Women 2.0 » Networking women entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley

Women 2.0 Labs - New Pre-Incubator This Fall 2010!

Women 2.0 Labs is a 5-week
pre-incubator for engineers, designers, business and marketing mavens to begin to develop high-growth technology ventures in San Francisco, CA. This Women 2.0 program is open to both women and men.

Deadline to apply for your spot at Women 2.0 Labs: September 4th, 2010.

Keep your day job, join us afterward! Over the course of 5 weeks (September 27 - October 28, 2010), selected participants will moonlight in teams on weekday nights and weekends at the Women 2.0 Labs co-working space — and every Thursday night, demo their latest prototype.

Participants will be joined weekly by industry leaders serving as visiting advisors. Take a look at the advisors from the last Women 2.0 Labs session for an idea of the advisors involved.

Who should attend Women 2.0 Labs?

- Someone with an idea they’d like to validate, and passionately curious about starting a startup
- Someone without an idea, and passionately curious about starting a startup

How is Women 2.0 Labs different?

We are focused on rapid prototyping.
You work hands-on with potential team members.
You don’t have to quit your day job or drop out of school. Come with enough energy to burn the midnight oil after work/school hours.
There is no curriculum.

Are you an engineering student?

Are you interested in founding a startup? Join us! We’ve reserved a few spots for engineers still in school, or recently graduated, to join Women 2.0 Labs. Email baat@women2.org if interested.

Press on Women 2.0 Labs

Women 2.0 Labs was featured on TechCrunch for “Breaking Up The Boys Club: Inside Women 2.0 Labs [video]” and on ReadWriteWeb: “Incubating Women Entrepreneurs” and “Women 2.0 Labs Graduates Its First Class of Founders”.

Check out blog posts from previous Labs participants:

Rebecca works on a health startup
Kimberly ponders her MBA
Vida quits her engineering day job to live the dream
Anna expounds on gut feelings vs. testing and communicating
Tiem expresses great appreciation for his team
Beatriz flies in from Barcelona for a summer in SF

Do the math:

5 engineers (software, hardware, bio)
+ 5 more engineers (students)
+ 5 designers
+ 5 business / marketing people
+ 5 week program
+ 5 days a week (M-F after work)
+ 555 dollars to join the race
—————————————
= 5 startups will emerge

The $555 fee is per person, regardless of the role they take on the team.

Why $555? Two reasons:

If you rent a co-working spot in San Francisco, it would cost $500 per person a month. Not only are we providing a co-working space, we are creating a hyper-smart environment for you to build, and we are giving you access to investors and entrepreneurs for advice. We want you to build authentic relationships and great products.
We do not take equity.

Add up your “eating out” money each month, it’s about the same. Save it by investing in your startup!

Refund Policy: Due to the up front costs we incur and the structure of the program agenda, a 50% refund will be allowable until the end of the first week of the program. Refunds for emergency situations will be considered with proper documentation. Email us to discuss obtaining a refund.

Fall Schedule for Women 2.0 Labs

Women 2.0 Labs participants will meet on Thursday nights from 6pm to 9pm from September 27th through October 28th, 2010. Teams demo their latest product releases each Thursday evening. Teams are allowed to use the San Francisco space to work on their startups on weeknights from 6pm to 9pm.

Week 0
Idea Brainstorming and Team Formation.

Week 1
Thursday, September 30, 2010: Visiting Advisors: Eric Ries (Creator, Lean Startup), Jon Callaghan (General Partner, True Ventures)

Week 2
Thursday, October 7, 2010: Visiting Advisors: Steve Blank (Creator, Customer Development), Ann Miura-Ko (Partner, FLOODGATE)

Week 3
Wednesday, October 13, 2010: Visiting Advisor: Hiten Shah (Co-Founder & CEO, KISSMetrics)
Thursday, October 14, 2010: Visiting Advisors: Mari Baker (President & CEO, PlayFirst),
Dan Martell (Co-Founder, Flowtown)

Week 4
Wednesday, October 20, 2010: Visiting Advisor: David Weekly (Founder, Chairman, & Chief Product Officer, PBworks)
Thursday, October 21, 2010: Visiting Advisors: Saad Khan (Partner, CMEA Capital)

Week 5 — Final Demo Night
Thursday, October 28, 2010: Visiting Advisors: Sukhinder Cassidy Singh (CEO, Polyvore), Theresia Gouw Ranzetta (Partner, Accel Partners)

We are currently accepting company sponsors to provide food/drink for an evening in exchange for your logo on this page and a 3-5 minute pitch at event. Please contact shaherose@women2.org if interested.

Women 2.0 Labs will be held at True Ventures

The San Francisco office of True Ventures is located at Pier 38 on The Embarcadero. View map here.

