Women: Stay in the Room

What If the Problem Isn’t Just Bias — It’s Also Burnout?

We talk about gender bias.

We talk about access to capital.

But we don’t talk nearly enough about this:

What if the reason women don’t start startups isn’t fear or funding gaps — but the invisible load they’re already carrying just to stay in the game?

Startups don’t happen in a vacuum.

They happen while the laundry piles up.

While the baby naps.

While you’re nursing a parent through illness, or yourself through a loss, or a child through the messy middle of ADHD.

We’ve built entire ecosystems around getting more women into the room.

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Bonus! Master List: Support for New Zealand Women Founders (and Future Founders)

But when they arrive, what kind of room is it?

• One that rewards 14-hour days and the traditional 9-5.
• One that penalizes pause.
• One that asks you to be “always on” — with no support when life breaks the schedule.

Lane Litz

Founder / What Founder’s Want

Lane Litz is a proven startup founder, operator, and venture capitalist with a track record of building, scaling, and investing in high-potential startups. As employee #6 at VIPKID, she helped grow the company to a $3B valuation.

Later, as the CEO and Co-founder of Speakia, she navigated challenging market conditions to lead the startup to acquisition. Her time in venture capital gave her a front-row seat to traditional VC, inspiring her to found Founder VC.

Now, Lane is reshaping the venture landscape with a founder-first approach, focusing on M&A infrastructure and targeted investments that deliver measurable value for both founders and investors.

When the System Doesn’t Bend, Founders Break

At VIPKID, I was part of something extraordinary.

We raised over a billion dollars. I was employee #6.

From ten students and one teacher to a triple unicorn.

And while that machine was scaling, I had a million students to take care of — and two little kids at home who needed me.

At Speakia, the next company I founded, we had traction, strong retention, and real users.

But during an early funding round, the Chinese government outlawed private education and the whole market collapsed overnight. Investors froze. We ran out of time and had to sell.

And like so many women I know, I didn’t have the luxury of choosing one identity at a time. Throughout it all I always have 15 balls in the air. One is a dentist appointment. The next, a last minute, early stage M&A.

Stay in the Room

At What Founders Want, we’re shifting the question.

We’re not just asking why more women aren’t funded.

We’re asking:

What does it take to stay in the room once you’re there?

We’re not short on ambition.

We’re short on infrastructure.

Not accelerators. Not pitch coaching.

We’re short on the invisible things that make work work when life doesn’t cooperate.

• Flexibility that isn’t treated like a luxury
• Capital that allows for caregiving, not punishes it
• Systems that respond to women’s actual lives, not some idealized founder avatar
• Space to build companies that don’t fit the VC mould — but still create real value

This isn’t about lowering the bar.

It’s about changing what we expect women to carry just to clear it.

A 12-Month Research Project: What Women Need to Stay

This isn’t just my story. It’s the quiet, consistent experience of thousands of women trying to build ambitious things while holding the rest of their lives together.

So this page — Women: Stay in the Room — exists for a purpose.

It anchors a 12-month research initiative to explore one big question:

What systems do women need in order to stay — not just start — in startups?

Each month, we’ll tackle a single friction point.

We’ll draw on the wisdom of New Zealand’s gender equity builders.

We’ll bring research and lived experience together.

And we’ll publish practical, founder-first answers that move beyond inspiration — toward infrastructure.

We’re not just here to highlight the gap.

We’re here to close it.

Let’s Build What’s Still Missing

The goal of this project is simple:

• To make the invisible load visible
• To shift from individual perseverance to structural design
• To give women the freedom of choice — not tradeoffs

Because no one should be forced to choose between being a great parent and a great founder.

And no woman should burn out just trying to stay in the room she already earned her place in.

We have the data. We’ve started the conversation.

And starting next month, I’ll begin reaching out — to the women who’ve already laid the foundation.

The ones building policy.

The ones building care infrastructure.

The ones running funds, platforms, and programs that make this work possible.

This project isn’t starting from scratch.

It’s stitching together what already exists — and spotlighting the systems we still need.

I’m excited to build the next layer, together.

Master List: Support for New Zealand Women Founders (and Future Founders)