith (04:56.327)
done at all. And so that's where my journey started is really storytelling. That's what all that comes down to is storytelling. I love

Adrienne (05:02.286)
Hmm

Mmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (05:05.869)
As I mentioned, reading books, I love the library, so I love stories, so I love to storytell. And then in Milwaukee, it's a small market. And so it's hard to really have huge success in a small market. So my choices were to relocate with a small child or to figure out an alternative source of income, which for me, I decided to get a part-time job, which unbeknownst to me became my full-time job.

Adrienne (05:25.25)
Hmm.

Adrienne (05:34.454)
Hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (05:35.923)
to an ad in the paper to be a technical writer. Storytelling. And that tech writer position ended up being a 25-year career in tech. I went from a tech writer, and of course TV became less and less part of my fiber,

Adrienne (05:39.15)
Mmm.

Adrienne (05:49.93)
Oh my god.

Bridgette L. Smith (05:58.009)
It's still in my DNA, but I just didn't do it every day anymore. And so I went from technical writer to business analyst, to project manager, program manager, program director, dot, all the way up to the C. And then Google came along.

Adrienne (06:09.898)
Mmm. Wow. Mmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (06:13.561)
And then I ended up relocating with my family to California, Silicon Valley, and I became an executive at Google. And so I'll just pause there because the story continues, but that's literally, you know, phase one, phase two, phase three of my life. I'm in phase three now as an investor.

Adrienne (06:20.819)
Oh my goodness.

Adrienne (06:28.707)
Hmm

I can't wait to hear about phase three. And so many women do go through that. I call it almost like the second chapter, but you're on your third chapter. And I love, excuse me. I'm going to just cut that out. I usually turn this off. Not good.

I love that. So it's so interesting that the technical aspect of what you were doing led you to the path of technology. And I think it's so interesting because as a writer, as a journalist, you do have to do a lot of background research, especially if you're doing the technical aspect of the writing, you really need to understand this stuff.

in order to communicate it. So it's almost like you were educating yourself about the technology industry through your job, basically.

Bridgette L. Smith (07:33.529)
Yeah, absolutely. I learned everything in the tech space real time. And YouTube was my best friend. Google Search was my best friend. When I was a tech writer, they were using an application. It was like a CAD application, CAD design tool. I didn't know how to use it. I figured it out. What did I do? I watched YouTube videos. I downloaded a free trial of that software on the job.

Adrienne (07:39.284)
Yeah.

Wow.

Adrienne (07:54.658)
Wow.

Adrienne (07:58.626)
Wow.

Bridgette L. Smith (08:01.505)
unbeknownst to them, I was learning as I went along. And I learned it. And then I, and that's the story of my life. You know, you learn as you go, and I've always embraced the unknown. I've never been afraid of the unknown. Fear is no longer a part of my fabric or even in my vocabulary. I fear nothing. I'm ready for whatever.

Adrienne (08:04.43)
Yeah!

Adrienne (08:11.212)
Yeah.

Adrienne (08:14.743)
Mmm.

Adrienne (08:23.372)
Oh my gosh, I love this so much. I'm actually in the process of writing a book with some help. And I talk about this, right? I talk about the fact that now as women, we need to stop being so fearful of what everybody else is telling us. And we need to look inside and get bold.

and move forward because this fear is stopping us from making progress. It's not allowing us to do what you did and to say, I don't know it, but I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to learn it along the way. I don't need to be a master in order to be accomplished or in order to, you know, ascend through whatever ranks, whether they're corporate or entrepreneurial, you figured it out.

And I don't think that a lot of women were sort of armed with that type of mindset. And that's why we get stopped. I think it's also why we choose to go down a corporate path in our career, because we were told, at least I was when I was younger, I was told that's the only path, that's the only way to go. And entrepreneurship is something that is

completely about the unknown. It's completely about experimentation. And so how did you go from that corporate world into entrepreneurship? What prompted that move, that change?

Bridgette L. Smith (10:00.137)
Well, when I was going backwards to television, I had started a small public relations company, didn't quite know what I was doing as far as entrepreneurship, but I knew.

people kept asking me to help them to get on television, help them improve their interview skills, help them talk in soundbites, all of these things. And so I started a company and my company was quite successful. I didn't know how to scale. I didn't know anything about raising capital. I just knew how to do my thing, which was communication and storytelling and written word is a gift. And so I focused.

Adrienne (10:13.858)
Hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (10:39.405)
on my gifts as an entrepreneur. So the entrepreneurship mindset, the hustle, the hunger, the not knowing what's next has always been a part of how I'm made.

