0:00

I'm David Grosso, and you're listening to

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follow the profit Today,

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I'm following the profit. We're going to talk about women

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and entrepreneurship. Women, of course,

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have faced the wrath of the pandemic,

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having to stay home to take care of their children

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and getting back to work, at least physical

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work hasn't been easy for them, and many

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of them are taking the plunge and starting

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their own businesses. Here to talk about

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women's entrepreneurship is the founder

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of Women's Entrepreneurship Day, Wendy

0:32

Diamonds. She's also the founder of Animal Fair

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Media. How you doing, Wendy, fantastic?

0:37

Thank you, David, thank you for having me on. I'm

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super excited to talk about this topic. It's

0:41

a very important topic, so

0:43

Wendy, right now, the labor shortage

0:45

is the biggest thing we see. You got to a restaurant,

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you got to a shop and there's nobody

0:50

working there, and a lot of people

0:52

say that has a lot to do with

0:54

the landscape women are facing because

0:57

of the pandemic. Tell me what's it been

0:59

like to be a woman through the pandemic.

1:01

Well, first of all, you know, like when you look at

1:04

the history, right, I mean, women

1:06

in the workforce number one

1:09

have been like you know, underfunded,

1:11

upper underrepresented, all the unders

1:14

And you know what I believe is really

1:16

what's happening here as we've saw

1:18

during covid as, like women

1:21

and minorities have been really mostly

1:23

affected during this time. So,

1:25

you know, when you look at entrepreneurship,

1:28

it is so important that

1:30

we empower women because the fact is, you

1:32

know, when women, when they earn

1:34

money nine, that money goes to educate

1:37

their children and provide for their families, which uplift

1:39

the entire communities. Right, And that's

1:41

the basis for me creating Women's Entrepreneurship

1:44

Day in two thousand and thirteen, you know, because

1:46

at that time only one percent

1:48

of venture dollars we're going towards women founders.

1:50

So I think what we're seeing right now is

1:53

just this effect and we've just seen you

1:55

know why it's so much it's

1:57

so important to actually enable

2:00

women to have more access

2:02

to you know, employment, but

2:04

also you know in c suite

2:06

you know, positions as well as boards,

2:09

because when you look at all the data and all the figures,

2:11

it shows how profitable companies

2:13

become when they do that. Yeah,

2:17

you know, one of the things that's really interesting right

2:19

now is that child care is a major

2:21

issue. And of course we want women to have

2:23

children because you know, to

2:26

be here today, yeah, exactly,

2:28

we all depend on women or for her

2:30

to reproduce ourselves. But child

2:33

care is really expensive, to the point that many

2:35

people stay home because it's

2:37

just too expensive to work. How

2:39

can we change that, Well, first of all, it's

2:42

hard. You know, first of all, it's expensive. Right

2:44

to have children, to have pets, to have anything

2:47

is expensive in this world. And that's where I think one

2:49

of the things with COVID is that women

2:51

now are able to stay home and we realize we

2:53

can do and you know, it's very

2:56

fruitful for women to actually stay home because

2:58

then they can still take care of their children, right.

3:01

And so I think that a lot of the bigger companies are

3:03

also enabling that UM to

3:05

have people partially work from home,

3:07

etcetera. And then there's a lot of government

3:09

subsidies that we have seen, especially in New

3:11

York, you know, which our new governor

3:13

Kathy huckle has put in place

3:16

right that enable affordable

3:20

UM childcare. And

3:23

it depends on right because

3:25

you know, each state, each government, each city

3:28

have their own budgets and they can allocate those

3:30

dollars towards that. So

3:32

tell me about you. So how did you get

3:34

into the space, because you know, you could just

3:36

be a working woman and just fade into obscurity.

3:39

What made you speak up on these issues? You

3:42

know, I've been an entrepreneur in my whole entire life.

3:44

You know, I graduated from college, send a three

3:46

d resumes and literally I didn't

3:49

get one callback, you know, to get a job. So

3:51

I had to become an entrepreneur, like at

3:53

the start of my career. So I've been

3:55

an entrepreneur in my whole life. I've

3:58

solved difficulties as being an trepreneur,

4:00

as starting a new business many times in

4:02

my career. And when I ended

4:04

up you know how I created Women's Entrepreneurship

4:07

Day organization was in two thousand thirteen.

