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Ava Poole is awake for nearly 24 hours a day. It’s 4am and she’s working non-stop to a presentation about the startup.
Taylor Swift’s “New Year’s Day” will be performing. Four empty cans of coke zero scatter her work space. Despite his lack of sleep, the 20-year-old told USA Today, “This is truly the happiest I’ve ever had.”
As a member of Foundher House, an all-female hacker house, Pool woke up early on August 18 with fellow residents of San Francisco rental homes to prepare for a demonstration day on August 19th.
This pressure was nothing new for these women. FoundherHouse members have raised millions of dollars in venture capital funding from top companies, generating over 500 million social media views. They filed patents and landed fellowships with companies such as Bain Capital Ventures, building products that reach tens of thousands of customers. A film night focused on women, a fireside chat with the San Francisco community, while hosting a panel.
In male-dominated Silicon Valley, members of Foundher House said that during a time when technology products and services are changing dramatically, an all-woman space to support each other’s startups spoke to the All-Women’s space to support each other’s startups.
Artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to entry-level technology employment. Its effects have worsened for women: A study published in April 2023 at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, found that 21% of women face more AI automation than men, despite men outperforming women in the workforce. According to Pitchbook, which tracks investments, female founders will receive less than 3% of venture capital funds, even if they decide to go out on their own.
In addition, tech companies are rolling back diversity initiatives in conjunction with President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI push, and companies like the Metacut Program are designed to boost employment for women and marginalized communities in the industry.
Foundher House members live with coworking and help build communities online.
The efforts to increase women in Silicon Valley are nothing new, according to Birgit Neu, a London-based diversity and inclusion advisor who worked digitally in the early days of the internet. But Foundher House came at a very specific point when many women were asking, “How about we still here?”
Foundher House represents how younger generations responded to changes in the industry, Neu said.
“I think they’re on the frontier,” Noy said. “We had a playbook to think about ways to support women. It has evolved over the past 10-15 years… (Foundher House) is designing a future that is really interested in participating.”
“We’ll fix the ratio wherever we go.”
Hackerhouses are essential to Silicon Valley culture, the home of a group of tech enthusiasts with billions of dollars dreams trying to find their special ideas and partners while solving the problems of expensive housing in San Francisco. Turning housing problems into business opportunities is a common theme in the Internet age. It’s back to the YouTube content creator house of the 2010s, or the recent viral BOP house, and is made up of only fan creators. There were also other female hacker houses, like Hacker House.
In most cases, these types of spaces are rarely the majority of women, Foundher House co-founder Miki Safronov-Yamamoto, 18, and 21-year-old Anantika Mannby, told USA Today.
“We quickly realized that these spaces weren’t designed with women in mind,” Safronov Yamoto said. “There had to be a change.”
Sophomore at the University of Southern California found rental properties in March and pitched venture capital companies to help subsidize rents.
“It was a difficult part to bet on making that happen,” Mumby said.. When some VCSs did not provide support, the two were “hard and relentless,” she said.
“It’s a thread that goes through every girl in the house. To do these things you have to be a little crazy and confident,” Manby said.
Nearly 100 young women applied to live in the summer, with eight being accepted. Safronov Yamamoto said the core requirement for applicants is “kind.”
“We got such a diverse range of people,” Mumby said. She added that the woman living in the house will run range from a college dropout to a former Team USA karate player.
Residents pay just $1,000 per month and spend two nights per room (the average rent in the city is at least $3,000 for a single bedroom).
They quickly bonded and mapped summer dreams to a joint whiteboard.
“We plan all the events,” Mumby said. “And we showed up in the pack… It’s really cool to have you step into the room and see a sea of men and have a group of eight girls. We like to fix the ratio wherever we go.”
Pool found the house through connections from previous work experience. She wanted to be around other women who could talk about polishing the agent system, safe Stablecoin wallets, yes, Taylor Swift and more at the dinner table.
“I wanted to go deeper,” Poole said about why she applied. “To have a community of dreamers, not just a place where you can work 24/7, as well as a place where you can work 24/7. It’s great to do that in a fun place.”
The pool tackles the music twice as fast, indicating that the fuss has not faded. But she also spent the weekend at the San Francisco Giants game, laughing at Delylium on midnight demo day.
“The energy is obvious and helps to prevent me from burning out,” Poole said.
Foundher House gives the pool balance and “femininity,” she said.
“It feels like we’re all helping each other,” she said. “Each conversation we move the boat forward an inch and help everyone move the rows.”
Influencers meet entrepreneurs
The woman who lives in Foundher House is the latest in a wave of entrepreneurs leaning against influencer tactics to expand their reach.
The house was built on the existing followers of the members. 19-year-old Fatimahssein runs @fatimas.guide, an Instagram guide to a university with over 100,000 followers. Mannby personally has nearly 60,000 Instagram followers, and her company, Treffa, has over 30,000 people. The high engagement of their roommates also inspired Safronov Yamamoto and fellow resident Chloe Hughes, 21.
The brand partnership in the form of yacht parties, ping pong tournaments and nobu dinners in New York City offers financial support in New York City, hosted by Rho, a business bank supporting Fancy House.
“Our idea was that so many women have not moved to science fiction and haven’t made that leap,” Mumby said. “But the more we share stories and our lives, the more we encourage people to make a leap of themselves.”
Safronov-Yamamoto said that, with some judgment on their profile rise, “We have quite a few hateful comments on our personal social media accounts… they are questioning, doing their jobs, and questioning their abilities.”
But social media can help raise awareness among young women that technology jobs exist, Poole said.
“We want women to come to sci-fi and get to know the tech scene and be in a place where they can reach out to us because they feel they are there and are confident enough to do it,” Poole said. “It will replace these other ripple effects.”
It’s working. When YC of Accelerator Company hosted undergraduates at an AI Startup School in San Francisco in June, a group chat was created for women attending. All 20 members of the group chat appeared at the front door of Foundher House.
That moment was the realization of the impact of the house.
“They didn’t even ask, they said, ‘We’re coming,'” Poole said. “They were so excited they kept asking if they could live in the house.”
What’s next?
With the summer over, members of Foundher House are planning their next move.
Some people move to the office instead of school. Others are considering time away from academia.
Pool remains registered with Cornell, but aims to work on her startup Paygent, which lives in New York City and is a wallet that manages financial apps, rewards and subscriptions (“Apple Pay 2.0!” Poole calls it). She wants to learn to cherish her community more than ever before and be dressed in people who provide a founder house with the same feelings.
“It feels like there’s always someone there to lift you up, especially in dangerous spaces,” Poole said. “The extra feeling from someone is always having my back.”
