 Well, good afternoon and thank you all for being here today. I'm pleased to help announce the launch of I fund women Vermont a Statewide initiative to drive funding to early-stage female entrepreneurs It's great to have I fund women women's co-founder Kate Anderson here with us today and she'll provide more detail shortly But briefly this is a this will be a crowd Funding opportunity a platform that offers women entrepreneurs in Vermont Another source of capital particularly in the early stages when it can be difficult to find funding Vermont has a proud tradition of leading the way in many areas and crowdfunding to support our businesses can be added to that impressive list In 1984 Ben and Jerry's offered Vermonters an opportunity To get a scoop of the action by investing small amounts of money in the startup ice cream company And we know what happened then This was a first in the nation This was an experiment that allowed Main Street the opportunity to invest affordable amounts of money Into a growing company the capital raise was successful bringing in over $750,000 from over 1,000 Vermont families This helped move the company out of that old gas station in Burlington Into a manufacturing facility in Waterbury and the rest as they say is history Had it not been for those early investors I'm not sure Ben and Jerry's would be what it is today and Although not coined then today this type of investment would be called crowdfunding In other Vermont companies such as earth's best baby food and catamount brewery Use this financing tool to start build and expand their businesses as well More recently the Department of Financial Regulation has revived provides Vermont's crowdfunding regulations To make them the most progressive in the country Making it easier for a Main Street investor in Vermont to invest in a local company than it is anywhere else in the country This is particularly good news for female entrepreneurs We have traditionally found it even more difficult to secure financing from venture capital firms and financial institutions This will be at the area of focus for iPhone women, which is so important because women businesses owned in Vermont Our vital part to our economy Vermont women own over 23,000 businesses an employee over 36,000 people these businesses generate annual revenues of over two billion dollars each year While these numbers are impressive There is still tremendous growth potential If just one in five of the existing women owned businesses hired one new employee It would result in 4,600 new jobs for Vermonters Access to capital is crucial for startups and a major challenge in growing any business But much more so for women owned businesses when compared to their male counterparts For this reason, we're excited for the launch of the I fund women platform in Vermont We've been a leader in crowdfunding legislation and by adding this women focused platform to the stack of great programs Already available here in Vermont. I know we are on our way to realizing tremendous growth for our women owned businesses I want to thank I fund women for bringing this platform to Vermont and to its local partners milk money Vermont works and the Vermont women's fund So at this point I'd like to invite our commissioner of economic development Joan Goldstein to say a few words Thanks, governor. I I'm actually old enough to remember the door-to-door sales of the Ben and Jerry's stock sale I Wasn't living in Vermont at the time of my in-laws had retired to Waterbury and my father-in-law told us that some crazy guys came to his door and offered stock in an ice cream company and Alas, we weren't one of the first thousand families to invest in this great company But Vermont has such a great tradition of innovation and the governor's administration and DFR and the rest of the partners involved in this just show exemplify the strong Relationships we have in the entrepreneurial and creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Vermont This is this problem with startup capital is not just Unique to Vermont and you basically California in Massachusetts, New York and Texas receive 80% of all venture investment nationwide Very little capital making its way to rural states like Vermont So funding of this business becomes difficult for all entrepreneurs as a state we need to do a better job helping Vermont entrepreneurs and Attract capital to the state and I fund women is a great platform to help women Launch their businesses and a great example of the creative ways we could help attract more investment to Vermont Economic development is is nowhere without entrepreneurs We constantly need a new influx of ideas and we need the funding to help spur that on the Women entrepreneurs are majority owners of a third of all privately held firms in Vermont But on average nationally receive less than 3% of all venture capital funding Here lies a tremendous potential for growth growth for companies and growth for Vermont's economy It is my pleasure now to introduce I fund women co-founder Kate Anderson Good afternoon. Thank you governor Scott and thank you Joan for the kind introduction And thank you for supporting the female entrepreneurs in the state of Vermont We're honored to part with partner with governor Scott who clearly is passionate about the entrepreneurship space because he himself Was an entrepreneur or an early entrepreneur? I think I read He had a paper route and he even bought a paddle boat and Pay for it by Spreading out So he clearly understands the need for early-stage investment in the entrepreneurship space We're really honored to partner with him Every day in the United States almost 1,800 new businesses are being started by female entrepreneurs. That's over 650,000 new businesses a year on top of the 11 million existing firms run by women in the US and only 1% of companies in general will ever raise venture capital fund and that's okay Unfortunately, as we mentioned women only get 2 to 6% of the venture capital dollars allocated and the options that we are left with When trying to fund our early-stage startups are getting a bank loan or maxing out our credit cards And when we do receive funding we work with less than half of the working capital that our male