Coming from the South Bay? Pier 38 is only a 10-15 minute walk (or 2 MUNI lightrail stops) away from the 4th & King Caltrain station in San Francisco!

Women 2.0 Labs (Fall 2010) Visiting Advisors:

Eric Ries (Creator, Lean Startup) - Thursday, September 30th, 2010
Eric is an author, speaker, and consultant for The Lean Startup. Previously, he co-founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of IMVU. He is the co-author of several books including The Black Art of Java Game Programming (Waite Group Press, 1996). In 2007, BusinessWeek named Eric one of the Best Young Entrepreneurs of Tech. He serves on the advisory board of a number of technology startups and venture capital firms. In 2008, he served as a venture advisor at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Jon Callaghan (General Partner, True Ventures) - Thursday, September 30th, 2010
Jon is truly passionate about early stage companies. He has founded three companies of his own, and his venture capital career spans 17 years, includeing consistent early stage success. Before founding True, Jon was a Managing Director at Globespan, where he served on the boards of Copan Systems, FilmLoop, Glu Mobile (fka Sorrent), Ingrian Networks, Next Medium Networks, Nominum Corp., Plaxo, Sigma Dynamics, and Vazu. Jon holds a BA in Government from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Steve Blank (Creator, Customer Development) - Thursday, October 7th, 2010
Steve moved from being an entrepreneur to teaching entrepreneurship to both undergraduate and graduate students at U.C. Berkeley, Stanford University and the Columbia University/Berkeley Joint Executive MBA program. The “Customer Development” model he developed in his book is one of the core themes in these classes. In 2009, Steve was awarded the Stanford University Undergraduate Teaching Award in the department of Management Science and Engineering. In 2010, Steve was awarded the Earl F. Cheit Outstanding Teaching Award at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Ann Miura-Ko (Partner, FLOODGATE) - Thursday, October 7th, 2010
Ann is a partner at FLOODGATE where her investment interests include e-commerce, security, and big data. Ann is finishing up a Ph.D. in the Management Science and Engineering Department at Stanford University, where her research focused on mathematical modeling of computer security. She teaches High Tech Entrepreneurship at Stanford and is a frequent lecturer in courses such as Technology Venture Formation, High-tech Entrepreneurship, and the Mayfield Fellows Program. Ann holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Yale.

Hiten Shah (Co-Founder & CEO, KISSMetrics) - Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Hitens started on the Internet by founding a Internet marketing consultancy, ACS. He than went on to create Crazy Egg, an analytics tool that visualizes the user experience on a website. Now with KISSmetrics he is working on helping web-based businesses understand their customers better starting with making tracking of business metrics and conversion funnels much simpler and easier to understand. Hiten is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs and startup people. He enjoys advising startups about metrics, product and marketing. Hiten holds a B.S. in Organizational Behavior from UC Berkeley.

Mari Baker (President & CEO, PlayFirst) - Thursday, October 14th, 2010
Mari is currently the President & CEO of PlayFirst. Prior to Playfirst, Mari was President & CEO for Navigenics. Mari was an executive-in-residence at Kleiner Perkins. Prior to that, Mari served as President of BabyCenter. Before joining BabyCenter, she played a significant role in the growth of Intuit for ten years. Mari has been recognized in the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame, Fortune’s list of Silicon Valley’s Most Influential Women, and Advertising Age’s Top 100. Mari is a graduate of Stanford University with degrees in economics and sociology.

David Weekly (Founder, Chairman, & Chief Product Officer, PBworks) - Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
A Boston native and son of a MIT engineer, David has been programming since he was five and has coded for MIT, Harvard, Stanford, There.com, atWeb, and Legato. David wrote the first layman’s description of MP3 in early 1997 and graduated in 2000 with a BS in Computer Science from Stanford, where he was a President Scholar and a finalist in the ACM International Programming Competition. David started the company that became PBwiki (now PBworks) in 2003, along the way creating SingleStat.us and IMSmarter. David holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Saad Khan (Partner, CMEA Capital) - Thursday, Oct 21st, 2010
Saad focuses on CMEA Capital’s software and Internet investments. He serves on the boards of Pixazza and Jobvite. Prior to CMEA, Saad was Partner at Garage Technology Ventures (GTV), a seed and early stage venture capital firm. During his career at GTV, Saad worked with many emerging technology, software, and digital media companies. Saad is a founding member of the FilmAngels. Saad holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems and an A.B in Economics with Honors in Science, Technology, and Society from Stanford University.

Dave McClure (Investor, FF Angel LLC) - Thursday, Oct 21st, 2010
Dave likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally help or invest in their startups if they let him. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. Many years ago he used to do real work like coding or marketing or running conferences, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like sending lots of email, blogging, and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter.

