Laurel Donnellan 0:00

Laurel Donnellan 5:45
I'm I am so excited today to have Molly Hayek, the founder and CEO of AQI. It is a crowd funding platform for women founders, if that's correct, Molly. And welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Compassionate Leaders Circle.

MollyHuyck 6:23
Thanks for having me, Laurel. I'm excited to have a chat with you.

Laurel Donnellan 6:26
Yeah, so I'm very curious about you as a person, and before we get into what you do now, like where you grew up and educated, and what was your career before doing this?

MollyHuyck 6:40
Okay, so many places to start. So I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. I have was raised in a family of I have four siblings. We all were encouraged to play sports because there's more in life than just yourself and learning to win, you know, there's more in life than winning all the time, too. So I grew up wanting to be innovative, kind of break the rules a little bit. I went to Creighton University. I went to grad school at Creighton, and I was going to go into accounting, and rather than going into accounting, my now husband said, "Hey, why don't you write the software that the accountants are going to use, and I joined the computers, the computer science group, and I was only one of there was one other female and one other woman in the program, and that kind of set the stage, if you will, for all of my career, I tend to be the usually one of very few women at the table. I got my first corporate job at Union Pacific Railroad, where I was the only female systems engineer, and I saw different ways of working, I saw different ways of innovating, yet at a company where the 150 year old company, where the same tenure is more important sometimes than innovation. I wasn't able to break the mold or to encourage as much innovation as I wanted to, so I actually started my own company in the internet.com era and had a great, we actually exited, we sold the company, and as part of that company, I did consulting for PayPal, and they asked me if I wanted to actually join PayPal at the time, and I said no, I have a company, but my partner, my business partner, said yes, and long story short, I actually got the position that I recommended they create back in the day, and again at PayPal, I was fortunate enough to travel the world, help create the operations teams, open up operation centers across the world, and ultimately led the operations strategy, where we defined how we service 400 million customers across the globe in 29 languages, and I think 20 some currencies. That's where I also had the opportunity to mentor three women entrepreneurs across the globe. So, PayPal had partnered with the Sherry Blair Foundation, and Sherry Blair Foundation is where they're there, she helps women entrepreneurs get access to capital to start and grow businesses. That's where I learned that there was a $5 trillion gap in the global GDP, because women don't have the same access as men to start companies. And as I was wrapping up my career at PayPal, I decided to really understand that problem, or multiple hypotheses on why that's the case. I researched it quite a bit, and ultimately wanted to do something about it. So, I created AQI Equitos, Innovate, or Equitas Invest. Equitas is the goddess of fairness and equity, so I created that, and here we are, two years later.

Laurel Donnellan 10:08
That's such a rich background, and so talk it. You could talk to this globally. Is access for women to capital getting any better? Is it getting worse? Is it staying the same? What's the state of the union here?

MollyHuyck 10:27
Yeah, it's actually - I would say generally the same. It's flat, but in fact, in 2025 it got worse, especially for venture capital. So, because most of the venture capital firms are looking for that AI unicorn, and they're typically investing for the same, so whether it's the same, they want to, they want to invest in what worked before, and typically that's a man, it's a man who's gone to the same universities or the same network of universities, and they've got the same network of people, and so it's very easy for men founders to get access to capital, but in doing the my market research, you know, women are in 2026 are doing crazy things, such as adding a male co-founder who knows nothing about the business just to get a meeting with venture capitalists, and despite the times, and despite how progressive and how things have improved, you know, 50 years ago we couldn't get a credit card, women couldn't get a credit card without a male signer. Things have improved, but we still have a long, long road ahead.

Laurel Donnellan 11:34
So, tell me about what inspired you to create this company, and when that happened, and how is it going?

