Jingjin Liu

Last week, 3 male students and 1 female student booked my Entrepreneur-in-Residence sessions at INSEAD to discuss their ventures.

🤔 What do they have in common?

👨🏻‍🎓𝟑 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬:
Market size:
> $40Bn

When to hit $100M:
2-3 yrs

Current Revenue:
$0

How much to raise:
$2M

MVP: (Minimal viable product)
not available

Pitch Deck:
working on it

Proof of Concept:
talked to many MBA peers

Time Spent:
Full time

Confidence Level:
Definitely the next unicorn


👩🏻‍🎓𝟏 𝐅𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭:
Market size:
$3Bn

When to hit $100M:
“OMG, that´s far away“

Current Revenue:
>€200k and profitable

How much to raise:
$250k

MVP:
a solid web platform that appears on the first Google page by search

Pitch Deck:
20 slides with solid numbers extra prepared for the session

Proof of Concept:
+8000 buying customers

Time Spent:
less than a year besides a full-time job

Confidence Level:
“It is just a small business, I wish I could do better“

And she is a mum with 3 kids….

🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

Yet, who is more likely to get funded during a pitch?
The 3 guys...

💡 The fact is, female-founded companies generate 78 cents for every dollar of funding, as opposed to 31 cents for male-led companies.

💡 Even out of the S&P 500 companies, there are only 41 female CEOs, but on average, they have significantly outperformed the other 459 male CEO-led companies.

😔 Yet, companies founded by women receive less than 3% of all venture capital investments.

𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐟𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫.

#FundFemaleFounders #GenderDifference #FindYourZazazu

Disclaimer:
Identities have been anonymized and stories are shared with permission of all 4 students.

The most silent people at the playground were the Asian parents. Not because they were shy. But because they weren’t playing.

They stood around holding phones, murmuring
“Be careful,”
“Stop doing that,”
“Can not like this.”

Meanwhile, the Western parents?
They were dragons. Explorers. Human jungle gyms.
They were in it, mess, mud, mayhem and all.

Last week during the bonding trip with my Son in Perth, I realized that I was one of those silent Asian parents.

It hit me hard.

We love our children fiercely, but in a different language.

Asian parenting is love expressed through caution, correction, and control.

But what if our children need a different kind of love?

One that’s loud. Unstructured. Messy.
One that doesn’t hover, but rolls in the dirt beside them.

Here’s what I’ve realized and what I’m unlearning:

🔹 1. Stop narrating. Start joining.
“Don’t do that” has become a reflex. Try “What are you building?” instead. Curiosity changes the energy.

🔹 2. Put down the phone!
We say we’re taking photos to capture the moment. But are we in the moment at all?

🔹 3. Let them do something ‘dangerous’
On purpose. Let them climb higher. Let them fall (safely). Risk is how resilience is built.

🔹 4. Schedule nothing time.
Our instinct is to pack schedules with enrichment.
But unstructured play? That’s where creativity grows.

🔹 5. Relearn how to play.
If it feels awkward at first, good. That means you’re breaking the pattern. Play is a muscle, use it.

We were raised to be excellent.
But what if our children are meant to be whole?
It’s not easy to break generational habits.

But maybe the greatest gift we can give our kids isn't protection.
It's permission.
To explore.
To fail.
To feel free.

And maybe the greatest gift we can give ourselves, is to join them.

#Parenting #AsianParents #BreakingCycles #EmotionalFreedom #PresenceOverPerfection #LeadershipStartsAtHome