4:10

I ended up in Honduras on vacation,

4:12

not realizing it was the murder capital of the world.

4:14

And when I got there, I was at this boutique

4:17

hotel and I was getting able to leave

4:19

the hotel because it was so dangerous. Right, all

4:21

the drug dealers that were in Colombia actually

4:24

moved to Honduras. So that's why it's the murder

4:26

capital of the world. And Columbia is really safe right now. And

4:29

so when I got there, when I was watching

4:31

birds with all these people that were

4:33

from England that we're willing to watch birds

4:35

for, you know, literally all day, and we're willing

4:38

to risk their lives. And I said to the

4:40

founder of the hotel, I said, oh my gosh, if I

4:42

watch another bird, I'm gonna go cuckoo

4:44

myself. And he's like, you know, I know his organization

4:47

that gives micro loans to poor women. Why don't

4:49

you go check it out. I know the development director.

4:52

It's truly safe. Why it's

4:54

you know, and you'll see beautiful country side of it, like Honduras.

4:57

So I was like, sure, you know, I'll go. And

4:59

that's where I went on this journey. And

5:01

this woman who was the development

5:04

director of this organization called Adalante,

5:06

which was providing micro loans to poor

5:08

women in this little community called

5:10

the Sable, which was a very dangerous community

5:12

in Honduras. And when I got there,

5:15

I met this one woman. She was seventy

5:17

two years old and she had three little kids,

5:19

and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like a

5:21

miracle. How do you have these three little kids? And

5:24

she said that her daughter actually passed away

5:27

and the husband ran off and she was responsible

5:29

for her three grandchildren. And so

5:32

Adalante, this organization that I was there

5:34

with and I was learning all about the statistics of women

5:36

and the whole thing provided her

5:38

a hundred dollar micro loan and literally

5:41

she took that money, opened up a

5:43

window in her one room hot with

5:45

the dirt floor where she lived with those three grandchildren,

5:47

and started selling cokes and toothpaste, and

5:50

literally she was able to make enough

5:53

money to pay a dollar a month for those children

5:55

to go to school. And that's when I was

5:57

just like, whoa this is in each story in

5:59

this little community that I spent, I

6:01

was the same thing, and I was just like wow. And

6:04

the statistics worldwide

6:06

show that these women are paying

6:08

back these micro loans at a rate,

6:11

right, And as I mentioned before, goes

6:14

to educate their children, provide for their families.

6:16

Right. And when women are empowered in

6:18

business, they have self confidence, in dignity.

6:21

They don't allow human rights, but you know, violations,

6:23

right. And so that was what triggered

6:25

me when I came back to New York. I was

6:28

like, wow, you know when I started doing

6:30

some research, women entrepreneurs and women

6:32

in business was not really highly

6:34

talked about at all in the media, and

6:37

very few people were really like very

6:39

few um companies were having

6:41

initiatives to swore women, et cetera. So

6:43

that's why I knew I should create a day in the world,

6:45

because if I created a day, I could create the conversation,

6:49

right And that's when I went to our governor at the time, Cuomo,

6:51

and I went to Mayor to Blasio, and I went

6:53

to US Congress and I said, could we

6:56

proclaim Women's Entrepreneurship

6:58

Day on November nine teeth, And

7:01

that's how we launched Women's Entrepreneurship

7:03

Day. And then I went around the world to everybody I knew

7:05

and asked in their country, who

7:08

you know, who is somebody in the country, what

7:10

what women can bring governments, business

7:12

leaders, civil society together to collaborate to

7:14

find solutions to uplift women in business.

7:16

And that's how women was

7:18

created. So this

7:21

is very interesting, right because this goes into

7:23

another very time issue we have right now. I've

7:25

been to mud US. You know, I'm a Spanish speaker

7:27

and whatnot, but we have a lot of migratory

7:29

pressures on our southern border, and really

7:32

no one really talks about how empowering female

7:34

entrepreneurs can help these countries solve

7:37

a lot of their problems. I

7:39

mean, we tend to think of immigration

7:41

as just a very isolated issue, but it's attached

7:44

to female entrepreneurship because

7:46

in countries where females don't

7:48

have access to employment, right, a

7:51

lot of them leave, right in countries

7:53

like Hondurans. So why don't

7:55

we think about things holistically like that,

7:57

Like, female entrepreneurship has a lot

7:59

to do with how well a country is doing

8:02

at any moment. Well, you know, it's it's

8:04

like this, right, giving a hand

8:06

up, not a hand out, right,

8:09

And you know women want to be empowered.

