The She Leads® Podcast - Wealth Building & Business Growth

Women founders get 2.3% of VC funding. Not because they lack vision, grit, or ideas, but because the playbook they've been handed was built for men. 

In this episode, I sit down with Anna Mazarsky, founder of PinkX PowerCore, the first tactical platform built to close the funding gap from the inside out. Anna spent nearly two decades inside the fundraising world. When she pulled the data, she didn't find a confidence problem. She found a systems problem, a bias problem, and a pattern-matching problem no amount of mindset coaching was ever going to fix. 
So she stopped coaching and started building. 

We get into why female-led VC funds aren't moving the needle, why women consistently ask for less than they've earned the right to raise, and why 80% of something will always beat 100% of nothing. 

The system wasn't built for us. Anna is building the one that is.

Chapters:
🌍 01:34 Meet Anna Mazarsky: two decades, 500+ startups, and the 2.3% gap that broke her
🇰🇿 04:37 From Kazakhstan to Greece: from bartender to fundraising powerhouse
📊 08:46 The article that changed everything and the data that made her stop coaching
🚫 11:04 "Not another women's program": the pushback that pushed her further
💸 24:22 Why women ask for one million when men ask for ten
👀 33:28 The companies that get funded versus the ones that should
🛠️ 52:54 Inside PinkX PowerCore: the platform built to make women investor-inevitable
🌱 01:00:30 Plant the startup seed in all the girls: why Anna is reaching the next generation

Links:
Website: pinkxpwr.com
LinkedIn: Anna Mazarsky
If you're a founder who's ever asked for less than you were worth, Anna is the person to follow next.


Thank you to our podcast sponsor
Go From Expert to Thought Leader with the Genius Discovery Program.
Book Directly with Kent: http://talktokent.com 
Learn more at: geniusdiscovery.org 

We're always seeking aligned sponsors.
⭐️  If you're interested in supporting our podcast - one episode or a season, reach out to Adrienne at Adrienne@sheleadsmedia.com.⭐️

Reach out to Adrienne: hello@sheleadsmedia.com 
Visit our website: www.sheleadsmedia.com to learn about upcoming events or to work with me directly and get the clarity you’re seeking.

As a gesture of support for this podcast and sharing women's voices everywhere - I would greatly appreciate if you would take a moment and give our podcast a 5 Star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 

By you taking this simple action, you are making a difference in sharing women's voices, thoughts and opinions.  

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XO
Adrienne 

Creators and Guests

Host
She Leads® Media
👩🏻‍⚖️ ⭐️ Adrienne Garland - She Leads® Podcast Network - 4 women X women ⭐️ 🎧 The She Leads Podcast Host| Leadership Conferences, Retreats #SheLeads #Women #entrepreneurs
Guest
Anna Mazarsky

What is The She Leads® Podcast - Wealth Building & Business Growth?

The go-to podcast for women entrepreneurs and leaders growing and scaling to $1 million and beyond while building lasting wealth. Each week, Adrienne Garland offers real and insightful conversations that dive deep with bold women entrepreneurs, executives, and leaders across the globe — stripping away the sugar-coating to get at what actually matters. This podcast is for driven women entrepreneurs and leaders growing their businesses for profit and impact.

Adrienne is a Professor at NYU and Rice University, an entrepreneur, and a business growth advisor. She's also an MBA grad, and that bold business friend who asks the questions other women in business podcasts shy away from.

Topics covered: scaling to seven figures and why it matters for women and the world, funding women-owned businesses, amplifying your voice and visibility, building high-value networks, leadership, designing entrepreneurial ecosystems that benefit humanity, the importance of financial acumen and literacy, and wealth building strategies

Less than 2% of women-owned businesses scale beyond seven figures. The She Leads® Podcast exists to change that.

Subscribe now and follow @sheleadsmedia on Instagram for She Leads LIVE events, conferences and travel experiences.

website: https://www.sheleadsmedia.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriennegarland

Adrienne Garland:

Leadership isn't just changing. It's evolving in ways we're only just beginning to imagine. And women, we're not playing this game anymore. We're the ones reshaping the entire field, building models, movements, and businesses that serve more than just a few. On the She Leads Podcast, you'll hear real conversations with women who've broken through all kinds of barriers, revenue, identity, orders, and expectations.

Adrienne Garland:

There's no sugarcoating here, just the truth told by those who are living it. I'm Adrienne Garland, entrepreneur, strategist, educator, and creator of live experiences gathering women leaders together for over a decade. And this is the She Leads Podcast.

Adrienne Garland:

I'd like to kick off today's episode with a small request. If you haven't done so already, before you listen in to this amazing episode that's to come, please pause and take just two minutes to give the show a five star rating and review. It's so important to share the journeys, wisdom, and lessons of the women entrepreneurs and leaders that we feature here on the She Leads Podcast. And the best way to do that is to rate, review, and share this show with anyone who's interested in seeing more women leaders in this world. Thank you so much for helping to share our incredible show with more people.

Adrienne Garland:

Now, I cannot wait to introduce you to my next guest. Her name is Anna Mazarsky, and she's the founder of PinkX PowerCore, the first tactical platform built to close the 2.3% funding gap from the inside out. With two decades of fundraising experience and five hundreds plus startups behind her, Anna doesn't teach confidence. She builds positioning systems that turn female founders into investor inevitable in seventy two hours. Her work sits at the intersection of data, bias research, and combat ready fundraising tools, the Flip Method, Five Blockers Framework, that's a mouthful, and the PowerCore platform, which arms founders with precision positioning, investor intelligence, and trap detection designed for a systemically biased VC ecosystem.

Adrienne Garland:

Anna is building from Greece and as a solo founder and a mother of three, because she is quite literally the founder she built for this. And, you know, we we talk about this all the time. Even though the system was not built for us, what we need to do is build anyway. So welcome to the She Leads Podcast, Anna. I cannot wait to get into it with you.

Anna Mazarsky:

Oh my god, Adrienne. First of all, I'm so

Adrienne Garland:

excited

Anna Mazarsky:

to and be on this it is a mouthful. Now that, like, you know, hearing other people talk about it, it's like mind blowing, and sometimes I cannot believe that I'm doing that. So, thank you for having me on this show and for the opportunity to speak with the powerful women that are listening in right now. Wow, like, we have so many things to talk about, but, like, I just want to jump in from the start and say that the system is not like you have so many data backed and research backed that the system is really not designed for women. And all of the pattern matching and all of the current advices that we have out there are, like, for men, and the women that do succeed are the outliers.

