When Amy Norman and Stella Ma started pitching investors in 2009 on their geography-oriented startup, Little Passports, both had young children and Norman was pregnant. The majority of the investors they met were men, several of whom asked whether the business would be profit-focused or a lifestyle company—read: a glorified hobby. All of them passed, and word got around Silicon Valley that “there’s no way women like these could grow a company fast enough” to satisfy venture capitalists, Norman says.
Image: Photograph by Chris Goodney/Bloomberg From left: Golden Seeds’ Jo Ann Corkran, managing director; Stephanie Hanbury-Brown, founder; and Peggy Wallace, managing director