8:12

They you know, when they earn money. As we know, the statistics

8:14

show that the whole

8:16

community becomes a better place. Right. And

8:19

when you think about, like how the ripple effect

8:21

and if we want to create systematic change

8:23

in the world, we need to embrace everyone

8:26

from the ground up. We can't just be doing

8:28

this lean in c suite executives lean

8:30

into each other, right, because that's never

8:32

gonna bring those that's never gonna you know, change

8:34

the world what's going to change the world

8:37

if we enable everyone to understand

8:39

why it's so important to empower women

8:41

in business, and that's going to change

8:43

the game. Because like as you see,

8:46

you know, like with Mayor Garcetti in Los Angeles

8:48

for instance, where you live. I mean, he's one

8:50

of the greatest mayors that you've ever worked within our

8:52

movement. I mean he every year

8:55

dedicates grants in their budget to support

8:58

female founders. Every

9:00

year he creates these whole initiatives

9:02

to support and enable them education

9:05

on how to start your own missins and resources

9:07

right, And I think that's the key

9:09

to everything, is about education,

9:12

but it's also providing opportunity.

9:15

And I think that when you look at you know, all

9:17

these like developing nations, including

9:19

you know, what you're seeing right now in Honduras and what

9:21

you're seeing in l Sale, but are in all these different places.

9:23

And this kind of goes into a whole other thing is

9:26

you know, I believe in cryptocurrency,

9:29

and I believe in what bitcoin

9:31

was created for and I'm I

9:33

believe personally that and it's kind of similar

9:36

to what our foundation was based upon, you

9:38

know, was you know, after the two thousand eight housing

9:41

and financial crisis. You know, the smartest

9:43

people or the one smartest

9:45

person came together, right and

9:47

created this name Satoshi to

9:50

bring out the most high integrity,

9:52

deflationary financial instrument

9:55

to enable the two and a half

9:57

billion people unbanked financial

10:00

empowerment and inclusion. Right, And

10:02

you know this is where you know, we talk about

10:04

what's going to happen in this world. Is

10:07

I believe cryptocurrency is another

10:10

you know thing that's happening in Venezuela where

10:12

our foundation is huge in Venezuela,

10:15

you know, and I see what's happening is

10:17

that the new technologies are gonna

10:19

be the way way out of poverty.

10:31

So you see cryptocurrency as an alternative

10:33

to government currency. Why is that important

10:36

to female entrepreneurship? Is it? Is it because

10:38

banking definitely has a male bend

10:40

to it? Well, I mean

10:42

yeah, you could say that, you know what I mean, And

10:45

I'm not a male badchor I love men, right, Um,

10:47

But you know, I think when you know, when you look at it,

10:49

I think you you see the fact that

10:52

we need to enable everyone

10:54

financial inclusion. You know, we are

10:56

a capitalist world. We need to pay

10:58

our rent, we need to pay for food, right,

11:01

and who's more likely to where

11:03

they who's more likely to put that money, right

11:06

is women? You know, women are paying back

11:08

like for instance, micro loans in this world, and in

11:11

rate men's a lot lower, right.

11:14

So I think when you're looking at cryptocurrency,

11:17

it's enabling whether you have a mobile phone

11:19

or a footphone, you still will have access

11:22

and and to have financial inclusion,

11:25

right, And that's what I think is very important

11:27

in this world, and I think that's what's going to change

11:29

the world. So

11:31

tell me a little bit about your work in

11:33

Afghanistan, which of course, sadly has been

11:35

in the news since the US you know kind of cut

11:38

and run and we've seen progress

11:40

for women in that country roll backward.

11:42

What type of work are you doing in that country? Okay,

11:44

So you know our foundation has bid since two thousand

11:47

fourteen in you know, Afghanistan,

11:49

and the person Manitza who is represents

11:52

our foundation is actually the founder

11:54

of the Women Chamber of Commerce in

11:57

Afghanistan based in k So

11:59

we you know, have been very aware of what's going

12:01

on. And one of the initiatives that we've done this year

12:03

is part of Women's Entrepreneurship Day this year

12:06

is we partnered with the company

12:08

that I have to admit I'm personally

12:10

invested in this company called open Grants,

12:13

which your viewers should totally know about.

