“Kathryn Finney is the mentor every founder needs”

- Margot Lee Shetterly, investment banker, startup founder, and author of Hidden Figures

Don’t wait for the system to let you in—break down the door and build your damn thing. For all the Builders striving to build their businesses in a world that has overlooked and underestimated them: this is the essential guide to knowing, breaking, remaking and building your own rules of entrepreneurship in a startup and investing world designed for and by the “Entitleds.”

Build the Damn Thing : How to Start a Successful Business if You're Not a Rich White Guy is an indispensable guide to building a startup and breaking down the barriers for diverse entrepreneurs from the visionary investor and pioneering entrepreneur Kathryn Finney.

Build the Damn Thing is a hard-won, battle-tested guide for every entrepreneur who the establishment has left out. Finney, an investor and startup champion, explains how to build a business from the ground up, from developing a business plan to finding investors, growing a team, and refining a product. Finney empowers entrepreneurs to take advantage of their unique networks and resources; arms readers with responses to investors who say, “great pitch but I just don’t do Black women”; and inspires them to overcome naysayers while remaining “100% That B*tch.”

 

For media inquiries about Build the Damn Thing book and Kathryn, contact kathryn.finney@geniusguild.co

For book-specific inquiries, please contact Mackenzie Brady Watson at mbw@skagency.com.

About The Author

Follow Kathryn Finney

One of the Most Important Venture Capitalists in The Midwest (as selected by Peers)
-Business Insider 2022

Kathryn Finney is the Managing General Partner of Genius Guild, a Chicago-based venture capital firm building a new kind of venture platform focused on creating a world where everyone gets alpha—Investors, Founders, and Communities. We invest at the intersection of the five social determinants of health (SDOH): healthcare access and quality; social and community factors; economic factors; education access and quality; and neighborhood and built environments.

One of the most influential women in tech and venture capital (Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine), Kathryn's groundbreaking work laid the foundation for generations of black entrepreneurs and investors. In April 2020, Kathryn founded The Doonie Fund with a $10,000 personal donation to support black women entrepreneurs during the COVID-19 crisis. The Doonie Fund has supported over 2,000 Black women entrepreneurs since 2020.

She is also the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller "Build the Damn Thing: How to Build a Successful Company When You're Not a Rich White Guy" (Portfolio/Penguin).

Kathryn is also the founder/founding CEO of digitalundivided, a groundbreaking social enterprise focused on creating a world where women own their work. Kathryn started DID after selling her company, The Budget Fashionista, an early media company. Her pioneering research, “#ProjectDiane,” drew widespread buzz for disrupting the dialogue around tech entrepreneurship. She grew the organization from a simple idea to a dynamic force with a 7 figure budget, 20+ staff, multiple offices, and partnerships with major institutions such as Microsoft. After eight years as CEO, she stepped down to become the first black woman business author at Portfolio/Penguin Books.

A Yale-trained Epidemiologist, Kathryn has received numerous honors and awards, including the Aspen Financial Leaders Fellow, Echoing Green Fellowship, Entrepreneurs Magazine’s “Woman to Watch,” Ebony Power 100, Black Enterprise “40 under 40” list, and more.

A White House Champion of Change and a past member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) appointed by the Obama Administration, Kathryn was honored by the Borough of Manhattan with the “Kathryn Finney Appreciation Day”. She has also received an Honorary Doctorate from Mount Holyoke College and was inducted into the African-American Alumni Hall of Fame at Rutgers University and Spelman College’s “Game Changers Academy.

Listen to Build The Damn Thing Podcast here.

You CAN Build It!

Learn how you can build a successful startup by turning your passion into profit. Listen in as Kathryn shares her journey to business success on her podcast “Build The Damn Thing”.

Keep up with Kathryn’s book news

"Praise for Build the Damn Thing”

  • Guy Kawasaki

    Author, Speaker, Entrepreneur, and Evangelist

    “Kathryn represents the kind of leadership, courage, and ovaries that the future demands. She’s an investor and entrepreneur who’s kicking ass and denting the universe. She doesn’t give a shit about playing by the rules of the current elite and status quo. And this is what it takes to build great companies, organizations, and institutions, that break barriers in this post pandemic, post science, post truth world.”

  • Karen Hunter

    Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist, Publisher, Talk Show Host, and Author

    “I expected to get a ‘How-To’ book, but what I got were life lessons, wrapped in cheat codes to build a successful business (or really, a successful anything). From understanding the value of failing to how having a great idea isn’t good enough, Kathryn Finney delivers amazing insights, personal stories and a blueprint for success. And in this book, she displays her love for the culture!”

  • Bevy Smith

    Co-Host of Fashion Queens, Creator of “Dinner with Bevy”

    “The title says it all, if you’re not a Rich, White Guy this should be your textbook! Kathryn’s decades of experience will allow you to dodge many of the pitfalls that startup entrepreneurs encounter, especially those of color. Thank you for giving us the rules to the game that was built for the ‘entitled’, this book is a secret weapon.”

  • Steve Case

    CEO of Revolution, Co-Founder of AOL

    “For far too long, the venture capital industry has not done enough to fund and support underrepresented entrepreneurs. Kathryn was one of the first innovators to shed light on the importance of leveling the playing field for more people in more places. Her book is a critically important roadmap for founders on their journey to launch and grow a ‘built to last’ company.”

  • Cindy Gallop

    Founder of IfWeRanTheWorld and MakeLoveNotPorn

    “Kathryn Finney is one of the most extraordinarily inspiring individuals I have ever had the good fortune to know. She continually blows me away with her creativity, her vision and her ability to build highly effective creative manifestations of that vision. I cannot wait to read her book and know that millions of other women will feel the same.”

  • A'Lelia Bundles

    Award-Winning Journalist, News Producer, and Author

    “Build the Damn Thing is the "Straight No Chaser" pep talk and essential tool kit for anyone whose fabulous, scalable product is ready for funding. As a Black woman tech pioneer who has made millions and helped others make millions, Kathryn Finney demystifies the world of Builders and Entitleds. She reveals the cheat codes, dismantles the myths, defies the rules and adheres to personal integrity even when doing so is hard."

  • Margot Lee Shetterly

    Author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, and founder of The Human Computer Project

    “Kathryn Finney is the mentor every founder needs. Her irreverent, pragmatic, personal advice shows entrepreneurs from all backgrounds how to win a seat at the table.”