Not a Pitch: A Morning for Female Founders. Off the clock, with art

​Not a Pitch: A Morning for Female Founders

​Off the clock, with art materials, quiet, and honest conversation. No art experience needed.

​Building a company takes more than strategy and long hours. It takes something out of you that never shows up on a dashboard.

​The load is not evenly distributed. A study of investor Q&A at TechCrunch Disrupt found that investors tended to ask male founders about growth and female founders about risk, and that founders who fielded more risk questions went on to raise less (Kanze et al., Academy of Management Journal, 2018). Add that to the ordinary work of running a company and the result is familiar: burnout, a creative flatline, and losing the thread of why you started.

​This is a guided morning that uses simple art materials to help you stop, take stock, and reconnect with the company you set out to build, before the day's demands take over.

​You will not be asked to make anything good. You will be asked to make something before you explain it. The image gets to what a to-do list can't.

​No art experience required. Nothing to present. No outcomes to perform.

​What to expect

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​Guided art-making, all materials provided

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​A few practical tools for pressure that you can use after you leave

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​Honest conversation with women carrying the same load

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​A calm, unhurried start to the day

​All types and stage founders/entrepreneurs are welcome!

​Hosted by The Line Between Consulting at The Commune, a creative workspace and event venue in Austin's North Loop. Led by Cheryl Walpole Tiku.

​About Cheryl

​Cheryl Walpole Tiku is a Licensed Professional Counselor and the founder of The Line Between Consulting. She spent 17 years in clinical practice before turning that diagnostic lens on how companies run and what they cost the people inside them. Her work rests on one idea: people can't tell you what they can't see, but they'll make it before they can say it.