Published on: February 2, 2012 – 10:00 am
By Andrea Lo (Founder, Piggybackr)
The purpose of a prototype is to cut down on the time spent building out a product so you can focus on figuring out what people want.
Having a prototype from day one gives you authentic user feedback – because you are able to immediately gauge how users react to your product.
Surveys and interviews are only so helpful since they often depend on how well you’ve phrased your questions or cut out biases.
Here is what I learned while prototyping during the idea phase of my startup Read More »
Published on: February 2, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Heather McGough (Founder, Urbanity Events)
For years, I was so caught up in my non-profit bubble that I didn’t realize I was managing and growing a “cool startup” in San Francisco.
What I learned is that I thrive in this atmosphere and crave what Silicon Valley startups are made of: ass-kicking.
I morphed from my non-profit bubble and merged into the world of powerful women entrepreneurs, startups and tech.
Here are five reasons I admire high-growth, high-tech Read More »
Published on: February 1, 2012 – 9:30 am
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
A post by Whitney Hess is making the rounds in New York’s circle of women entrepreneurs in technology titled “The plain numbers about women in tech – The VCs”.
She takes an empirical look at the gender ratio of venture capital firms focusing on early-stage funding, that have funded over “brand name” startups, and have funds worth over $100 million.
Here are the more positive numbers for VC firms funding high-profile early-stage startups:
- Accel Partners: 4 women investors out of 40 Read More »
Published on: February 1, 2012 – 6:00 am
By Julia Hu (Founder & CEO, LARK)
You are always building, and rebuilding a great team. It is never in stasis – even when you are not hiring you are tweaking roles to better fit people within your company, or partnering with strategic partners, or letting people go.
At the end of the day, your team is first (or a close second) in what makes your business successful. But, it’s definitely first in line for how happy you are everyday when you are slaving away on building something new.
Here are four lessons that I have discovered Read More »
Published on: January 24, 2012 – 7:00 am
By Geri Stengel (President, Ventureneer)
In the early days of online shopping, when most of the products sold were computers, software, music, and consumer electronics, men ruled e-commerce. That may be changing now that product choices have expanded to everything from cosmetics to shoes to toys. Just as women dominant shopping in the brick-and-mortar world (women account for 85% of all consumer purchases), they will dominant shopping in the online world.
Mass e-commerce sites such as Amazon and eBay will always have a place in e-commerce, just as Walmart does Read More »
Published on: January 18, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
Editor’s note: Christina Brodbeck will a judge on February 14, 2012 at the Women 2.0 PITCH Conference – get your ticket now!
Ezebis‘s Pemo Theodore interviewed Christina Brodbeck about angel investing and startups. The full interview is on Ezebis but we’ve extracted the parts about angel investing, women-led ventures and how to get into an accelerator program below:
Ezebis: I know that you’re an investor as well as an entrepreneur. Could you tell me what you’re interested in Read More »
Published on: January 18, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Dr. Jane LeClair (Dean, School of Business & Technology, Excelsior College)
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that women are underrepresented in the technology fields.
The numbers are stark: today women earn less than 20% of engineering degrees in the United States. For those women who do enter the tech industries, an incredible 56% leave by mid-career. In fact, I myself left the nuclear field after two-plus decades, for a new career in academia. It is for that very reason that I’ve made the issue of “women in tech” a cornerstone of my time at Excelsior College. My goal is to increase academic retention Read More »
Published on: January 17, 2012 – 9:30 am
By Carla Rover (Writer, The Advertising Technology Review)
There are two sides to the post-feminist world for women creating startups technology companies.
Here’s the good part: most investors, at least publicly, acknowledge the need for a more diverse field of leadership in the startup community.
Here’s the bad part: women may have to do a little extra homework to get over the industry’s age-old tradition of choosing leaders based on their educational or demographic similarities Read More »
Published on: January 13, 2012 – 6:00 pm
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
Two pieces of sunny news for women in business and technology:
As co-founder and CEO of VMware, Diane Greene led the company to an IPO the largest the tech industry has seen since Google’s. Recently, she was named to Google’s Board of Directors, bringing the number of women on Google’s board to 3 out of 10 members.