Adrienne (10:52.907)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (10:53.305)
I came from very humble beginnings. My mother was a hustler. She was constantly working multiple jobs. It was normal in our household for my mom not to be home. It was common in our household for us to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner when she wasn't there. So I'm very, very used to doing more than, like even as a child. That's always just been a part of my world. And so now that I'm an adult,

Adrienne (11:03.49)
Hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (11:20.389)
the unknown isn't scary at all. It's just a matter of, I really think it's important to talk about knowing who you are, and knowing what are your strengths, what are your passions, and then trying to understand what does that look like if you were to monetize that. So I did the work and I keep doing the work. I don't stop ever doing the work. On this day,

Adrienne (11:30.367)
Yes.

Yes.

Adrienne (11:40.86)
Hmm

Bridgette L. Smith (11:49.553)
One year ago, so in 2023, on the exact same day, I was a completely different person. The year before that, I was still evolving. I was even more different. If I look back and look at photos of me or look back at my LinkedIn posts or things that I was involved in at that time, I've constantly grown and I've never said no. The other thing I wanted to share, how did I go from corporate to entrepreneurship in my current state? Is I started a year of yes,

Adrienne (12:08.27)
Hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (12:18.157)
I believe in 2018. What does that look like for me? Some people say, don't be afraid to say no. I say, don't be afraid to say yes. Don't be afraid to say yes. So many doors have opened. When those doors open, what do I do? I look at my list of strengths.

Adrienne (12:20.407)
Hmm.

Adrienne (12:27.542)
Yeah, opportunity.

Bridgette L. Smith (12:37.017)
I look at, and I know these by heart now, but I look at my passions. I look at making sure I'm in alignment with my, you know, things that I enjoy, things that make me happy. And I say, is this opportunity a fit?

Adrienne (12:37.09)
Hmm.

Adrienne (12:47.401)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (12:51.045)
And if the answer is no, then I say no. If I don't have the bandwidth, then I say no. But if I have the bandwidth and it's in alignment with who I am at my core, my strengths at my core, my talents, my gifts, et cetera, my experiences, I say yes.

Adrienne (12:54.028)
Right.

Adrienne (13:08.013)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (13:08.477)
And then that door opens another door opens another. And so my transition from Google, which was my most recent corporate position as a senior executive, I transitioned quite seamlessly because there was no fear. And I have to share the only apprehension I had was that I did have golden handcuffs, as they say. You know, Google has a lot of commas and zeros when it comes to income and benefits and.

Adrienne (13:11.674)
Mm.

Adrienne (13:30.815)
Yeah.

Adrienne (13:36.286)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (13:36.741)
you know, strings and things. And so most people thought that I would stay for years and years and why not retire and, you know, et cetera. There's so many companies within Google. Google is just a multitude of companies, over 80 companies within one.

And so there's lots of opportunity to move around and try different things and go to different parts of the business and so forth and so on. And I have, as you mentioned, so many different skill sets that I bring to the table, but it wasn't for I don't think I think I've been in corporate America for so long that Google was just another company. Yeah, and I wasn't able to grow.

Adrienne (14:17.73)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (14:24.397)
in a way that I felt I should be growing. I wanted to do more. I wanted to be in servitude more. I wanted to help more women more. And I just, I looked around and every day I was doing the work, but I wasn't doing the work that was on my list of passions. My list of strengths were one or two were being maximized. And so I just looked in the mirror and said, Bridget, what's next?

Adrienne (14:27.566)
Mm.

Adrienne (14:32.63)
Yeah.

Adrienne (14:43.556)
Mmm.

Adrienne (14:53.183)
Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Bridgette L. Smith (14:53.829)
What are you going to do next? And so ironically, I'm in these rooms predominantly with white men. And they often before a call starts or in-person meetings starts, there's small talk, there's chatter. They were constantly talking about investing. They were constantly talking about equity and stock. And they were almost talking in code. I didn't understand it.

Adrienne (15:12.97)
Yes.

Adrienne (15:19.55)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (15:20.909)
I came from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, traveled extensively. I've never been in an environment where venture capital, I didn't even know what that was. I never heard the words private equity before I joined Google. Like there are so many words and vocabulary and taxonomy that were being exchanged in all of these calls before the actual call started. And so because they seemed to be excluding me or isolating me on purpose, that's how I felt.

Adrienne (15:29.162)
Hmm

Hmm.

Adrienne (15:42.708)
Yeah.

Adrienne (15:50.764)
right.

Bridgette L. Smith (15:50.865)
Like it was a secret. And as soon as I felt like, wait a minute, if it's such a secret, that means to me I should learn and understand what you're talking about. Because if you're trying to exclude me, that means I should know. So I did the reverse. I wasn't discouraged at all. I did the opposite. I started digging in and investigating what is this world called venture capital.

Adrienne (16:02.181)
Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Adrienne (16:15.934)
I love this so much. It's so funny because it reminds me just of conversations that always happen in corporate, where the guys are talking about sports and all the other things. And it's sort of transitioned into this other world of investments. Everybody is investing. A lot of guys, they have all these apps now with Robinhood. And so everybody feels like they're this investor. And they.

