Gangly Sister founder, Rebecca Rachmany, has been in the technological entrepreneurship world for twenty-five years. “I’ve worked as a marketing person, a senior marketing person and I’ve run service companies,” Rebecca states. The one question that’s always come up for her was ‘where are the women?’ Rebecca had presumed that the equality problem had been solved ages ago. Stunned, Rebecca began to ask herself that question more and more, essentially conceiving the idea of Gangly Sister from her curiosity.

In her search for answers, Rebecca would come across yet another question, one that she believes can answer the first: what are the goals that we teach our children? “It’s very different what we teach boys and girls in terms of life goals,” Rebecca says. “It’s not just what we explicitly teach, but also what the media puts out. We see women are valued more for their bodies, their popularity and for their relationships, particularly with men. On the other hand, we teach boys to be good providers.” Because of the differences in terms of early life lessons about goals, Rebecca feels that equal opportunity may become pointless. “If girls don’t set ambitious goals in the first place, it doesn’t matter what opportunities we provide later in life.”

Gangly Sister aims to change the goals that children set for themselves, particularly girls. The company not only makes comic books, but also aims to create apps, with the whole philosophy behind it being the change in how girls perceive their own futures and to change what they are striving for. In accordance to Rebecca’s own background in tech, the other goal is to make technology look really appealing.

“For me, technology is a great profession because you can change the world and this is what everybody is interested in.” Considering her experience, Rebecca clearly had a lot to say about this particular goal. “Our products are comic books and apps or videos, but the goal is to show people that they can make real changes in the world. You know that if they become technologists, then we’ve reached our goal.”

The Gangly Sister team comprises of six individuals. The two most responsible for working on the projects is Rebecca and Ofer, with the others brought in as needed. “Right now we have a product that’s mostly selling so I’m doing most of the marketing with help from contractors. I look for help from experts outside the company, because I can’t be the best at everything.” Rebecca admits.

Because of the nature of their work, Rebecca believes that the most important skill to have would be the ability to work well with people, as well as the willingness to always learn. The mark of a truly effective leader then, would be the capability to be able to not only bring in the right people, but also have the capacity to motivate and inspire them. “A marketing person doesn’t think the same way as a creative person, so the most important skill has always been the ability to ensure that these different kinds of people work well together.” Beyond expert leadership skills, it was their determination, cohesiveness and overall ability that led to the creation of their first pilot episode.

In addition to their comics, Gangly Sister has also produced an animated video based on their own comic book characters. As entrepreneurs, the team was sufficiently self-funded. To help with the production, outside contractors from all over the world were outsourced for whatever they needed. On the search for help, Rebecca remarked that finding good people was the hardest part. Despite the difficulty, the project was a success and their pilot episode is available for viewing on the company’s YouTube page.

At one point, the team tried their hand at fundraising. They also decided that they would only take money from the Indiegogo campaign they had set up if it were enough to produce at least ten videos. This decision was influenced by what they observed from campaigns started by other entrepreneurs where they would make just enough money to get to the next stage yet leave the future of the project hanging until the next campaign. Unfortunately, Gangly Sister’s Indigogo campaign failed to generate enough money to produce ten videos, ultimately leading to the campaign’s failure.

Regarding finance and fundraising, Rebecca’s personal philosophy involves making money on your own as much as possible for as long as you can. This is rooted firmly in her roots as an entrepreneur. Another thing she advises would be to pattern yourself after business models that are not very expensive. “You know one of the things about digital comics is that it is less expensive compared to videos, which made them comparatively easy for us to produce.” Rebecca says, offering an explanation as to why their priorities are where they are. “You really need to be realistic in your choices because it is a fact that most businesses do not succeed!”

Before Gangly Sister, she had embarked on a venture that ultimately did not work out. “We had a business that was in the area of providing technical and marketing writing services to technological companies. It went quite well with both the marketing and technical writing industries.” The success of that venture led to her coming up with another one: social media. The end result, however, was not favorable to them.

Although they managed to attract a few potential customers, they were not happy with the services that Rebecca and her team were able to provide. Considering themselves to be no better than any other social media company out there, they decided to cease operating in that particular field.

As far as advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is concerned, Rebecca had some choice words to impart: “You’ve got to really love it or have some very, very strong motivation.” Failure is accepted as a normal part of business, although not necessarily as a whole. “It may come in different ways; it might be that this customer didn’t work out so well, or maybe the first thing you tried didn’t work.” In response to that, Rebecca stresses the need to try new things, but also cautions that for those who do not possess very strong motivation, then it would be better not to start. “So the most important advice I can provide is that you need to have very strong motivation, because business can be a very difficult thing to do.”