12:15

It's disrupting the trillions of dollars

12:18

of non deluded funding to

12:20

enable entrepreneurs and foundations

12:22

to have a seamless way to get funding, you

12:24

know, you know, whether they're in the medical field,

12:26

whether in you know, the technology field, etcetera.

12:29

Trillions of dollars are available of non

12:31

deluded funding. So we've we partnered

12:34

with open Grants because they're actually

12:37

you know, part partners with Stellar,

12:39

which is one of the top twenty coins. And

12:42

what we're doing is we're funding

12:44

a hundred thousand women in Afghanistan

12:47

with crypto. And what we're doing

12:49

is and so in Afghanistan right now,

12:52

there's forty million people. Right, not everyone

12:54

is lucky enough to get on a plane and come to the United

12:56

States, right, you know, people need to still

12:58

survive there. And so what

13:01

we did is we created an initiative through

13:03

with open Grants, which is pretty traceability

13:06

and transparency right

13:08

on the blockchain. So when one

13:11

donates to this problem, you know, to this

13:13

project, they're gonna be able to follow the women

13:15

in Afghanistan. We've in

13:17

in Afghanistan right now, forty million people,

13:19

twenty million of them have mobile bones. Of

13:22

the twenty million, we're guessing basically

13:24

about five million or women. Right.

13:27

So what we've we've put into effect

13:29

is that we're gonna be funding a hundred thousand

13:32

women. It's gonna start testing it next week and

13:34

we're gonna be testing it and then all the end, if they

13:36

have a flip phone or a mobile phone, they

13:38

can download the wallet. It's all k YC.

13:41

It takes about three minutes for them to basically

13:44

download this and then we're going to give

13:46

them starting off when ten dollars

13:48

each, So like, give up your Starbucks coffee,

13:51

your dessert, get out of it and donate

13:53

ten dollars and that's going to enable them

13:55

food for a week. So KYC

13:58

know your customer, you you went and oh

14:00

you're a customer. We're not giving it. We're not giving

14:03

it to the Taliban, We're not giving

14:05

it, you know, we're not giving it, you know, to any nefarious

14:07

acts which everybody a lot of people think about,

14:09

you know when they think about cryptocurrency, right,

14:12

and so um, this is what the whole

14:14

project is And what's

14:16

really great about it is you're gonna know who you gave

14:18

your money to. You can follow them on Instagram,

14:21

you can follow them on social media. And

14:23

we partnered with three organizations

14:25

in Afghanistan, so we have this whole

14:28

network of women's groups. You

14:30

know, It's like I had so much fun. Like every

14:32

time I read an article and I read somebody who's

14:34

going you know, who's marching to you

14:36

know, enable you know, girls to have education,

14:39

and I see their name, I like stock

14:41

them and I find them on like Instagram and I

14:43

text them and I'm like, hey, do you want to be part of this? Could

14:45

we give all your you know, your Women Fighters

14:47

of Afghanistan that's one of the groups. Um

14:50

and and I'm like, hey, come on, let you know, do you want

14:52

to be part of this? And you know, we bring on all

14:54

these small little groups in Afghanistan, like

14:56

they have two eight women part of

14:58

this group, Women Fighter of Afghanistan,

15:01

And so we bring them all on because what this

15:03

is is a perfect example of

15:06

how do we create an ecosystem

15:08

that enables peer to peer transactions

15:10

so these women do not need to rely

15:12

on the banks and stand ten hours to

15:15

get a little bit of money, Right, they

15:17

don't need to deal with their government,

15:19

right, they can just do this amongst themselves

15:22

and creating this ecosystem because

15:24

there's a lot of people that are running retail

15:26

organizations in in Afghanistan

15:29

that these women can then transact with.

15:31

But also women amongst themselves,

15:34

right, A lot of them are farmers that they

15:36

can also sell their food, etcetera through

15:38

these types this type of transaction. So

15:40

that's what this project is. And what's really exciting

15:43

about this project is if there's no

15:45

better place to do this than Afghanistan

15:47

right now, right, But once we create

15:49

this, this whole ecosystem and

15:51

creating the whole platform for this anywhere

15:54

in Haiti Uh in Lebanon with

15:56

that whole blow up, this will be an opportunity

15:59

for the world to be able to embrace this and

16:01

for people, you know, like look at our government.