MollyHuyck 11:42
Yeah, so one of the things that PayPal, I had a male leader, the operations officer was very intentional about bringing women to his leadership table. He knew that women worked differently, and I saw it and lived it, and we exceeded all of our goals. We created operational efficiency for the business, while exceeding and creating world-class customer service metrics, and so seeing that live and in person really just, it really formed who my corporate self became, and then as I did this research, where women don't have that same access as men to start or grow businesses, but yet they have higher returns. So, the research shows that for every dollar invested in a woman, she returns 78 cents on that dollar, versus a man returns 31 cents on that dollar. So, women investors, or excuse me, investors are leaving millions of dollars on the table just by not investing equally, let alone more so in women. Now, of course, I can't make promises. Investing is risky, but you know there are higher returns in women-run businesses. We work differently, we make $1 go a lot further, we spend differently, we're a little bit more creative sometimes.

Laurel Donnellan 13:05
And where did that research come from? That's fascinating to me.

MollyHuyck 13:09
Yes, so Boston Consulting Group is one of many who have researched this, and the research continues. You know, there's a couple of different organizations that have researched the findings there,

Laurel Donnellan 13:23
and is, is that globally or us?

MollyHuyck 13:26
That's us,

Laurel Donnellan 13:27
us amazing. So, that alone should get you to the API website. That's right. So, can you talk to me a little bit of maybe some stories about the, I guess you call them issuers and funders, right? Tell me, tell me about issuers and funders, and your platform, and maybe a couple of stories of real businesses that are getting funded.

MollyHuyck 13:53
Yeah, absolutely. So, our platform, the Equitables Invest platform, is essentially an online Shark Tank, if you will, it connects founders or women entrepreneurs with investors, and so our platform lets them tell their stories, share their pitch decks, provide the documentation in order to get people aware of the opportunity to invest in them, and the investors are those who you know, make choices. Typically, I recommend investing in businesses that align with your values, because I think that really matters. And when you have, when a founder has investors that align with their values, they become immediate customers, they become immediate brand ambassadors and advocates for you. So it creates this great flywheel. So I'm excited that we, we recently were at a conference in Salt Lake City, and we talked to 150 founders, and when we asked them the story of tell us about your funding situation, you know, a handful of them got very emotional because it's so hard for women to get money, whether it's venture capital, whether it's small business loans, whether whatever the avenue is. It's difficult, and they're very emotional, they're very passionate about their businesses. They're very - the businesses are very mission-driven. And one that she's actually out of Omaha, where I'm based. She's created a med tech device called Triage 360 for which she has contracts from NATO and multiple countries, but she actually wants - she needs funding in order to take the product from prototype to her to production, and these contracts she has, you know, they, they don't turn into cash flow for many, many months, and the fact that, you know, she is creating a device that will impact and save, you know, hopefully 1000s of people across the globe is very exciting. So that's one great story of, you know somebody who's made a difference. She was a nurse practitioner, is a nurse practitioner, survived COVID, and probably a little bit traumatized from COVID, and wanted to do something a little differently.

Laurel Donnellan 16:12
And tell us, is there a vetting process? Do you guys vet all of your businesses before they get on the platform.

MollyHuyck 16:22
Absolutely, so the because we are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA, we have certain requirements to both create trust with investors, but also to make sure that we are backing good founders. So we do a background check on the founders. We also do a KYC AML, know your customer, and anti-money laundering check on investors to make sure there's no bad actors that we're connecting. We also do a rigorous vetting process for the founders, so we review their pitch deck, we review, we are required to do an accounting review, depending on the amount they want to raise. There's either a full audit or just a basic review by a third-party accountant, and we also have many conversations making sure that they're ready. You have there is work required for a successful campaign. You have to have a handful of investors ready to get that flywheel going to then attract other investors who don't necessarily know you, you also have to be out there marketing and advocating for yourself and telling your story, so we actually also have a number of affiliates who help, who help where there might be a gap in telling that story, so whether it's the marketing material or pitch deck or pro forma or accounting and legal requirements that are needed, we have a community I keep landing on this word community. We have a community that we've created to help the founders make sure they're successful

Laurel Donnellan 17:58
and tell us how much does someone need to invest to become an investor on your platform?

MollyHuyck 18:05
Sure, so an investor can invest as little as $150 up to a certain amount based on their accreditation status. So you know, I really love crowdfunding because it democratizes the ability for everyone to invest before the Jobs Act of 2012 Only accredited investors with a certain net worth or income could actually invest. So, I love that now. People, everyone can invest a certain amount of their income and really support these, these businesses.

