Ethel J. Davis founded VZD Capital Management, LLC, in 2012, starting the firm from her two-bedroom apartment in Leawood, Kansas. Earlier that year, after an unexpected termination, she decided to establish an independent registered investment advisory firm. She sought advice from two local women who owned wealth management firms, asking what it took to start one. Their experiences helped her see the disparities between white entrepreneurs and minority-owned start- ups, particularly how access to funding is not always equal. Many start-ups with substantial capital benefited from affluent families, inherited assets, and credit lines from various lenders. A woman might own 51 percent of a business while a white man held the remaining ownership. Although this qualified the business as woman-owned for designation purposes, the man might also be the funding source that helped get it off the ground. Ethel, by contrast, used her savings to launch the company without commercial lending and was grateful to remain debt-free apart from rent and utilities.