counterparts do The lack of early-stage funding resources for women-led businesses exists all over the country and it's time to fix this We need to level the playing field so that entrepreneurs can have equal access to capital to grow their businesses And this issue is exactly why my team and I started iphonewomen.com Which is a fundraising platform Designed specifically for early-stage women-led startups and small businesses and today We're thrilled to now announce the launch of iphonewomen. Vermont a crowdfunding platform for Vermont entrepreneurs Crowdfunding is a practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of cash from lots of people It's typically done on the internet Unfortunately, not like that Jerry did knocking on people's doors, but but we say anyway that it's gonna work. It's gonna work And we believe that iphonewomen should be the first stop on every female entrepreneurs funding journey I'm here representing the iphonewomen team of coaches real humans who are here to prepare you through the crowdfunding process our team will guide you on how to start and Run your crowdfunding campaign and we can even help you produce an awesome pitch video so that you can really sell people on your idea If you're a woman let's start up small business Non-profit or have a side hustle you want to launch iphonewomen is for you go sign up now and start working with a coach To prepare your campaign you have until March 31st 2019 to complete your crowdfunding campaign and fully funded campaigns We'll have the opportunity to raise even more capital by participating in the first ever iphonewomen Vermont pitch competition which is happening this spring in the great state of Vermont If you're not an entrepreneur, but eager to join this movement, please consider contributing to a Vermont accelerator pool This is a pool of money awarded to the high-performing iphonewomen of Vermont entrepreneurs you can contribute now at the iphonewomen link that is linked everywhere Again female entrepreneurs in Vermont your time is now to get funded Don't wait get your campaigns launched and start raising money Our team of coaches is standing by to help you and walk you through this process to close I would like to thank an old-school entrepreneur governor Scott and his wonderful team again for putting their full support behind iphonewomen of Vermont in Additionally, we would like to thank Vermont works in the Vermont women's fund for jumping on board and putting their support and by support we mean money behind iphonewomen of Vermont and Finally we want to thank Louisa sheepley founder of milk money Louisa cares deeply about the entrepreneurship space of Vermont so much So that she cold-called us out of the blue and and Requested that we open up this cohort. So this wouldn't have been possible without Louisa's initiative Louisa is a true innovator and we are really proud to call milk money as partner So, uh, I fund went so Vermont entrepreneurs now is your time to get funded You can apply now and start working with a coach to raise money for your business Thank you so much and I am happy now to introduce Sarah Spencer Who's going to run a campaign on iphonewomen of uh, Vermont chalky paint Good afternoon everyone. My name is Sarah Spencer. I'm the CEO and founder of Vermont chalky paint It's a non-toxic decorative paint that's mined manufactured and made here in Vermont We come in four seasons sets january thaw spring summer harvest market and vintage holiday and September 1st We just launched our propax which have been very well received So we're pretty excited about that our propax come in gravestone statehouse white and they transform delicate In cabinets into works of art. So Vermont chalky paint. We pride ourselves in helping you paint like a pro even if you're not one so We created this paint because we really wanted to have a product that's non-toxic We wanted to have something that gives back to the community from day one And so we created vermont chalky paint with the help of andrew mayer and vermont natural coatings out of hardwick vermont The calcium carbonate is mined out of our mines in middlebury vermont and we have our headquarters in st george vermont We house our paint in half pine and quart jugs that we repurpose Into decorative tea like lamps that we sell at our paint and sips show your jugs parties and So the premise behind our show your jugs is to buy a jug paint a jug and show your jugs in remembrance of someone who Has faced the challenge of cancer I had a Woman come up to me and she was very offended and she said show your jugs isn't that sexist And I said well i'm relieved to tell you that our plastic jugs come in all sexes male and female Because like cancer Show your jugs doesn't discriminate I lost my mother my father and my my father-in-law I lost on our very first show your jug show I was doing one in massachusetts And got that dreaded phone call and I didn't know what to do I wanted to leave immediately But I couldn't because we were packed with people in our tent They just love the concept and this woman saw me very upset and she said you know what Let's just sit down and paint a jug together And she said tell me about what you're doing here and it changed everything And so under that pink tent it really gave me incentive of why i'm doing this With show your jugs and our pink tent is great. We I showed my jugs in vegas. My parents would be so proud We were invited to the national harbor show and we met with that giffin Who is with tiny house nation and we painted stools for a female veteran who needed a home And we want to go back there with a box truck this time because our pink tent is cool But it doesn't hold up into 104 degree heat in vegas or 20 below winters in vermont So we want to have a temperature controlled solar truck that we can drive from vermont to vegas next year And so that's what we're working with louisa. She introduced us to iphone women and I said this is perfect So we are excited humble to be in such esteemed company here and we are very excited to do our Launch of iphone women in vermont in october for our box trucks. They'll be looking for our campaign in october thank you so much for your attention and we are looking forward to partnering