I’ve been to over 2 dozen tech conferences and countless meetups since I’ve been on this journey. Not being a geek means that I’m in the minority wherever I go. Being a woman over 40 makes me stand out. Especially if I’m wearing a dress. I’ve often been mistaken for a VC.

While planning for my latest trip to the bay area, I read about a conference that had 2 speakers I’d never seen live – Steve Blank and Mitch Kapor. I immediately signed up not paying attention to the other details.

I arrived at the Orrick building in San Francisco bright and early and saw a table in the lobby with a “Black Founders” sign. Oops, there’s a detail I missed. I hoped I was in the right place. Turns out I was and they couldn’t have been nicer. Even though I stuck out among the crowd.

It was sometimes hard to relate to the speakers who talked about what it was like to be a visible minority. They weren’t complaining, just relating their personal experiences.

As a woman, I’ve never thought of myself as a minority. Maybe because I’m used to being the only woman senior executive in boardrooms full of men. Whether in the beer industry, hotel business or even in Hollywood. I never let it get in the way. I always hoped I’d be judged on my performance and results.

They say that the stats for women in tech are low. We all know about the superstars – Marissa, Sheryl, Meg but where are the founders of billion dollar companies? Well, they’re just not here. Yet.

In the meantime, we have some women running cool startups: Leah Busque at Taskrabbit, Gina Bianchini at Mightybell, Alexa Andrzejewski of Foodspotting, among others. Time will tell as to how big these companies will get. But it’s great to see more women jumping in and creating companies.

I don’t believe that your gender, skin color or age should matter, but let’s face it; investors (angels and VCs) are predominantly male. And they like to bet on people who look like them. There are SO many ideas out there that they have the luxury of choosing the ones that appeal to them. The famous William Goldman line: “nobody knows anything” rings as true in Silicon Valley as it does in Hollywood. It’s a crapshoot where the best you can do is make educated guesses.

So to black founders, women founders and others who don’t come with a pedigree from Stanford, Google or Facebook, just keep at it. If you have a great idea and know how to execute it (by yourself or with a great team) then focus on 2 things: get people to use your product or better yet, get them to pay for it. It turns out that traction trumps connections. Just look at Pinterest.

And stop worrying about fitting in.