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Polyvore) - Thursday, October 28th, 2010
Before joining Polyvore, Sukhinder was CEO-in-Residence at Accel Partners. From 2005-2009 Sukhinder was President of Asia Pacific and Latin America for Google, where she built the company’s presence from inception to scale across 40 domains and 103 different countries. Sukhinder first joined Google in 2003 as the General Manager for Google Local & Maps. From 1999-2003, Sukhinder was Co-founder and SVP of Business Development at Yodlee, and previously worked for Amazon.com, News Corp and Merrill Lynch. Sukhinder has served on the board of J.Crew, and is currently a board member at A Woman’s Nation and Jobtrain.

Theresia Gouw Ranzetta (Partner, Accel) - Thursday, October 28th, 2010
Theresia focuses on Internet and software investments with specific interest in vertical search/media, online media, advertising and security. She serves on boards of ForeScout, Glam Media, Imperva, Jasper Design Automation, Kosmix, LearnVest, Trulia, TRUSTe and Wetpaint. Theresia has worked in computer and communications industries since the late-1980’s as an entrepreneur, consultant and investor. Prior to Accel, she was founding VP of Business Development & Sales at Release Software. Theresia holds an Sc.B. in Engineering from Brown, magna cum laude and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Thanks to Founder Institute and Golden Seeds for supporting Women 2.0 Labs!

Get ready to PITCH: Women 2.0 Startup Competition

The 4th Annual PITCH: Women 2.0 Startup Competition is open to early-stage ventures around the world, from high growth business ventures in web 2.0 to mobile, from enterprise web/mobile to consumer clean/biotech. Applying companies must be in beta stage and have not received significant funding. Deadline to apply to PITCH is October 1st, 2010.

This competition is in line with Steve Blank’s position that startups plan while companies model — hence, Women 2.0 is holding a business model competition rather than a business plan competition. Judging is based on not just the initial business model but what the team learned by pivoting, for example, avoiding the “beauty contest” of business plans where judges resort to choosing the best “paper exercise” plan (rather than the best business or the team that has made the most progress in figuring out product-market fit). Teams, whether they win or lose, finish the competition significantly more prepared to launch their business in the real world. Read more »

A handful of startups will be chosen to pitch live in San Francisco at the 4th Annual PITCH Night on November 4th, 2010. Previous years’ prizes included meetings with Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital), Tim Draper (Draper Fisher Jurvetson) and Esther Dyson (investor in companies such as Flickr, del.icio.us, and 23andMe), and a host of startup-friendly services.

Quick Facts about PITCH 2010:

The founding team must have at least one female.
The founding team must have a technologist* on the founding team. A technologist is an engineer, scientist, mathematician, biologist, etc.
Your venture must be in beta. This means you should have a prototype (alpha or beta version) or the product is already in the market.
PITCH is focused on companies with high-growth potential.

Apply to PITCH: Women 2.0 Startup Competition

How to apply to the Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition — there are 3 parts:

Fill out the application here. Once you start an application, you may edit your application anytime prior to the closing date of October 1st, 2010. Application fee is $50 per startup.
Mail in your business model scribbled on a paper napkin — Capture your creativity on the paper napkin with your doodles and drawings. Submit your business idea on a paper napkin no larger than 7×7 inches. Your name and contact info must be on the napkin so we can match it with your online application. Napkins must be received at 63 Bovet Road, #519, San Mateo, CA 94402 no later than October 1st, 2010. Napkins will be exhibited to the public at PITCH Night. By default, your napkin will be exhibited. If you do not wish to participate in the exhibition, state clearly on a note and attach it on the napkin.
Film a 2-minte video pitch — Think of this as a traditional TV commercial, and the audience/viewers are your “perfect” customers. How will you pitch your product to them? The video should be uploaded along with your business plan through Angelsoft. Uploading video takes time and bandwidth, we suggest you do not wait until the deadline to submit your video pitch.

All applications will receive feedback from at least 3 members of the judging panel. Judges are investors and successful entrepreneurs who take time to review your application in detail and provide honest, constructive feedback on your venture and application. For a list of the judging panel, click here.

Finalists will be notified October 14th, 2010 and invited to present at the Women 2.0 PITCH event in San Francisco on November 4th, 2010. If you are selected as a finalist, the entire team must present at PITCH.