Laurel Donnellan 18:40
That's amazing, so let's say I invest $300 What kind of return can I expect if, if I, if the business does well? And how does that, you know, how does that look for an investor? Down, sure.

MollyHuyck 18:57
So, in exchange for your investment, you receive equity, and that equity then turns into a return, depending on dividends or an exit strategy. So, if the, you know, if the founder releases dividends because they want to pay themselves or give themselves a little bit of extra cash for all their sweat equity, or they are acquired, sell, or you know, you hold on to it long term, that's where your return comes in. There's also the ability to trade on a secondary market and equity. We are planning to build a secondary market in the near future, so say, for instance, you spent that $300 you now want to dilute that and maybe convert it and invest in something else. You will have the ability to trade that on the secondary market.

Laurel Donnellan 19:48
And before we got started today, you mentioned that you wanted to communicate to women that there's this opportunity of investing. What do you want to say to women who may not have thought about investing before.

MollyHuyck 20:03
Yeah, so an interesting story here. When I was getting ready to retire from my corporate life, I didn't.. I was like, what do I do with how do I take money and do something other than invest in the public market? And honestly, I didn't know that I could like invest in privately held businesses, so I actually invested personally in a vineyard. I invested in a couple of other businesses that I felt passionately about, and so while crowdfunding and Equitas invest is open both to men and women investors, there is a correlation with the more women investors there are, the more women founders get funded in. So it's very important to, for women in particular, to know that they can invest in businesses that they should look at the opportunity, and, like I said earlier, invest in businesses that align with your, your personal values. I think that's where you can make a difference,

Laurel Donnellan 21:05
and it could be fun. I mean, instead of just putting all your money in a 401 k, which is not a bad place to put money, maybe there is something more personal you can think about and grow and support other women. so I often interview people that are either corporate leaders or entrepreneurs, but you have this beautiful story that has both, you know, feels like it's you've lived both in both worlds. if there's people listening out there that are thinking about being an entrepreneur, could you sort of give your perspective of what it takes to be an entrepreneur versus what it takes to be successful internally in a larger business?

MollyHuyck 22:02
Yeah. yes, interesting times. So, at PayPal, I was able to kind of keep my entrepreneurial spirit, because I was always helping grow different parts of the world or organization in a fun way that kept my spirits going. Being an entrepreneur, I think there's a couple of different entrepreneurs. There's those that are very passionate about their product or service, but they don't necessarily know how to run the business or how to read a financial statement, or you know how to make hard decisions that you know with limited resources, whether it's money or employees or technology, you really have to prioritize, and it is a lot of work. It's a lot of perseverance and grit, and it's also a lot. There's loneliness too, I would say, when you're alone and you know there's so much to do, and really getting focused on that versus a corporate life where you have a team where you have peers who you can rely on, who you can collaborate with. It's quite different, and while I thought I was stressed in my corporate life, I'm way more stressed in my entrepreneurship life, but, but I love it. It does take, it just takes a lot of focus, and a lot of, you know, you've got to stick with it. You know, I found a passion, and every day I get up and show got the grit to keep it coming back. I also know that I'm not the smartest person in the room. I always want to listen. It's, it's helpful to talk to other people, talk to other founders who are in a similar situation, and I think again, that's where community comes in. Having a community of people who, well, you might not be in the same product or service or industry, you, you still have the same challenges, you still have the same, you know, financial, HR, legal, technology, you still have some of those same opportunities. So that's where I think having the conversation and really building that network of people that you trust really, really helps.

Laurel Donnellan 24:19
I appreciate that you talked about loneliness. I've had my own business for it'll be 30 years in January, and as you were saying that, I was like, I miss an IT department, and I remember waking up once, like was only a few years in, and I remember waking up and thinking, I just want a boss, I want a

MollyHuyck 24:46
boss. Yeah,

Laurel Donnellan 24:47
that only happened like for 24 hours, but I really, so how do you, as someone doing something innovative, and I also think, like, you're out there fighting waves that are pretty tough, right? This, this bias against women, despite the, the proof that the ROI is better. Like, so, what do you do personally to, you know, psych yourself up on those hard days.