16:03

We read twenty trillion dollars in Afghanistan

16:06

or two trillion or whatever was a lot of money

16:09

and like where is that? Like what happened to

16:11

that money? I mean, there's nothing to show for it. So

16:13

this is like an easy way with a

16:15

little bit of money, you can change one

16:17

woman's life and you know, with that little

16:19

bit of money, she's going to educate her children,

16:22

She's going to provide for their family, which is going to uplift

16:24

the entire communities. Because what is a mom.

16:27

A mom is an entrepreneur. She

16:30

is the entrepreneur in that family

16:33

that's providing, you know, and has to take care of

16:35

that household. Right. And

16:37

what we have to see in this world is everybody needs

16:39

to change their mental attitude to

16:42

understand that they're an entrepreneur,

16:44

that they're an entrepreneur because we all have to contribute

16:46

to society or you're not going to be part of this future.

16:49

Wendy, I love your attitude. And you know

16:51

I here in the United States, if you turn

16:54

on the media, right it's like, oh, our problems

16:56

are unsolvable, and here

16:58

you are in Honduras, Venezuela,

17:01

Afghanistan solving problems.

17:03

And then it's like, never mind the government,

17:05

we got some work to do. Why don't we hear

17:08

more about this. When

17:10

I got the idea for this, I was talking to a woman

17:12

named Sudha Sultan. You know, she's,

17:15

you know, one of the most problem She was one of the people that brought

17:17

one of the telecommunications companies to Afghanistan.

17:20

She wrote, you know, she was had an arranged marriage

17:23

in Afghanistan, you know, and that was you

17:25

know, turned out to be a disaster and all that, and

17:27

she wrote a book about it. So she's a pretty problem of it. And

17:29

when I was talking to her, I was like, wow, you

17:31

know, with cryptocurrency and with

17:33

blockchain technology, you

17:36

don't need all these different things. We can just

17:38

create this and we can just do this. Why

17:40

do we you know, there is no bureaucracy. We're

17:42

just gonna make it happen. And that's

17:44

what entrepreneurs do, right, We

17:47

just figure it out, we make it happen. We do it.

17:49

We go up and down and all around, and we

17:51

make it happen. Right. What's it a successful

17:53

entrepreneur? Someone who's passionate, somebody

17:56

who has purpose, somebody

17:58

who has persistence, somebody

18:00

who has perseverance, and someone

18:02

who's positive. You know, if we're going to go

18:04

through this life, we want to be positive and live

18:07

a meaningful life. Some

18:09

of the most successful entrepreneurs

18:12

that I've ever met and interviewed talk

18:14

like this, right. They do

18:16

business in places that are really hard to do business,

18:18

like New York and California right, or ten

18:21

times worse, you know, Venezuela and Afghanistan

18:23

right, And they say, you know what, it just

18:25

creates more obstacles. But I'm still going to finish

18:27

the race, So never mind.

18:29

They have this winning mindset, which is really fascinating

18:32

to me because again, not

18:34

to be labor at the point, but a lot of our

18:37

problems in this country, especially here in the United

18:39

States, are just like seen as unsolvable.

18:42

It's just like, oh, we can't solve this.

18:44

This is just endemic and sticky, and

18:46

it's just like it's impossible to make

18:48

it now, it's impossible to

18:50

to win. It's it's the cards are stacked

18:53

against us. Well, again, it's our

18:55

mindset, right. The way we see,

18:58

the way we think, and the

19:00

way we feel is

19:02

in our minds. So when we wake up

19:04

in the morning, we decide whether we're happy or sad.

19:07

No one makes you happy, No one makes

19:09

you don't even makes you sad except yourself. Right,

19:12

But if you can change your mindset,

19:14

and you can do that in a second, you know, you think of something

19:16

that's like so hard to do, but

19:18

at the minute you say, wait, I can do this, you

19:21

know, and and you know, like anything, it's

19:23

all in your mind. And so I think,

19:25

you know, having and being able to change your mind

19:28

quickly and to be a positive

19:30

and have a positive mindset, you

19:32

can do anything and not be scared of,

19:35

you know, and not think about fame, money, or

19:37

power, right, but that you

19:39

really want to do it. Of course, keep your day job so

19:41

you can pay for your living expenses,

19:44

in your rent and your food and all that. But if

19:46

you have a dream, you know, it's

19:48

still't worry about the things that are are

19:50

not important, and certainly fame,

19:52

money and power should not be on that

19:55

list. So

20:05

what's really fascinating though, is

20:07

that, you know, government is

20:09

now seen around the world as more

20:11

of a hindrance than help, which

20:13

is really sad because you know, government, when

20:16

when it works properly, can do a lot of good.

