Meet Ariel Beck

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ariel Beck. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ariel, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

Despite growing up with a female entrepreneur as a mother, I never considered how entrepreneurship and leadership affected my interests. It wasn’t until August of 2016 that I experienced this passion begin to blossom. When I was 13 years old, my mother was invited to speak at Amazon’s First Women Entrepreneurs Conference and she invited my sister and I to join. At the event, I listened to female entrepreneurs detail the lack of representation and funding they received throughout their career. In this moment, I realized how fortunate I had been to be surrounded by female role models and entrepreneurs my entire life. It was then that I realized I owed it to other young women to help them gain this experience. As I became invested in promoting female entrepreneurship, the information I uncovered was startling. At the time, only 5% of all venture capital funding went to female led startups, whereas 95% of funding went to male founded startups. While I knew I wanted to change these statistics, I was unsure what a 13 year old could do to affect change.

Upon arriving home, I decided to start by inviting a female entrepreneur to speak to a group of ten of my friends. While it was inspiring to listen to this female leader dictate the journey of her career, I was discouraged as I considered how one event could change those statistics. While the group was small, this one event sparked the creation of an organization that today has over 60 chapters and 6,000 members across the country and internationally.

Through Girls Who Start, we aim to combat the gender inequality embedded in the venture and startup sector. Female-founded startups lack support, credit, and funding with less than 2% of venture capital funding provided to female-founded startups while the remaining 98% is awarded to those founded by men. However, disparities plague women long before they enter the workforce. Research shows that young women around the world are less likely to see entrepreneurship as a career path because they are not exposed to female entrepreneurs as role models. Additionally, within middle schools, high schools, and colleges, young women are given few opportunities to engage with their entrepreneurial spirit and do not receive targeted support from their schools. This is the problem that Girls Who Start is working to change.

At Girls Who Start, we inspire by creating events which showcase female entrepreneurs, we build by providing tools to make ideas into a reality, and we connect by creating a community of future female entrepreneurs and leaders who want to change the world. We have touched thousands of middle school, high school, and college students through our entrepreneurship summits, hackathons, global entrepreneurship zoom chats and workshops, and our scholarship program. Girls Who Start chapters at local high schools, middle schools, and universities give young women leadership opportunities while also fostering an internationally connected community of young leaders interested in entrepreneurship.

Our method works. Since joining Girls Who Start, 280 young women have developed ideas for ventures at our hackathons and many young women have started their own individual ventures. This represents the power that support and mentorship has in inspiring the next generation of female leaders.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Originally from Bethesda, Maryland, I am now a senior at Harvard College studying Economics. As the Founder and President of Girls Who Start, I built and now lead the national management team and Board of Directors and I mentor chapter presidents by hosting monthly meetings, creating speaker programs, and designing training, development, and organizational materials.

In 2022, I was selected by the Helen Diller Foundation as a Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Awardee. This award recognizes 15 teens across the country for their leadership in social impact and working to build a better world. Shortly after, in 2023, I was awarded the Ellis Island Honors Society Beacon Award, presented to those that are not only successful and influential in business, but also deeply engaged in social justice. I am also the youngest member on the Board of Advisors for the Entrepreneurship and Transformative Leadership Lab at the Universities of Shady Grove. In this role, I serve university students and small businesses in developing disruptive and transformative entrepreneurial ventures.

I would say seeing young women step up and become their own leaders is the most rewarding part of my work with Girls Who Start.

Our website is www.girlswhostart.org and our instagram is @girls.who.start

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

My three biggest takeaways from my experience founding and leading Girls Who Start are to be the change, never be afraid of a “no,” and the power of helping others succeed.

Be the change – It is easy to have an idea, but it can be difficult to start. If you see a problem you want to change, don’t wait for someone else to solve it. Find a gap – in order for an idea to be new an innovative, it needs to solve a problem so start by thinking about something in your own life or ask others a problem they have faced.

You will receive many “no’s” before the first “yes” and that is part of the process. The more you ask, the more help you will get, so you shouldn’t be afraid to ask. Through my experience, I have received countless “no’s,” but it’s important to focus on the small victories in order to push forward.

The most gratifying thing you can do is to support others and help them succeed. It truly is an incredible experience empowering others with the opportunity to be their own leader.

My advice for someone who is early in their journey is that anyone can change the world, no matter their age. It starts with identifying a problem you want to tackle and starting by taking a little step each day to solve it.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

One of my favorite books is Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now. Since high school, I have kept this book by my bedside as a guiding principle. The book is a collection of poems addressing themes of social justice issues. Each poem serves as a call to action and by doing so, the book reflects how problems can be solved in innovative ways. In this case, with poetry.

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