I walk and talk a language I learnt five months ago in Boston. It’s the language of an entrepreneur fundraising on the East Coast. It’s emotionless, it’s static and it represents everything that I am not.

But I’ve learnt it. I was told I had to, so I did. I became a master and a cookie cutter, and somewhere along the 30 point font decks and KPI recitals, I lost… Me.

My passion. My spontaneity. My life.

I lost me.

But I met someone along the way, who was also traveling the path of an entrepreneur. Let me correct that, of a foreign entrepreneur on the East Coast. And that person was my token when I drifted into a dream within a dream.

He reminded me that I’m not a robot… that I don’t have all the answers, and that that’s okay. He listened for hours, not minutes… unfortunately, he moved back to Spain shortly after we met, but for that brief moment, he became my reality check.

It’s called a startup because it’s not perfect. If it were, I wouldn’t be fundraising.

No, my UX is not incredible. That can be fixed.

Are we revenue producing? Thankfully, but I need help.

What’s my traction? Instead, why not ask me how much I need to meet your expectations.

Our company is too young. Yes, I understand that and so should you. It’s called a startup.

An entrepreneur is expected to listen to an investor for hours. But we only get 5 minutes in return. And in those 5 minutes we’re supposed to make the investor understand our product, our passion and our future. In those 5 minutes we need to always, always tell a story and tell it well.

As an entrepreneur, we get one chance and that seems to me like a one-night stand. One after the other, after the next.

But I want more.

I want hours. I want a relationship. I want to be understood and understand. I could say all the right words, I can speak like you want me to. But I’m woman in the 21^st century. I have a voice. I have an opinion. And I’ll listen, but expect the same consideration in return.

Fundraising is a two way street. It’s a negotiation and it takes time. It’s not the entrepreneur who hands his hard work over to the investors and is asked to make something different of it. It is about the entrepreneur who works with the investor and makes their product, better, more solid and profitable.

What I’ve learnt in these 5 months, as an entrepreneur on the East Coast is that we are collectively, overestimating the power of Venture funds and setting aside our vision. Instead of improving our work, we are too occupied running around the city from one event to the next, pitching our product in a few minutes to anyone that will listen. We are underestimating our strength as founders and that strength is precisely what sets a successful founder apart from the crowd of headless dreamers.

My story cannot be pitched in 5 minutes. That story goes beyond metrics, beyond colorful decks… it starts in the US, moves through Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America until finding its way back to the East Coast. To an area in the United States that’s full of prosperity and opportunities, but that only those that fit a mold will succeed.

Luckily, I’ve shared this experience with many great entrepreneurs, mentors and investors that have come before us and who have taught us how to walk a path less beaten and more painful at times, but always worthwhile.

To those people, thank you.

Thank you for caring beyond a few minutes and a one-night stand.

Thank you for building a relationship with our team that will transcend cities and time.

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BeConnections is a B2B networking platform that enables small and medium businesses (SMBs) across markets, groups and industries to showcase their companies and build relationships with local partners and clients, online. Join us for free on www.beconnections.com to find and to connect with leads in over 40 countries and 25 major industries, worldwide.

Why is it easier to find a date online than a list of potential business partners? Resource strapped companies spend time and money on costly expansion strategies and outreach tactics, whereas it’s so simple to go on match.com and filter by multiple categories to connect with eligible men (or ladies) within a 10 mile radius.

This boggled my mind a few years ago and hence the origins of BeConnections.

In my former life, before embarking in the wonderful world of entrepreneurship, I used to map out business communities in emerging markets for investment climate reports that were distributed in international newspapers. My company would send me out on the field and ask me to provide them with a list of companies divided by categories, which could serve as examples of their industry in that country. I had to identify local resources and coordinate and spearhead meetings with industry and government leaders. This was my job and each time, I had to start from scratch.

I started doing this kind of work when I was 23 years old and lasted until I was well over 26. I was a young woman alone in often times a male dominated society. The experience was incredible and also very enlightening. This is what I learned on the field:

1. We are all people; don’t be scared of high-level personalities.

When I had the opportunity to meet Vice President Kgalema Motlanthe in his residence in South Africa, he was just as nervous as I was.

