By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

This week, we learned the numbers behind Facebook’s impending IPO – and that COO Sheryl Sandberg is Facebook’s highest paid employee, earning $30.8M last year.

The all-male board of Facebook makes you wonder why a company serving a user base of at least 50% half women has no female representation on the board. We told ourselves that women board directors can build value and bring win-win strategies to the table – let’s #changetheratio here.

Women make up half the world population, but less than 1/3 of the engineering jobs. The number of women partners at top early-stage VC firms is pretty bleak but recognize the barriers and together ask: where are the ladies?

Want a role model? Here are 15 women in tech to watch, according to Inc. And we have #nothingbutlove for the 7 most interesting startups at 500 Startups demo day. Reuters named Sumaya Kazi (Founder & CEO, Sumazi) #18 and Alexa Andrzejewski (Founder & CEO, Foodspotting) #21 in their list of “most influential execs on the web”.

And here’s some food for thought: angel investment as lucrative business.

We at Women 2.0 hope to inspire, educate and connect women entrepreneurs and technologists on Valentine’s Day – join us for the PITCH Conference at the Computer History Museum! #occupyvday

• Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg Challenges Women to Be More Ambitious
• Fostering More Female Tech Entrepreneurs
• “Sit With Me” Campaign Taking Place February 14 (Photoshoot)
• Plain Numbers Of Women In Tech: A Look At Venture Capital Today
• Women Entrepreneurs In New York City Find Investment, Network (Ellie Cachette And Deborah Jackson Interviewed On ABC TV)

By Roger Park (Blog Editor, AT&T Interactive Blog)

This week, AT&T Interactive will be a participant and sponsor of Women 2.0’s Founder Friday at the Bluxome Winery in San Francisco. In 2011, we were a sponsor of Women 2.0’s San Francisco session of Founder Labs, which was a great experience. And it’s that entrepreneurial spirit Women 2.0 exemplifies with these events that makes us proud to work with Women 2.0 again this year!

I’m happy to tell you about the YP? Developer Program – our new program that offers app and web developers free access to information on more than 17 million local businesses across more than 4,600 categories. We give developers direct access to all the content that has made AT&T Interactive a leader in local.

In keeping with the sprit or innovation and entrepreneurship fostered by Women 2.0, we also recently announced the YP^SM Developer Challenge, a chance to win $5,000 cash and a trip to the SXSW Trade Show in Austin, Texas where you can join us to promote your app.

I asked Joanna McFarland, VP, Publisher Network at AT&T Interactive who will be at the PITCH event on February 14th about her thoughts on Women 2.0 Founder Friday and here’s what Joanna said:

“We’re excited to be a sponsor of Women 2.0’s Founder Friday and to help foster innovative startup ideas. We think there are lots of opportunities for innovation and creative use cases in local, and through our YP^SM Developer Program and our YP^SM Developer Challenge, we hope to spur that innovation and help developers build on our local platform.”

Got a great idea for a killer local app? Well, I invite all the attendees of Women 2.0’s Founder Friday to check out our YP^SM Developer Challenge! See YP Developer Challenge rules for more details!

Learn more about the competition at Founder Friday in SF, February 3rd.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

Photo credit: Christine Tran on Twitter.

About the guest blogger: Roger Park is the blog editor at AT&T Interactive Blog, which showcases the latest news, product, insights and more at AT&T Interactive.

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By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

Do you remember when serial tech entrepreneur Caterina Fake graced the cover of Newsweek magazine for founding Flickr?

Women are often identified as consumers of market goods, but seldom recognized for their ability to create products – from consumer goods like Giddy Snacks in Whole Foods stores to venture-funded tech startups like Songkick.

We at Women 2.0 are celebrating product innovators that happen to be women on Valentine’s Day – join us for a day of speakers on product innovation. These are women who have built, tested, validated and shipped products – as founder, CEO, CPO, et al.

Here are five women founders driving product at their high-growth, high-tech companies:

Caterina Fake (Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Hunch)
Caterina is co-founder of Hunch, a decision-making site that gets better the more people use it, and Flickr, almost certainly the best photo sharing and management application in the world. Follow her on Twitter at @caterina.