Investor Meetings for PITCH 2010 Winners:

Esther Dyson (Principal, EDventure Holdings)
Esther is an active investor at EDventure Holdings in a variety of startups, focusing on technology. Her portfolio of private space and air travel investments includes XCOR Aerospace, Space Adventures/Zero G (recently merged), Constellation Services, Icon Aircraft, Coastal Aviation Software and Airship Ventures. She has flown weightless on Zero-G four times, but hopes to go up again soon. On the IT side, Esther’s investments included Flickr and del.icio.us, both sold to Yahoo! and Medstory, sold to Microsoft. Currently, she sits on the boards of 23andMe, Meetup, WPP Group, Eventful, Evernote, Boxbe and Yandex, the leading Russian search company. Esther sold her business EDventure Holdings, along with its Release1.0 newsletter and PC Forum conference, to CNET Networks in 2004. Esther left CNET at the end of 2006 and (with permission) has resumed doing business under the name of EDventure Holdings. She spends most of her time exploring new space, health care and IT start-ups and technologies, writing about them and actively (and with full disclosure) investing in some of them.

Matt Murphy (Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)
Matt manages the iFund at KPCB, a collaborative initiative with Apple focused on funding and building defining applications on the iPhone OS platform and the mobile internet. His expertise is in network communications, compute infrastructure, and mobile applications. Matt is either a Director or works closely with the management teams of Booyah!, GOGII, Pelago, Shazam, shopkick, Kodiak Networks, RGB Networks, Stoke, Aerohive Networks, and Puppet Labs. Previously, Matt was a board observer at Google (from initial investment to IPO), led KP’s investment in Autonavi (NASDAQ: AMAP ‘10), and was a Director at Ocarina Networks (acquired by Dell ‘10), Peakstream (acquired by Google ‘08), Dash Navigation (acquired by RIM ‘09). Prior to KPCB, Matt led product management at a semiconductor startup (Netboost acquired by Intel) and worked at Sun Microsystems. Matt holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Mike Maples (Managing Partner, FLOODGATE)
Mike is the managing partner of FLOODGATE, and was recently named as one of “8 Rising VC Stars” by Fortune Magazine for his investments in business and consumer technology companies. Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was an entrepreneur and operating executive who worked in a variety of senior management roles in high-growth companies. His background spans a variety of markets including consumer technology, small business, and the enterprise, and he has led various functions in product development, marketing, business development, and corporate strategy. Mike co-founded Motive, Inc., the world’s leading broadband software company in 1997, and played key roles in its growth from raw start-up through sales of more than $75 million. Motive was one of the only successful technology IPOs in 2004, and the most successful infrastructure software IPO for the prior three years. At Motive, Mike was General Manager of Motive’s Corporate Business Unit, as well as Chief Marketing and Strategy officer. Prior to Motive, Mike was responsible for worldwide product marketing at Tivoli Systems, where he managed the company’s product portfolio from its early-stage development through its 1995 IPO and growth to a $750M line of business within the IBM Software Group. Mike began his professional career at Silicon Graphics, where he served in business development and product marketing roles. Mike holds an Engineering degree from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Naval Ravikant (Partner, AngelList)
Naval is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList. Previously, he was a co-founder at Genoa Corp (acquired by Finisar), Epinions.com (IPO via Shopping.com), and Vast.com (largest white-label classifieds marketplace). Naval has advised Bix.com, iPivot, and XFire, among others, and invested in many companies, including Twitter, FourSquare, DocVerse (sold to Google), Mixer Labs (sold to Twitter), Jambool (Social Gold), SnapLogic, PlanCast, Stack Overflow, Heyzap, and Disqus. Naval holds B.S. in Computer Science and Economics from Dartmouth College.

Founder Friday NYC on September 10 in the East Village

Founder Friday is a Women 2.0 networking event organized in partnership with liked-minded organizations like Startup Weekend. Everyone has to eat, so why not share a meal and startup stories? Then we will walk over to Startup Weekend together after dinner.

Women 2.0 Founder Friday on September 10th in NYC!

Tal Flanchraych (Co-Founder, Cabulous) has made reservations for us at 5pm for The Central Bar on Friday, September 10, 2010.

Join fellow Women 2.0 founders, aspiring and current, in the East Village for drinks and networking at Founder Friday NYC. After Founder Friday, we will head over together for Startup Weekend NYC.

Women 2.0 members save $10 on Startup Weekend NYC tickets here .

Founder Friday Palo Alto on September 10

Founder Friday is a Women 2.0 networking event. Everyone has to eat, so why not share a meal and startup stories? This time, Women 2.0 partners with HealthTap to host a Founder Friday in Palo Alto! Join fellow founders, both aspiring and current, for a networking mixer on Friday, September 10, 2010 in Palo Alto.

Women 2.0 Founder Friday on September 10th in Palo Alto!

Join fellow founders, both aspiring and current, for dinner together before the health hackathon in Palo Alto. Women 2.0 Labs alumni Rebecca Woodcock (Founder, Cake Health) has made reservations for us at 6pm for Slidebar Cafe on Friday, September 10, 2010. Please RSVP here - it’s free.

