Brown Girls, Money Moves

10 Years in the Making: Lisa Mattam & Manica Blain on Sahajan's Sephora Moment

Ten years ago, Lisa Mattam started ⁠Sahajan⁠ [https://www.sahajan.com/] with a simple bet: that the Ayurvedic rituals her parents brought from Kerala could stand beside any clinical skincare brand on the market. This episode, recorded live in Toronto, lands on the exact week that bet pays off, with Sahajan rolling out to Sephora's Next Big Thing wall. Joining Lisa is Manica Blain of ⁠Top Knot Ventures⁠ [https://www.topknotventures.com/], an early-stage consumer investor. Manica and Lisa's relationship goes back years, but it was a deep dive into Sahajan's repeat-purchase data that turned Manica from a believer in the brand into one of its most active backers. We talked about what happens when an investor tells you "not yet" and how to actually hear it, why live selling became one of Sahajan's most powerful community tools, the real math behind customer loyalty and lifetime value, and why founders who pace their growth deliberately are often the ones built for longterm success. Brown Girls, Money Moves is hosted by Bhargavi Varma. Henah Velez is Executive Producer, with video support from Amanda Wan. Theme music from Indo Warehouse. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/sAcyrtES-zI [https://youtu.be/sAcyrtES-zI] — 💌 Want more about angel investing, South Asian female founder stories, and belonging to a community that builds and funds Brown girl businesses? Find us on all social platforms @browngirlangels.

From Covid (& Tariffs) to Cross-Border Commerce: Building a Global Shipping Platform with Rathna Sharad & Mahati Sridhar

First with Covid and again with global tariffs, cross-border shipping went from an industry footnote to a global issue overnight. Rathna Sharad saw it as a problem to solve, and she set out to do so with FlavorCloud [https://flavorcloud.com/]—and Rathna sits down with us to share her journey. Joining Rathna is Mahati Sridhar from Revolution [https://www.revolution.com/]'s Rise of the Rest fund, which backed FlavorCloud back at the pre-seed stage. Revolution has built its entire thesis around finding founders in the cities everyone else overlooks. We talked about what it means to be "married to the problem" long before you have a business plan, why place can be a founder's unfair advantage instead of a limitation, how to actually build trust with investors when the world is on fire around you, and what separates founders who are just along for the ride from the ones who turn a moment of chaos into their moment. Brown Girls, Money Moves is hosted by Bhargavi Varma. Henah Velez is Executive Producer, with video support from Amanda Wan. Theme music from Indo Warehouse. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/uIgATng2Eow — 💌 Want more about angel investing, South Asian female founder stories, and belonging to a community that builds and funds Brown girl businesses? Find us on all social platforms @browngirlangels.

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud with Priyanka Jain & Nisha Dua: Evvy & the Business of Women's Health

The gap holding back women’s health may have been hiding in plain sight all along—and the person to find it wasn’t a doctor, but a 26-year-old entrepreneur with a background in machine learning and unanswered questions about her own body. I’m talking about Priyanka Jain, founder of Evvy [https://www.evvy.com/]—the company building the first and largest database of the vaginal microbiome, and the team behind Evvy AI, the first AI advisor for vaginal health. We're also joined by Nisha Dua of BBG Ventures [https://www.bbgventures.com/], one of Evvy's earliest investors and the co-founder of one of the first funds to put a real stake in the ground for women and underrepresented founders—back in 2014, before it was much of a talking point.  We got into why leading with the opportunity is the smartest thing an unconventional founder can do, what it actually looks like to build in a category that barely existed when you started, and how these two women ended up at the forefront of one of the most underfunded and overlooked spaces in healthcare. Brown Girls, Money Moves is hosted by Bhargavi Varma. Henah Velez is Executive Producer, with video support from Amanda Wan. Theme music from Indo Warehouse. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/tEIsvY3HrNM [https://youtu.be/tEIsvY3HrNM] — 💌 Want more about angel investing, South Asian female founder stories, and belonging to a community that builds and funds Brown girl businesses? Find us on all social platforms @browngirlangels.

How Fandom, Resilience, and a Really Good Memo from Zehra Naqvi Led to a $1M Raise with Marina Girgis

What if the things you've been obsessed with since you were nine years old turned out to be the basis for a $1M business idea? That's what happened for Zehra Naqvi, founder of Lore [https://www.loreobsessed.com/]—the AI-powered fandom search platform that already has hundreds of thousands of people on its waitlist. We're also joined by Marina Girgis of Precursor Ventures [http://precursorvc.com/], one of their earliest believers and a pre-seed investor. We got into why obsession is an underrated investment thesis, what it actually takes to pitch a VC when you have nothing but an idea and a really good memo, and how two women with unconventional paths found their way to the cutting edge of consumer AI. Brown Girls, Money Moves is hosted by Bhargavi Varma. Henah Velez is Executive Producer, with video support from Amanda Wan. Theme music from Indo Warehouse. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/GrxrEwl2VTY [https://youtu.be/GrxrEwl2VTY] — 💌 Want more about angel investing, South Asian female founder stories, and belonging to a community that builds and funds Brown girl businesses? Find us on all social platforms @browngirlangels.

"I Don't Want Mentoring, I Want Cash": How Eshita Kabra-Davies Turned a Cold LinkedIn DM into Funding, with Triin Linamagi

Building a peer-to-peer startup from scratch is hard—but doing it sustainably, profitably, and on your own terms? That's a different level entirely. Fresh off of winning Retail Entrepreneur of the Year, Eshita Kabra-Davies, founder of By Rotation [https://byrotation.com/], joins us today along with her investor, Triin Linamagi of Sie Ventures [https://www.sie.ventures/], to discuss this milestone, balancing authenticity and community with the risk of seeming cringe, and how to turn a cold connection into a funding relationship. Brown Girls, Money Moves is hosted by Bhargavi Varma. Henah Velez is Executive Producer, with video support from Amanda Wan. Theme music from Indo Warehouse. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/IUmkBJ2MLHk [https://youtu.be/IUmkBJ2MLHk] — 💌 Want more about angel investing, South Asian female founder stories, and belonging to a community that builds and funds Brown girl businesses? Find us on all social platforms @browngirlangels.