They just like in, if you listen to like the guys talk about golf, right? That everybody is in the game. They all stink. They're all terrible, but they talk about it. Like they're, you know, Tiger Woods. So I love, I love this. And it's almost like your journalistic, like, um, aptitude kicked in like, Ooh, I don't know what that is. Let me investigate. And so is, is that sort of what happened? And then is that what led you?

Bridgette L. Smith (16:56.844)
Yes.

Bridgette L. Smith (17:05.)
Uh huh.

Bridgette L. Smith (17:08.373)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (17:13.142)
down that whole entire path.

Bridgette L. Smith (17:15.069)
That's exactly what happened. And also what I learned quickly is that the information is hard to find. And again, I think that's intentional. So I bumped into this world called venture capital when I relocated to Silicon Valley. I bumped into the concept of angel investing, had no idea what that was. All of these concepts were only because I was in the room.

Adrienne (17:23.906)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Adrienne (17:39.662)
Mm-hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (17:44.221)
that it became obvious to me, this is something. What is it? I don't know. So I started to ask questions of people around me. I'm a member of multiple professional organizations and so I just started asking questions. You know what I learned? Is several people who've been doing investing for a long time, sometimes I think that they reach a certain point in their journey as an investor that they're not as willing to share the how-to.

Adrienne (17:44.523)
Yeah.

Adrienne (18:11.526)
Hmm

Bridgette L. Smith (18:12.861)
how to get started, what does this mean, where do I go for this, where do I go for that? I was redirected so many times to read this book, go to this website, watch this YouTube channel, and there were less than a handful of people who really helped me. And mind you, I didn't know what questions to ask at the time. So I was, every call I was on, I took copious notes, and then I add to the next conversation.

Adrienne (18:15.914)
Hmm.

Adrienne (18:31.81)
Really?

Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (18:41.549)
What I learned from the first conversation just kept compounding. And so I got wiser and wiser and wiser. So, so I did all of this. Uh, I call it bootstrapping. I bootstrapped my way to understand what does all this mean when I got comfortable enough and I'm telling you, people just kept saying, just invest on AngelList, just invest. You know, they were almost disregarding me.

Adrienne (18:45.282)
Hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (19:03.653)
because I had so many questions. And also, again, my list of strengths, my list of passions, things that I care about, I want to invest in women-led companies. That was clear to me up front.

Adrienne (19:04.099)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (19:15.988)
Hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (19:17.913)
I want to invest in companies that are founded by, I didn't even know what the word founder was by the way, and when people were talking about founders. Then I said, wait a minute, I looked it up, I said, wait a minute, all they're talking about are entrepreneurs. Again, in Silicon Valley, it's all these words. It's like alphabet soup. So I realized venture capital is just investing in private companies. Okay, got it.

Adrienne (19:31.839)
Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Adrienne (19:43.105)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (19:43.745)
Angel investing is a person who is accredited. I didn't know I was accredited. I was accredited in my 20s and didn't know it. In Silicon Valley, those terms get thrown around a lot. And I looked it up. I said, wait a minute, I'm accredited. I've got the resources. I now need to figure out how to invest wisely to reduce and mitigate my risk.

Adrienne (19:48.912)
Mmm.

Mm.

Adrienne (19:58.892)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (20:06.605)
and hopefully get a return on investment. So I started to dig, dig. So I bootstrapped my way into this ecosystem for venture capital. Fast forward, this is 2021. Fast forward to where we are now. We're just at the beginning of 2024. In those two years, once I figured out what I was doing and I built my confidence, I started to invest. I wrote my first check. It was only 2,500.

Adrienne (20:36.046)
Listen, that's a lot of money for someone. Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (20:36.145)
It was only $2,500. I started. I just started. I put my toe in the water. And now I've invested in over 150 startups. Now I've invested in multiple venture capital firms. Now I've invested in the film that you talked about earlier. Now I've invested. I'm looking at investing in Broadway productions. I've invested.

Adrienne (20:47.1)
Oh my God, that's amazing.

Adrienne (20:52.012)
Wow.

Adrienne (21:00.014)
Ah-hoo.

Bridgette L. Smith (21:01.357)
extensively at this point. And so now I teach other women how to invest, right? It shouldn't be so difficult. And it really isn't, but people make it seem like it's a private club. And as long as, you know, it's really about access. And so I've now teach other women, I've taught in the first, from May, 2023 is when I started teaching other women.

Adrienne (21:07.018)
Mmm.

Adrienne (21:14.967)
Yeah.

Adrienne (21:19.971)
Oh, yes.