This Founder Friday event kicks off HealthTap’s Hacking 4 Health hackathon happening Saturday, September 11 at HealthTap’s office in Palo Alto. At the hackathon, meet fellow developers and startuppers who share your passion for creating innovative health applications and get feedback/help on your projects. Read More »

Exclusive Women 2.0 FoundersCard rate ends Sept. 15

FoundersCard is a members-only community of leading entrepreneurs and innovators. We support risk-taking entrepreneurs (those doing the real leg work in rebuilding the economy) by offering unparalleled rates and benefits from the world’s top brands. Members also can take advantage of regular invitation-only networking events as well as online networking opportunities. Among the most popular benefits members enjoy are deep discounts compliments of Equinox Fitness, AT&T wireless, W Hotels & Resorts, Exhale Spa, and Starwood, to name a few.

Women 2.0 members are entitled to an exclusive annual rate of $99 (regular price $495) for FoundersCards purchased through September 15, 2010.

For more info, check out Women 2.0’s exclusive guest preview
of FoundersCard’s members-only site.

Partner event: i/o ventures Prize & WIE Symposium

Calling all female founders of early-stage tech startups! Are you looking for investment, mentorship, and fame for your startup? Look no further than i/o ventures’ WIE Prize!

Apply to win $25k investment from i/o ventures (for 8% common stock in your company) along with 4 months of office space at the i/o ventures office in San Francisco.

Women 2.0 will offer the winner mentorship from four of the biggest female names in tech: Chris Shipley (Co-Founder, Guidewire Group), Kim Polese (Founder & CEO, SpikeSource), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Polyvore), Theresia Gouw Ranzetta (Partner, Accel). The winner also receives mentorship from the founders of i/o ventures and Silicon Valley startup executives.

Apply here for the i/o ventures prize — Please specify “WIE Prize” next to your company name in the application. Deadline to enter is September 10th, 2010.

Partner event: Failcon 2010

At FailCon on October 25, 2010 in San Francisco, join over 400 founders, investors, executives, developers, service provides, and press as we share tips and tools to avoid, prepare for, and recover from the most common startup mistakes. Be sure not to miss this industry-changing event. Any small business or startup will inevitably encounter failures: idea development, teamwork, hiring, design, scaling, and countless unpredictable ways as well. Most conference speakers only tell you what they did right - something that can be near-impossible to emulate. Learn where they went wrong so you don’t have to. For more info and to register, click here.

Women 2.0 members save 10% on FailCon tickets with coupon code “Women2″

Partner event: Startup Weekend Education

Women 2.0 is a partner of Startup Weekend - Education in San Francisco from Friday, August 27th through Sunday, August 29th, 2010. This edition of Startup Weekend is dedicated to aspiring education-focused entrepreneurs who seek to transform the way people learn. Participants will have the opportunity to present their educational ventures to a panel of outstanding entrepreneur-judges in the education industry to win a $5,000 cash prize. As with all Startup Weekend events, this is a chance to network with dedicated, ambitious, and highly creative people who want to change the world! For more info and to register, click here.

Women 2.0 members save 50% on tickets to Startup Weekend with coupon code “swwomen2″

Women 2.0 is co-hosting the FREE Pre Startup Weekend Education Party on Thursday, August 26th!

The awesome Startup Weekend party is back! Startup Weekend (Education Edition) is just around the corner and we want to get together all the driven, smart and passionate educators and startuppers under one roof at PariSoma along with the female founder community of Women 2.0. Join us for drinks + pizza. We welcome a BYOB, so consider bringing your favorite liquid or brain food! FREE RSVP here!

Partner event: Founder Institute

A supporter of Women 2.0 Labs, the Founder Institute startup accelerator program is currently accepting applications in 7 cities for Fall 2010 programs: Washington D.C., New York, San Diego, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, and Houston. The application deadlines for all 7 cities are coming up soon, and they would love to have more female applicants. For more info and to apply, click here.

The Founder Institute identifies high potential entrepreneurs, trains them through weekly company-building sessions with experienced CEO mentors, and gives them access to free and discounted services from over 50 service providers. There is also a unique teamwork structure where equity is shared between all of the company founders and mentors so they have incentive to work together in building great companies. Read More »

Jobs: Founder/CTO, CEO, and Engineers Wanted!

Have a job to share with Women 2.0? Email us at jobs@women2.org to find out how. Read More »

Partner: Blazing Cloud Cross-Training

Need more engineering power for your startup? We know Ruby on Rails engineers are in short supply. Blazing Cloud’s Cross-Training Program fills the gap. Women 2.0 is proud to partner with Blazing Cloud to help startups find and successfully “on-board” an engineer.

