Lipstick On The Rim: Why You Should Spend Your Money Instead of Saving It. 5 Tips For Financial Wealth with Venture Capitalist, Jesse Draper

By Mollysims.com

Want to invest your money but don’t know where to start? Meet Jesse Draper. Jesse is a 4th generation Venture Capitalist who founded Halogen Ventures, a company that invests in female-founded companies. In this week’s episode, she’s sharing the ins and out’s of the stock market, why investing in real estate is always stable & everything you need to know about cryptocurrency. We discuss why women are so scared to talk about money and everything a woman needs in a prenup.

Meet Jesse Draper

“I run halogen ventures, and we invest in early-stage female-founded consumer technologies. There has to be a woman in the founding team if we invest. I was an entrepreneur before this and an actress before that. I’d grown up working at startups and making investments, and I’d been referring deals to my family for years. Such as paperless posts, and many other companies you’ve heard of. And then I was like, wait, why am I just sending everyone else? These are great deals. And then I started just investing whatever tiny bits of capital I had. Uh, and some of those deals did really well for me. We’re now investors in companies.

“Growing up, I didn’t see any women in technology or female CEOs around me, and that’s why I created Halogen Ventures.”

[Jesse] On The Importance of Investing In Women

Molly explains how women make 80% of household purchases. “Why wouldn’t we be investing in women if we’re making all the household purchases and really managing the majority of that consumer capital?” says Jesse. “As a female fund manager, I was going out pitching all of these investors and unfortunately, it’s not equal. Men control the majority of the capital as we all know. And that’s because men pass the pocketbooks down from generation to generation. And you were saying before, women don’t talk about capital

“Women are actually taught something so much worse. We’re taught to give away money. We’re taught to give away money before we learn how to manage it and grow it. And there is a place for nonprofits. I know we’ve all given as much as we possibly can this past year and we need nonprofits, they solve a lot of problems. Why aren’t we investing in the for-profit opportunities that is this trillion-dollar opportunity of female-led businesses?”

[Jesse] On Investing For Beginners

Molly asks Jesse her advice if you’re wanting to start investing but don’t know where to start. “I have so many pieces of advice and of course, there’s save your money, but I would say put it to work. Women are so afraid of risk. I can say that because I’m female and we are so afraid of risk, but that makes you a better investor than your significant other. That’s a secret. Just to all the women out there. That means you are a better investor because you take many more risks into account. You are thinking about all the possible things that could go wrong, but what we could learn from our significant others, and the men in the world is that gambling mentality.”

[Jesse] On Empowering Women With Their Own Money

“If you’re talking about these women who are in a marriage and running the home, which is definitely a job, it’s the hardest job. You just need to realize half of everything is yours. You should be in on every single financial deal. So you should be meeting with the financial advisor any time your husband is buying new stocks, or if he’s saying, ‘oh yeah, I bought some Netflix.’ You should be like, ‘wait, we didn’t talk about this. What do you mean? You bought some Netflix. We should be talking about this. I want to know what you’re buying and I may want to buy some shares as well.’ I think the more you talk about it, the more you learn.”

[Jesse] Why Women Need To Start Talking About Money

“You should know how much you’re saving for college for your kids. You should know what you’re putting away. You should know about all of those decisions and that your husband isn’t just investing in whatever he feels in the moment. He could be blowing all of your money and you don’t even know.” Jesse goes on and discusses the different ways to save money. “Everyone has a different idea about the 30,30, 30. There are different ways to break this down but 30% for your rent, 30% for the things you have to pay for and then 20 to 30 and blow it. Or that’s a little too much, but 30% to invest or do whatever you want with it every month. Those are things you should talk to your husband about. You should know exactly what he’s purchasing, especially if you’re investing for your future, you’re part of that future.”

[Jesse] How to Choose Where To Invest

“You can one make a significant change by investing your dollars into things that you believe in and you use all the time. It can help the brands you love and the people behind the brands you love. A good example is Starbucks. If you buy Starbucks every day. Why wouldn’t you buy a Starbucks as a stock? And you don’t have to buy the whole share, I think people always think you have to buy the whole share. You can just say, I want to put 50 bucks in Amazon. I think people get concerned about that with Bitcoin too.”

[Jesse] Cryptocurrency 411

“The easiest way to explain it is that cryptocurrency is what email did for the internet in financial form. It’s a new digital currency. It’s easier to send. You can send it internationally. It’s easier to track. You hear these rumors of people buying drugs on it, and that was a long time ago. Now the stupidest thing you could do is buy drugs on it because they know exactly where it started and exactly where it ends. It’s much more traceable and it’s fantastic. Obviously, I’m a big believer. There are tons of cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin’s the most popular Ethereum is the second most popular.”

“You can invest your time, but take some risk with it because that’s what all the guys are doing. You should be involved in every single conversation that your significant other is having. But in order to set yourself up for success in the future, I don’t care if it’s a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars or $10,000, think about it as a public investment.”

[Jesse] Everything You Need in a Prenup

Jesse’s biggest tip for prenups was, “know what you’re signing. Also, know what you have and what you’re bringing to the table. Know what you’ve made to that moment, capital wise, like what investments you’ve made that’s all yours.” She goes onto say, “I’ve seen salaries where the wife said I’m giving my whole life and body to this marriage. I’m having three kids. I’m raising our kids. I’m going to stop working. I want to make sure that if we get divorced, I get paid $200,000 a year for the rest of our lives or whatever that number is.”

[Jesse] Her Must-Have Beauty Products

“We invested in a company called Tinted. It’s run by Deepica, who is a huge beauty influencer. She’s really focused on building her brand in the East Asian market. She’s very focused on India and she started this incredible product that is called the Hue stick where she uses it under her eyes too. She was frustrated when she was an Indian girl growing up. And because she didn’t have any makeup that worked with her skin, she started this Hue stick that was non-toxic that she could put under her eyes and then have a flawless foundation.”

Listen here for the full episode: