Allyson Felix On Entrepreneurship And How She Found Freedom From Fear

For most women, the path to entrepreneurship is a battle of systemic challenge, resilience, and self-belief, and it carries huge personal and financial risks. For women of color, who reportedly received a meager 0.39% of all venture capital funding in 2022, it may seem a near-impossible feat. For Allyson Felix, the most decorated American track and field athlete in Olympic history, and soon-to-be mother of two, it was a necessity. It was a decision made by a moment of awakening for Felix, that when it came to knowing her worth both on and off the track, she would not allow herself to be controlled by fear.

Her company, Saysh, founded in 2021, just weeks before her Olympic performance in Tokyo, was born from the ashes of a very public fallout with her long-term sponsor, Nike. Her decision to cut ties with the sporting giant centered on pay and maternity protections, with Felix publicly outing the company in a 2019 New York Times Op-ed for slashing her contract by 70% after becoming a mom and refusing to protect her earnings if she couldn’t perform against expectations in the months surrounding childbirth. Although the events that followed her public disclosure ended with a concession by Nike to guarantee fair treatment for their female athletes, for Felix, it was a little too late.

Moving away from her long-term sponsor took a huge emotional toll and also presented her with a very immediate problem in that she was left without a shoe sponsor ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Her frustration was heightened by research showing that prototypes for the modern athletic shoe are designed for the male foot. So Felix decided to create her own winning shoe, tailored by women, for women, on a quest to show the world of sport and business that from adversity comes opportunity, and with the right level of self-belief, women can step into their own futures.

I sat down with Allyson Felix at the World Leaders Forum in New York to discuss her learnings, having surpassed one full year off the track, focused on growing her business and advocating for gender equity. Specifically, she spoke about the challenge for women of color in the business arena, and how ultimately women need to come together to overcome fear and create change.

We are on the same team

For Allyson Felix, the decision to found a company whilst adjusting to life as a new mother and preparing for the Olympics was a huge undertaking, during one of the most challenging chapters in her athletic career. Yet it was a business created with the goal to change the narrative for female leaders and mothers. She shares that her courage came from a deep realization of how society conditions young girls, athletes, and businesswomen, to think from a place of caution above collaboration, which motivated her to create change. “For so much of my life, I was told there can be only one,” she shares, “one chance, one winner, it is you versus them, and that simply is not true”. When that filters into the business world it forces women into a constant state of comparison. The result is often a natural fear and inertia which ruminates into a controlling force. Instead, Felix wants women to see the collective opportunity of elevating each other, “we as women are not the challenge, we have to be on the same team, together we can all succeed, there is enough for everyone.”

“If not now for women, when?”

Yet she acknowledges that for many women, years of conditioning can be hard realized and even harder to break from. One way she has enabled her own self-belief is through the lens of mentorship. “As an athlete, I have had some incredible mentors, she shares, “Jackie Joyner-Kersee is one example of a woman I can always go to for support and reinforcement. As women, we need that in sport and in business”. For Felix, the power of mentorship motivated her to use her platform and address inequality. “I grew up around some incredible women and role models. I saw female athletes be made to choose between sport and motherhood, and I recognized the women that came before me, the sacrifices they made, and I thought, if I don’t try, who will?” Like many mothers, having a baby daughter and facing the same cycle of systemic challenge she had seen others face before, also made her realize when it comes to the fight for gender equality, if not now, when?

Funding through the sisterhood

Yet even for a woman who has continually defied the odds, as famous as Allyson Felix, representation and access to funding was not easy. She faced the same hurdles many female entrepreneurs face. One of the main challenges she sees is the pitch process, especially as a woman of color. “Being the only female in the room, the only person who looks like you do in what are often very uncomfortable spaces, has been really hard. I had always heard about how hard it is to raise capital, but coping with rejection, trying to come up and show up, again and again, is really hard.”

She found a solution by what she calls, “looking to the sisterhood.” Her company, Saysh, closed a series A with an $8 million round led by specialist consumer fund IRIS Ventures, a woman-led fund and one that closely aligns with Saysh’s woman-centric ethos. When asked what can be done to close the seismic gap in venture capital funding for women, Felix says we need more female led funds, “we need to stop talking about the problem and put the money behind it.” In simple terms, it seems like the obvious solution: if men don’t invest in women, women will do it themselves, enabling a much-needed break for female talent that would have otherwise been overlooked.

In an environment where female founders are on track to raise approximately 2.1% of USA VC funding in 2023, with white males controlling 93% of VC Dollars annually, there are undoubtedly many missed opportunities for women. Yet this option is also challenged by scale, and the reality that women equate to less than 15% of venture capital check-writers and cap tables reflect that. When a woman as accomplished as Allyson Felix can see firsthand the systemic hurdles of being an outsider to the homogenous, white, male-dominated world of venture capital, it signifies the vast scale of challenges ahead for women across the entrepreneurship spectrum.

Allyson Felix has become known not just for her unrivaled number of appearances on the Olympic podium, but also for highlighting the fight for equality on behalf of mothers and female entrepreneurs on a global stage. Her entrepreneurial journey creates a reason to celebrate her determination and reflect on the tough realities for female founders. It is a telltale story of how, for women, fear is often a subtle yet controlling force in preventing from challenging the status quo. Yet through mentorship, support, and a sense of self-belief, there comes opportunity, and as Allyson puts it in her message to other women who aspire to own and run businesses we need to foster an ethos of “always bet on yourself.”