Blazing Cloud creates an effective environment for your startup to on-board engineers who need to come up to speed on the full stack required to work in Ruby on Rails. Blazing Cloud will provide an intensive week-long training for the engineer. After training, the engineer works with your team for 11 weeks. After the 12-week program, the engineer is ramped up to work at your company as a full-time employee.

Email crosstrain@women2.org to get started on ramping up your startup’s engineering prowess.

Invest in a Future Female Founder w/ Women 2.0 Labs

Women 2.0 gives companies, organizations, and individuals the opportunity to invest in a future female startup founder with a Women 2.0 Labs Scholarship.

Each $555 scholarship covers the cost of the program for a female participant of Women 2.0 Labs, enabling a deserving applicant to join the 5-week pre-incubator (Sept 27 - Oct 28, 2010). Women 2.0 Labs enables talented women engineers, developers, business and marketing individuals to form teams and develop high-growth technology ventures in San Francisco, CA. Participants keep their day jobs, testing and developing their startup ideas at night.

Donors receive:

The Women 2.0 Labs Scholarship named after the donor.
Exposure on the Women 2.0 website and social media channels.
Option to have a demo table on the last day of Women 2.0 Labs, which is an evening of presentations with the program participants, visiting advisors, and special guests from the Women 2.0 community.

Thanks to Founder Institute and Golden Seeds for supporting Women 2.0 Labs!

Will you support a future female founder by sponsoring Women 2.0 Labs?

Email Shaherose to sponsor Women 2.0 Labs this fall.

Design the Women 2.0 “In Conversation” Audio Brand!

Women 2.0 is looking for a new audio brand for our “In Conversation” videos!
The music should be upbeat and inviting but also intriguing — modern, fluid, classy. Please, no vocals as there is enough discussion going on in the videos. Read the full brief here.

The winning audio will be featured as the intro/outro music for Women 2.0 videos.

Women 2.0 Labs: Meet the Founders of Summer 2010

Women 2.0 Labs is a pre-incubator for people with ideas to validate their ideas and rapidly prototype. After the 5-week program, we launched 5 startups who were subsequently covered by TechCrunch.

Here are the founders that came out of the Women 2.0 Labs (Summer 2010):

Cake Health: Meet The Women 2.0 Labs Team

Health Care Made Simple and Sweet.
Cake Health makes it easier to understand health care coverage and how to take advantage of it. Check out Cake Health at www.cakehealth.com. You can also follow Cake Health on Twitter at @cakehealth or like the Facebook page.

Rebecca Woodcock
Strategic business with expertise in market dynamics and user behavior
Follow her on Twitter at @rebeccawoodcock or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Sarah Kling
User experience designer with expertise in software systems and web apps
Follow her on Twitter at @UEVision or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Renuka Wariyar
Engineer with expertise in software architecture, development and web frameworks
Follow her on Twitter at @renukawariyar or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Adrien Arculeo
Engineer with expertise in data warehousing, data quality and cloud computing
Follow him on Twitter at @arculeo or check out his LinkedIn Profile

FreezeFare: Meet The Women 2.0 Labs Team

Freeze Your Fare, Not Your Plans.
FreezeFare keeps travel planning stress-free. Check out FreezeFare at www.freezefare.com. You can also follow FreezeFare on Twitter at @freezefare or like the Facebook page.

Clay Kramer
Business
Follow him on Twitter at @txnskr or check out his LinkedIn Profile

Yuri Parsons
Front end engineer
Follow him at @ninjakttty or check out his LinkedIn Profile

Jenn Chen
User experience designer
Follow her on Twitter at @jenn__chen or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Anna Billstrom
Engineer
Follow her on Twitter at @banane or check out her LinkedIn Profile

GeoQuish: Meet The Women 2.0 Labs Team

Save Time and Drive Customers to Your Business.
GeoSquish saves time and drives customers to your business. Check out GeoSquish at www.geosquish.com. You can follow GeoSquish on Twitter at @geosquish or like the Facebook page.

Lin Tam
Business
Follow her on Twitter at @tam55947 or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Nicole Dun
Engineer
Follow her on Twitter at @FunnDun or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Priya Sheth
Designer
Follow her on Twitter at @priyasheth or check out her Website

Tiem Song
Backend engineer
Follow him on Twitter at @tiembo or check out his LinkedIn Profile

Mikko: Meet The Women 2.0 Labs Team

The Beauty Genome Project.
An intelligent beauty recommendations site based on real reviews and a smart matching system matching “like-featured” women. Check out House of Mikko at www.houseofmikko.com. You can follow House of Mikko on Twitter at @houseofmikko or like the Facebook page.