with iphone women and again much much thanks to louisa and our governor and economic development commissioner joan ghosting for uh for making this possible for us I would like to pass it over to heather dalton and stroll runner. She's the founder of that. Thank you Hi, i'm heather dalton and my business is called stroll runner At stroll runner we are developing a running belt to assist parents who run with strollers to have the ability to do So hands-free I'm a mom and i'm a runner And I did what any parent did when my daughter avery was born I excitedly put her in my new jogging stroller and set out to do what I had Love to do so much prior to her being born within about 30 seconds I realized that having my hands on that stroller when I was running completely changed my experience So stroll runner solves a problem that so many running parents face and that is the inability to swing your arms freely And run naturally when you're running with your stroller I feel very fortunate to be a startup in vermont throughout building my business I have been exposed to countless networking opportunities introduced to a wealth of other entrepreneurs who have No lack of knowledge and are so willing to share both their successes and failures And agencies that have no lack of accessible resources to help people such as myself Gain all the knowledge needed to successfully launch and grow a business in vermont What I have had challenges with is finding funding to do so Many of the educational pieces are free But when you have a product such as mine that you are trying to prototype and eventually get to market It costs a lot of money to do so There are no lack of pitch competitions There are venture capitalists like you wouldn't believe her on the area and there are small business loans But all of these things require a business to show a proven track record of sales and profitability And rightfully so But when you're at the stage that I am at where you've taken a concept and are just starting to get it off the ground There are a lot not a lot of monetary resources available to do so This is where I fund women has been the perfect match for me To be quite honest I wasn't educated on what crowdfunding was until I reached out to louisa at milk money and was trying to see if they had Any resources for seed money to help me get my business started And this was a perfect example of right place right time as louisa had just gotten off the phone with I fund women that morning And had spoken with them about trying to bring their focus to vermont I fund women has done many things for me in our journey thus far But what among them the biggest thing for me is that they give a platform that is female focused And the reason that's important is because I will reiterate a statistic that you've heard from two others before me And that's that in 2017 Venture capital money only two percent of that went to women So it's important to me to work with an organization that strategizes with and focuses on women That's a great partnership They also offer phenomenal coaching which I have taken advantage of and I'm happy to say I'm flying to new york city In two weeks to take advantage of their video production The reason that I am crowdfunding is not only to be able to gain exposure for stroll runner But also to be able to further my prototype and actually get it to market I've been extremely fortunate already in my campaign to have received a few early backers in the local community And I want to say a huge thank you to my dear friend, sarah hergenrother for her contribution And vicki hemmett at hemmett health for her contribution because without people such as them believing in an early company Such as myself. I would not be able to get this off the ground Well, thank you very much and really inspiring stories and at this point we'd be happy to take any questions you might have About this subject maybe first Important is it you know we obviously have a problem here in a lot of people Leading try to get more and more people to stay in the state come to the state How important is this particular program to further that goal for you? Well, I think anything we can do to To help the economic growth in the state of vermont is is important Particularly in this category when we're so small and nimble that we should be able to to utilize that to our advantage And this is an example of how to do that So if we can attract more and more people to the state as well as help those in the state Succeed, I think it's just a win win for everyone Maybe if there's anyone else who'd like to add Just add like if each of these small businesses owned by women created one job We would have tremendous job growth that would also be another attractor for people looking to locate So the more job creation the better attraction it is for people to come and move to vermont I believe it was miss anderson who mentioned that The entrepreneurs taking part of this would have until march 31st to complete their campaigns So there'd be in presuming future campaigns following this first one Yeah, that's a great question So so we're launching this initial cohort with people starting projects soon and the idea is that I fund women's value proposition is we offer a lot of coaching and preparation to campaign So we don't want people to launch their campaign until they feel totally ready until they've built up They have a video they have their pitch down and we really help guide people through that process In order to participate in the first pitch competition, you'll have to have a fully funded campaign by the end of march 2019 After that we will accept applications on a running basis and and we might additionally Start another cohort at another time, but this initial cohort The project should be fully funded by the end of march One other question this answer comes to my mind you mentioned the team of coaches How many coaches do you have? Yeah, we have a lot of coaches based in our office in new york. I'm based in I'm based in boston actually and We will have a coaches come here actually right after this. I'm hosting a boot camp here for female entrepreneurs And we have a big team of women and men that are here to help you get prepared and get your campaigns