Ann Mather and Shirley M. Tilghman have both been on Google’s Board of Directors since 2005.
Diane Greene was a speaker at last year’s Women 2.0 PITCH event. You can still get tickets for this year’s PITCH Conference. Read More »
Published on: January 13, 2012 – 10:00 am
By Meghan Casserly (Writer, Forbes)
A recent Kauffman poll shows that Gen-Y may be poised to be the most entrepreneurial bunch the world has seen. “54% of the nation’s Millennials either want to start a business or already have started one,” says Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation.
Paired with data on the rise of female entrepreneurs, the outlook for young women is promising. As Lesa Mitchell, Kauffman’s vice president of innovation pointed out “Women’s entrepreneurship is an economic issue, not a gender-equity issue.” Read More »
Published on: January 12, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
The run-up to Women 2.0 PITCH Conference on February 14, 2012 is defined by Women 2.0′s fifth annual Startup Competition for early-stage tech startups.
Watch the finalists of the 2012 Women 2.0 Startup Competition pitch live on February 14. Hear first-hand feedback from panels of real investors on what makes a successful pitch for investment.
Here are the 10 finalists of the 2012 Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition: Read More »
Published on: January 11, 2012 – 1:00 pm
By Laura Sydell (Digital Culture Correspondent, National Public Radio)
Bill Reichert, a partner in Garage Technology Ventures, says another reason is that a lot of the female entrepreneurs he sees don’t have the computer science background.
“We tend to invest in companies that have very strong core technical teams, and … that population is disproportionately male,” Reichert says.
But starting an Internet company isn’t as technically difficult as it used to be. Read More »
Published on: January 10, 2012 – 7:00 am
By Joanne Lang (Founder & CEO, AboutOne)
It’s been an amazing journey to get AboutOne where it is today. Through the process of developing an award winning app and raising an over-subscribed Series A with lead investors Golden Seeds, I’ve navigated quite a few hurdles and learned many lessons while juggling my roles as tech start up founder and mom to my four young boys.
As I celebrate the closing of my first series A funded by Golden Seeds and MAG, I thought I would give you a sneak peak at five lessons I’ve learned about the funding process. Read More »
Published on: January 9, 2012 – 9:00 am
By Sarah Tavel (Senior Associate, Bessemer Venture Partners)
What an exciting time to be in this business. The “post PC era” and cloud computing are colliding to create a perfect storm. First, thanks to the post PC era, demand for software is exploding. Second, thanks to cloud computing, software development is becoming increasingly accessible.
There’s an interesting positive externality to these trends: The developer “citizenship” is exploding. Consequently, developers are finally a large enough community with enough purchasing power that you can actually build a company just by selling to developers. I’d love to invest in companies doing just that. Read More »
Published on: January 9, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Elizabeth Yin (Co-Founder, LaunchBit)
Happy New Year! 2011 was quite a ride for us at LaunchBit. Jennifer and I are so thankful to everyone who’s helped us.
We started LaunchBit in January 2011 as a way to help entrepreneurs start and grow their internet businesses. This is a problem I’ve become really passionate about, as I’ve mentioned here. But, we didn’t know exactly how to tackle this problem, because we didn’t know *what*, in particular, entrepreneurs were struggling with.
We decided to hold a class on customer development and we built a customer development workflow-tool to learn Read More »
Published on: January 8, 2012 – 7:30 am
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
The TechStars NYC early application deadline is January 10, 2012 and the final deadline is January 23, 2012.
Want to hear how TechStars can affect an early-stage startup? Read this blog post from a TechStars participant:
“What I needed, and what I got from the TechStars process, was a huge shift in focus – from minimizing risk to maximizing the opportunity for Red Rover.
This shift happened over the course of 100 meetings. This happened under the influence of mentors Read More »
Published on: January 5, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Lauren Perkins (Founder & CEO, Perks Consulting)
Networking events are a fantastic way to meet new business prospects, potential partners, and leverage relationships within your existing network for referrals.
These events can certainly seem intimidating if you don’t have an action plan to keep you focused and on task.