MollyHuyck 25:26
I actually think getting away, like going for a walk, is a great sort of sanity check, and just getting out in the open and letting the breeze hit my, my cheek, it's a great way just to disconnect, but when I come back from those walks, or like I'll do a workout, you know, four or five days a week with my sister, I come back and I've got different thoughts in mind, I've got different like reminders, or like, oh, I need to prioritize these things, so getting away from kind of the task list, if you will, and really does help my sanity, and helps just reframe things, and the priorities, and even the why, like I'm in this for a reason, and I want to make this happen, and I've got, like, we've got such a, got a great team with Amie and Janessa, we've got a great pipeline of founders who want help, who need help, and are going to change the world with their products and services. I, you know, stick with it, but also take a break, like it's okay to let that email wait for one more day. It's not the end of the world.

Laurel Donnellan 26:35
Yeah, for me, it's taking time off, real time off, definitely getting away, and I also, I am a champion sleeper. I am very good at sleeping. I have data, like I'm using my Apple Watch right now, and I had two nights of a 98 score out of 100 for sleeping, and so I find myself saying a lot to myself and my team, let's sleep on it, because if I get, if I, I wake up with answers that I wouldn't have had in the moment,

MollyHuyck 27:08
100% Yeah,

Laurel Donnellan 27:10
so talk to me about your, your team, and, and I'm very interested in, you have this, you know, these three women, including yourself, and how do you divide duties, and how are you the same, and how are you different?

MollyHuyck 27:24
Great question. So, Amie Konwinski, who is the Chief Operating Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, all the all the above, she is an amazing, like, she gets stuff done, and she is a bulldog and doesn't stop, she has, she has a very interesting background. She was in the Navy, also in technology, but also then started a nonprofit focused on kids and technology and helping them when getting bullied, and it was a national nonprofit that was actually acquired recently, so her, she and I complement each other very well. I like, I think where we operate best is when I can be in the visionary stage, where I seem to thrive, but I also can execute, I can get stuff done, but that's where we divide and conquer, and are very clear on we set our 2026 priorities, we have a weekly let's go through those priorities. Where are we with these? Where are we missing the boat? Where did we maybe over project or under forecast? And how are we getting that back on on track? Amie can wear, as I already said, like, multiple hats, and is is not afraid of going the distance. We also have Janessa Nations, who is a part of our team. She's the client services manager, so we brought her on fairly early as we were building out the compliance arm and working with the SEC and Finra to make sure that once we this dial gets turned up, that we're able, we've all created the same SOPs and WSPs, we've got the right standards in place, we are all going to be able to follow them, or when we hire more client services manager, we're ready for them to just go through the list and make sure we're following the process very, very clearly. So she's been great in onboarding different founders. So, once we talk to the founders, we help them with the application process, and Janessa helps them with all of the details that are required for a successful raise.

Laurel Donnellan 29:35
And how are you finding founders? And how are you finding funders?

MollyHuyck 29:40
So, there's no shortage of founders who need help. This conference, where that we attended, that's focused on women entrepreneurs. We spoke to at least 150 and from that we have probably 10 to 13 hot leads that are ready to go. I think any, they want together, they want to raise 13 to $20 million which is way more than my pro forma ever projected. Interesting on that, that you know we're finding women want to raise way more money than I modeled initially, so that's great. We're the founder, excuse me, the investors were finding multiple ways we are using, of course, organic media, we're using social media, we're using SEO and AI placement, but we're also planning on doing a raise on a competitor site, and they're aware that we're doing that in order to make investors on those platforms aware that there's this opportunity on Equitas Invest,

Laurel Donnellan 30:41
nice and I feel like all my conversations have to touch on AI these days, and the way that I start these conversations with someone like you is, and as a, as a founder myself, about a year ago, Mark Cuban says, you know, that AI is going to help small businesses be more competitive. I didn't really understand what he was talking about a year ago. I think I understand a lot more now, but can you speak to how women entrepreneurs should be using AI or should not be using AI,