Bridgette L. Smith (21:30.129)
After I figured it all out for myself, it said, okay, these are the pillars that you must know, and then you can grow from there. So I started sharing my own personal journey. And my first.

Adrienne (21:37.271)
Mm-hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (21:44.397)
workshop was just, let me just see if, you know, it was Ganges. I don't know if you're familiar with Ganges, but Ganges is a syndicate for LGBTQ founders, investors, and so you can join if you support the community. So I joined Ganges. Well, Ganges invited me to come share my investor journey, and I said, well, I have to have a deck because I can't go over to America. I can't show up to a call and just look at a camera. I've got to have a deck.

Adrienne (21:50.3)
No.

Adrienne (22:07.882)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (22:12.865)
slides. So I've created this presentation and it was really just the journey of how I became an investor. How did I learn what I've learned to invest in over 150 companies so far? But coincidentally, I'm also a member of CHIEF.

And I said, well, if I'm going to create a deck for Ganges, I might as well share the same information with my chief sisters. So I ended up having the chief session first, just coincidentally because of the timing. So I did the exact same presentation I was going to do at Ganges. I did it at chief first just because of timing. Do you know that more than 200 women showed up to this workshop that I did just to share my investment journey? And it became a thing.

Adrienne (22:29.477)
Oh.

Adrienne (22:35.905)
Yeah.

Adrienne (22:52.346)
Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (22:58.553)
And so I began to have two to three workshops per week on the chief platform. I then of course did my workshop at Gangel's. We now have a very strong relationship at Gangel's we're working on some new projects over there. So there's, once I started to just share, here's how it works, here's what you need to do, you must have a thesis.

Adrienne (23:05.114)
Oh my God.

Adrienne (23:21.086)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Bridgette L. Smith (23:21.265)
Here's how you find deal flow. Here's how you build your brand as an investor. Here's how you attract the deal flow that aligns with your own personal values, and in your own budget, etc. I basically just created the formula, here's how you do it. I've now trained over 4,000 women in county. I now have micro accelerators. There's just, as you mentioned earlier, there's just so many.

Adrienne (23:36.951)
Mmm.

Adrienne (23:41.134)
Gosh.

Bridgette L. Smith (23:45.677)
pieces to my business now. So I didn't know I was creating a business. I just wanted to share what I've learned and now it's morphed into three companies. So that's three companies that now do the work that I'm talking about here.

Adrienne (23:53.805)
Yeah.

Adrienne (23:57.352)
Oh, this is so amazing.

Adrienne (24:02.398)
And those three companies are the angel investment firm, the prep for angel investment. And the third is.

Bridgette L. Smith (24:10.817)
Yes, so I'll walk you through. So Founder Pitch Week is a is one of the three companies. And so what I do there, and we actually have a new cohort that starts in 2024. So I basically women, diverse women from all over the United States apply. I then select

Adrienne (24:15.979)
and Founder Pitch Week. Yes.

Bridgette L. Smith (24:32.209)
In 2024, I'll have a selection committee, but in 2023 was my first cohort. So I did the selection all myself. So there were 207 applicants in 2023. I selected the top 30, created a micro accelerator for those founders, and then did matchmaking with investors for those sectors.

Adrienne (24:39.33)
Gosh.

Adrienne (24:43.81)
Wow.

Adrienne (24:53.267)
Amazing.

Bridgette L. Smith (24:53.925)
over 500 investors participated in Founder Pitch Week, and I basically matched those 30 founders with those investors to help those founders raise capital. And so that's what it all boils down to. And so in 2024, I'm now doing a...

Adrienne (25:02.914)
God.

Adrienne (25:07.51)
Wow.

Bridgette L. Smith (25:11.889)
bigger version of Founder Pitch Week, but that really is what Founder Pitch Week is. It's a micro accelerator, it's investor and founder matchmaking. I'll be doing a look book this year as well as deal memos.

Adrienne (25:24.504)
Hmm

Bridgette L. Smith (25:28.417)
We'll have all kinds of funds to align with the sector. So we'll have a fund for CPG, we'll have a fund for FemTech, we'll have a fund for FemTech. So it really is just a machine to help these women, these diverse women get the funding that they need to scale their companies. So that's really what Founder Pitch Week is. Then I've got Purpose-Led Ventures. So Purpose-Led Ventures is really the umbrella company that allows me to do all of this work. So it's my management entity.

Adrienne (25:32.429)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (25:51.211)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (25:58.951)
And so my management entity oversees all the all the businesses that we that I manage and so then I've got Serenity and sunshine holdings. So Serenity and Sunshine holdings, by the way, those are the names of my two parakeets My husband brought me brought me parakeets for my birthday so

Adrienne (26:07.883)
Hmm

Adrienne (26:15.301)
Ahah

Adrienne (26:19.522)
Aww.