M. Ellen Dudar (Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, FourthWall Media)
An interactive television and advanced advertising enthusiast, Ellen leads the product team at FourthWall Media, shipping Emmy-nominated new media products and coordinating product innovation throughout the company. Follow her on Twitter at @ellendudar.

Julie Yoo (Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Kyruus)
Julie built the first version of Kyruus, a data mining platform. She leads the product team to provide data-driven intelligence and insights for optimal management of physician networks. Kyruus raised $5.5M Series A in 2011. Follow her on Twitter at @julesyoo.

Leah Busque (Founder & Chief Product Officer, TaskRabbit)
An engineer turned entrepreneur, Leah is founder and Chief Product Officer of TaskRabbit, a community of people joining together to get things done. TaskRabbit has raised a total of $22.8M in venture funding. Follow her on Twitter at @labusque.

Michelle You (Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Songkick)
The English and philosophy grad from Columbia founded Songkick, making it easier for fans to go to concerts and is now the second-largest live music website behind LiveNation. Songkick has raised $6.5M in venture funding. Follow her on Twitter at @wreckingball37.

Want to learn about innovative product development? Check out Women 2.0 PITCH Conference on February 14, 2012 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California for a full day of innovative product leadership (including Caterina Fake and Leah Busque listed above) inspiring and educating the next generation of high-growth, high-tech women entrepreneurs.

Product management is an organizational lifecycle function within a company dealing with planning, forecasting, or marketing product(s) at all stages of the product lifecycle.

The Chief Product Officer (CPO) must be strategic and make long-term plans. Interpersonal and communication skills are cited as necessary skills for a CPO, as s/he must work with other executives as well as effectively manage employees.

Photo credit: European Parliament on Flickr.

About the guest blogger: Angie Chang co-founded Women 2.0 in 2006 with Shaherose Charania. She currently serves as Editor-In-Chief of Women 2.0 and is working to mainstream women in entrepreneurship. Previously, Angie held roles in product management, web UI design, and entrepreneurship. In 2008, Angie launched Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners, asking that guys come as the “+1″ for once. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.

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By Amrita Rao (Founder & CEO, TreasureYourArt)

So you’ve done everything your entrepreneurship professor at business school taught you to do. You’ve done your numbers, run your models, spent months getting that perfect website up and running, emailed everyone you know (and many you don’t), and in your excitement, you’ve even printed Business Cards with your name, followed by that coveted Founder and CEO title.

But now what? Where is that first order? Why is it taking so long? Have I done something wrong? Should I do more?

Starting your own business has many benefits – you work for yourself, you work on your idea – something you believe in and are passionate about – and hopefully, when you start to reap the rewards, nothing feels quite like it. But it also has its drawbacks. There are no guarantees, no ready customers lining up at your door, no instant successes. It takes hard work, and a hell of a lot of perseverance.

My Story

With TreasureYourArt.com, it took me four months, post launch, to get my first client. And I won’t lie – they were a hard four months, full of misgivings and self-doubt. There’d be days when I’d second guess everything – myself, the idea, the business model, my team, literally, everything I was so sure about before, suddenly came into scrutiny.

But then, all of a sudden, one rainy London morning, I got an email from a Harvard Business School alum. She wrote, congratulating me on my new venture, and telling me that she had a friend, who was interested in an artist we featured on the site, and asking if she could put us in touch.

At that instant, my life changed.

We made the sale to the alum’s friend, who has since become one of our most important and valued clients. An Interior Designer by profession, she not only buys our art for her own collection, but also on behalf of her clients. Plus, she has referred us to numerous collector friends all over the world, and in doing so, has played a huge role in helping us achieve our core mission – which is to enable India’s deeply talented artists to reach a global audience.

TreasureYourArt.com now pretty much runs itself, and instead of spending every waking (and some sleeping) hour writing unsolicited emails to every living Harvard and Wharton (thanks to my husband) graduate, I can spend my time on taking my business to the next level.

Which brings me to my second point: When you get that first client (and you will!) get it right! Please!