2. A door is never closed if pushed hard enough.

Be persistent and kind always. After 2 weeks in Kazakhstan I landed a VIP press pass for an event hosted by the UN and President Nursultan Nazarbayev. I was one of few journalists that day that had access to a room full of Heads of State and Cabinet leaders, and the only reason for this was because I sat at the Ministry of Communications for 10 days straight until I became friends with the press officer who gave me a pass.

3. Never underestimate a person’s network.

My driver in the UAE helped me land a meeting with the chief of staff of the ruler of Ras al-Khaimah because he knew someone who knew someone else that could help me get my foot in the door. Always keep the 6 degrees of separation theory in the back of your mind and ask for help when necessary.

4. One lie can kill your reputation; always be straightforward. 

Unfortunately, my predecessors hadn’t always been honest with their interviewees about how we financed our reports (local advertisement). As such, this damaged my company’s reputation, and as a result, I had to work twice as hard to gain our client’s trust. This is a great quote to paste on your wall at home: “trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair.”

5. Be open to new cultures, they aren’t wrong… just different.

I’ve traveled to over 50 countries around the world. I’ve eaten horse tongue, broken fish guts with my hands over a pool of rice, wrapped a veil over my head as a sign of respect, learnt the basics of local languages and have come to appreciate societies that are very different from my own. The more open you are to new cultures and schools of thought, the richer your business will be. Remember that people like working with people that respect and want to learn about their culture although they may not agree with it. To have the opportunity to formulate your own opinions based on experiences is a privilege – embrace it.

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More about BeConnections

BeConnections is a global and free B2B networking platform for companies. Our multiple filters – industry, country, event, and B2B community, help companies zoom into their niche partners/clients locally or abroad. Users can cross reference filters or focus on one category. Think match.com for companies.

BeConnections provides users with a bird’s eye view on industry trends, competitors and new business opportunities. Profiles make it easy for companies to stay in the loop on each other’s long-term achievements and activity, making profiles a company’s best promotional tool and a one stop shop for its B2B relationships.

Thanks to our internal messaging tool, communication between company representatives is instant. Unlike LinkedIn, status updates are about business development achievements and goals, and companies retain the connections created on their behalf even after employees move on to another job.

Join us on www.beconnections.com, hundreds of companies are already using our network to interact with each other everyday.

I’m an affectionate daughter. A loyal friend. An animal lover. A hard worker. A confident leader. I own a business, BeConnections. I’m a woman. And this week I was asked to be a global female entrepreneur.

Woah.

Naturally, I did some research online to understand what that meant. From what I gathered, it’s defines a woman who has an international company and the capacity to effect a large crowd of followers.

Some extreme examples include Co-founder of Inditex Rosalia Mera, Founder of Biocon Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Oprah Winfrey.

Professionally speaking, I can only hope to be anything like these three ladies one day.

Rosalia, a native of Spain like myself, dropped out of school at age 11 to work as a seamstress. In 1975 she and her husband, Amancio Ortega, opened the first Zara store (part of the Inditex holding), which eventually they transformed into a multi-billion dollar company. Inditex now has over 6,000 stores in 86 countries and employs 120,000 people worldwide.

At the time of her death Rosalia was the richest woman in Spain. She left $ 6.1 billion to her daughter’s name.

Money. What was the price?

I received awful news earlier this week. A motorcycle hit the young lady who took over my role at my former job. She’s my age. ~29 years old. Her name is Letizia and she’s in a coma. Letizia and I come from similar backgrounds. We were both educated abroad, hung around the same scene in Madrid, studied international relations in Washington D.C. and had at some point, worked for multilateral banks.

Letizia and I represent the millennial generation – one that is characterized by being more upbeat about the future than older adults despite poor economic conditions.

And in a split second, her life became lifeless.

It’s made me reflect on the criteria that I have applied to my own decisions.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference..

― Robert Frost

What will matter at the end is not what we did, but why we did it. My “why” is passion.

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

What’s your why?