"The toughest thing about running your business that isn’t talked about enough is your time."
Elizabeth Gore, a Texas-born entrepreneur, has always been dedicated to helping those in need. Her journey with the Peace Corps and the United Nations Foundation gave her insight into the critical gaps in support for small business owners, especially women.
This led her to co-found Hello Alice, a small business platform that provides access to funding, networks, and services to over one million small business owners.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Elizabeth Gore: I grew up in Texas and was fortunate to be the first woman to graduate college in my family. I joined the Peace Corps and then spent almost ten years with the United Nations Foundation. This journey made me realize there were critical needs that weren’t being filled for small business owners, particularly women. I started Hello Alice with my co-founder, Carolyn Rodz, to use technology to create a platform that would help individuals start and grow their businesses.
Hello Alice is the small business platform helping over one million SMBs achieve equitable access to capital by providing access to funding, networks, and services.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Elizabeth Gore: Our Hello Alice Community reached over one-million this year! To know we are helping these one-million small business owners find equitable access to capital and resources for their businesses is so rewarding. It was an incredible milestone for our company and team to reach and it showed all of us that we are making a serious impact.
It also shows we are a full product market fit and that business owners across the U.S. are looking to us for guidance and help. We’ve always wanted to be a resource and guiding light for business owners who want to grow bigger and better.
Hitting that one-million number made us all feel like we’re accomplishing the goals we set out with from the start and now we can reach even further beyond them and set new goals.
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Elizabeth Gore: When we launched Hello Alice, I wish someone would have given me more advice on hiring. After some time, I realized I should have fired fast and hired slowly in some cases. I also wish I was hyper-focused on empowering the team but also holding them accountable for their responsibilities. In the next quarter, our employees are working very hard to build great tools for small businesses.
We have tight deadlines but they are fully empowered to achieve those deadlines with autonomy and the tools they need. Giving employees equal levels of autonomy and responsibility provides a challenge that if met can greatly excel their career paths.
Here is a two fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Elizabeth Gore: “Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.” by Brené Brown influenced me the most and I learned a lot from it. Most of it is about your interpersonal leadership. It’s a testament on how to lead a company. I’ve read it twice, listened to the audible, and bought it for my team.
Lately, I bought Michael Dell’s new book, “Play Nice But Win: A CEO’s Journey from Founder to Leader”, for a few team members on the technology and engineering teams. I think it has some very interesting insight on how you launch and iterate products.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Elizabeth Gore: The number one challenge for entrepreneurs right now is uncertainty. Entrepreneurs tend to do really well in opportunistic times and in times of crisis. However, they struggle with ambiguity and uncertainty. While dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses knew they had to buckle down and cut costs to survive.
In opportunistic times, you work your butt off and focus on customer acquisition. In uncertain times, running a business is very difficult and many entrepreneurs aren’t sure what to do, which can lead to missteps or delays in strategy. SMBs need to keep their mental health strong, listen to customers, and stick together.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?.
Elizabeth Gore: The toughest thing about running your business that isn’t talked about enough is your time. Your time is so valuable but it’s not infinite. As a CEO or founder, there’s so much only you can do. You can delegate, but certain things have to be done by the CEO or founder.
How you manage your time is as important as how you manage your cash. There are things you should definitely delegate so you have time to do the things you need to. Your time is insanely valuable.
When we were a young company, I took pride that I would do everything. One of our values as a company is that “everyone takes out the trash”. We all need to be scrappy, but there are times when we need to be delegating or hiring. It took my co-founder and me a while to realize that.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Elizabeth Gore: My business superpower would be raising capital. Only 2% of women get venture capital funding. It’s been an incredibly slow journey increasing the amount of capital and resources women earn and it’s still abysmally slow. I’d like to see at least 50-60% of venture capital going to women.
Women are incredibly savvy and powerful business owners and leaders and deserve more of this funding. I’d love to have this power to change the game and put more resources and capital into growing female-led businesses. I have a feeling we’d see some amazing solutions and new businesses across industries if this happened.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Elizabeth Gore for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Elizabeth Gore or her company, you can do it through her – Instagram
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