Throughout her career, Elizabeth Gore, 47, has had a passion for entrepreneurs. “I really had a fever, which I still do, for small business,” she says.
Gore grew up in Texas and received her Bachelor of Animal Sciences at Texas A&M University, initially thinking she would work on her family’s livestock farm. A college practice for a Senator at Capitol Hill persuaded her in Pivot, and she eventually worked at the United Nations Foundation for nine years helping to build initiatives like Girl Up. It was there that she “really was fixed on how critical the owners of small businesses to the world are,” she says, working with them in different capacities.
In 2017, after leaving the UN Foundation and worked with entrepreneurs at Dell as their entrepreneur in the settlement, it co-founded a company itself: Hello Alice, a platform of technology that helps entrepreneurs gain “access to capital as Grants, loans, credit, “she says, and offers business planning tools and mentoring.
So far, Hello Alice has helped 1.5 million small businesses owners and contributed $ 52 million to the grants, says Gore. Here’s how she built her career.
Realizing ‘how critical are the owners of small businesses in our country’
In the UN Foundation, Gore began to see the power of the assistance of small business owners through small loans.
“I was looking at the developing world, and especially women,” she says. The theory was, “If they were able to earn their income, they could pay for family health care and their children could go to school.”
As an entrepreneur at the Dell settlement, she helped new companies through the DELL Women’s Entrepreneur Network, which assured “our female customers had the technology they needed to scaling,” she says.
This experience taught her “how critics of small businesses owners are in our country,” she says. “They are the biggest producers of jobs” in the US but also taught her about some of the challenges they face.
“I was shocked how hard it was [to start your own business] In the US, “she says, adding that this was especially true” for women, people in color, our veterans “, who may not have the same types of resources that other communities make. 2024, companies founded by women received only 2% of VC capital, according to PitchBook.
Entrepreneurs were ‘this great opportunity’
Gore began to enter her future co -founder of Hello Alice, Carolyn Rodz, at various events and conferences. Rodz, who would come from a financial background and venture itself, was also passionate about small businesses.
Rodz saw the challenges facing the community “as less a problem and more like this great opportunity,” says Gore. Around 2014, as they attended a conference, the two began designing their new technology platform, which could address some of the challenges facing small businesses in America. They ultimately started Hello Alice in 2017 as a business that can “fuel and fund itself,” says Gore.
The company has since raised $ 28 million in numerous rounds of funds, Gore says. Their largest area of profit is a tool of business health result they license for banks, Fintech companies and others, says Gore, which they started in April 2023.
To use the platform, entrepreneurs are registered for free and receive a dashboard adapted to grant lists, educational content and network opportunities. Hello Alice also sends email notifications regarding new grants, funding programs and relevant resources based on the user business profile.
On the line, Hello Alice hopes to approve to help lead their platform by analyzing real -time business data, providing personalized recommendations and anticipating challenges through predictive analytics.
Beyond the granting of the entrepreneurs to grow, Hello Alice “Lawyers on behalf of our small businesses owners” to ensure that policymakers create the legislation that supports them, she says. “We are really passionate about the story that they are literally the heart of this place beating.”
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