off the ground Do we don't have any women-owned businesses around in the march? I think someone mentioned 23 000 Any other questions one so Obviously the cabernon hearings are happening in washington dc right now Got a lot of questions about roby way christing on quest hooded out yesterday that she Would like it to be something here that would take care of in vermont to make it stay forever If something weren't changing the supreme court What are your views on that? This might be Unless any of you would like to ask me to come up with a future question As i've stated, uh, this is a an issue for the us And all i've asked for is for there to be fair hearings on the matter Uh, and it appears they're doing so Releasing all the information that's needed to make the the decision Based on on fact Having said that We'll do whatever we can as you know, uh, or most know I'm uh, I've been an advocate for a woman's right to choose And I believe that most in our state feel the same way We'll do whatever we can to protect vermont as we've done in other areas Of maybe intervention by by washington So we'll react accordingly, but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves at this point But we'll do whatever we can to protect vermont The governor just earlier today the fda put out a public notice that it's now decided to go back on its earlier desire to add A sugar and added sugar label to 100 percent needle products, which said earlier in the year It wanted to do in I believe 2020. Uh, what do you feel about this and uh being a very good step? I imagined for the vehicle industry. Well, obviously, uh, we felt very strongly in the state There is no sugar added to maple syrup. It's naturally sweet It's one of our largest industries. It's uh, it's something that we're known for very proud of our rich tradition And culture revolving around that industry So we'll uh, we'll hope they continue to promote it in the way that it's it's supposed to be It's a natural product very sweet And uh, and very successful for us as a as a state You've proclaimed september as disaster month year in vermont. How important is it for our states to be prepared? Especially as there's some tropical storms bring up east coast as we speak. Well, again, uh, we learned a lot after iran And as a state the administration Both governor shumlin and myself Went around the state visiting many many sites Doing what we can to help As well a neighbor helping neighbor and but it taught us some lessons We've learned from that. I think we're better prepared than ever And we're in fact, there's a conference being held. I believe today In in fairly on this very subject We have uh, I have an emergency preparedness council that meets on a on a regular basis to contemplate this We have a great public safety emergency preparedness administration And for times of disaster and we've exercised that And we we uh, there's never uh, been a lack of of of opportunity for us to do better and we continue to learn every day The governor in light of uh, new york's uh to the attorney general subpoenaing every catholic diocese in their state as part of a civil investigation of how the church addresses or may have addressed sex abuse any Discussion coming from mr. Donovan or any from anywhere of your administration over to about something similar with the diocese of ronaldon The attorney general has not approached me about this issue at this point in time. Obviously unfortunate for Vermont in many respects And and and no one deserves that type of treatment We don't tolerate that and we need to do better Uh Donovan does announce that must be suing for new Do you support that action? Yes, I've made that known. I think even during the campaign I talked about it was just a matter of time before we moved forward With uh with action. I believe it's the state. I think we're about the 27th entity that has done so at this point in time I look at this the same as I did with tobacco That if there is wrongdoing on anyone's part If there was any deception of any sort These these enterprises should pay the price. And so I look forward to this investigation to this Uh this action and uh and its conclusion So are you familiar with the harley brayer being your case out of washington county? I represent I grew up in berry And uh and represented the county for a number of years in the senate So I'm I'm familiar with the case and and I saw it for the first time this morning That uh it was a violation of parole. I believe and mr. Berger is back in custody Yeah, so he has a long rap sheet But it's never really been charged as a habitual offender any sort of color I would hope that at this point in time And we have a great state's attorney that I uh that I Appointed recently and I believe he'll take appropriate action Do you do you believe the habitual offender law is working? And or does it need to be reviewed for cases like this? Well, obviously we can always do better and this is an example of where we might want to take a take another look at this Governor now that a little bit of time not too much, but a little bit Has passed by for any thoughts in this vein to settling What if anything might you be taking away from the trip you made to dc last week till for member john mccain? Yeah, it was a very inspiring memorial service and Both services I attended the one at the the capital and then the next day at the cathedral And to sit in the somewhat immediate role rose behind for three former presidents was Inspiring and to listen to what they had to say it was even more inspiring The bipartisanship I think it was Maybe a plan of senator mccain to bring everyone together to talk about what what we what we agree There's more that that that draws us together then divides us And this and he was who was known for his bipartisanship and it showed Through during the service in many many different ways So I I took from that that we need to do better as a country as a society There's a growing polarization across our country as a growing divide But we should we should take this moment to reflect on what we can accomplish together Instead of trying to divide us and I think it's so essential for us as a country to do that Great. Thank you very much. Thanks for coming up