Anna Mazarsky:

So, it's really amazing that we have a podcast like you to, like, have the next generation of role models and of women who are making it and succeeding to show that it is And

Adrienne Garland:

hear about how you started and how you started to think about this and how you went about creating a solution to this really complex, sticky, and ingrained problem that permeates our entire world. So, let's wind back and tell the folks about who you are and how you got started.

Anna Mazarsky:

Okay. It's kind of like it's always the weird question because originally I'm from Kazakhstan, and I'm a former USSR Russian person who immigrated to Israel when I was little after the fall of the USSR. And now I'm living in Greece in Thessaloniki and raising three boys. And just as a side note, I always wanted to be a pharmacist, like a research, a clinical pharmacist that develops the drug for Alzheimer or something small like that. And I ended up in the fundraising world when I was 22 and I was a bartender who were looking for a part time job, like, see daylight because bartenders don't see daylight.

Anna Mazarsky:

And ended up in a largest, like the Israeli largest charity as a part time job. And I just fell in love with fundraising, fell in love with being with people, switched all of my dreams, switched my direction, and stayed in this world. And I'm there ever since almost two decades, which nobody should know. Young forever. And to make a very long story short, it wasn't like I wasn't planning to be a fundraiser, but I happened to be one of the best at it.

Anna Mazarsky:

And I also managed, like, fundraising departments and outreach and globally and etcetera. And then I became an independent freelancer and I fell flat on my face because nobody really teaches us how to make that switch from being a really successful manager in, like, you know, in this high high position and, like, you think you're the queen of the world and everything will be easier. And then you say, so as Oh my gosh. It'll be, like, I will start my own company. Yes.

Anna Mazarsky:

So I failed miserably. Like, I think if I did not have the, like, the bag like, my husband did not have my bag, I don't know what I would have done and probably would crawl back to being an an employee. But once you go entrepreneur, like, you know this feeling, like, you cannot really go back being an employee. Anyway so then I fell flat, and I just started doing presentations, like, as a freelancer because I just needed to survive. And I was really good with presentations.

Anna Mazarsky:

And then I realized I'm really good with storytelling because I'm a fundraiser who is good with presentations. So I started working with startups, like, you know, because startups is the future, and I really like helping. Like, you can take out the donations and they're making a better place, but and I always looked for good startups to work with and good founders that have good ideas. And I become a really became really successful with creating storytelling and pitch decks. And then I started coaching my founders because most of them don't know how to present.

Anna Mazarsky:

So I started doing, like, the extra coaching. Like, you know, it's like I've never planned on, like, developing pink hacks. I never thought I will do that. It's like, no, a thing leads to a lead. And then the COVID came and I became a mom and priorities shift and things shift.

Anna Mazarsky:

And then the third time a charm with my third and then coaching. So, I did like coaching and I really enjoyed it, and I really enjoy working with my founders on the readiness side, on what to do, how to speak, what do you do when you answer. I used to sit in their ears when they were like literally, I used to sit in their ears when they were in the meeting with the investor listening in. They're like, Now see this. Now ask him this question.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, you know, when you see in the sci fi movies, saw the investor whisper. And it was hilarious. And because you take all these, like, raw founders and you turn them into fundraisers. It's so and I don't think they even see this transformation on themselves if because like, hey, like, no, you did the transformation. And then I had my third boy.

Anna Mazarsky:

I have three boys, by the way. It's so much different than I have three girls. But I have three boys, and I took the time off because we also moved to Greece, to Thessaloniki. I had like, you know, finally take a breath and step out of the rat. And then I came across a small article in the- I am across the Women's International Day about the 2.3% gap.

Anna Mazarsky:

Yeah. And as a woman, as a mother, it really pissed me off. But then I spoke about it with my friends and they said, Yeah, but you know, maybe there's not enough women in startups because there's not enough women in STEM, right? So I said, Okay, maybe she's right. Let's dig in.

Anna Mazarsky:

I'm very quick with numbers. I'm very quick with data, especially with all of the Like, I used to do research for my clients, I know how to do my research, my markets. So I started digging in and I pulled another thread and pulled another thread. It's like,

Adrienne Garland:

it's not time I'm missing

Anna Mazarsky:

third party. More and more women are Yes. Starting 2% of the money. And there are more and more. Like, apparently half of the businesses in The US, half are started by women.

Anna Mazarsky:

Half! So, I started digging and digging and digging, and like, you know, every that point makes me really more and more upset. Like really, used to, you can ask my husband, I was like going around the house, like mumbling things to myself. We're being asked different questions. Why?

Anna Mazarsky:

Why did they ask that? Why are men are not being asked about like work life balance? Why is it a question only directed at women? Like, why are we being interrupted more? Why are we being harassed more?

Anna Mazarsky:

And nobody is speaking about going, like, networking event, and then the investors, like, let's go to the hotel room and staring at your boobs the whole time instead of looking at the vision deck. And, you know, they're like, so many points. And I was, like, literally, like, really upset. And then I said, okay. Now I was shifting all of my coaching only to work with women.

Anna Mazarsky:

And then a female another female friend, like only the female were the ones that like because when men they're trying to mansplain, I kind of like know how to judge them. But when it's like a woman friend who raises the bar and challenges me, I dig further. Right. So she said, Yeah, but not another woman like program. I can't stand this anymore.

Anna Mazarsky:

Quote. And she's a friend that I value her opinion, you know, this kind of like And I think the old me would have stopped there. Yeah. The new me, the pissed one, said, no, let's dig in more. Maybe she's right.

Anna Mazarsky:

You know, because there are fans, by the way, there are female focused fans. There's more and more. There's ton of LinkedIn posts about it, not only on March, but overall. There's so much money flowing from, like, Europe stuff and more. And you would think that will move the needle, right?

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, you would think, okay, maybe there's no reason to be women focused, right? No. So, in the last decade, when all of this awareness- like, the whole awareness started like something around thirty years ago in 'ninety six, that was the first major research Harvard School published. In 1990 was around 2.4% of the funding. In 1996, around 2.4% something.

