Jennifer Schwert

CREATOR/FOUNDER

Tell everyone who you are and what you do.

A. I’m Jenn and I’m an artist, engineer, inventor and founder. I take ideas from napkin sketches to prototypes to building them to launching them and build the brand and business plan around the product too. I’m also a new mother to a 4 month old baby girl we’ve nicknamed The Maximax, a stepmom to a sassy, strong 14 year old daughter we’ve nicknamed Turbo. I’m an activist for animal welfare and rights.

And I’m an investor in startups, real estate, stocks and cryptocurrency. I’m adamant that everyone, every single person, is an investor with their time, attention, energy, focus, saving, spending and investing. If we all understood that, and how much power we have, things would be wildly different.

What are you most proud of in your motherhood journey?

A. I love that The Maximax is happy and healthy and doing great. But I’m really proud that I’ve not succumbed to the mom guilt and comparison trap that society wants to mire us in. Building and launching STEMinists with a newborn means I’m not her only caregiver and I’m more than ok with that, I’m proud of it. When I’m not taking care of her, she gets to spend time and bond with her dad and others and I get to build something that will change our future and other people’s futures.

Let’s talk about your business “STEMinists” and the motivation behind it?

A. STEMinists is a combination of Kickstarter (crowdfunding), SharkTank (pitching and investing) and YCombinator (incubating and accelerating) that utilizes NFTs to fund new companies led by underrepresented founders and gives our investors a return on the investment along with a myriad of other perks and benefits.

The motivation:

I’ve spent my career building and launching other people’s product ideas…and making them a lot of money! When I went to get my MBA I pitched my product ideas to VCs and did several business plan competitions. I’d done more work developing and refining my idea, finding the product-market fit and building the business plan and would always get really close to getting the funding but lose out in the end to a team of male founders with a less developed idea. Estimates currently have women founders getting about 3% of VC funding. That got old real fast. When I found NFT collections last year I saw a way to raise capital outside of the current VC system by using NFTs to crowdsource the funding. And immediately decided I wouldn’t just raise the capital I needed, I’d bring a whole bunch of other underrepresented founders with me and get them the capital they need too.

The Nitty Gritty:

STEMinists is a collection of 10,000 NFTs featuring a STEMinist character (female, non-binary, and male), a quote, 6 facial expressions that encompass the range of women’s personalities and great fashion. It was important to me that they show women in all ways - body types, mothers, pregnant, dressed down, dressed up, dressed elegantly, different cultures, different ethnicities, different emotions (angry, frustrated, “over it,” elated, intriguing, proud), etc. For too long women have been boxed into certain prescribed representations so this collection breaks through that. We have included a percentage of the characters that are male to let men know that we are not trying

to exclude them, we are trying to join them! And to lead by example of including both genders in NFT collections. All the big NFY collections, they’re all male characters. We’re calling them out for being exclusionary and leading by example by including them.

But I’m most excited about what our NFT holders (owners) get! Purchasers of these NFTs are joining a crowdsourced fund to launch companies led by underrepresented founders. They will be the “sharks” (a la SharkTank) in our STEMtank and vote on which companies get the funding and they’ll get a share of return on those investments in perpetuity. But they’ll also get access to exclusive product presales, VIP passes to the launch parties and swag bags when the companies launch. They’re the VC’s making this happen, so they get to live it with each of the launches. They’ll also be invited to join an investing mastermind with top names of crypto investing and go through a Strengths Finder coaching cohort. It’s important to us to not just nurture and launch our companies that we fund, but to develop and accelerate our investors as well so we’ve got programs for both groups.

Q. Can you give us more details on NFT’s?

A. NFTs are a digital file on the blockchain whose ownership is always verified. They’re not just jpegs, they’re so many things it’s hard to wrap your head around: a new way to own art, to support artists directly, a pass to exclusive events or communities or trainings, a share in revenue of an asset like IRL or metaverse real estate or a startup investment. I think of them as art plus a ticket to so much more.

Q. What has been the hardest period of motherhood for you and how did you deal with it?

A. The hardest part for me was realizing I want so many things for my daughter that I wasn’t giving to myself. My inner critic, no surprise, is a monster. I hope The Maximax is able to tame hers or not develop one in the first place, but I realized quickly that the best way for her to navigate that was for me to tame my own. So, I’ve made some different decisions that were right for me that don’t necessarily make sense from the outside looking in. And you know what, I have so much more peace having made those decisions. 100% recommend.

Q. Can you tell us one of your most memorable moments you’ve had being a mom?

A. It’s mostly a blur - you’re truly surviving in the beginning. Randomly we just have these looks between us where I know that she knows that I’m her mom and I can see the trust she has in me. I savor each one of these moments. She’s changing so rapidly and knowing that she trusts me in all that she has to learn and navigate as she learns this big crazy world is the best feeling.

Q. What are some goals you want to accomplish in the next couple of years?

A. I’m looking forward to turning STEMinists into an ongoing crowdsourced VC fund starting with this 10k collection of NFTs. We’d like to be launching new startups a couple of times each year and develop a supportive, collaborative ecosystem for incubating and accelerating these companies and our NFT holders.

I’ll also be launching my next company with capital from STEMinists and develop my own consumer products. I am planning a huge, amazing launch party for this company so stay tuned!

Q. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

A. Alaska. I’m a city girl but I need to get in the wild every now and then to get grounded and remember how we’re just one part of this enormous and complex ecosystem. It’s good to understand just how small we are.

Q. Are you working on any projects or upcoming events?

A. We’re preparing to open up the applications for founders to apply for funding with STEMinists. Our first launch will be a limited release of NFTs, and we’ll be giving $50k each to 6 founders. We’ll be taking all of our applicants through pitch practice and getting them ready for our STEMtank where our NFT holders will vote on which 6 receive the funding.

The other big event we’re preparing for is for The Maximax to start crawling in the next few months. Our German Shepherd has no idea what’s coming!

Q. Where can the readers follow you?

A. Twitter: @STEMinistsNFT Website: www.STEMinists.io