Bridgette L. Smith (26:20.609)
So I have, I call them one is Serenity and the other is Sunshine. So that's the name of my holding company. So I'll never forget the name of that company. But that company really is where all of the funds, so those funds that I just mentioned, you know, the CPG fund, the FemTech fund, the...

Adrienne (26:23.902)
Ah. Ha ha.

Yeah!

Bridgette L. Smith (26:40.253)
Health Tech Fund, et cetera. All of the funds fall under Serenity and Sunshine Holdings. And then I've got the two angel groups. So investing with Confidence Angels, investing with Confidence Future Angels. The big difference between the two is investing with Confidence Angels is for individuals who are accredited investors. Then investing with Confidence Future Angels are individuals who want to...

Adrienne (26:45.314)
Hmm

Adrienne (27:00.942)
Got it, yep.

Bridgette L. Smith (27:07.509)
one day become accredited or they are on the road to become accredited investors, which just for the benefit of those listening, I'll just explain what that is. So accredited simply means this, is that as an individual, you have an income of at least 200,000. If you are married, you have a joint income of at least 300,000 with your partner, or you have

Adrienne (27:12.47)
Mm-hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (27:35.797)
liquid assets of at least a million or more. That's all that means.

Adrienne (27:40.63)
that does not include your house.

Bridgette L. Smith (27:42.705)
That does not include your private residence, your primary home. And so again, in my 20s, I was accredited, but never had these conversations. I never knew that, you know, this was an option. Here I am in my 50s now, and I just realized I'm accredited. I just figured out what venture capital is. So it's never too late. And so I've got those three companies, and we've got so many brands underneath those companies that basically just make up the whole ecosystem of investing in women,

Adrienne (27:52.302)
Hmm.

Adrienne (27:57.483)
Yeah.

Hmm. No.

Bridgette L. Smith (28:12.619)
People of Color, LGBTQ founders.

Adrienne (28:16.126)
I love this so much. I mean, oh my gosh. First of all, thank you for defining what an accredited investor is because I do believe, like you said, there are women that are out there that most likely, especially in New York City where the salaries are pretty good. I bet you there are a lot of women that meet that criteria and don't even realize it.

And I also know because I speak to so many women, we all want to invest in women-led businesses. It's what the focus of She Leads Media is. And also diverse businesses, right? It's like, we're talking here about almost like everyone else than the traditional venture capital people invest in, right? It's like all of us over here. And I think that...

Bridgette L. Smith (29:05.137)
Mm-hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (29:08.494)
Yeah, yeah.

Adrienne (29:10.674)
It's really interesting that it is almost like a club, but there are more and more people like you that are out there educating all of us that it doesn't take very much to be an investor, right? And by doing so, you're paying it forward. You're not only helping yourself, you're helping others that we need all of this diversity of

perspective. We need this diversity of creativity. We need the way that other people move through the world. We need product services, all of it, that satisfy our wants, needs, and desires. Because everything right now, the way that venture capital is, and you know this, is that it's pattern matching. Right? So you've got these huge venture capital

Bridgette L. Smith (29:58.941)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (30:10.642)
that are just investing in everything else that was successful before then. They have tons and tons and tons of money and that's the stuff that we see. But it's not the best, it's just the most funded. And so, yeah. Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (30:14.749)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (30:23.853)
Right. Yeah, and when you think about innovation, you know, once I started going to pitch calls and pitch competitions and exposing myself to Deal Flow, I got so excited, like for real. There's so much innovation that we need in order to make the world a better place, in order to make, that focuses on women's health. All types of products.

Adrienne (30:36.664)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (30:40.011)
Yeah.

Ugh.

Adrienne (30:46.661)
Ugh.

Adrienne (30:50.314)
Oh yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (30:51.937)
and services that will never see the light of day unless they're funded. And so it is so exciting to be on pitch calls and to listen to founders share their journey, what they're building, their milestones, what they, you know,

Adrienne (30:57.078)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (31:10.453)
basically changing and saving the world. It's so exciting to be on these calls. Once I got started, I don't see myself going in any other direction at this point other than to just keep going straight. As I go straight, I help and help and help and help and support and invest, support and invest. One thing I realized when I was writing, and I've written a whole lot of checks.

Adrienne (31:13.143)
Yeah.

Adrienne (31:24.704)
Yeah.

Adrienne (31:30.687)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (31:35.649)
And my check size is people always ask me, what's your check size? It's a lot. It could be as low as, my first check was 2,500. I haven't written a check that low since that one time, but it could be as low as say 5,000 or it could be as high as 500K for an individual investment. And I've invested in over 150 startups. So, you know, so people try to do them. Right? Cause I'm not gonna share, but the point is that I realized that I'm a single check.

Adrienne (31:48.835)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Adrienne (31:57.122)
Do the math. Ha ha ha.