Word of mouth is viral. But just like it can work for you, it can work against you. So when you get that first order, get it right.

Every startup has teething problems, but first recognize, in your own head, what is minor and what is not. While people can be understanding when the minor stuff goes wrong, they can be unforgiving (and perhaps justifiably) with the big stuff. So, it’s important to get the important things right. And treat that first order like your life depends on it. Because, in many ways, it does.

Getting it right, really all boils down to a simple equation, with three possible outcomes:

• Superior art + Poor delivery = Unhappy customer
• Poor art + Superior delivery = Unhappy customer
• Superior art + Superior delivery = Unhappy customer

Bottom line: If you don’t get it right, it’s easier to displease than to please!

Therefore, I divide my time equally between two important tasks:

• Sourcing Superior Art: I spend a lot of time getting smarter – reading, meeting people, discovering new talent, keeping current – so I can credibly be known as an expert in the Indian Art market.
   
• Providing Superior Delivery: I try to cultivate personal relationships with all my clients. After the initial enquiry email, I offer to call them so they feel heard – and more importantly – safe. I make myself available at any time for advice, whether that ends in an order or not. And as for logistics, we make payment and delivery, transparent, secure and efficient.

The idea is that for the client, all that matters is picking out the artwork they love from the website. Making sure it gets to them, and all the rest of it, is our part. All we say to them is: “Treasure Your Art!”

TreasureYourArt.com broke even two months after our first order was placed – almost 4 years ago now – which was a huge win for us. Nothing could feel better, because winning is self-reinforcing and perhaps the best motivator of all.

But, although we’ve come a long way, in some ways I feel my work has just begun. I obsess about perfecting my client service model, because that’s where I believe I can differentiate myself from my competition. “Success” is still a far-away word, perched atop a hill somewhere, and it will be a long, hard climb up. But I’m in it for the long haul. And most importantly, in time, I believe I can get there.

I just need to hang in there and get it right!

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Amrita Rao is the Founder and CEO of TreasureYourArt, an online gallery featuring Modern and Contemporary Indian Art. Prior to launching Treasure Your Art, Ami worked at Morgan Stanley for seven years in New York and London. Ami is also an avid food writer and blogs her foodie thoughts at YummiYami. She holds a BA from Ohio Wesleyan University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She currently lives in London with her husband and fifteen month old son.

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By Gina Trapani (Creator, ThinkUp & Todo.txt Apps)

I’ve switched to an iPhone as my primary mobile device because I’m dogfooding my new iOS app. Coming off of three straight years of Android, one of the toughest parts of the transition was losing the applications drawer.

My new iPhone had so many screens of icons, all perfectly aligned in a grid, every one with rounded corners, all equal visual weight, nary a widget in site! I got dizzy swiping across the carousel of apps trying to find the one I needed.

I decided to get all my apps onto 1 or 2 homescreens using folders that made it obvious what was where.

By default, when you drag one app onto another to create a folder, iOS suggests a folder name based on the apps’ category, like “Reference”, “Music,” or “Productivity.” I tried this for awhile, but these category names were so vague they didn’t solve my problem, they just gave it a different shape.

» Read the full article at Smarterware.

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By Anna Billstrom (Developer, Momentus Media)

I really want to find this picture of my great-grandfather standing in front of his car, that has a license plate with a big circle cut out of the center. He’s showing off his invention. A way of keeping your car from being stolen. You take the center of the license out with you when you leave the car. Ta-da.

Inventing things is so much fun! OK blog post is done.

Alright, more background: She’s Geeky is an “unconference” that is, a loosely self-organized conference based on whatever the attendees want to convene over. I’ve gone for 3 years running, just the Saturday, though it’s held from Friday to Sunday. This year was markedly different for me.

The first year, I remember drifting around to various sessions with my friend Sarah Mei, not really knowing what it was about or what to do. I remember creating a session with her simply because we both wanted to know more about it – the Semantic Web. A half dozen or so ladies joined us, and we had a really interesting, in depth conversation, researching and discussing it. It’s still one of the best conference talks *I have ever been to* for quality.

