Transcription
Anifa Muemba, a seasoned black woman entrepreneur and founder of the womenswear brand Hanifa, announced recently that she would be pausing operations for her company. This comes after experiencing months of intense backlash and public dragging over a pre-order sale in November that did not go according to plan.
After months of preparation, the brand experienced a volume of orders that was unprecedented. This is the kind of exciting moment that most founders have been dreaming of from day one. Instead of a dream, it became a nightmare. The results? A large swath of customers were waiting months longer than expected for their orders to be fulfilled.
While the brand took ownership of the issues and worked around the clock to correct them, Hanifa's name was trending for 2 months and not in a good way. Customers weren't always kind or even-handed in their complaints. In many cases, posts became cruel.
"Black-owned companies want us to bow down to mediocrity, to smile and accept it, to stay quiet about it, and I refuse. Every single one of them says they want success. Every single one of them says they want to scale. Every single one of them says they want to go mainstream, but you cannot build an empire on a weak foundation and bad customer service and expect the world to take you seriously. Acting like we are doing community service and not investing in a real business that should deliver real service. But, I guess this is what happens when I buy stuff from people like you. You people only want our money, but not our standards. You people want our support, but not our voice. Pick one. Or maybe it's for the better that you failed, so others don't dare to do the same."
"I am truly, truly sorry to anyone who feels frustrated, angry, disappointed, and confused. This was not our intention, and I hate that this is your experience. We have been reaching out to every single customer that has been affected, and most importantly, we are tirelessly working around the clock to get these orders out as quickly as possible. Why is it always something with these black-owned companies? All I hear is excuses and no real accountability for the absolute leadership you have in your company. Entrepreneurship is for sure not for everyone. Hanifa, take this as a sign and quit."
Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about the problem and got personal. I want to talk about this phenomenon because it is not isolated to Hanifa. This is a real harm that is happening with such a regular occurrence that researchers have given it a name. It's called economic vandalism, and this form of it is almost exclusively reserved for women-owned businesses. Targeted by hate, a vandal hit a Roxbury business that's trying to help black entrepreneurs. The owners say unfortunately, they aren't surprised.
This form of online misogyny and misogynoir is not only a moral and cultural issue, but it is also a structural economic harm. One with measurable consequences on women's livelihoods, access to economic opportunity, and public participation. In her research, Dr. Emma Jane use of the word vandalism implies intent on the part of perpetrators and is deliberate. I.E., those perpetuating this type of harm do so with intention.
According to a recent study, this particular type of gendered cyberhate playing out on social media has impacted 57% of women. It's not just folks innocuously stating their opinion online. And the dismissive explanation, "she should have done better," is absolutely unacceptable. And frankly, makes me want to throw hands. We are taking this all way too lightly in my opinion. Naming and explaining the harm is important, and that is what I will do in this video.
Here's what economic vandalism looks like in practice. Campaigns of reputation sabotage, coordinated mass reporting to demonetize accounts, and the exploitation of platform algorithms that reward sensational or polarizing content. These tactics are particularly damaging in feminized industries such as beauty, wellness, and lifestyle, where success hinges on reliability, trust, and a visible online presence.
Women entrepreneurs are disproportionately targeted by coordinated online hate like this, and then expected to navigate this abuse and experience its significant consequences while maintaining professional composure and economic viability. And as we know, whatever cruelty society has reserved for women will be given to black women in a double portion. This is an opportunity for all of us to pause and take a moment to ask ourselves, what are we doing?
Women entrepreneurs are also building businesses with a lack of capital. In 2025, companies founded solely by women in the US raised just 1.1% of total venture capital dollars, down from a dismal 2.1% in 2024. VCs invested a total of 3.2 billion dollars in all-female teams compared to 191.1 billion invested in all-male teams. In 2024, 0.4% of all funding went to startups with a black founder or co-founder. The portion going to black women founders is so minuscule, it is not even tracked.
This is despite the fact that women-owned businesses are a good investment that often outperform their male counterparts by multiple measures. The Boston Consulting Group's analysis of 350 companies found that women-led startups generated 78 cents per dollar of investment versus 31 cents for male-led firms, making new women-led companies two and a half times more capital efficient than men. First Round Capital's 10-year study of its portfolio showed that companies with a woman co-founder performed 63% better by valuation than all-male teams.
This is enraging. We don't believe in women even when all of the evidence says we should. I remember very distinctly, I had just started on the job. I had gotten the job of covering all the investment banks, and I went to go visit a president of an investment bank, and the quote I will never forget and it was, "There's no place for women here."
Women aren't just not believed by investors. Women also aren't believed by banks. Estimates show a 1.7 trillion dollar financing gap worldwide for small and medium-sized women-owned companies. A 2023 study found that when women do secure business loans, the amounts tend to be smaller, have higher interest rates, and require more capital, which makes the entrepreneurial journey a thousand times harder for women than men.
When a woman can actually get a loan, the average amount is just under $60,000, while the average loan for a male entrepreneur is more than $156,000. Women are getting less than half the capital to compete in the same marketplace. Banks worldwide choose to discriminate against women over making a profit. The result is that it completely stunts the economic potential of women-led companies.
So, when you see a woman entrepreneur building and scaling a company, please understand she is doing it with a whole lot of nothing in her bank account. And we're not done yet. Outsized customer expectations are impossible for women entrepreneurs to meet. Couple this lack of capital with the Amazonification of customer expectations, and it starts to feel like a setup.