Adrienne (32:05.948)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (32:06.261)
and we can be more powerful together if the floodgates opened wider and more women understood how to play in this particular sandbox and grow and build generational wealth. And that's what this is about. Again, I am in my 50s. It is never too late to invest. And in some cases, you don't

Adrienne (32:09.579)
Yes.

Adrienne (32:12.959)
Yeah.

Adrienne (32:18.733)
Yeah.

Adrienne (32:23.064)
Hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (32:35.505)
for those companies to have a liquidity event. There's all types of investment models that you can invest in venture capital and they're very creative. And I've come across some recently in 2023. And so I'm exploring those to see what that looks like where I can receive compensation as an investor on a monthly basis.

Adrienne (32:42.713)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (32:53.324)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (33:01.213)
And again, the model is very different. It's one of the venture capital firms that I invested in. And they have a fund, you know, and again, I'm sure on this podcast, we won't go too deep here, but they've got, and I'm still learning, but they've got a model where you can invest in certain, there's certain startups that participate in this particular fund. You can invest in that fund and those, that model I believe is for CPG companies, a certain sector within CPG. And when they,

Adrienne (33:12.415)
Yeah, yeah.

Adrienne (33:26.113)
Mm-hmm.

Bridgette L. Smith (33:30.353)
when they generate revenue, you receive a percent or portion of that revenue against that particular company within the fund. And so I was like, what? And so again, so the more you meet people, find out how venture capital firms are structured, because the structures are all different, even though they may have venture capital on their front window pane.

Adrienne (33:42.124)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (33:59.225)
all venture capital firms are not the same. So once you start having these conversations about how they're structured, what their business model looks like, not just the sectors that they invest in, but what's their business model to invest in those sectors. And that's where I am in terms of just understanding my ecosystem. And then what I do is I come back, I document all the information and I share it with other women, so they too can invest in those same structures.

Adrienne (34:14.751)
Yeah.

Adrienne (34:28.338)
Oh my goodness. So what advice would you give even yourself, right? You know, you said in your 20s, you met the criteria for being an accredited investor. What would you tell yourself, that 20 something year old self, what would you tell her now knowing what you know about investing in other women owned businesses?

Bridgette L. Smith (34:43.611)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (34:52.913)
Wow, that's a great question. So I love public radio. I love talk news, et cetera. So one, I would tell the younger version of Bridget to stay hungry, keep understanding the world that you're in, the world around you. I came from a small town, but the world is big. So keep listening and paying attention to what's going on around you. Also, you know.

There's this thing, and I don't know why, but so many people say they have a 401k, they have an IRA, and they have a home and maybe a car. And that's where they stop, right? And I would say when you file your taxes or you talk to an accountant or you talk to, I don't know if you remember this, but back in the day, I used to get calls.

Adrienne (35:29.002)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (35:43.933)
through your 401k, maybe it's through Morgan Stanley. The Morgan Stanley rep would call you on the phone or send you an email and say, we'd like to sit and chat with you to talk about your portfolio. I always kind of ignored those calls because I didn't really understand the portfolio, to be honest with you. I would say the younger version of myself would say, take the call. Find out what they have to say.

Adrienne (36:01.207)
Yeah.

Adrienne (36:04.981)
Mm. Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (36:08.361)
Even if you don't understand what they're saying, listen, take good notes, research it. The other thing is the younger version, I don't know if I ever would have bumped into venture capital had I not come to Silicon Valley.

Adrienne (36:12.21)
Yeah.

Adrienne (36:24.287)
Right.

Bridgette L. Smith (36:25.621)
I'm struggling with how would that 20-year-old small town girl even bump into venture capital had I not moved to California? I'm not quite sure. But I do know maybe professional organizations, when you join a professional organization, many of them have groups, groups within groups, subcultures within the group that you can

Adrienne (36:35.839)
Yeah.

Yes.

Bridgette L. Smith (36:50.833)
you know, join, whether it's a spa club or a golf club or whatever, those women are talking to each other about, about life, about family, about vacationing, but they're also talking some business. Okay. And so join those groups and have those conversations. If you think you're just going to lunch or dinner, you're really not.

Adrienne (36:57.707)
Yeah.

Adrienne (37:03.541)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (37:12.005)
What you're doing is you're building a relationship and trying to understand who's the person across the table from you. What are they into? What are they up to? And the other thing I would tell my younger version of myself is to keep saving. I'm a saver. I'm not a spend person. I've never been into logos and labels and high end this, that, and a third. I've always been into saving what I earn because I work really, really hard. And so.

Adrienne (37:12.447)
Yeah.

Adrienne (37:26.206)
Yes. Mmm.