20:19

Why is this? Why why are we just

20:21

like and it seems like it's been twenty or thirty years

20:23

of this. I studied government professionally,

20:26

and it's like most of our graduates now

20:28

go into the private sector because it's just like,

20:30

uh, I don't want to join

20:32

that bureaucracy. And it's really technology

20:35

that is helping us, you know, break that

20:37

bureaucratic cycle of nonsense

20:39

that as entrepreneurs we've had to

20:42

endure since the beginning of time. Well,

20:44

you know, I think, you know, there's some really amazing

20:46

people in the government, right, Like you know, I

20:48

know, I work really closely with Congressman

20:51

uh, congress Woman Grace bang

20:54

right, who is one of the most amazing women

20:56

in Congress, you know, who's really fighting

20:58

for women entrepreneurs and really fighting

21:01

for the underdog, right, you know, women,

21:03

etcetera, and all that. And I think

21:05

that you know, we have to kind of embrace everything

21:07

because it's like, you know, we all need to be lived together,

21:10

we all need to work together, right. But

21:12

it's also about, you know, both sides

21:15

of educating everybody the importance

21:17

of certain things. And one of the things I

21:19

you know, with our Foundation Women's Entrepreneurship

21:21

Days about is educating the world

21:24

why it's so important to empower women

21:26

in business, right because we know if

21:28

we do that, we could alleviate poverty,

21:30

we could change this world. Right. But the

21:32

same thing it goes towards like with cryptocurrency.

21:35

I have to say, I'm very honored and and

21:37

and happy to be in this country. I think

21:39

America is one of the greatest

21:41

democracies, and it is the greatest

21:43

democracy in the entire world. If everyone

21:46

knew what it was like in all these other countries,

21:48

everyone would move here. I mean it's like, you

21:50

know,

21:52

I literally but

21:55

you know what I'm saying. It's like, are all the people here

21:57

that are like against our government? Like I you

22:00

know, you have no idea what it's like in

22:02

other countries. I've traveled to sixty countries,

22:04

I know, you know, and oh my

22:06

gosh, you're beating me, Wendy. I'm not like because

22:10

I know I'm going to everyone. But when my father died,

22:13

I made a commitment that I would go to two

22:15

new countries a year. And because of that commitment,

22:17

I ended up in Honduras on vacation.

22:20

That created Women's Entrepreneurship Day. So everybody,

22:22

I believe, should you know, take that journey

22:25

and see the world. So

22:28

you talk a lot about fame, So I recognize

22:30

you from somewhere. Where have I seen you, Wendy,

22:33

Well, I mean, you know, it's like I used

22:35

to be famous, right, So I you I

22:37

created the Animal Rescue. So one of my you know, my

22:39

first real entrepreneur thing is when

22:42

I was really young, I learned that twelve

22:44

million animals were euthanized a year, and

22:48

nobody was talking about it. Same thing like as I knew

22:50

about the women's world, nobody was talking about adoption

22:52

or rescue. So I knew

22:54

that if I brought celebrities and pop culture

22:57

to the animal rescue world, we could bring

22:59

that number of twelve million animals you

23:01

the NICT year down. So I created the very first

23:03

media company in history, UM

23:05

called Animal Fair Media, and

23:07

we created the first magazine, We created the

23:09

first pet fashion show for animal rescue. Because

23:11

I knew if you could teach everyone you could

23:14

adopt any breed, any size, any age,

23:16

we could bring that number down. And I knew

23:18

by bringing celebs and pop culture that would

23:20

change that dynamic. And if you look in history,

23:23

that's exactly what happened. I mean, at the time

23:25

when I launched Animal Fair, very few

23:27

people were There were no dogs and celebrities

23:29

and magazines or on TV. There

23:31

were maybe a few, maybe one or

23:33

two advertisers that had a dog in their ads

23:36

right. And I so, you know, ten

23:38

books, out, five TV shows,

23:40

the three Guinness World Records, a wing named

23:42

after my dog at the Humane Society of New York.