Anna Mazarsky:

And ever since, especially in the last decade, especially in the last decade, especially after PitchBook, which is like the standard for research and data on business and startups. They started publishing the gender aware differentiation around 2020. It was the first really documented heavy lifting. It hasn't moved. Like, in the best year in the best year when there was, like, an anomaly with one fat And it's now

Adrienne Garland:

down to two

Anna Mazarsky:

major rain.

Adrienne Garland:

So we're we're we backslid. So, you know, the

Anna Mazarsky:

and it's even, like by the way, it's even when you take out the anomalies, we are 6% of the deals and only 2% of the money. Do you like, if you're doing the math, we're getting smaller checks even when we're fine. So, basically, can talk about the numbers, but the bottom line is that I got more pissed, and then I said, okay, only women, but like me personally, I will not ever, ever, ever be able to move the needle. Never if I'm alone. Never if I'm a coach.

Anna Mazarsky:

Never. Like, there's so many coaches that I value and respect and like I'm with them, and they're doing amazing job. But doing it solo will not change the needle. I can, like Yeah. Even if I'm putting my kids on the side, and I'm a very, like, hardcore mom, like, crazy hardcore mom.

Anna Mazarsky:

But, yes, I did not expect that. But, like, even if you put this aside, I can work with 50, like, and I'm going crazy right Five o. No. This is my maximum. Like, one woman like, I cannot it will not move the needle.

Anna Mazarsky:

And then vibe coding came to

Adrienne Garland:

life. Before we go, I just wanna dig in just a little bit to what your friends said about, you know, hey, I don't want to be working with, you know, women only businesses or I, you know, I don't want that perspective. What what was the reasoning behind her comment?

Anna Mazarsky:

The way she mentioned it is like not another one because, like, on the surface, there are so much Yep. Women oriented activities, which can say to those that really don't know the real stuff, it can say that maybe there's too much and women don't need put this space.

Adrienne Garland:

Absolutely. So Not actually in Too weak. The real Yeah.

Anna Mazarsky:

Exactly. However, we are still weak. Yes. And we are playing a different game. And by not addressing this, we're shooting ourselves in the leg.

Anna Mazarsky:

I think that the reason

Adrienne Garland:

Me too.

Anna Mazarsky:

There is kind of, like, tiredness. I can't I really can understand it. You have women in, women in, women in, like, right? You open LinkedIn and you have like, you don't have men in tech. Like, you don't have a LinkedIn group or Facebook group that says men in tech, right?

Anna Mazarsky:

So you can say why women need women in tech? Why do women need conference of women in tech or women who code or she codes or whatever? Because we need- like the way I see it, we're trying to change a very rooted narrative that's been building, not for the last hundred years, but for thousands of years, it's been accelerated since the Industrial Revolution and since the Capitalistic Revolution, like a hundred years ago. In the burst, in the outset, we were excluded. And we didn't play the game.

Adrienne Garland:

Right. The others.

Anna Mazarsky:

And when we have women, they're always the outliers. Yeah, the outliers. Like, they're always less than 2%, even like, in all of the sciences and all of the other, like, chemistry or, like, any subject that you will take that that is very impactful and significant today, women have always been excluded. Like, there were special women, special outliers that changed it. And the way I see it, in order to really move the needle, we need to democratize it.

Anna Mazarsky:

We need to create like an undeniable we talked about it in our previous Yes. It's It's not a system within the system that will break

Adrienne Garland:

the negative. It's almost like a virus that can break through the outer membrane of, you know, this system and and infiltrate it from the inside out. And at the very least, expose the the the inequities, and maybe at the very best, you know, break it down so that something new can emerge that is more fair and and equal.

Anna Mazarsky:

True. And I will just, like, say something about it. It's not like the way I see it, it's not a matter of fairness. I know that there is the fairness aside, right? Because we all want it to be fair.

Anna Mazarsky:

But the way I see it, like, society wise, economy wise, and future wise, women will build better businesses, like fairness aside. Like, I'm not talking about fairness, right? But we are better builders, our companies that we're building usually are are better for the society, like the impact that they're doing is more inclusive, more answering real problems versus another CRM for another whatever. Right? Or, like, we're solving real problems that real need, like, that men usually don't even see it as a problem, so they will never address it.

Anna Mazarsky:

And the way we are building businesses is always better in terms of burn rate and faster times to exit and, like, more value to the site investor economy in Terra. And I've even calculated how much money the investors are putting, like, living on the floor by not investing in women. Wow. It's more than a trillion dollars of revenues that they could be making. Yeah.

Anna Mazarsky:

But they're not because they're they don't see us. Even I I think that Yeah. They don't see

Adrienne Garland:

extends to a lot of the women led VC funds because they're almost doing the same thing except for a few of them. They are patterning their VC funds after successful male VC funds. So even though they are woman run and maybe they'll invest in other women run businesses, they're still investing in the same types of businesses that men are investing in. So it it's this self perpetuating cycle that we're not breaking out of. And other people that are starting businesses like you're talking about that are actually doing things to help families and communities and societies, those businesses are not getting funded, and so they're not growing.

Adrienne Garland:

So we don't even know what their potential is. Like, we're holding them back.

Adrienne Garland:

Hey, everyone. So for years, I've been working with Dr. Kent and sending people in my network his way. He does so much impact work. What do I mean by that?

Adrienne Garland:

Well, he helps people create books and podcasts and things like that. He even helps with this podcast behind the scenes. Dr. Kent is my thought partner. Anyone listening knows that we all need to do what we can to get our thoughts, opinions, and voices out into the world and how important it is for women to invest in other women and for women to hire other women. I am all about that, and you all know that.

Adrienne Garland:

But in this case, I think Dr. Kent is an exception. He's doing something really different via this new program that he's launched called the Genius Discovery Program. So he wants to work with people like me and like you who are impact driven. Dr. Kent has an intensive program that goes for a month.

Adrienne Garland:

He also has a three month program where he figures out where you're headed with your brand, your business, your speaking, and your signature story as a thought leader. I've known Dr. Kent for a long time. So believe me when I say that he has a ton of experience working with people that are looking to make an impact but might not know exactly how to approach them. So if you're interested in talking to him, you can go directly to talktokent.com, or you can send me a DM on Instagram at She Leads Media, or just shoot me an email over at hello@SheLeadsMedia.com.

