During the Venture Forward Series at The Riveter, three advisors from the Seattle startup ecosystem — Sally Bergesen, founder and CEO of Oiselle; Julie Sandler, managing director at Pioneer Square Labs; and Martina Welkoff, Founding Partner, WXR Fund — offered advice to three female founders on how to take community to the next level — from balancing content versus product to optimize customer engagement, to scaling a community-based tech platform, to navigating the VC funding path.

What does it take to create the kinds of trusted relationships that eventually lead to funding, and what can founders do to make those relationships thrive? Three funders, Sara Christensen, Jenna Jackson, and Raina Kumra, recently sat down with a trio of startup founders at The Riveter West LA recently to talk shop. The first founder was Ana Pompa Alarcón Rawls, founder and CEO of findSisterhood.

As a financial advisor on Ellevest’s Private Wealth Management team, I love this time of year. There’s just something about the calendar’s first few months that gives the air a clean-slate feeling — and some inspo to get all of our you-know-what together. Just like you (hopefully) go see your various doctors for annual wellness exams, now’s a good time to have a couple of annual “wealthness” exams with your team of advisors. Here are some key questions to bring with you.

For the next few weeks, we’re going to be talking about “The Talk.” No, not that talk. The Talk about money. With your date, your partner, your fiancé, your this-looks-like-it’s-starting-to-go-well-with-this-person. We know: It doesn’t feel romantic. Even more than that, it can feel unnatural for some of us. Because historical gender norms (which persist in any number of households, still today) have had a dad “in charge” of the money, whether earning it, investing it, or being the final word on it.

It’s Equal Pay Day—the day that represents the average number of days women in the United States have to work to make the equivalent salary of a white male counterpart. Since white women on average make $0.80 for every dollar that their male coworkers make, we find ourselves in April. The day moves further out into the year, however, if you’re a mom ($0.71) or a Black woman ($0.61), Native woman ($0.58), or Latinx woman ($0.53), according to the National Women’s Law Center.

At this point in my career, I am connected to a lot of incredible, talented, collaborative, and powerful women. It's one of my greatest honors and privileges to know these women and to get to share stories and articles with them about how we've progressed in our careers and how the landscape is evolving for women in business. Lately, it seems that almost every week a woman I know is sending an article my way about funding and in particular the massive gap that we as women entrepreneurs face because of the lack of funding available to us.

Every time I get a new assignment, I ask for more money. Even if they’re paying me more than I was expecting, even if it’s my dream assignment, even if it’s a publication I love—I ask for more. And no matter your profession, you should, too. I’m a freelance writer and editor based in New York, so I know that at any given point, there is at least one other person with a comparable skill set within a half-mile radius of me, if not within a three foot radius, if not right next to me while I’m doing my grocery shopping at the over-crowded Trader Joe’s in Union Square

Our Workshop Series came to NYC last week for a conversation with Bain Capital Ventures Partner, Merritt Hummer, on running a successful fundraising process. We received such a strong response from our community when we announced this workshop, so it was no surprise that we packed the house at the Bain Capital Ventures office, our gracious hosts for the event. We’re sharing some of the nuggets of wisdom from Merritt below.