“At that point we’d been growing significantly month over month, I’d say in the double digits almost triple digits. I was really surprised by how many rejections we got. Everyone had told me I’d have to meet with 50 VCs to get one onboard and in my mind I doubled that because I’m Latina, so I figured I’d probably have to do twice as many. I was aiming for 100. That didn’t happen either. I stopped counting after 200 investor meetings and it wasn’t until I got into the 300's that things started to change. This was also happening during COVID while my kids were being homeschooled and I was going through a divorce… So, we finally got the round done and it was a huge sigh of relief, and the next morning after closing my round… I could not walk.”

In this episode of The Idealists. (formerly Grit & Grace), host and entrepreneur Melissa Kiguwa interviews Rebecca Clyde, the co-founder and CEO of Botco.ai, a conversational marketing startup that enables businesses to engage customers with AI-enabled chatbots. She has raised over $4 million in venture capital for Botco.ai, but even before running her current startup, she has more than 20 years in digital marketing and the technology industry.

In this episode, Rebecca shares some of the really hard things she went through when raising capital for her business. Her advice on how to build resilience is a game-changer and will leave you galvanized and inspired.