Anna Mazarsky:

Exactly. And a side note about female led VCs or female focused VCs, like venture capital funds that invest only in women, they are more conservative. They invest less. Their processes are more rigorous, and they're giving out relatively smaller checks. So, like, it's nice.

Anna Mazarsky:

It's good to have. Like, I- in none of what I do, I don't, like, fight them, but they're not enough because the real money the real game is with the boys right now. And it will change, like, the way I see it. I know that I'm still small, but my vision is that we're 50% of the funding because, like, considering every other business again, I'm talking like I'm like, it's a good thing that I'm coming from an investor background. Like, I've sat in that in hundreds of meetings with investors.

Anna Mazarsky:

So, I know what they're looking for. I know what they're thinking for men and women. And it's true they have the pattern matching, and they will view women differently. But also, we ourselves are viewing ourselves differently. So, we're kind of like And I also spoke with women investors.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like last week I had a talk with a female investor, and she just said, I think we're going to have a panel about it because she's coming from the I don't see enough women that are investable, so this is why I don't invest enough. In a way she's right. In a way we don't come prepared because we're taking the same advices as men. So we are going to the same conventions as men, We are reading the same blogs as men, like, you know, YC Combinator, like Y Combinator. They are the standard of venture capital advice and courses.

Anna Mazarsky:

They are for pattern matching men, And the women who make their courses or make their grade, are still the outliers, they're still the 2.3%. And the thing is that most of the women in all of the researchers they found, eighty percent will be afraid or not think or stop themselves from approaching this channel of VC funding. And I think also in your listeners, like in the audience right now, I'm sure that there are women who already have reached a certain growth level with their companies, like a million dollars. We think it's wow! Like, you know, wow, we've reached a million!

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, it's huge! But you think about it, the guy next door will probably say, okay, now reached a million, so let's go raise 10 millions to make it a billion. And they will go, and they will raise this 10,000,000, And in five years or seven years they will have a billion dollar company. Well, we that we are bootstrapping longer. We are taking less salaries for ourselves.

Anna Mazarsky:

We don't calculate ourselves even when we are raising like a full salary that is really what we need. We are financing for the conservative versus the visionary. We are very like, you know, also we ourselves are limiting ourselves and maybe five years you will be a billion, you will be 10,000,000. Because you went maybe if you want clothes, because bootstrapping is usually the very hardest way of surviving. So, it's also there.

Anna Mazarsky:

It's also in that shift that I think every woman in here that is listening to this should really run a check with herself, Am I VC eligible? Like, am I eligible for VC funding? Can I scale? Do I have a big enough market to capture? And if both of them basically this is all like, if you have a really good market and if your method of doing things is a scalable way or can become scalable once you have enough money to make this shift

Adrienne Garland:

Well, because it's really going back to what's ingrained in us. We're the we're the coupon cutters. We're the savers. We're the we're the penny pinchers. We're the let's get a deal dealers.

Adrienne Garland:

You know? And it's I don't wanna blame us for needing to shift our mindset because I think that there's a lot of distraction that we also get caught up with. We we we blame ourselves, and we and then we try to fix ourselves. And then that's a whole entire lifelong pursuit that keeps us out of these, you know, markets where we could actually scale. And, you know, I so I do think that part of it is mindset, but more the belief that you you have the ability to have a scalable investable company.

Adrienne Garland:

Like, that is almost the baseline. That's something that I've seen a lot of men just take for granted. Of course, I'm scalable. I just need the money to to do it. Know?

Adrienne Garland:

I yeah. I need I need 15 people and we're off to the races. Women that don't necessarily talk like that, and I don't wanna blame them. It is definitely societal programming that makes us think like that. But at a certain point, we have to break out of that so that we can become, quote, unquote, investable.

Adrienne Garland:

And that is also, I think, kind of confusing because investable by, you know, investable for whom or by whom? I don't know. Right? Like investable by male VCs, by by women VCs. Is there a way to do this where we can fund our own growth and create our own funds and create our own ecosystem?

Adrienne Garland:

I think there's a couple of different answers. Yeah. Okay. Talk to me about that.

Anna Mazarsky:

Eventually, not now. Eventually this will happen. Right now we're too few. Like you mentioned it in the beginning of the program when you were bringing also, or before that when we spoke, there's not enough role models. Like, have role models, but it's not enough.

Anna Mazarsky:

And we still like, you know why the pattern matching is so much easier for men? Because we have, at the beginning, again, like economy, society, whatever, we had more men building companies. We had more men doing their exits, which the exit is either going public as an IPO or being sold to a bigger company for a really good profit. And then more founders having tons of money, like, you know, this garage person all of a sudden has a billion dollars in his bank account. So after he bought apartments to all of his family, he's still left with half $1,000,000 lined and free.

Anna Mazarsky:

So he becomes an investor himself and angel investors. Usually they start off with angels and then they become either professional angels or they start a fund, they join the fund, they put the money in the fund, they become VCs themselves. And with women, because we had a later start, and we are smaller in numbers even than the start, and even when we are there, our exits are we have taken less money from the exits because we signed worse terms. By the way, I created like a glossary just for that, for women, to stop signing worse, like bad terms because we don't know some small difference that boom, in the exits cost us like half $1,000,000. Just like that, two words.

Anna Mazarsky:

So start like so this is something that also, like, is a side project. I'm giving it always for free. And, like, you know, so our cycle is really smaller. So, to have enough ecosystem, which is only women led, is too soon, because this is why the current funds that are led by women and focused on women, they don't really manage to shift the needle because it's too few. And like, you know, even recently there was a big grant, like, you know, grant is a fun start because it's non dilutive.

Anna Mazarsky:

It means that you get the money and you don't have to give any percentage of your company for it. And Europe gave out like millions in- you think, wow, this is a big grant that they're giving out. But in the bottom line, they gave it like to 70 women. And each woman got,

Adrienne Garland:

if I'm They can't even hire anything.

Anna Mazarsky:

€25,000. And you know how many applied? But you know how many applied? This was for a deep tech solution, which means it's not femtech, it's not like the usual fashion tech, retail tech, things that are more feminine. Deep tech is a very male dominated startup system, and there was more than 1,100 women applying for this grant and only 40 or 70 it's late in the afternoon, like something, and they got like scraps.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, community, you get $2,030,000 dollars, euros. Like, it's nice. You get the recognition. Right? You get your photos.

