When I quit my job on Wall Street to launch Invibed, I heard every reason why my idea wasn't going to work. Millennials don't care about money. Really smart people have already tried to solve this problem and failed. And of course, only 3 percent of venture capital goes to female founders.

A few months ago, my co-founder and I were on a business trip when we received a call. We were one of 12 startups accepted into the NYU Steinhardt EdTech Accelerator powered by StartEd. Being accepted meant we would participate in a three-month immersive program in New York City and that we were eligible for up to $170,000 in investment, funded by Rethink Education. We had just become part of the 3 percent.

An Accelerator That Is The Exception Not The Norm

Knowing "what is," we were prepared to be the only female founders in our cohort. But walking into the first day at StartEd, we forgot ‘what is’ and were reminded of "what could be."

Within the first few minutes, you must establish your credibility.

That is keen advice from Krista Morgan, CEO of P2Binvestor since 2012 and co-host of “Women Who Startup” radio podcasts.

“I often just emphasize my degree, my portfolio growth and put my expertise in context,” says Morgan, whose company deals in access to lines of credit from $250,000 to $10 million.

“I walk into a room of people in finance and they don’t expect you to be a CEO of a finance company. So I overcome that bias.” She adds, “I also try to be a slightly more serious and less friendly version of myself.”

Morgan’s company, P2Binvestor (that stands for People to Business), “is a financial technology company providing large lines of credit to growing companies who are too big for small business loans but cannot yet access a traditional bank line of credit. We partner with private investors and banks to provide our clients with competitively priced, flexible, and scalable capital. We also build amazing technology that makes it easy to manage large, asset-based lines of credit,” according to the company site.

Morgan is a leader in FinTech, the growing field merging finance and technology with a startling lack of gender diversity.

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