Adrienne (37:38.69)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (37:41.389)
it's paid off. It's paid off now. So those are some tips and keep reading. Keep working on your self-esteem. Even though you don't know everything, continue to read and be hungry. So those are just some things I can think of right now.

Adrienne (37:42.974)
Yeah.

Adrienne (37:57.474)
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And it makes me think just even back to when I was younger, I was always very curious, always asking questions about a lot of different things. And I actually went into finance when I was younger because I was very strong in math. So it just kind of naturally led to economics and finance and all of it. And at the time, I didn't think

that was any big deal. But I realize talking to so many of my women friends that math, finance, that world scares them and it stinks, right? It's like, why do numbers scare you? They're kind of, it's kind of like this plus this is this. Right? And yes, there are very complicated formulations and all of that different type of thing. But pretty much it's...

It's pretty clear. And like you said, there's a lot of alphabet soup out there. But once you understand what those letters stand for, this stuff is not rocket science. It's just that you need to understand it. But I think that one of the things that I would say maybe to younger people listening or maybe people our age that are going out for a glass of wine or something like that, don't be afraid.

to talk about money and finances and investing. Because if we don't have those conversations, we're never gonna get comfortable. Guys talk about this stuff all the time. I have two sons, they have friends that come over and they're standing around in the kitchen and they're all talking about this Robinhood app and this thing and this investment. And they don't know what they're doing or what they're talking about,

Bridgette L. Smith (39:27.736)
Hmm. Uh-huh.

Bridgette L. Smith (39:38.95)
Right.

Adrienne (39:54.37)
they are doing it. And women need to do that too, because it starts early. And that compounding effect is the thing that is going to make a meaningful difference in our lives so that we can become accredited investors, even if we're 30, 40, 50, put that on our goals list, become an accredited investor.

Bridgette L. Smith (39:56.209)
Right, right, right.

Bridgette L. Smith (40:00.445)
Right.

Bridgette L. Smith (40:18.365)
Right, right. I've got a vision board and I need to refresh it for 2024. But for years, my vision board remained the same. It was I still read magazines, you know, many people read things online. I literally go to the used bookstore. I'm extremely frugal. So I go to the used bookstore. I get magazines that people have brought to the used bookstore, sold them back for whatever. I buy them for a buck.

Adrienne (40:30.199)
I love magazines.

Adrienne (40:35.547)
Yeah.

Adrienne (40:45.582)
I love it.

Bridgette L. Smith (40:45.717)
And there are the food magazines, there are the architecture magazines, there are the culture magazines, fashion, et cetera. And I literally cut out the pictures and the words and the images that reflect what I'm working toward. And it's my vision board. And to this day, I still do that. So I have to refresh it for 2024. The other thing, I love arts and crafts. And so I bought this board. I think, I don't even know what you call it, but you put...

Adrienne (40:52.804)
Mm. Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (41:13.613)
individual letters on it to spell out words. I think restaurants use it or maybe school teachers use it, but I said why not? And so I bought that. So I put for 2023, I put the five things I'm focused on for the year because shiny objects are easy distractions. You know, I can hang up from this call, the next call comes in and...

Adrienne (41:16.267)
Oh yeah.

Adrienne (41:30.196)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (41:34.221)
a month from now you're off track. And so what I did is I used that little board with the individual letters to spell out what are my top priorities for the year. So no matter what happens in January, February, March, et cetera, I'm gonna focus on these five things for this year. Everything has to come together towards these five things no matter what I touch during the year. So having...

Adrienne (41:51.202)
So good.

Bridgette L. Smith (41:57.517)
So having these types of goals and visuals to stimulate you. And then when you have those money conversations, you're not caught off track. Because say your sons or other females in your circle, there's a lot of FOMO in investing. So say they're talking about investing in so-and-so company or so-and-so app. Everybody thinks it's the hot thing and da-da-da. The question you should say when you look in the mirror,

Adrienne (42:14.199)
Yes.

Bridgette L. Smith (42:24.769)
is does that align with my thesis? Right? Does that align with my goals? Do I even use the app? Am I interested? You know? The other thing I think is so fascinating is people invest and they don't, I strongly encourage investors to test the app if it's a software.

Adrienne (42:28.139)
Yeah.

Adrienne (42:31.725)
Yeah.

Adrienne (42:35.371)
Right.

Bridgette L. Smith (42:47.837)
program or software enterprise software or consumer application. Test the software yourself, get the beta version. If it's a piece of, I don't have any in front of me, but there is a menopause bar.

Adrienne (42:55.085)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (43:03.941)
you know, it's like a chocolate bar or like a, what do you call that? A granola bar, if you will. And it's for women going through menopause. And I'm, I was, I'm past menopause, but I was, when I was, when I was having hot flashes, I needed those chocolate bars. And so I decided I wanted to understand more about what this company does. And she, she was actually created a product that meets my needs at the time. And I said, let me try your chocolate bar.

