How to Lead When Everything Is Falling Apart

Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff

Rebecca Minkoff

Society & Culture

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Elizabeth Gore has always believed that all entrepreneurs deserve equitable access to capital. But pursuing that mission landed her in the middle of a federal class action lawsuit. This week on SUPERWOMEN, I’m joined by Elizabeth Gore, co-founder and president of Hello Alice, which has helped 1.6 million small businesses and distributed over $65 million in grants. She talks candidly about being sued for funding Black business owners, surviving the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and a health scare that nearly took her out. Through it all, Elizabeth shares the lessons she’s learned about resilience, leadership, and staying rooted in purpose—even when the stakes couldn’t be higher. Episode Guide: (00:00) Meet Elizabeth Gore, co-founder and president of Hello Alice (06:37) Building an AI platform before it was mainstream (09:29) Getting sued for funding Black entrepreneurs (13:18) How they lost ⅔ of their Series C funding (15:03) The health crisis that stopped her cold (20:23) Learning to truly rest as a founder (28:48) What’s next for women and AI in business (31:37) The decision that nearly broke Hello Alice (33:43) Raising millions without a CFO (36:03) What Elizabeth would do if everything fell apart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	There are things in your business, the more successful you get that are going to happen to you.
0:04.0	You're going to have to fire people. You're probably going to get sued at some point.
0:07.4	You're going to have to step away from the business. Today's guest is Elizabeth Gore.
0:11.9	She is the co-founder of an incredible platform called Hello Alice.
0:15.6	When COVID happened, hundreds of thousands of small business owners were coming to us desperate.
0:20.6	For capital. We worked
0:22.1	24 hours a day for a year on this, which has given over $65 million in grants to small businesses,
0:29.4	women-owned businesses, veterans, black-owned businesses. I mean, we went down to zero cash in the
0:35.0	bank and no one was raising money. A whole bunch of money went out the door.
0:37.8	We didn't pay our employees for a while.
0:40.0	But we just all felt like it was the right thing to do.
0:42.7	She is helping make sure that Main Street USA sticks around.
0:46.4	The support was overwhelming.
0:48.0	And from everyone, by the way, we had Republicans supporting us.
0:51.2	The level of kindness and humanity was so beautiful through this.
0:54.6	And so you can't let like these supremacist folks dictate what our country looks like.
1:07.7	I'm Rebecca Minkoff and this is superwomen.
1:10.7	Each week, inspiring women are interviewed to uncover the unexpected journeys, the challenges,
1:16.2	and the unwavering spirit that makes them powerful.
1:19.4	Get ready to be motivated by stories of resilience and discover the keys to unlocking your own potential.
1:28.8	Miss Elizabeth Gore, welcome.
1:30.7	Howdy.
	...

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