This is the seventh time that I sit down to write a year-end reflection on what it’s like to build, first the Female Founders Alliance, and later our VC fund, Graham & Walker. In what has become a very familiar confluence of feelings, once again I find myself reaching year end with boundless gratitude and growing exhaustion.
Gratitude, first and foremost. I am grateful for the privilege to do work that I love, on my own terms, surrounded by people I respect and appreciate. Grateful for my family’s health, and the two little girls who light up my days and keep me on my toes. Grateful for the people who believe in me and make this journey possible – investors, sponsors, team, friends old and new. Grateful for my husband’s unrelenting support through almost 10 years of this entrepreneurial journey. Grateful for the founders who honor me with their trust and friendship, and let Graham & Walker be a small part of their journey.
So what did we accomplish this year? For one thing, survival – which honestly, in this market, is no small feat. I am proud that, against all odds and some extremely heavy headwinds, we continue to grow and thrive. The Female Founders Alliance is nearly 5k-founders strong, and with the support of our long standing sponsors, will continue to help founders build up their network, learn the lingo, and get fundraising ready in 2025. On the fund side, exciting new investments, portfolio company up-rounds, impressive ARR growth, lots of press and accolades – I could go on.
Most importantly, in a year of very big moments, my absolute favorite moments were those I got to share with my daughters, who are starting to understand what mommy does for a living and why she cares so much and works so hard. At a VC retreat last April, I was given the book “Braving Our Savings”, by Sarah Samuels, which we’ve read together many times now, and has helped the girls understand what it means to be an investor. In May, they hand-decorated all the name cards for our founder dinner series. In October, they got to meet Reid Hoffman one Saturday morning over Zoom – they didn’t quite understand who he was, but were thrilled to show off their legos. And then last month, they got on stage with me to accept the PSBJ Woman of Influence Award, and I used the opportunity to record a little time capsule they can return to when they’re older. My daughters give me purpose. They’re the reason I keep going.
As for the exhaustion – I think it’s possible I take on too much. (If you know me at all, you have permission to laugh at that last line). Two years ago I wrote that I had “found my running pace”. Let’s just say that my “running pace” did not take into account growing caretaking challenges, team changes, the hardest fundraising market in a generation, and my very unplanned, but VERY viral, foray into 2024 presidential politics.
So today more than ever, it is time for me to take a break. That’s why I’m putting my pen down, crossing off the last few open items that can’t wait until January, and getting on an airplane straight to the same beachside timeshare that my family has been going to almost every year since I was a baby, in Playa Hermosa, Costa Rica. We will slather on sunscreen and feel the sun in our faces and the sand in our feet. The girls will run around with all their cousins, stay up too late and enjoy the same snowcones – or copos – that I had at their age. I will spend time with my husband, trade stories with my siblings and seek wisdom from my parents. I’ll swim in the ocean until my fingers turn wrinkly. I’ll delete social media and turn off my phone for a week.
And then I’ll come back, rested and ready to welcome a brand new year in this Herculean journey of building Graham & Walker.
I wish you and your loved ones the happiest holidays and all my best wishes for 2025.
With gratitude,
Leslie