23:45

Millions of dollars raised for animal rescue primetime

23:47

show on CBS on the Today's

23:50

Show once a month, So can you tell me the name

23:52

of that show. It was called Greatest American

23:54

Dog. It had one season, right, and

23:56

it was a it was literally

23:58

on CBS primetime show.

24:01

And then I got a stalker. Um.

24:03

I got a crazy, mentally insane

24:06

woman that created fifty anonymous

24:08

email addresses to do aim and slammed for me. That ruined

24:10

my whole entire life. And that's how

24:13

I had the time, uh, you know, to

24:15

take care of my father at the end of his life, and

24:17

that's how I ended up going to Honduras

24:19

and creating this whole new life. So

24:23

what's funny is my media career

24:25

was also changed by animal

24:27

rescue. My first big bombshell

24:30

was working in local news and Texas

24:33

in a town named Amarillo where

24:35

the local shelter was putting down more

24:38

dogs and cats than the entire state of Colorado

24:40

at the time. So we share that in common,

24:43

Wendy, and I think people don't realize

24:45

that the youth and Asian numbers around the

24:47

country have come down dramatically.

24:50

So thank you for your work in that space, it really

24:52

has initiated a cultural

24:54

change. And really the past five years

24:56

we've seen this really really

24:59

change where no kill shelters

25:01

are now the norm rather than the exception.

25:04

No, I agree, I agree in cities are basically

25:06

saying no more selling of

25:08

animals, which I mean it is true because I

25:11

mean if we could literally and I think you

25:13

know, it goes back to what is charity? You

25:15

know, charity is it should not be

25:17

a lifelong career, right, it

25:19

should be solving the issue. So

25:22

if we could just enable all these organizations

25:24

to work together, because there's so much money

25:27

donating to animal rescue, but

25:29

if they could all come together, no animal

25:31

would ever be uganized. So

25:34

isn't it funny how efforts through

25:36

media can actually catalyze cultural

25:38

change. So what are you gonna do for women through

25:41

media, specifically through Women's Entrepreneurship

25:43

Day? What type of awareness

25:45

do you think the audience should have about

25:47

women around the world who want to be entrepreneurs?

25:50

Well, you know you see it right, because

25:53

I knew like to create the day, you would create

25:55

the conversation. So you see, now

25:57

every you know, every organization,

25:59

every every you know company now

26:01

has women's enough initiatives, right,

26:04

And that's what we're seeing every day

26:06

is through all the different work that people

26:09

are doing. You know, you you see now

26:11

more than ever the importance of

26:13

women, right, Like you see like even on

26:15

Shark Take. You know, there's days where they

26:17

have more women than men, right, and

26:19

you see that, you know, different shows now

26:21

that you know Reese Witherspoon's are doing with our new company,

26:24

you know, just showing how important women are

26:26

in our society. So I think that

26:28

every you know, every little bit that everybody

26:31

takes to understand why

26:33

it's so important is the key

26:35

to success.

26:37

So once next for you, So now that you

26:39

have this, how are you going to push a women's

26:41

entrepreneurship in? What are you gonna do to bring awareness

26:44

to it? So what are we doing? I mean we're doing

26:46

a lot of stuff. It's really like a lot of fun stuff. So

26:48

I'm you know again, I you know, invest

26:50

in impact. I'm part of four I'm

26:53

an LP and four crypto funds

26:55

um my goal, you know. So I'm part of block

26:57

Tower, a part of coin Fund, I'm

27:00

a part of Perceptive Capital. I'm

27:02

you know, and I'm part of Opie Crypto and

27:04

so I worked really strongly about investing

27:06

in women founders I am also

27:08

part of. I've also invested in about twenty startups

27:12

that are all about you know, another company

27:14

I'm in is called Viversity that's

27:16

disrupting the trillions of dollars of government

27:18

procurement to enable women to

27:20

have more get government contracts.

27:23

So, like you know, I'm also um invested

27:26

in Producers Market that is working on the largest

27:28

regetative farming project in the entire world.