Anna Mazarsky:

We have the names of all of the grand chosen ones, but it's not enough to move the needle. It's not enough to make the change. And most of the current ecosystem for women, by women, it's in that sphere. Like, the woman, like, the female founder, and I see it so much, like, with the ask gap I told you about also myself. Like, we automatically, we ask for less.

Anna Mazarsky:

Why? So I'm kind of like my challenge when I'm like, my old pink ex messaging is both on the mindset of like, it's a biased word, we need to play by other rules. Part of the rules is that you need to ask more, and then I'll help you to validate why. Because women, if we're not validating, It's able kind of like one of their shifts.

Adrienne Garland:

Yeah.

Anna Mazarsky:

We are dismissing ourselves this like automatically. And then the tactical of like, win any room and I want you to win the 15,000,000. I don't want you to go like, go to the female friendly just because it's a good start. And it's always a soft landing of starting with the female friendly, but we need to win any role. Like, I want us really to win any role, anywhere in the planet, with the most mensplaining, bigoted VCs, because he has the $200,000,000 check to sign for your And round I want to see that happen, and this is not happening.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, we are getting the scraps. Like, we're getting getting half of the money. You know, I gets a million, we gets five.

Adrienne Garland:

Well, maybe one thing to talk about and and one question to ask. So one of the things that I noticed is that the and this is not across the board, but it's the thing that I think media pays a lot of attention to. Many of the women owned companies that go on to be, you know, billion billion dollar unicorn companies, companies that, you know, get funding, they happen to be companies that are doing something to minimize or transform who women are. So an example of that, and this is not any shade because she did it. But for example, let's take Sarah Blakely.

Adrienne Garland:

She's incredible. She had a great idea. She's such a hard worker, brilliant, all kudos. She's amazing. But her product literally shrinks women.

Adrienne Garland:

Right? Same thing with skims. Same thing with all of these makeup Right? The things that make us not be who we are, those companies are being promoted in the media. They're being held up like, you know, is this is what you should aspire to be.

Adrienne Garland:

And, you know, as much as I admire because it takes hard work no matter what to, you know, to to launch and grow a company and to to scale it and all of those things. But women are so we hate ourselves, and we do everything to transform ourselves for men or for society. And then those are the companies that are rewarded. And it when you really think about that, it's sickening.

Anna Mazarsky:

I'll tell you what as a startup perspective, because I really like the way you paint it, I see this, right? But again, these are the exceptions. I know so many women that are not being put in the front, in spotlight, that building like real health solutions, Femtech, which is like the latest growth. Like finally, medicine and technology that addresses specific unique needs of the female body that current solutions do not have. Like, right?

Anna Mazarsky:

I'm talking about Positive health outcomes that Jevity is wrong. Not only positive. I'm not talking only about the health apps, like, forgot all of their names, everything, I'm blank. Three kids still haven't recovered. Yeah, but like from knowing your symptoms and menopause and periods and etcetera, and up to even being in hospitals and providing different solutions to heart attacks and heart problems, women versus men, because currently all of the drugs and all of the solutions are designed for the male body and are not fully appropriate for women.

Anna Mazarsky:

So there are companies where she's They don't get the attention got though. But, you know, startup wise, they don't get the attention. And I'll tell you something about startup wise, right? A really good startup goes where there's a market need, and where he or she has the solution to capture that market, and it's scalable. Scalable, and it can be So all of this really to the fact that it can become a unicorn.

Anna Mazarsky:

And, like, two outliers that I adore in this sphere, that unfortunately both have a mixed founding team. And they are the outliers that kind of like, I love them. They have Melanie from Canva that she, like, and she doesn't get the media focus that skims get, by way. Oh, that's cute. It's unfortunate because her impact on all of us.

Anna Mazarsky:

She took on Adobe, like You're right. Like she took on Adobe. She took on Microsoft. Like seriously, like she took out two giants. She made PowerPoint seem absolute absolute, and she made Adobe seem like a huge dinosaur that nobody can work with.

Anna Mazarsky:

So we have Canva, which I like, she I don't think she ever, ever got a spotlight in the main media. And she made for the world and for all of us a huge thing. And the second one is actually kind of sort of being addressed and celebrated or vilified, depends who you ask. Daniela Amodei from Anthropic, Claude AI. Again, she is the co-founder with her brother.

Anna Mazarsky:

So, both of these cases are very major outliers. Both of these cases will be like right now, if you will see that funding for mixed gender teams has grown, it's because we have her and another big race, both I of these I'm I'm Like, I sound very, like I sound very upset because I'm still in my upset era. Okay? And I'm still I'm still in the it really pisses me off, I'm not afraid to say it. And because most people are very nice about the funding gap, and it really also annoys me.

Anna Mazarsky:

Especially Americans, they're very, very, like, it's very social, and it's like, no. So I'm going from that area. So we have two women that again are not being celebrated. And this whole thing of body positivity and body and menopause and perimenopause and blah blah blah. It's a very painful thing that I'm, as a startup, not going to fix it.

Anna Mazarsky:

And in a way, it will be nice that somewhere along the track we have role models that are not focusing on our bodies or trying to change who we are, winning, and we will have more angels, more VCs, more influencers, more decision making people in all of the medias and governments, then I think we will be celebrated. Some but it's also said something about our society as a whole of focusing on bodies. And it also like, this is a whole serious discussion of I'm seeing even small girls that are now being groomed on TikTok. My god. It's so pathetic.

Anna Mazarsky:

See wrinkle creams. So 10 or 11 or 12. It is scary. It's pathetic, but it's scary. It's it's like for me, if I had I think if I was pumped to girls, I would be terrified.

Anna Mazarsky:

This is nothing. I would be really terrified for this. You had girls. Like, really, because this is like I remember being a girl. Again, we had, like we I grew up in the nineties, so we had, like, the heroin chick.

Anna Mazarsky:

You remember? With Kate Moss. What was her name? Kate Moss. And all of the supermodels.

