Episode Description
In this episode, the first of our collaboration with Immigrant Women in Business (IWB), I am speaking with Althea Samuels, a life and money mindset coach, and Patricia Giankas, who fondly calls herself a senior female in tech (SFT) and has spent decades working inside Canadian credit.
Both ladies will be speaking about all things money and raising capital at the IWB's July 30th event. However, if you can't wait...
Althea, Patricia, and I chat about:
Selling a skill as a form of raising capital
How Althea started her own business
What a Canadian credit score measures
The conversations underway about making credit histories portable across borders
Why Patricia calls the boring parts, the accountant and the books, non-negotiable
Dozie's Notes
A few things that stuck with me as I listened through this week's conversation:
You need a village to build anything, especially as an immigrant. I've also seen the flip side: groups that take funding and don't deliver for the people they're supposed to serve. So I usually stay skeptical by default. But every so often you meet people who are doing the work, and it reminds me why finding the right community matters more than almost anything else when you're starting over in a new country. So if you're an immigrant woman who's considering starting a business, you should look into Svetlana Ratnikova and her merry gang.
Official Links
✅ Connect with Althea Samuels on LinkedIn
✅ Connect with Patricia Giankas on LinkedIn
✅ Sign up for the IWB event on women and money
✅ Join the IWB community
One Ask
If you found this story helpful, please consider sharing it with one Canadian immigrant you know.
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Immigrant Women in Business (IWB) is a Canadian non-profit social enterprise dedicated to the economic empowerment and integration of immigrant women entrepreneurs and professionals.
Timestamps
0:00 Your friends can't write you a cheque, but they can buy from you
0:46 Intro
2:13 Where to start when you have no capital
5:26 "What is even credit?"
6:34 How credit scoring stopped being a judgement call
8:54 Why your credit history doesn't cross the border with you
12:51 Sell your friends a skill instead of asking them for cash
15:47 The mindset shift nobody warns you about
19:36 Cashing in your RRSPs to build the thing
22:01 Why founders shouldn't raise their own money
25:32 The July 30 event and what to expect
32:50 Outro