I'm more than a little frustrated. I attended YC Startup School in NYC recently. I went home, excited, made connections, and started making calls, pitch decks, and iterating my app. It seemed to me, when leaving, there were lots of doors open to minority women, lots of companies asserting they wanted diversity in their portfolios. In practice, I just HAVE NOT SEEN THIS. Period. Many sites, like Angel.co or Gust, require a referral to even 'get on radar'. As a minority, I learned to code in a non-traditional way -- pure necessity, with a splash of the useful bits of my CompSci studies at a state college. As such, I don't have the range of remarkably brilliant ivy leaguers with their own clout on either platform. I'm submitting video with my initial contacts to show, yes, a mixed-brownish-female is out there who CAN code, has a mission, has support, and an investible product. I'm sending this to every VC I can find with mission statements, press releases, or other online media alluding to this.

Am I doing something wrong here? Should I be louder or more aggressive in my approach? To be clear, I'm not implying that my minority status should guarantee results. I'm pointing out that those who claim they ARE looking for more women for their portfolios... don't really seem to be doing much to back up their statements.

PLEASE. Correct me if I'm wrong. Tell me your experiences. Throw down a tip or two if you can!