MollyHuyck 31:24
so I use responsible AI one to make sure we're not taking all the resources down in the world, but two, that you're actually setting a precedence for your team. I really think it's important for founders to set the stage and explain to their teams, here's where I want us to use AI and not let them figure it out, but I think the quality it will be very different, and interestingly, we actually just had a workshop for founders to help them do what we did internally, so I've invested in Claude, and took the time to actually configure Claude. I now have a Claude, an advisory board for with many different roles. I've got an antagonistic, I've got marketing, I've got legal, I've got all the different roles that an advisory board should have I have a CEO coach, and I also have a marketing persona, and I've done this not for just Equitas Invest, but for my second business that I founded, which happens to be a women's sports bar, so I've done this configuration for Claude, and I even for like basic decisions, such as should my sports bar be open on july 4, which is a Saturday, employee morale. These are the things that I'm thinking about, and it just like spits back an answer. Or for Equitas Invest, should we invest the time to go to this conference when we have these priorities, like what's going to be the return, and it does the research, and it's kind of become my sounding board, besides doing what I think AI does for most of us, which is like maybe help improve an email, organize email and files. I use it more if you configure it appropriately, you can use it in a way that is beneficial and fill some of those gaps that I think founders have,

Laurel Donnellan 33:23
so to create those agents. I'm just new to Claude, but I've been obsessed with it. I was, I had an operation of four weeks ago, and I, I've been like spending way too many hours on Claude. But do you have to get like paid business Claude to do that, or can you do that with a,

MollyHuyck 33:43
so I do believe you have to have the team version of Claude in order to use the cowork. I think you can still, you can still configure just the chat piece with your voice and your tone, and but really to use it to create marketing plan. We use it to create marketing plans to help our founders, as well as us, and then from that you can say, "Now, tell me what I need to be posting today, like create the content for today's post based on the plan. So, I do think it's worth investing in the not necessarily the enterprise version, but at least the team version.

Laurel Donnellan 34:16
Yeah, great advice for me and others. This has been an amazing conversation. I always like to ask everyone who's on my podcast, what is one life lesson you'd like to share with our listeners, and what is one leadership lesson?

MollyHuyck 34:36
They're probably one in the same. I think the leadership lesson is that make sure you make space for everyone to have a seat at the table. I think life is hard and different people are going through different things at different times, and I think especially after Covid and everybody going remote, I think the world has just become a little bit different place, so make sure you make room for other people, whether that's in the at the corporate table or whether that's in the world, and also community, like get out and have conversations, build those networks, just talk to friends and like meet other people. I just think that there's so much that we can learn by being open and not being the smartest person in the room.

Laurel Donnellan 35:30
I love that you have a platform and you have a sports bar, because you're kind of modeling a lot of community, you know, online community helping women. What can you tell us a little bit about your sports bar and what it's called, and where that idea came from?

MollyHuyck 35:49
Sure. So, also, while I retired, I was, or while I was getting ready to retire, I was hearing about these women's sports bars on the West Coast. So, the first was the sports bra in Portland, and the second was Rough and Tumble in Seattle, and me being the entrepreneur, I was like, somebody really should do that, but I really don't know anything about the restaurant industry, other than I like really good food, and cocktails, and mocktails, and wine, and I had the opportunity to visit Rough and Tumble, I met with Jen Barnes, the owner. She's amazing. She was like, oh my gosh, Nebraska just had 93,000 fans in your football stadium for a volleyball game. That's crazy. As I mentioned at the beginning, I grew up playing sports. I love sports in general, but I especially love women's sports, and I kept thinking to myself, I think Omar could handle a women's sports bar, and no one was doing it, and so I decided to do it the way I wanted to do it, so I founded Set the Bar, so I actually founded Set the Bar and Equitas Invest on International Women's Day in 2024 in March, and I founded them on the same day, and both, obviously, both very focused on gender equality, but very different, and I actually live a lot of the pain that I'm trying to help Equitas Invest founders get away from, so Seth the Bar was the is the eighth women's sports bar in the United States, we very inclusive, innovative space with values that I want a space where everyone is welcome and people feel that, and they like when my customers or guests come in to set the bar, they feel like it's different, it's unique, and they feel the vibe and the intention that I put behind it, and so I'm very proud that to have created that. But again, I could not have done that without a team. I create, you know, hiring a general manager and a chef and somebody to help and Caitlin for the the events and community. I could not have done it without them. So I'm very proud to have survived over a year and a half of having set the bar open.