Anna Mazarsky:

Right now, we don't have supermodels because in this way, at least, we have bootylicious, which is more common. But still, like, the focus on the body, it's something that it's very, It's like, pervasive in our psyche and becomes more

Adrienne Garland:

and more We're trying you know, we're trying to change ourselves or trying to be something that we're not because these pictures are painted for us that say you have to be this. And when we look at ourselves in the mirror, we're like, well, wait a minute. I'm not like that. And so it it it serves I think it serves patriarchy beautifully because it keeps us out of the system because we're so focused on, you know, tearing ourselves down and making ourselves Exactly. Up to to try and get a handout from the, you know, the the people that have the money.

Adrienne Garland:

And it it's so sad. It it really is. And this is not just about, you know, feminism or anything like that. This is about your overall well-being. It's about the well-being of the world, of society, of the environment.

Adrienne Garland:

Because women, when we are the ones that actually have the money and the resources, we do good things with it. So when we're kept out of it, we can't do good things. And I think more and more Exactly. Women and young people need to understand that this is what's going on. It's like they just need to be, you know, shown the light almost.

Adrienne Garland:

Like, what you're doing, this is the greater implication of it. Because I don't think that women would choose to say, no, no, no. I'm going to focus on, you know, doing my makeup. I I think women are smarter than that. I really do.

Anna Mazarsky:

If the thing is, though, like, you know what? It's been, like, it is a lonely journey once you go on it. And I think in this way, women need this support. Like, with all the research, again, I told you I kept digging, like 92 of the women that are going to fundraise report severe exhaustion compared to like fifty or sixty percent of the men. Fifty percent of the women being harassed.

Anna Mazarsky:

When you're a good looking man, it serves you good and you will get better funding and better terms versus if you are a good looking woman, it doesn't affect you and it can even penalize you. And like, it's all research, by the way. And when we go into meetings and planning, like, the guy goes in and thinks about his speech, right? He thinks about the Q and A, he thinks about the company. When we go in the room, I call it the invisible text.

Anna Mazarsky:

We have additional eight layers of even responsibility for female women. Like, you know, it's part of the layers. If I fail, it reflects on all the women that come after me. If I succeed, by the way, it doesn't change anything. No.

Anna Mazarsky:

Literally. Like, women that are exiting will still raise less, and it will not affect the other guy.

Adrienne Garland:

And we have to also get all the female I founders are think we can talk about this. No. All of the the words and the language that we use is also you know, it also signals our our potential or lack thereof. We have to focus on what we've done in the past, not the potential for what we can do in the future, which is what men talk about. They talk about where they're going, and women talk about where they're they've been and and what they've learned from it.

Adrienne Garland:

It's it's oh gosh. It's it's infuriating. And actually, I I recorded another podcast yesterday with somebody who's amazing, and she talks all about neuroscience and the way that we talk to ourselves and everything. So I have that on the top of my mind. But I was telling her, and I'll share this story again because I think it's worth it's worth repeating.

Adrienne Garland:

Well, I'm taking this class from a company called IDEO, and it's a design thinking and AI class. And it's it's fascinating, and it's amazing, and I love it. And I love the people that I'm with and all of it. But one of the instructors is this really brilliant man. He's his mind works so fast, and the way he explains things is is incredible.

Adrienne Garland:

But he you know, he's really fast. And so as he's kind of instructing us, he's also using AI alongside of what he's doing. And he's typing in, you know, all of these things, and he's really, really messy, and he doesn't spell anything right, and he he just goes, goes, goes. And he gets all these results, and

Anna Mazarsky:

he goes on to the

Adrienne Garland:

next thing, and and it's it's amazing. And it's hard to follow a lot of times, but it's incredible. So we did something the other day where one of the students, who's also a brilliant woman, you know, she was copying and pasting the the prompts in to see what type of outcome we got and everything. She's pasting it in. She's backspacing, making sure that the comment is in the right place.

Adrienne Garland:

If a word was spelled wrong, she went back in. She corrected it. Made sure that this made sense before she hit return. Now David, the instructor, he wouldn't have cared. Bang, bang, bang, bang.

Adrienne Garland:

Faster, faster, faster. Outcome, quicker. Failure quicker, but also correction quicker.

Anna Mazarsky:

Outcome. Yeah. It's the 80% of something is better

Adrienne Garland:

than Between a 100% of him and her,

Adrienne Garland:

jumped out of the screen at me. I was like, this is part of the problem.

Anna Mazarsky:

Yeah. It's like but, you know, this caution is a symptom of a deeper disbelief in ourself, usually, like, this type of extreme. And it also shows with the way we, like, show up for meetings with startups, again, because I live in the startup world. And also in business, like, you know, once you reach a point and you have a million dollar business, you are you need to play another game. You cannot play the safe, I'm in a safe game.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, if you really want to make it big, and I think if you if you because to make a million dollar game, you have to already have a team, and you have to have responsibilities and obligations, the marketing, customers, and etc, etc. And like, it takes courage, like, you know, going into business, it takes courage. When I left my secure, though not highly paying, but still secure, safe job in a very high position. It took, like, it took guts. So, this is why I think still only 30% of the founders are female, but it's still 30%.

Anna Mazarsky:

It means that there are currently something like tens of thousands of women out there who already have this inner courage of thinking differently. However, these women, once they have this point, they need to understand that they are playing a different set of rules. Like, need to understand. They need to understand that they cannot fake it until you make it in the startups. They need like, there are ways, maybe, again, maybe I'm hallucinating, and maybe I made up something that's not really, like, I don't know.

Anna Mazarsky:

I hope I'm not hallucinating, and that my courage and my really belief in what I'm doing will manifest into having 50% of the women funded. But even if we will not be 50% of the founders, because we're a better return on asset, this is why I want us to be half of that. Because, like, mathematically wise, if you put gender aside, like gender pattern matching aside, they should be spending more money on women versus on men just because we have better investment, like we have better ROI across the board. So if you're like, this is why it's illogical. This is why they're throwing the $1,300,000,000,000 on the table, because they're investing in the wrong type of investment asset.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like you would go to the stock market. No. I want to invest in the worst performing No. You want to invest in the better performing stock. Same here.

Anna Mazarsky:

However, we women need to show up differently. We need to understand that the rules we are playing are not the same. And I think that one of the reasons that all of the initiatives so far so I'm kind of like pitching you, so if they're investors no kidding. But I'll have a story about this later, by the way, if we will have time. One of the things we need to understand different rules, we need to show up differently, we need to anticipate that we're going to be asked different questions, and we have to have like preventiondefense questions, and we have to have the flip to really link it to our strengths and pivot to vision, because vision sells.

