Many of the concerns raised in this article are legitimate, and obviously aren't exclusive to tech. But the narrative presented by this article is not as compel

Many of the concerns raised in this article are legitimate, and obviously aren't exclusive to tech. But the narrative presented by this article is not as compelling as it could be because the author relies so heavily on the experience of two founders whose struggle raising seed capital mirrors that of countless male founders. Is it possible that Glassbreakers simply isn't the $100 million/year investment opportunity the founders believe it is? The author devotes just a single paragraph to this possibility: > To be fair, there are many reasons Glassbreakers might not appeal to a Founders Fund or Andreessen Horowitz, or any of the dozens of other all-male VC partnerships on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, reasons that have nothing to do with sexist bias. It’s not likely to be a Facebook, or even a Houzz, the home-remodeling site launched by an Israeli husband and wife, financed by Sequoia and now valued at $2.3 billion. Glassbreakers is by definition “gender-gated,” thereby excluding 50 percent of potential users. It also presumes that many women do feel the need for female mentorship, when in fact there is quite possibly a significant cohort of working women who think they are getting along just fine without another woman’s advice. The author then minimizes this argument by pointing out that Uber founder Travis Kalanick was able to buy a San Fransico mansion when he sold a "now-forgotten" file sharing service. This has nothing to do with Glassbreakers, and anybody who stays in this game long enough will inevitably see more inexplicable fundings and acquisitions than can be counted. Good people and ideas go without funding and exits all the time. The Glassbreakers founders were able to raise $100,000 in seed money, which the article's author humorously refers to as "pre-seed." They were looking for half a million dollars in "pre-seed" funding, but a lot of companies have problems raising. It appears Glassbreakers has some traction (1,500 registered users) since launch, but without significantly more than this, raising $1.5 million might be difficult for the founders in today's ultra-competitive environment. Just because they want an 18 month runway doesn't mean that investors are obligated to provide it. Meanwhile, there are companies like Chronus (http://chronus.com/ http://chronus.com/) and MicroMentor (http://www.micromentor.org/ http://www.micromentor.org/) that offer mentoring software corporations can use to build their own mentoring programs for employees. There is also an ecosystem of firms like Insala (http://www.insala.com http://www.insala.com) that help corporations implement mentoring programs end to end. So if Glassbreakers is ultimately going to pursue revenue through corporate opportunities, which is allued to in the article, Glassbreakers has to prove that it can differentiate itself from and compete with what's already out there. Nothing in the article suggests that it has at this early stage.