How Female Founders Can Combat Bias

Research shows that investors put female founders on the defensive more than they do their male counterparts. Now theres a strategy to turn the conversation around.

- Kimberly Weisul

There are investor pitches that go well. There are the flat-out disasters. And then there are the ones “where two guys spend the whole time picking apart your business,” says Lynn Loacker, who runs a series of boot camps for women entrepreneurs under the banner of Project W, and is a partner at the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine.

The outcome of that last scenario— which doesn’t generally result in a check—is at least somewhat determined by an entrepreneur’s gender, according to research from Columbia Business School’s Dana Kanze that was recently published in Academy of Management Journal. By analyzing video of 189 pitch sessions at TechCrunch Disrupt, Kanze, along with co-authors Laura Huang, Mark A. Conley, and E. Tory Higgins, found that investors ask men different types of questions than they ask women. When men respond directly to the questions they’re asked, they get to expound on their grand ambitions. When women respond directly to the questions they’re asked, they seem cautious and conservative.

The result: Investors walk away telling themselves that women want to play it safe and men want to take over the world.

Kanze’s advice to women entrepreneurs? Be less direct. (Seriously.)