Anna Mazarsky:

You mentioned it before. The investors invest the big money in the vision and become conservatives. So we need to stop being conservative. It requires a mindset shift that I'm not going to provide like as a coach because it's too long, but I will provide you with the tools. And I think like every woman across the world, at least these tools of knowing how to create this outer belief that will make you believe in yourself.

Anna Mazarsky:

So, like, you know, we take for granted our experiences. No, I just did this. But no, if you really paint it and you put it against what investors look for, you have the proof of why you are the ones who lead this. And then look at the market. If you will just know how to color the way the market is, the right market is big enough for you to capture and nobody else will, like, compete with you because you're doing something else, they will run for you.

Anna Mazarsky:

The investors will jump on you because they will understand. You will command the room differently, not as a woman, not as a man, as a special. And you know what? It's upsetting because we need to work harder, because we have to have this other set of tools. But, you know, if this is the way we have to win, so be it, because we are still the outliers, and even those 30% are still the outliers.

Anna Mazarsky:

And we need to understand that we can ask for VC money. And it means that we will be giving percentage of our companies. Yeah. But we will get a huge, a bigger pie. So our piece will be smaller.

Anna Mazarsky:

But again, 80% of something is better than a 100% of nothing. So you will have 80% of a billion Can I ask versus you a 100% a percent billion?

Adrienne Garland:

A bit about payments and and what it is and how people can join it, if that's the right word?

Anna Mazarsky:

Eventually, it will be join it. It will become a movement. Currently, it's solution, but it's like a solution with a with a movement movement in it. Like Right. So, you remember when I told you that I cannot coach everyone and I need to scale and I need to democratize?

Anna Mazarsky:

So, PinkX is basically my democratization of a bias busting, self guided, hyper personalized platform, which basically it's a platform, it's a digital platform that has a power, Anna, inside. It will knock the shit out of you for asking less. So people And she did it to me.

Adrienne Garland:

How do they get access?

Anna Mazarsky:

Women, by the way, I get it all the time. Men can also use the platform. It's not like I but it's all pink on purpose. It's not girly pink, and it's specifically like, I I really want to differentiate. Like, really, guys come to me and say, but why am I a guy?

Anna Mazarsky:

I also want these tools. Can

Adrienne Garland:

I And so how can people get access

Anna Mazarsky:

to can, but I don't want you to? So they're going they can go online to PinkX Power, which is pinkxpwr.com, And they can, they have so many free resources that they can do, like practice how to flip questions or the glossary and everything. But if they really want to do the entire hyper personalized, like, went crazy with it. Like like, most people use vibe coding to build landing pages. I created, like, this whole mega craziness.

Anna Mazarsky:

Sometimes I cannot believe that I constructed this. Like, really, a year ago, I had to have like a team of 15 developers and $2,000,000 in seed funding to do what they did now in less than a year. So, crazy. So, and they go online, they sign up, they can go for the free one or the full power one, which is only $997. And I made it affordable on purpose.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, don't go and pay a coach $10,000 that is not biased aware, that will be limited on time and will create Yeah. Depend dependable. It will become dependable, somebody external. Go get the tools, build your positioning, build your personal authority, business authority, market authority. Discover first what's blocking you.

Anna Mazarsky:

You mentioned the five blockers. It's on purpose. Like, there is a special assessment that you're doing. At least see if you need to start with your authority, you need to start with improving your story, if you need to start with maybe you're not approaching the right investors, like you're not practicing on the right investors, You don't know how to answer defensible questions, so you're already getting in the room, but you're failing. You're pressured on time, by the way.

Anna Mazarsky:

It's also a blocker. Like somebody whose runaway is two months, she will pitch worse, she will pitch to the wrong investors, and if she will get the investment, will sign worse terms. So, basically, the way I did it, I mapped every bias, every challenge. I maybe sometimes people say over did it, but I'm an overdoer, so I like it. And it's so easy nowadays.

Anna Mazarsky:

And once I nail how it all connects and how it all works, it's just easy, like for me at least. And then anyone can go there and she can even start with, am I asking too little? This is my favorite free calculator. Like I told you that I'm even I got my ass kicked by my power, Anna, because I wanted to have the personal experience. Because I don't want it to be like another ChatGPT that doesn't really understand the systematic challenges versus like you.

Anna Mazarsky:

And the more the the more you, the founder, use it, so the more the system is better prepared to help you. And I also even have, like, a list of 7,000 verified investors that are partnered with partnered with Mid Capital, that they have, like, verified investors list. And I have an internal AI matching that gets you only your 100 or 200 targeted investors. Don't spend your time looking and spending energy and raising for six months from irrelevant investors. Focus on those that will fund you, get the data, get the outreach scripts, know what to write to them, how to write to them.

Adrienne Garland:

Is super great.

Anna Mazarsky:

First meeting, email. Like, I really outdid this. I really outdid. And, like, this is now, and I specifically did it, like, less than a thousand dollars for lifetime. It's not something monthly.

Anna Mazarsky:

It's not like you go, you get everything unlimited because we need it. Like, we need to practice how to answer Q and As that are defensible. I did it two weeks ago, like, you know, and I didn't practice in the month. Next meeting, I have to practice it before the meeting. So this is why, like, forever, for every raise.

Anna Mazarsky:

And my vision, by the way, for the future, once we grow enough, this list of investors, like every woman who goes to a meeting and meets a womanizer or meets a really good investor, she can grade that investor on their professionalism and on their approach to female founders. Did he invite you to your to his hotel room after the networking meeting? Did did he ask you appropriate questions on the or did he ask you about his kids? Like, did he stare at your boobs the entire meeting versus at your pitch deck? And these are things that currently we don't have any safe space to share.

Anna Mazarsky:

Because once share Let me just

Adrienne Garland:

say one thing here. I also think that in addition to women who are, you know, thinking about funding and needing this guidance, I also think that women need to educate themselves on this whole entire process earlier on, way before they even need it. You know, even if it's sort of a thought experiment and they come up with a a false company that they just want to use this to run through so that they can practice. Because this is also part of the problem. We try so much to educate ourselves in the moment that we are it's such high stakes.