Kimberly Dillon
Business development and market research
Follow her on Twitter at @prettylittleceo or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Erica Yamada
User experience design
Check out her LinkedIn Profile

Vida Ha
Engineer
Follow her on Twitter at @vidaha or check out her LinkedIn Profile

She Who Will Not Be Named
Algorithms engineer
Follow her on Twitter at @inventiongirl

Tripku: Meet The Women 2.0 Labs Team

Connect Today. Travel Tomorrow.
We connect your networks the world over so you can discover new cultures, meet new people and enjoy healthy travel discounts, together. Check out Tripku at www.tripku.com. You can follow Tripku on Twitter at @tripku or like the Facebook page.

Beatriz Cardona Tamayo
Business development
Follow her on Twitter at @beatrizcardona or check out her LinkedIn Profile

Tiffanie Kong
Product and database developer
Check out her LinkedIn Profile

Adam Silverman
Backend developer
Check out his LinkedIn Profile

Jeff Lagasca
Designer and frontend developer
Check out his LinkedIn Profile

Partner event: Biz Tech Day (Seattle, NY and SF)

What is BizTechDay? Imagine 1500 passionate entrepreneurs, business leaders, investors and influencers located in Seattle, New York and San Francisco gathered together to strengthen their businesses and ventures.

BizTechDay is an intensive one-day conference where entrepreneurs meet, learn from and are inspired by impactful business ideas and technology strategies. Within the 12-hour experience, you will meet 10 amazing business speakers and experience 10 innovative tech demos. For more info, click here.

Attention Women 2.0 startups! Are you a mobile or web company wanting to reach the entrepreneur community? Apply to be one of the demos at Biz Tech Day here.

Women 2.0 members save 30% on tickets to any Biz Tech Day with coupon code “Women20Early”.

Saturday, September 18th, 2010 — Biz Tech Day @ Seattle University of Washington
Speakers include Ben Huh (Founder, ICanhaveCheezBurger), Colleen McCreary (Chief People Officer, Zynga), and Greg Gottesman (Managing Director, Madrona Ventures).

Fridayn September 24th, 2010 — Biz Tech Day @ New York The Times Center
Speakers include Seth Godin (Author, Purple Cow), Clay Shirky (Author, Cognitive Surplus), Peter Shankman (Founder, HelpAReporterOut), and Scott Heiferman (Founder, Meetup).

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010 — Biz Tech Day @ San Francisco Downtown Metreon
Speakers include Joan Barnes (Founder, Gymboree), Jessica Jackley (Co-Founder of Kiva), and Naval Ravikant (Blogger, Start Up Boy).

Women 2.0 Labs Update: Week 5 with Beatriz

The last blog post from Women 2.0 Labs (summer 2010 edition) comes from the Tripku team.

Beatriz came from Barcelona, Spain to spend the summer in San Francisco working on Rambae at Women 2.0 Labs. Today she blogs for us about her story, startup and pivots as lessons learned.

Beatriz Cardona’s Story

I still cannot believe I’m in San Francisco starting up my own company. Read More »

Women 2.0 Labs Update: Week 4 1/2 with Tiem

Here’s a quick check-in from the GeoSquish team:

Tiem Song’s Story

Going into the fifth and last week of Women 2.0 Labs, I continue to develop deep respect and admiration for my fellow team members and all the program participants.

Our team got off to a late start, with two of us (myself included) starting a week into the program. However, our team hit it off quickly and we felt like long-time coworkers.

We learned that team cohesion is the key to any success as it allows us to gauge our product’s progress in a cohesive and collaborative manner. Read More »

Women 2.0 Labs Update: Week 4 with Anna

With one more week to go in the Women 2.0 Labs program (summer 2010 edition), all teams are working furiously toward that final prototype for Women 2.0 Labs Final Demo Night. This week Anna blogs for us:

Anna Billstrom’s Story

About me — I’m a software developer, who has been a CRM consultant for 7 years, writer, blogger, and English major. My latest love is iPhone/iPad development, and specifically getting girls enthused about computers through game development. I’m in the FreezeFare start-up. Read More »

Women 2.0 Labs Update: Week 3 with Vida

Here is a story from another member of the House of Mikko team in Women 2.0 Labs. This time, an entrepreneur with a development background shares her story of living the dream:

Vida Ha’s Story

I moved to the Bay Area at the end of the last year with the same dreams of every engineer in Silicon Valley — that I might one day start my own company in the distant future. Then, three months ago, I was finally struck by the magical “great idea meteorite” — an idea I felt passionate about. Read More »

Women 2.0 Labs Update: Week 2 with Kimberly

Two weeks into Women 2.0 Labs with three weeks to go… This week, we hear from a fresh MBA graduate working on a beauty genome website.

