ALICE: Venture Capital Firms Must Weed Out Discriminatory Patterns, Support Women-owned Businesses

Alice Min Soo Chun is an author, TEDx speaker, and female inventor of Solight-Design and SEEU95. Solight has recently been featured as a top option by Popular Mechanics, Fast Company, and Forbes Home as a top lighting and product for 2024. In this interview, she speaks with Bayo Akinloye about her entrepreneurial skills, journey to success, and standing out on the global stage. While teaching as a professor in Architecture and Material Technology at Columbia University, Alice created early prototypes of solar lights with her students. Still unsatisfied and fueled by her passion for helping the underserved, Alice invented the world’s only self-inflatable, portable solar light, eliminating the need for a mouth nozzle. This ensured a healthy, sanitary method to inflate. Alice named this invention the SolarPuff™ and conducted field testing in Haiti for three years. In 2015, she launched Solight Design and initiated a Kickstarter programme with unprecedented results. She went on to win numerous awards, including the US Patent Award for Humanity, and her products have been exhibited at MOMA, the Modern Museum of Art in New York City. Excerpts:

Most women self-fund their businesses and passions, as only a mere 2.4% of VC funding goes to women-owned businesses, despite VC funding hitting an all-time high last year. Last year, female founders generated a 35% higher return on investment than their male counterparts. What’s your thought?

In 1960 the issue of a woman’s right to be a layer let alone have a professional job was controversial topic. Yet, in one of her last interviews, Ruth Bader Ginsberg stated in 2019, ‘If you want your country to succeed, put your money in your women’. There’s a common misconception that there isn’t a large number of female entrepreneurs, but the numbers show otherwise. The male-to-female entrepreneur ratio is much smaller than you might imagine, with seven female founders for every ten male ones.

The issue of underfunded Venture Capital for female founders has been an ongoing dilemma for women for decades. There is a psychological effect called ‘attribution bias: the tendency to assume that someone’s identity or character, rather than outside factors, are responsible for the situation they’re in’. It’s been a challenge not only being female but, in my case, also being a minority. I believe the only way to succeed is to weed out patterns and thinking that prevent VC firms from investing in great ideas presented to them.

Do you think there’s a deliberate attempt that women do not get enough venture capital compared to their male counterparts?

I am not certain it is deliberate, however, the data suggests that both men and women investors have psychological biases which influence the tides of funding. I do believe that the patterns of investment influence and predict investments of the future, an increase of venture funds backed by women is burgeoning within the past 10 years; however, it is still a small fraction.

What are women like you doing to ensure more VC funding goes to women?      

As a female CEO and inventor, I’ve had the privilege to be in a position to to mentor young female entrepreneurs as well as help connect female CEOs with potential investors.

You have been working hard to break the odds by illuminating the world in times of darkness. For instance, you invented the first-ever foldable, self-inflating solar lantern (SolarPuff) in 2010 after the Haiti earthquake. What informed that invention?

As a little girl growing up in Seoul, Korea, and then later upstate New York, I spent many days learning how a simple fold can become a structure. I was taught Origami forms by my mother. She also taught me how to sew my clothes. Always creative and fascinated by design, structure and forms, I studied architecture at Penn State, where I obtained my undergraduate degree and went on to earn a Masters in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
With emerging trends in material technology resulting in smarter, lighter, faster, sustainable fabrication, I started to sew solar panels to the fabric as early experiments for harnessing solar energy with softer, malleable material. I became focused on solar technology and finding ways to create clean energy solutions upon learning my son Quinn was diagnosed with asthma.

While teaching as a professor in Architecture and Material Technology at Columbia University, I created early prototypes of solar lights with her students. Fuelled by my passion for helping the underserved, I invented the world’s only self-inflatable, portable solar light, eliminating the need for a mouth nozzle. This ensured a healthy, sanitary method to inflate. I named this invention the SolarPuff™ and conducted three years of field testing in Haiti. In 2015, I launched Solight Design and initiated a Kickstarter program with unprecedented results.

What do you think about women and men having to put themselves out into the world to make a change and do something they love, including following their passions?

I like to think that people matter the most when it comes to creating a better world for the future of technology. It’s not the internet or AI that will change the world, it’s the minds behind the decisions, the values, the principles of the people that make the decisions. Research has shown that it isn’t so much what people do as much as what they believe in which changes the trajectory of a company or venture. There are three things I think are important for long-term success in leadership and business. Empathy: This has been overlooked in corporate structure historically. It is the origin of success with negotiations, raising investment, customer service, sales, effective teamwork, leadership, education and knowledge transfer. Resourcefulness: A good entrepreneur can jump out of an airplane and build a parachute on the way down—it’s in line with—’an entrepreneur should have the hands of an angel and mind of a thief.” Resourcefulness is about one part organisation of chaos, two parts seeing around corners, and one part imagination. Grit: Perseverance and purpose, diligence and vigilance are imperative—never ever give up.

What’s your future plan? Or is there something you have in the offing to help humanity?

My hope is that humanity allocates the time, education and resources, which will make climate remediation a success. Being a small company, our philosophy is that for the world to change, we all need to work collectively and together in order to scale our individual yet universal desires. Such as peace and a global climate remediation to leave hope and health for our families future. It was Chief Seattle that said, ‘The earth is not our inheritance, it is borrowed from our children’.

What message do you have for female entrepreneurs out there?

Believe in your gut. Early on—the biggest mistake as a young woman, I think, was not believing in myself—trusting the intuition, your gut. I put too much trust in others to deliver on things that never materialised. I’m very grateful for those mistakes because they prepared me to overcome any challenge. Now, trusting data, history, and experience, I’ve learned so much.

Is there anything else you would like to mention?

The mother of invention is necessity and the daughter of invention is curiosity. Two female characters, yet in the USPTO, only eight per cent of women are on patents. The disparity is really not just in the investment world, but as we look closely into the stories of women’s talents, innovation, ideas, and success within the current environment of society, the disparity is inherent within the culture itself.

Last words?

‘The risk of doing nothing is greater than the risk of being wrong’. Go out there and manifest your dreams.