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Invest in Women Founders & Inclusive Tech Talent
0% complete
€1,065 raised of
29 donations
Too many women-identified founders hear, “Come back when you have a CTO/team/plan/code.” Which keeps them out of startup accelerators and incubators that could benefit their business. Instead they often resort to working fulltime and building their business at night. Their ability to grow is impacted by the time and resources they can spend on their startup.
WE know it takes more: a supportive community, creative minds, and collaborators at every level—from strategy to storytelling to building. Everyone is welcome to join our community and events.
At WE Make Trouble , we connect founders, skills owners, partners, and sponsors for purposeful teamwork, lasting relationships, and a whole new way to launch ventures.
This isn’t about “fixing the women” or “fixing the system.”
It’s about coming together to create something new—where everyone brings their best, no matter their skillset or background.
All supporters of women-led innovation are welcome. We are an open and inclusive community.
WE run a series of hackathons, open to all, that connect women-identified founders with skills owners with an emphasis on inclusion. Our skills owners choose the founders they will work with for a very intense weekend. We want these teams to be able to continue together after the hackathon, building or scaling impact-focused businesses. This is when seed capital can make all the difference. Seed capital is the early funds that you have to start your business, build your prototype, etc. It can make all the difference in being able to take your next step.
Our "Seeds of Trouble" Campaign
WE provide every hackathon team with a Seeds of Trouble grant at the end of the weekend. This seed capital can be used by the team to invest in what they need to take their next step. For some teams, it might mean a workshop on finance or other entrepreneurial guidance. For others, it might mean having time together at a coworking space to collaborate. It's up to the team to decide how they will use their grant. It might be to buy cloud services or acquire tools.
WE use the funds raised here to provide these grants. In addition to crowdfunding them, 10% of each hackthon ticket sold goes to fund these grants. Our hackthons are an ongoing program. We are are a European based initiative. Our next hackathon is 6-8 February 2026 in Amsterdam, at the Social Impact Factory's Kaugomballenfabriek (Chewing Gum Factory). The amount we raise will determine the size of the grants so every amount helps!
Why are we turning to crowdfunding? Good question. Here are our reasons:
- For starters, we want to keep WE Make Trouble open, inclusive, independent and self-sufficient.
- It wouldn't make sense for a community focused on entrepreneurship to be dependent on others, would it?
- WE want to be able to welcome everyone who supports our founders and often subsidies are oriented towards including only certain groups.
- WE are building bridges between our founders and inclusive tech talent so they can find each other and build new businesses together, making real progress towards change.
- WE want people to join us who believe this is important, not just because they need an item for their newsletter or social media channels for International Women's Day.
- In the Netherlands, less than 1% of all capital goes to women-identified founders. This includes banks, venture capital and other financial markets. Rather than try to change those systems, we'd rather get capital into the hands of these teams directly as a more effective way to tackle the problem!
Thanks for joining us in making good trouble! WE hope that you will feel welcome to join us at our February hackathon and meet the people you are funding!
Caroline & Jana
WE Make Trouble
Organizer
Caroline Williams
Organizer