27:31

That's a pilot program in India with six

27:33

million farmers that had a high suicide

27:36

rate and literally what they realized

27:38

was the pesticides and fertilizers was

27:40

literally causing this, like the damage to the

27:43

land, the damage to the harvest. So

27:45

the government in a in a partnership

27:48

with the United Nations Environmental Program,

27:50

they created an initiative called zb and F and

27:53

they're now they've changed all

27:55

these farmers to go to the old

27:58

ancient Indian ways of fertilizing

28:00

the land using manure,

28:03

sugarcane, and urine. Right, So now

28:06

that suicide rate went way down and

28:08

those women now are getting more for their

28:11

harvest. And that's what you know. And

28:13

the company that I have invested called producers

28:15

market is enabling this

28:17

marketplace to connect farmers

28:20

directly to retailers so that

28:22

they can earn more money. And of the farmers,

28:25

those are women, right, they

28:27

have one hector of land. Right. So

28:30

I believe in investing in what you believe

28:32

in, right, And that's you know, So

28:35

that's my goal in life, and that's what's

28:37

making it. Wendy, you're you're You're the

28:39

first crypto entrepreneur that

28:41

I've met in a long time who's a female.

28:44

It's not very cut, it's not

28:47

very common, but I'm gonna

28:49

well every day, Like I just had lunch with somebody

28:52

and this is like a huge, amazing

28:54

woman. She's like this black woman hedge

28:56

fund, she's you know, super successful New

28:58

York City, and you spent the whole conversation

29:02

about crypto and how this is literally

29:04

in five years from now, like goodbye

29:06

JP more again, goodbye you know all

29:08

this stuff, because it's true, Like if

29:10

we don't embrace this, and I don't you know, listen, I'm

29:12

not technical and I'm not even you

29:14

know, I've never even balanced a checkbook, but I

29:17

get it. I believe in this technology.

29:19

I believe how this is going to change the world

29:22

and bring gender equality and enable

29:24

women to get farther advanced

29:26

in this in this economic world.

29:29

That's really fascinating. So tell me a little bit about

29:31

your personal life. What do you do when you're not you

29:34

know, changing the world, saving animals,

29:36

promoting women and investing in cryptocurrency?

29:41

Yeah, what do I do? I do yoga,

29:43

I do I try. I go to two new

29:45

countries a year. I love life.

29:48

I love learning. I you know, every

29:51

day I try to, you know, do

29:53

something new. I love going to new restaurants.

29:56

I love hanging with my dog and my friends.

30:00

And so

30:02

how can we best? So how

30:05

do we follow you? How do we follow you?

30:07

With? Well? I you know,

30:09

I literally am the worst at you

30:11

know, if you look me up, I had millions of followers

30:14

and all that kind of stuff on Facebook. I didn't, you know,

30:16

my stalker came in right when the Instagram

30:18

thing happened. And um, but you

30:20

can follow me on social media, you'll see, you

30:22

know, I can't remember what was the last thing I

30:24

posted? Oh, I just posted something

30:27

at you know, you know, so you know, I

30:29

think it's you know, you can follow me and you can learn

30:31

about all the stuff I'm doing and you can see the

30:33

companies I support and I'm

30:36

always happy to meet anyone and help anyone

30:39

with, you know, whatever they're doing, especially women

30:41

founders. Well, Wendy Diamond, thank you for chasing

30:43

me down on LinkedIn really

30:46

think and I'm like, oh, you're so cute and you're so good

30:49

at this, and I'm like, don't forget me. Well

30:52

I was. I'm really happy we made this happen,

30:54

and you know, please stay in touch and good luck

30:56

in all your pursuits. Thank you, thank

30:59

you, thank you, and celebrate

31:01

Women's Entrepreneurship Day and December

31:03

one choose women Who. Thanks

31:11

to all of you for joining me for this episode

31:13

of Follow the Profit. Wendy was a lot of fun

31:15

and as someone who has really translated her

31:17

reality TV career into initiating

31:20

social change through cold hard

31:22

cash and investing in what she believes

31:24

in and as a reminder, she mentioned it several

31:27

times during the interview. Women's Entrepreneurship

31:29

Day is November nineteen, so

31:31

we hope you'll celebrate and

31:34

I'd like to thank my team of producers

31:36

Scott, Rob Cheyenne and

31:38

everyone else who helps me make this show

31:40

a reality. Every single week including

31:42

our executive producers Debbie Meers and

31:45

new ging Ridge. I'm your host David Grosso.

31:47

If you're enjoying the show, give us five stars

31:49

and leave us a review so that we can learn what

31:52

the show is doing well and not doing so

31:54

well. Following The profit is a production of

31:56

Gingridge three sixty and I Heart Radio. For more

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