To make the most of networking opportunities, business women can treat each event as they would treat a date. Following the same rules that you would typically follow on a date provides some guidance for how to prepare for the event, what to do Read More »
Published on: January 4, 2012 – 9:00 am
By Ashwini Nadkarni (Founder, Appguppy)
The hottest disruptive force in e-commerce is me. And you. And her. In fact, tech savvy female consumers are the single most important factor in the new Me-commerce phenomenon – as well as the key market that Me-commerce companies will need to reach in order to achieve success.
This isn’t the first time around the block for Me-commerce, the practice of mass customization of products for consumers.
Dell revolutionized the world of personal computing with the same built-to-order business model several decades ago. Read More »
Published on: January 3, 2012 – 11:00 am
By Heather Huhman (Founder & President, Come Recommended)
With so many social networks on the Internet today, it can be overwhelming to decide which platforms to spend the most time on, particularly if you’re an entrepreneur with a limited amount of time (and resources) to do so.
The latest one, which has taken the Internet by storm, has already reported millions of users and visitors – and it’s not likely to die down soon.
Still wary about committing Read More »
Published on: January 2, 2012 – 10:00 am
By Katie Corner (Product Manager, BOKU)
There is no doubt about it: 2011 has been quite a whirlwind. About a year ago today, I was feverishly packing up my life in Colorado to move out to San Francisco and begin work at a mobile payments startup called BOKU.
It’s been a fantastic year of growth for not only BOKU, but for myself professionally. As I lean into the new year, I am also taking pause to reflect on any new year’s resolutions for 2012.
Here’s my shortlist:
Embrace effective process. Read More »
Published on: January 2, 2012 – 5:00 am
2012 PITCH Conference & Competition:
PRODUCT INNOVATION LEADERSHIP
Successful Case Studies & Future Visions: From Concept To Cash
Join us at the Women 2.0 PITCH Conference (February 14, 2012 in Mountain View, CA) along with over 800 members of the digerati interested in product innovation. Learn from the leaders of technology startups & companies as they share best practices, growth strategies and stories of disruptive product development.
Learn from Zipcar co-founder Robin Chase as she shares the insider story of building a business model to last, and hear from three female founders of tech startups that raised a total of $50 million in funding for their ventures. Don’t miss the live pitches from competition finalists, networking with 800+ conference attendees and our all-star lineup of women building great tech products! Read More »
Published on: January 2, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Carla Rover (Writer, The Advertising Technology Review)
There’s a disturbing trend in technology right now. Bright, highly-qualified women, regardless of where they start climbing the ladder at technology companies, rarely end up at the top.
Few women found technology startups, or at least, few women who found them get funded. It isn’t a matter of an orchestrated push to keep women out of the boardroom by some misogynist club of investors and company heads. Qualified women aren’t rising to the top because they are advancing the hard way — without mentors, the right meeting skills, and, often, without the Read More »
Published on: January 2, 2012 – 5:00 am
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
In the Huffington Post’s slideshow “50 Best Moments For Women In 2011″, Women 2.0 gets a mention in slide 20 for increasing the number of female founders –
“The number of women starting companies has doubled since 2008, according to a survey conducted by Women 2.0, an organization to promote female entrepreneurship.”
Click here and VOTE for Women 2.0′s slide on the HuffPo’s list! Let’s get us on the top 5 moments for women in 2011! Read More »
Published on: December 30, 2011 – 5:00 am
By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-In-Chief, Women 2.0)
Bloomberg’s Scott Shane wrote about how studies have shown “Male academics are much more likely than their female counterparts to start companies to exploit their inventions”.
He writes:
“To figure out whether licensing officers favor the inventions of male inventors for spinoff companies, some colleagues and I conducted an experiment with 239 technology licensing officers at 88 leading research universities.
We randomly assigned a male name and picture Read More »
Published on: December 29, 2011 – 7:00 am
By Jalak Jobanputra (Director, Omidyar Network)
As a venture capitalist, I am privy to innovations long before they become mainstream, one of the things I love about my job. But even more exciting is when I see inflection points of adoption — which is why 2011 was a particularly exhilirating year for me. This was the year that the promise of technology to truly change the world and empower individuals (the reason I entered the tech world in 1994) reached global scale.
Powered by cell phones and social networking platforms, we saw revolutions taking place, businesses being transformed Read More »
