Investment Alignment: Understanding Your S-Curve
This is part of the Female Founders Rise Summer School for Founders. Check out our other summer sessions here.
Every business rides an S-curve - inception, growth, acceleration, maturity. The café and the Series C fintech are both on one; size and sector don't exempt you from the physics. And the most expensive strategic error isn't being on the wrong curve. It's not knowing which stage you're actually in.
In this masterclass, Julie Hood gives founders one clear framework for reading their own business honestly - and making the big calls accordingly. Because wrong-stage strategy doesn't just underperform; it actively destroys the value you've built. And the investor who's perfect for one stage is the wrong call at another.
This is the strategic layer beneath the fundraising tactics: not how to pitch, but how to know what you should be raising, from whom, and when.
What you'll walk away with:
↳ How to diagnose - honestly - which stage your business is really in, and why that changes every decision
↳ Which investor type fits which stage (and which to avoid), so you raise from the right people at the right time
↳ When and how to jump to your next S-curve - while you're strong, before the market forces you to
Speaker:
Julie Hood - Founder & Strategic Advisor, Hood Advisory
Julie is a business founder and strategic advisor with over 25 years of experience guiding global private equity firms, corporates and institutional investors through complex transactions and transformational growth. A former Managing Partner at EY-Parthenon, she built the Strategy & Transactions business into a leading capital advisory platform across APAC, EMEIA and globally between 2002 and 2025. She began her career as a coder in the pioneering era of computer-aided design - an early bridge between technology and business strategy that later shaped her leadership of EY's EMEIA AI Transformation approach. Julie is co-author of The Stress Test Every Business Needs and now advises entrepreneurs and corporates on capital deployment, transformation and deal-making.
The Female Founders Rise Summer School for Founders is here to kickstart your business growth with 30 trusted experts in the ecosystem. Our mission this summer is to upskill 1,000 female and non-binary founders on all things entrepreneurship.
Whether you're a founder, student, or simply curious to learn more, this is open to everyone (and it's free). And no need to be a member of FFR, but you can join free here.