When I listened to this episode of the Startup Canada Thrive Podcast, I new I had to Interview Caterina for an edition of FinanciElle “$tatements”.

Caterina is the Founder of Hotline, a peer-to-peer knowledge base for female entrepreneurs that provides answers and resources to help navigate entrepreneurship. Sign up now for early access!

Caterina is also the Co-Founder of Breather, a company that provides unique meeting rooms, hourly office and work spaces, whose mission it is “to make the world’s spaces connected, accessible, and productive.”

Paolina: How did you become the most funded female founder in Canada? What’s been your approach for accessing funding?

Caterina:

I certainly never set out to be the most funded female founder in Canada! The reality is the reason that I hold this title for the time being is that so few companies that are female founded are also so highly funded, unfortunately. This is something that needs to change!

Paolina: What has been your hardest experience dealing with your business and money and what did you learn?

Caterina:

That you can plan and budget all you want but what you forecast and what happens in reality can sometimes be a very different outcome so you need to make sure that you build in a safety net for burn and unexpected occurrences.

Paolina: What advice do you wish you had gotten about money when you were first starting your business?

Caterina:

I wish someone had talked to me more about runway and burn– it is truly astonishing how much small expenditures can affect your runway month over month. I often advise new founders who are looking to raise capital to factor this in and to ask for more than they think they need based on their projections. More often than not, people underestimate how much it will take to bring their product or service to fruition and then are forced to make some hard decisions in order to succeed.

Paolina: What are your current FinanciElle Faves?

• Favourite business/leadership book? My favorite book is actually about delivering great customer experience It’s called Setting the Table, by Danny Meyer
• Favourite business/productivity tool? I have a weekly calendar notepad that I use to plan out my list of to do’s- it’s old school but it really works for me and I get a lot of satisfaction out of physically being able to cross things off my list as I go 🙂
• Favourite piece of media – TED talk, podcast…? Your body language may shape who you are, by Amy Cuddy