Adrienne Garland:

So if we can practice in a lower stakes environment before we actually need it, when we need it, it's sort of round two. Okay. This is real now. We're gonna feel a lot more comfortable, and that's gonna show up in the room.

Anna Mazarsky:

Of course. Of course. This is part of it. This is why I have all these free tools. Like, you know, because not all not anyone not every female is ready for her raise or ready to invest, like, $900 in it.

Anna Mazarsky:

So I have a lot of free tools, and you're giving me an idea for a book, by the way, specifically from that point, which thank you. And, like, it's amazing now, like, you know, because we need this kind of like, am I investable? Am I ready to be invested? And I think there's even like a book self guide. Am I Like, you're giving me so many, many ideas about it.

Anna Mazarsky:

And eventually, like, my dream is to reach teenage girls. I think I mentioned this to you. Like, you know, last month I went to my son's school. He's in second grade. They had this whole, like, thematic of getting to know of the professions in our surrounding thing, and it has an amazing school.

Anna Mazarsky:

And all of the parents were invited and to come and share their companies or what they're doing professions with the kids. And there's, like, seven, eight years And I said, okay, this is my opportunity to plant that startup seed in all of the girls in his class, you know? Like, so I was, like, thinking, how am I doing it? So I made this whole startup thing be super, like, visual and colorful, and and I actually did, like, amazing. I I really need to replicate it because it was such an amazing thing that even one of the parents of the girls, came to me and said that Melina is talking about this.

Anna Mazarsky:

Yes. I need one I need one to understand. First, I understood that girls get less and that I'm changing the fact that girls get less. And two, we need more girls, and we need more girls to be brave. And I actually got them to think of a startup and find like it was a really fun activity.

Anna Mazarsky:

And, like, we need to plant these teas. Like, we need to have a Netflix kids show of women who are building incredible ideas. Like, be be the next investor inventor and be the next how to invest, like, you know, we so this is, like, in my in my future planning. Eventually, we will also have a Netflix Superpower Anna that will share how girls can, and boys if you really want to, but I want you as a girl to come and think of this crazy idea that nobody around you will believe because you know. Yeah.

Anna Mazarsky:

Like, I told this before, being a startup founder is so lonely. And currently, also another thing that will come once we'll grow, or today if you need, like a safe place to just come and share all the hardship of being a female founder. Like, you know, because being a startup founder is really hard. Like, no matter if you're a man or a woman, it's a really hard thing. Like, I really I worked with I don't know.

Anna Mazarsky:

I started count I stopped counting at around 500. I worked with more than 500, I think even around seven eight hundred. I just stopped counting because my computer crashed. And in 2017, my computer crashed and all of the data with it, or 2020. So, it was sad.

Anna Mazarsky:

But, like, it's very hard. It's very lonely. And I think men in this retrospect, they are less

Adrienne Garland:

sensitive sort of used to it. In Women need

Adrienne Garland:

to definitely And be in community with one

Anna Mazarsky:

we need to have the community, and we need to have, like, you know, when you're becoming a mother, it takes a village. Like, you know this? It takes a village. And only when only after I became a mom for the second time, I managed to build this village. So now I'm also when I moved here and started becoming a female founder, like, for real, not as not as a personal private one on one coach founder, but I became, like, mindset.

Anna Mazarsky:

I had I had to shift my mindset to become a founder. I had to go through the process that right now PinkX is doing. I had to ask her, yeah, I want to raise 500, like, you know, for this mental, like, what you did. I did it, like, to test the I did it to test the program, but they said, okay, I want to raise 500,000. And then my power runner said, yeah, but men in your market and your positioning and your solution and your that would have raised 2,000,000.

Anna Mazarsky:

So the only question is, Anna, why aren't you raising And I'm, like, sitting there, Did I just get You just got Anna. My like, I didn't I'm I'm I'm a living user Yeah. Exactly.

Adrienne Garland:

On my own firm. So let me end our conversation.

Anna Mazarsky:

I just get Anna.

Adrienne Garland:

We are way over, and I love it. And I I feel like what I would love to do is I know forever. So what I would like to do I

Anna Mazarsky:

can talk to you. Like, yeah. I can talk about it.

Adrienne Garland:

I just wanna encourage everybody that's listening to go to pinkxpwr.com. Sorry?

Anna Mazarsky:

Pink X Power. Pink X Power. Because Pink Power will send you to something early. I would Pink X because we are the X factor. Remember that.

Anna Mazarsky:

This is

Adrienne Garland:

the X chromosome. So let me just factor.

Adrienne Garland:

I would encourage everybody to go to pinkxpwr.com, and we will put that in the show notes so you know exactly what link to go to. Check it out. Check out the free resources. You can connect with Anna on LinkedIn as well. She's she's there, and I am just thrilled by this conversation.

Adrienne Garland:

It has covered so many different topics, and I appreciate you so much and everything that you're doing and everything that you're building. So we'll we'll find a great time for you to come back on and and talk about all of the different people that have joined platform and some of the insights that you have been able to to get from what women are doing. So thank you so much for spending your time with us here today on the She Leads Podcast.

Anna Mazarsky:

And thank you for so much for having this podcast. We need more voices. We need this podcast. We need these role models, and we need to hear the stories because, like, this is the way I had my my mind shift. Like, from listening to podcasts, listening to you, listening to your guests.

Anna Mazarsky:

So thank you for having me, and thank you for having this podcast. You change lives. You you never know when the ripple will go to. And I really, really hope like, send all your questions to me. Feel free.

Anna Mazarsky:

And, like, really hope that, like, at least if at least even one listener will shift from being a bootstrapping founder to a funded Okay. Thank you so much. We've done our job. Best. Thank you so much, Adrienne.

Anna Mazarsky:

Thank you.

Adrienne Garland:

If this conversation moved you, inspired you, or made you think differently, please take a moment to leave a five star rating and review. It's not just about boosting the show. It's about amplifying the voices of women entrepreneurs who are leading with vision, building with purpose, and shaping what's next. We need more of these conversations in the world right now, don't you think? And if someone came to mind while you were listening, someone who matters to you, send this episode to them.

Adrienne Garland:

If there's something on your mind about leadership, legacy, or what's next, I want to hear it. Head to sheleadsmedia.com backslash voice and leave a voice memo or note. Your insight might just help shape a future episode. Make sure to follow the show and come back next week for more conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Thank you so much for listening.