From Homeless to the 1%: Advice from a Venture Capitalist

Boss Files with Poppy Harlow

CNN

Business, Entrepreneurship

4.6 • 538 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2020

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Arlan Hamilton, Managing Partner and Founder of Backstage Capital, knows what it's like to start a business in the face of extreme adversity. Before she founded her venture capital fund five years ago, she was living on food stamps and sleeping in airports. She's focused on investing in underrepresented entrepreneurs - women, people of color, and LGBTQ founders - and is finding inventive ways to support the companies in her portfolio during the coronavirus.To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Attention.
0:02.0	Oh, hang on.
0:04.0	Attention.
0:05.0	Rail travellers, platform paces, window gazers and armrest negotiators.
0:10.0	Have you heard?
0:12.0	The big railfare freeze is here.
0:14.0	Railfares have been frozen across England until March 2027 on standard class tickets,
0:20.0	including off-peak, anytime, and season tickets.
0:23.4	For more information, visit nationalrail.com.ukuk slash fares for ease.
0:28.3	Teas and season exclusions apply.
0:31.9	Welcome to Boss Files, I'm Poppy Harlow.
0:34.8	In 2019, venture capitalists had a blockbuster year, investing more than
0:40.2	$135 billion in U.S.-based companies. That's money that went directly to some of the most
0:46.7	promising startups in the country. But so much changed in an instant when the coronavirus
0:52.5	pandemic hit. So what's going to happen to all of that
0:55.9	money invested and all of those new businesses? The toughest part of it was that we were completely
1:02.6	blindsided. To answer that question, I spoke with venture capitalist Arlen Hamilton. She's the founder
1:09.1	of backstage capital. I was already thinking about
1:12.1	so many obstacles and mountains to climb for myself and for the founders that I was representing
1:19.5	to get here. It did feel like the footing was just knocked from under us. What you need to know
1:26.5	about Arlen is that she's not your stereotypical
1:29.4	venture capitalist. For starters,
	...

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