Ep 181 | Yao Huang: Solving Financial Inequalities by Funding Minority Owned Businesses

May 3, 2022

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A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

Yao Huang is funding minority owned businessess to solve the financial inequality problem.

I first met and interviewed Yao Huang, in 2013. She is founder and managing partner of The Hatchery. If you want to learn more about her and the Hatchery you can go back and listen to episode 147 of Talking Taiwan.

Last year I looked her up, wondering what she’s been up to and reached out to invite her back on to Talking Taiwan as a guest. A lot can happen in 9 years!

I learned that she had done two TED Talks and a stint of standup comedy.

Yao has been focusing on some very big things like solving the problem of financial inequality through a $100 million dollar fund for minority-owned small to medium-sized businesses. And from her social media posts it looks like she’s living the life and having a ball at these gatherings called the Wonder Women Dinner Series all across the country.

When I asked her what she’s excited about these days she mentioned crypto, blockchain and Web3. To some, these may sound like things of the future but the future is already here. Last year Facebook’s name change to Meta was a nod to the metaverse, and earlier in the year, the buzz over a thing called NFTs hit mainstream media. When it comes to understanding NFTs you’ve got to also understand crypto currency, and blockchain technology. We covered that topic in episode 157: DJ Kaku Trailblazes NFTs in Asia. All of these things together- crypto, blockchain and the metaverse make up Web3.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

What the Wonder Women Dinner Series is
How the Wonder Women Dinner Series has been going on for 16 years
How the Wonder Women Dinner Series is a way for women to network, connect, make friendships, and have fun
How Yao did standup comedy at Caroline’s, B.B. King’s and around New York City around 2014
Division One Capital a $100 million fund for women and minority small businesses
How venture capital only helps 2% of all companies
How Division One Capital’s lending is based on a company’s sales or revenues
How it is difficult it is for women and minorities to secure a loan from a bank
How loans from traditional banks can be at higher rates than funding obtained from Division One Capital
How funding from a fund like Division One Capital can stabilize and allow a business to grow
How Division One Capital was previously called Diana Capital
How Division One Capital is working with cities’ initiatives to help SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses)
How Yao believes there is a lot of wealth that can be more equally distributed and easily accessed
The businesses that Yao has helped grow e.g. a Black woman owned HVAC company and a woman-led company in the data security space that has raised $3.5 million
How crypto, bitcoin and block chain has revolutionized the fintech sector, banking, credit, currency, stocks, and led the wave of Web3
How important it is to learn about bitcoin and cryptocurrency and how it works
The bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, FL