Adrienne (43:09.495)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (43:19.073)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (43:31.653)
And so before I invested in her company, I tried her product. And I have products sent to me on a regular basis. Literally, the UPS guy shows up all the time. So the point is, try the products before you invest, if you can. Test the product, if you can, before you invest. And going with FOMO, I say I can't afford FOMO. When people

Adrienne (43:36.322)
Of course.

Yeah.

Adrienne (43:42.406)
Hahaha

Adrienne (43:47.265)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (43:57.893)
you know, say, oh, you got to invest in the skincare company, Bridget, because we've got this thing and it closes on this date. And if you don't catch this window, um, you've got to miss the train or what have you. I say, let that train go by because I'm not rushing to do an investment because five people in my circle invested as well. I don't have fear of missing out at all. It's my money. I worked hard for it. I want to make sure it's a good fit.

Adrienne (44:10.4)
Yeah.

Adrienne (44:16.715)
Yeah.

I love that. Yeah.

Mm, so good. Such amazing information. And I mean, I would love to be able to share with the sugar coated listeners and then the She Leads community, where can they start to get all this information from you? How can they start to, you know, sign up for the things that you're doing and come to these courses and all of it? Because I think every single person that is listening and every other woman

LGBTQ, BIPOC, everybody else that you know needs to come listen to your calls, come to your events. Like, we're going to be there, Bridget. We're there.

Bridgette L. Smith (44:59.653)
Yes, the simple, I've got two answers. The simple way, because I have so many companies and so many brands, the simplest way to reach me is on LinkedIn. It's Bridget L. Smith with the butterfly. I love butterflies. So Bridget L. Smith with the butterfly, that's the primary way to see all the things. The second way is my website, bridgetlsmith.com. And so that also is another.

direct way to reach me. I do respond to all emails. I do respond to direct messages. We have a YouTube channel that starts this month as well. And so we have so many things in progress. I actually, I'm gonna get back to my TV roots a little bit. I'm actually gonna do live product demonstrations for diverse female founders with products. I want to...

Adrienne (45:39.126)
Wonderful.

Adrienne (45:51.262)
I love this.

Adrienne (45:56.537)
I love this.

Bridgette L. Smith (45:57.441)
their products, get their products, get more eyeballs on what they're building, help investors find them, and showcase their brand. So there's so many things in progress for 2024, and all of it is in alignment with my vision, my purpose, again, my list of strengths, if we go back to the beginning, my list of passions, my gifts, my talents.

all of it is in alignment. So as long as I stay in alignment, everything I touch will be successful.

Adrienne (46:28.894)
Oh my God. Thank you so much for sharing everything about you and your passion and your dedication to educating people on how to invest in these innovative people, companies, ideas, we need so much more of this in the world. And I just really appreciate everything that you're doing. And I mean, I definitely wanna be a part of it somehow. And I know I will be. I know we'll be talking a lot more.

So thank you so much for just sharing yourself today here with the sugarcoated audience. Thank you, Bridget.

Bridgette L. Smith (47:04.649)
It has been my pleasure. I want to celebrate you and what you're doing and how you're building this ecosystem as well. And I always say, whatever I can do to help, whatever I can do to support, I will do it. There's zero competition. I think if I could leave you and listeners with this, if you think about competition, it's...

Adrienne (47:19.671)
Thank you.

Bridgette L. Smith (47:33.209)
It's really you're in competition with yourself. How high can you go? How far can you reach? How many people can you touch? How many lives can you change? You are not in competition or we are not in competition with other women, even if they're doing the exact same thing that we do. You know why? Because the way you touch it, the way God speaks to you, the way that you implement it even, is gonna be your personal touch.

Adrienne (47:36.525)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Adrienne (47:55.958)
Mm.

Bridgette L. Smith (48:03.349)
So I feel I am open to all areas of collaboration. I'm open to all areas of support because at the end of the day, the people who win is you're competing with yourself. And then the people who win on the other side are all the founders and entrepreneurs that benefit from this relationship, this ecosystem, this world that we're trying to unify. Right? So I feel very, very strongly that

Adrienne (48:03.392)
Yeah.

Bridgette L. Smith (48:30.477)
you can do and be any person that you choose to do and become. So your competition is who you're looking at, that person right there in the mirror. That's who you're competing against. Just work hard. And I'm telling you, just stay really, really focused. Buy that board with the individual letter, put your five priorities or three or four, whatever. Get your vision board in order. Go buy some used magazines, cut out some pictures, put them on the wall and stare at it. And then work towards getting it done.

Adrienne (48:44.342)
Hmm. The letters.

Adrienne (48:57.706)
Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much. And here's to an incredible 2024. Yay.

Bridgette L. Smith (49:05.041)
Woo, cheers.