The Kathryn Finney Newsletter
Essays on entrepreneurship, capital, power, and the work of building when the rules keep changing. From bestselling author and founder Kathryn Finney. Free. Weekly-ish.
Read by founders, operators, and builders at companies like Google, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and the next 10,000 startups you have never heard of.
01
Long-form pieces on the actual work of building a company in 2026. The thing nobody else is writing because they are too busy posting about morning routines.
02
Real numbers from real founders. What rounds actually closed, who got paid what, which markets are moving, which ones are theater.
03
A new way to think about entrepreneurship that does not require you to quit your job, raise a round, or pretend you have it all figured out.
Kathryn Finney is the bestselling author of Build the Damn Thing, founder of Genius Guild and BUILD, and the person Inc. Magazine called "the godmother of Black tech entrepreneurship." She has invested in over 70 companies, advised the Obama White House on entrepreneurship, and built one of the largest networks of women and underrepresented founders in the country.
She started writing this newsletter because the conversation about entrepreneurship had gotten boring. The same five people repeating the same five things. Meanwhile, the actual builders were doing something interesting and nobody was telling that story honestly.
So she is telling it. Subscribe and read along.
Women-owned businesses generate $3.3 trillion in annual revenue. That sounds significant until you put it next to the full picture. Women own 40 percent of American businesses, but only account for...
Read on SubstackIn January 2026, 532,319 new business applications were filed in the United States. That is one month. Up 7.2 percent from December. The Census Bureau projects 29,863 of those will become actual...
Read on SubstackThe JPMorgan Chase Institute tracked 30 million businesses over seven years and found no significant difference in survival rates between women-owned and male-owned firms when controlling for size...
Read on SubstackThe only newsletter I read the minute it hits my inbox. Kathryn writes the truth nobody else will say out loud.
I forwarded the last one to my whole team. This is what business writing should sound like.
She is the smartest person writing about entrepreneurship right now. It is not close.
About once a week. Sometimes twice when the news warrants it. Never daily, because nobody needs that.
Yes. There is a paid option for readers who want to support the work and get bonus essays, but the main newsletter is free forever.
The Receipt is a shorter, data-anchored brief published on LinkedIn. The Substack is the longer, more personal writing, essays, frameworks, and the bigger arguments. Most readers subscribe to both.
No. One email a week. Unsubscribe whenever. No drip sequences. No upsells in your inbox.
Founders, operators, investors, executives in transition, and a lot of people who are quietly building something on the side. About 60 percent women. Mostly mid-career.
Free. Weekly-ish. The honest version of the entrepreneurship conversation.