Kimberly Dillon’s Story

I had been in the Bay Area for about 4 days before I started the Women 2.0 Labs program. Since then, my nights and weekends have been completely focused on charging forward with my business idea. When people ask me about landmark/touristy things I have done in the city, I laugh because I have spent most of my free time at Pier 38 and startup events. Read More »

Partner event: Mobilize 2010

Mobile meets cloud at GigaOm’s Mobilize conference on Thursday, September 30th, 2010 in San Francisco, CA. The conjunction of mobile computing and cloud-based services has created product and market growth. Mobilize 2010 brings together thought leaders and practitioners of mobile web ecosystems for discussions, demos and debate.

The success of touch-based tablet devices is likely to see the addition of subscriber numbers. Then, add to that base a legion of machines as subscribers -– your car, your fridge, your TV for example — and you have the makings of a vast new opportunity. At Mobilize, an A-list roster of speakers will examine what new opportunities are enabled by broadband wireless and how the proliferation of new device types creates opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors and consumers. The Mobilize shedule and our speaker list is increasing daily. For more info and to register, click here.

Women 2.0 members save $50 on tickets with coupon code “WOMEN2″ when you register here.

Women 2.0 Labs Update: Week 1 with Rebecca & Sarah

One week into Women 2.0 Labs (Summer 2010 Edition) with four more weeks to go. Women 2.0 Labs will launch five startups on August 5th, 2010 at Women 2.0 Labs Final Demo Night.

Here is the story from one of the startup teams in Labs:

Rebecca Woodcock’s Story

Silicon Valley is the place for entrepreneurs. The entire ecosystem is set up for startup building, everywhere you meet someone starting or funding a company, and there is such a pay-it-forward mentality to help new entrepreneurs. It was time to take my shot. Read More »

Female Founders & COOs to Watch

Here are some female founders to watch. They are also the Chief Operating Officers at their startups! Check them out:

Elena Haliczer (Co-Founder & COO, Adaptive Semantics)
Elena’s startup Adaptive Semantics was acquired by the Huffington Post in June 2010. Follow Elena on her Twitter @elliesemantic and on Tumblr as startupgirl!

Laney Whitcanack (Co-Founder & COO, Big Tent)
Laney previously co-founded The Princess Project. Laney currently serves as COO of Big Tent, a women-led startup funded by Mohr Davidow and Menlo Ventures. Check out their team here!

Christine Lemke (Co-Founder & COO, Sense Networks)
Christine is an early-stage startupper. Prior to Sense Networks, she co-founded Channel Velocity and was the first employee at Returns Online. Follow Christine on her Twitter @cklemke!

Dina Kaplan (Co-Founder & COO, Blip.tv)
Dina oversees industry marketing, public relations, finance, key partnerships and human resources for blip.tv. Follow Dina on Twitter @dinakaplan and on Tumblr as dinakaplan!

Susan Coelius-Keplinger (Co-Founder & COO, Triggit)
Susan co-founded Triggit, a venture-funded online advertising technology company. Follow Susan on Twitter @sueck!

Do you know more female founders of startups that are currently serving as COO? Let us know in the comments below.

Partner Event: Founder Showcase

Elon Musk (CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX) and Jason Calacanis (CEO of Mahalo) are speaking at The Founder Showcase on Tuesday evening, August 3rd in Mountain View, CA. This quarterly start-up pitch and networking event brings together over 275 investors, founders, and members of the press to hear speeches from leading CEOs, and pitches from 10 hot technology start-ups in an open Pitch Competition.

Women 2.0 members save 15% on tickets with coupon code “w20″ here.

Watch as ten of the most promising early-stage companies, as selected by over 14,500 registered CEO Members of TheFunded.com, present their companies to the Silicon Valley elite. A panel of investors will provide critical feedback of the pitches, and the two best companies will face off in a “Showcase Showdown” lightning round to determine the Grand Prize Winner. There is also a networking and table area where investors and start-ups will convene with food and drinks. Tickets start at just $40, but there is a very limited number available. For more information or to apply to the free Pitch Competition, click here.

Founder Friday in San Francisco on July 23rd!

Women 2.0 Founder Friday on July 23rd in San Francisco

Join fellow founders, both aspiring and current, for dinner together before Startup Weekend San Francisco. Elizabeth Knopf (current founder of a stealth startup) has made reservations at District for 5pm on Friday, July 23rd, 2010. Please RSVP here by Wednesday, July 21, 2010.

We have reserved an area in the front lounge area at District. Ticket price covers 1 drink (additional food and drinks will need to be paid for separately). Then we will walk a few blocks over to KickLabs for Startup Weekend, which starts at 6:30pm.

Women 2.0 members save 20% on Startup Weekend San Francisco tickets here.