Amazon Prime now has over 200 million subscribers globally. That scale has turned what started as a differentiator for the now tech giant into a standard expectation. Customers now expect fast, reliable, and low-cost or free delivery, easy returns, proactive and transparent communication about shipping status, and 24/7 customer service. This kind of service is expensive to deliver. Shipping costs alone can be over 12% of total revenue for clothing and fashion companies. For small businesses with thin margins, that's often the difference between profit and loss.
Amazon levels of customer service are impossible for most small businesses to achieve. And even more impossible for women entrepreneurs who have access to almost no capital, as we just discussed. As consumers, we are fully aware that Amazon is a company who is only able to offer things like same-day shipping because of its harmful business practices. And yet, we want small businesses to meet similar expectations. We cannot have it both ways. Do you want to prioritize your values, or do you want your order delivered today? Don't answer that yet. We'll come back to this.
And with this incredibly challenging environment, female founders are expected to never make mistakes. The gender punishment gap is well-documented, showing that when women make a mistake, they are 20% more likely to lose their job and 30% less likely to find new employment compared to male counterparts who committed the same infractions. Likewise, women CEOs face higher levels of scrutiny and bias across global publications, which can influence the public's perception of them.
And for women of color and black women, it's always much worse. We already know this, but let me remind you. Intersection research demonstrates time and again that women of color in leadership are held to different and higher standards than white women. They experience higher rates of discrimination than their white female peers, are less likely to feel psychological safety, and notably receive less empathy. You know, similar to how folks had zero empathy for Anifa when her company struggled to meet demand with a higher volume of orders.
Women in business, especially black women, are punished more severely when anything goes wrong, which means they must expend more energy simply to avoid mistakes that men can walk away from unscathed. This is what women entrepreneurs are dealing with every day. On top of that, they are much more likely to experience online harassment, and that is not an accident.
Social media platforms target outrage because outrage drives clicks and monetization. Amnesty International's landmark Troll Patrol study found that black women were 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive or problematic tweets with one in 10 tweets mentioning a black woman containing abusive content compared to one in 15 for white women.
Being rich doesn't solve all problems. It sure it certainly doesn't, but it solves a lot of them. I think when people say money's not important, I'm like, "Okay, well, you didn't grow up poor." Okay. Because if you grew up poor, you know money is important. So, why should you care? One of the reasons I am so passionate about entrepreneurship, it is a tool through which we have the opportunity to create wealth even when we don't come from wealth and are starting from zero. Hell, I started with a negative six-figure net worth and here I am a multi-millionaire because of entrepreneurship.
When we hold women entrepreneurs to a standard that no one else is held to and then hold them accountable to this standard by publicly piling on complaints, judgments, and disapproval, we are participating in erasing real wealth and value from their companies. Hanifa pausing operations for her company as a result of this backlash will surely eliminate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue and the valuation of her company could drop by millions as a result of this pause.
To be clear, I am saying when you participate in the public dragging of a small business, especially one owned by a woman, black person, or person of color, you are making the gender and wealth gaps larger. Quote me. Women-owned businesses hire a lot more women and people of color than businesses owned by men. Black women-owned businesses employ over 500,000 people, most of whom are black and people of color. Female founders create inclusive work environments and by employing underrepresented groups contribute to narrowing diversity gaps in the workforce.
Additionally, women business owners give back. Hanifa contributed to various charitable causes in 2025, including providing diapers to 500 families affected by the LA wildfires, providing phones to young women graduates in the Congo, funding fistula surgeries for victims of sexual assault, and providing a black woman with breast cancer the funds to attend a wellness retreat. Another example is entrepreneur Rachel Cargle, whose Loveland Foundation has funded over $10 million in therapy sessions for black women, girls, and non-binary individuals. And Melanie Perkins, the Australian co-founder and CEO of Canva, has pledged to donate over 80% of her equity. Her current net worth is 6 and 1/2 billion to the Canva Foundation and other philanthropic causes.
You want a better world? Then support the women leaders who are out here working their ass off for decades to contribute to building that life. And when they mess up, give them the same grace you seem capable of giving the men you watch make the same mistakes on a regular basis. We must do better. And not publicly dragging them is the least we can do. Let us also not bulk at their prices. Remember, they are completely underfunded and not able to fund their operations at scale, often having to grow their companies in the most expensive way possible. Let us handle customer disputes directly with their customer service lines. Let us not expect them to deliver everything in 24 hours or your money back. Let's publicly praise them. Let us introduce new people to their brands. Let us purchase from them and tell a friend. Let us do our part to build the new world we say we want to live in and supporting the emerging leaders out here doing the work is a big part of how we will accomplish this.
If what I just shared resonated with you, I want to personally invite you to Futureproof. This is a one-day virtual workshop where we are going to rebuild your offer, rebuild your marketing, and build out your complete 90-day plan so your business is positioned to win in this economy, not the one from 3 years ago. This is not a watch and take note situation. You are going to do the actual work in real time with me and my team right there with you. Spots are limited to 50 women. The link is below this video. Go apply now. The women who move through this moment are the ones who move now. The data is clear. The window is open and I want you on the other side of it.
While many say the economy is too terrible to grow, clients of mine are taking action and seeing results. "I was able to see the clarity of how I was supposed to set up my organization. Becoming a part of the mastermind has been more dynamic than anything I've done." "Rachel helped me get another million. I can quantifiably say that. And then I can say she cleaned up the millions to come. Within 30 days, I actually made like the 10K and had a bunch of other contacts for follow-ups. I did 10K in 10 days. They give you the framework. They give you exactly what you need to do and all you have to do is believe and show up. The AI information, the team building, the fact that it has essentially sort of really kept up with what's happening in the world right now and has adapted for that has been a game changer. All right, before I joined, I was at 500,000 our business and then in December, I was told that I made 963."
Go to hello7.co/future.