Laurel Donnellan 38:04
Well, that I'm smiling because my first career was in hospitality, so I give you a lot of credit for taking that on, and sometimes I think it's better for people to, to, that don't know about hospitality to jump in, so being a women's sports sport sounds like everyone is welcome, but do you only show women's sports on, like, the screens, or as

MollyHuyck 38:34
we.. we.. so our mission is to elevate women's sports. We do show men's sports. The World Cup has been great for us this year. I can't wait to go to Brazil next year for the women's World Cup, but we do play both, we, but we do prioritize women's sports, because women's sports are the only 15% are on mainstream media, so it's twice the budget of a typical sports bar to show and have access to the different apps that are needed in order to play them, so it's become a spot where whether it's the National Women's Soccer League, whether it's the WNBA, or of course volleyball, which is huge in the state of Nebraska, we'll have it on.

Laurel Donnellan 39:16
I had no idea that volleyball was huge at the state of Nebraska. I learned many things from you today. So, as you look into your crystal ball as a visionary, what is your hope for women founders, for women's funding? Where do you want to move the needle in the future?

MollyHuyck 39:35
Yeah, I really am wanting to move the needle on making capital accessible for women founders who really want to make a difference in the world and make it profitable for investors, while also impacting the global economy. Like, I just think that there's so much opportunity when women founders get funded, they do good things, and when they do good things and earn money, they also spend money differently. They spend money on their community, on their schools, in ways that are different than men spend. And to me, that's just making the world a little bit better place. And that's how I want to leave it.

Laurel Donnellan 40:14
And how do we find out about your wonderful platform, AQI, and your sports bar? Where do we find you?

MollyHuyck 40:21
Sure, so Equitas invest calm. You can, of course, find us on LinkedIn, you can find us on Instagram, as well as Facebook. So Equitas, just look for a goddess. Equitas, as I mentioned, is the goddess of fairness and equity. So that's the our icon that you will see, and then set the bar is set dash the bar.com Again, you can also search for us on Facebook and Instagram too.

Laurel Donnellan 40:51
Thank you for what you do every day, Molly. It's been a pleasure getting to know you. Thank you for being with me today.

MollyHuyck 40:57
Thank you so much, Laurel. Laurel, I appreciate it.

Laurel Donnellan 41:00
My pleasure. Amie, still here? Good, I'm still

Amie Konwinski 41:09
here. That was awesome.

Laurel Donnellan 41:11
Anything you want to add, or any thing? I mean, you guys can think about it, but if there's anything you want me to include in the Forbes post, if you have research or anything like that, I'll just, you know, you're saving me any, any resources like that, you can just email me. But I think that was pretty great.

MollyHuyck 41:38
Cool. Any anything I missed that you think needs to be called out.

Amie Konwinski 41:43
Yeah, absolutely. I got some Instagram posts while you're on there. I would say Laurel AQI. There's only about 50 active crowdfunding sites. We are the only one founded by women. We have the only one with a full, like, women's team, and we're the only one working for women, so we're very different, differentiated between the value proposition that you have to be 50% women or fem-owned to be on our site, so, and, and we are not, for, like Molly said, you know, adding a male just to get a seat at the table, like women don't have to do that with

Laurel Donnellan 42:15
us. Nice, nice. Well, I love what you're up to. It's been a pleasure getting to know you, and I'll let you go to go change the world and do all the wonderful things you're doing every day, and I'll be back in touch with you.

MollyHuyck 42:27
Thanks, Laurel.

Laurel Donnellan 42:28
Okay, be

Unknown Speaker 42:29
well, thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai