Janie Deegan And Stacy's Pita Chips Shed Light On Jaw-Dropping VC Funding Stat!

New York City based business owner and former Stacy's Rise Project winner Janie Deegan has teamed up with Stacy's Pita Chips to bring awareness to a jaw-dropping statistic - women founders only receive 2% of VC funding, despite the fact that nearly 50% of all U.S. businesses are owned by women.

With Women's Entrepreneurship Day coming up on November 19, this timely partnership sheds light on the need and offers a way to support. Deegan, owner of Janie's Life-Changing Baked Goods, joined forces with Stacy's to create a limited time "Stacy's Rise Pies," inspired by Deegan's iconic Pie Crust Cookies. The pies illustrate what 2% of the pie actually looks like to help highlight the importance of supporting women business owners.

Deegan's story is one filled with empowerment and inspiration. She founded her business in 2015, just two years after reconstructing her life after struggling with addiction and homelessness. Fast forward to today, she now owns and operates three locations in New York City.

When Deegan learned about the Stacy's Rise Project in 2017, she decided to give it a shot and was surprised when she was announced as one of the recipients. Everything changed from that moment.

"I was one of the first five recipients of the Stacy's Rise Project in 2017. At the time it was like a real crossroads in my business," Deegan told The Blast exclusively. "I had started my business a year-and-a-half before from my home and sort of have taken it to the max I could without knowledge and financial support and a mentorship."

Deegan learned about the Stacy's Rise Project through a newsletter and remembers thinking it would be "absolutely perfect" since it was a scholarship to the International Culinary Center, one of the top culinary schools in New York City.  The scholarship was for a culinary entrepreneurship intense program, as well as a stipend to help with living expenses while in the intense class.

"I remember seeing it and being like this would be such a dream come true for me and it would just really help elevate my business and help me gain the knowledge I needed to continue to grow the business," she continued. "And applying and thinking I would never get it and then weeks later when they finally announced who the five recipients were I was one of them."

The program gave Deegan a newfound confidence about her business. The intense course also taught her a lot of things she needed to know in order to continue growing her business. The stipend she was awarded helped her to focus on the program without needing to work a day job as well. She hasn't looked back since and credits the Stacy's Rise Project for helping her go full time into her business and taking a chance on herself.

Deegan began her business around Thanksgiving 2015, just two years after she had gotten sober and struggled with homelessness due to addiction.

"I had been rebuilding my life for two years and was nannying full time. I was like 27 at the time and had no real experience in the career world," she told The Blast. "Baking was something that I had done in early sobriety that acted as this meditative act of self-care and really built my self-esteem and self-love and confidence."

She started her business from her home by selling pies for Thanksgiving, and then spent the following two years trying to grow her business from her home. Now, Deegan has three New York City locations.

"We opened our first location in August 2021 right in the middle of the pandemic and have had an amazing ride for the past two-plus years. We opened a second location in East Harlem a little over a year ago and opened a third location June of 2023 in the West Village," she said. "It's been a crazy roller coaster of a ride, from home pie baker to managing and running three brick and mortars in Manhattan."

Deegan's shops specialize in Pie Crust Cookies, which was something she came up with around the time she was at Stacy's Rise Project.

The bottom of the cookie is a flaky pie crust, the middle is pie filling, and the top is a buttery streusel. There are dozens of flavors to choose from, and each cookie is like the "best slice of the pie" in small cookie form.

While Deegan was just starting out and growing her business, she faced a lot of fear, but kept moving forward. She wants other women entrepreneurs to know that fear is just par for the course.

"For me, growing the business was all about facing fear and doing it anyway. I had a friend of mine a couple of years ago that said to me on a really special day, the anniversary of one of my stores, he said to me, 'I don't know how you do it. If I were you I would be scared all the time.' And I remember turning to him and saying, 'I am scared all the time.' I'm constantly in fear, but have learned that through the business and my own journey is to look fear in the eye and do it anyway," she explained.

"I think being a female entrepreneur can be, I felt the first couple of years feeling so lonely and scared and I learned that, especially in the food community that the network of women running small businesses is so powerful and people who I had once looked at as my competitors have become my best resources and my best teachers. The community of women entrepreneurs is just so generous and so abundant and there's so many of us."

More than 50% of small businesses are owned by women, and Deegan's advice to other women is to just "look fear in the eyes and do it anyway and lean on others who are on the same path.

Deegan doesn't only bake delicious cookies and baked goods, but also provides second-chance employment, teaches classes to underprivileged youth in the city, and donates time and baked goods to local community centers and homeless shelters.

Since 2017, Stacy's Rise Project has awarded $1 million in grants to 60 women, as well as provided resources, mentoring and a network of other founders. There have been more than 29,000 applications for Stacy's Rise Project in the past five years. This year, the project will award 15 founders a $25,000 grant, mentorship from Frito-Lay and PepsiCo leadership.

To learn more about the Stacy's Rise Project and to apply, and to get your hands on your own Stacy's Rise Pie this season, visit their website. Applications close on December 1, 2023.