My second year, I met my programming partner Stacie Hibino, in a talk on Pair Programming. We ended up collaborating on various projects outside and in hackfests, which has been super, super fun and fulfilling. I also convened a “give back” session- in that I wanted more women to contribute to open source, and I had just gotten over that hurdle myself that year. It was really well attended, and I left with that warm feeling that I think some folks would actually contribute after hearing my war stories.

As someone who has spoken at many conferences throughout my career, that feeling was new to me. It’s also interesting in that I’m not one who really needs to be helped with firsts like that, I’m pretty confident, rash, extroverted, etc.. But the fact that so many showed, and the questions I fielded, made me think that it was important to many people. That led to several discussions with book publishers on more ‘first’ books regarding programming and open source, which was also fun.

This year I was really tired from a long ski day the day before, and had a hard time getting down there – biffed the Caltrain schedule, etc. Looking around the starting circle – we all introduce ourselves then present session topics – it may have been fatigue, but I wasn’t into it. I thought about not coming back next year. I don’t like mushy feel-good sessions. As it got around to me and Stacie, I convinced her to give a talk I wanted to go to, “cool tech stuff” (she’s in an awesome innovation lab at Samsung), and I pitched two talks – My First Android App and a practice talk for a conference, “Why I Went to the Cloud”. Neither were well attended, though the Android app got a few devoted folks. I wasn’t that into it and rushed through the content, though the Android one was fun, for me, as I am pretty interested in it right at this moment.

Stacie’s talk was awesome, and is more about this post, as it’s about invention. We got about 5 women, we sat in a close circle, and talked in a somewhat structured way, about the future. I love the future! I love invention! It’s so creative, and it makes your brain hurt. I wrote *copious* notes that I can share if you’re interested. We spanned from personal usage, to gadgets, to recycling, to material production, to repairing and manufacturing models, to user interface, to the real strategies of innovation, etc. It was a great group and really couldn’t have been better if planned.

So now I’m warming up to it and realizing that it’s — like most things in life — what you make of it. Since I’m a “no mushy-feely” talks kinda person, and all of the talks were about lifestyle stuff, one stood out all by itself: Arduino. An open source embedded system library. That means, you can code hardware to do things. Fancy bike jackets with turn lights. A swimming, floating robotic shark (no lie).

Akkana, the teacher, and several cohorts, walked through a few demos and discussed offhand applications, experiences and uses. It was really eye opening. Of course the fun stuff happens outside of class. At break time, with a friend from an entrepreneur program, she showed me the LilyPad, a sewable Arduino chip, and at dinner we discussed more applications for Arduino chips. Then at lunch yesterday – even more discussions, my inbox, my journal, all full of ideas for… yep, programs that make things do things. Dur! Of course! Obvious that I would like that! Why have I never gotten into this??

Not over, though. Stacie and I gaze at the schedule on the wall, and the next session isn’t about anything that interests us, so, we decide to put up a sign that announces what we will be talking about. “How to win at Hackfests”. We’ve had a good run of it and both really enjoy them- so we thought we’d brainstorm some ideas (I’m of course thinking of how to integrate an Arduino chip). Stacie plops it on the wall and we wander off to an open room. It ended up being one of those great “give back” talks.

I honestly think more women will enter hackfests because of that discussion. We went over how we went, the ones we went to, how they’re run, what it’s like to do it, how to think of an idea, how to organize one, etc. all of the “firsts” involved. Ladies seemed really interested, we got a lot of good questions – though once in a while it splintered off into the technology of what we did – but still, it was really neat to realize that it’s hard for some folks to do this, and that it’s so easy to help them with just war stories of what we did.

So yes, definitely coming back next year, ha.

This post was originally posted at Banane.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Anna Billstrom is a developer with Momentus Media, a startup in the Mission District of San Francisco specializing in helping brands go viral. Their recent app “8 Bit Your Pic” for Black Eyed Peas saw 2 million users in 2 weeks. She’s done the gamut of OLAP DB modeling to iPhone development and Ruby on Rails. Currently, Anna is enjoying the fast lane of rapid, viral app development on Facebook. Contact her at anna@momentusmedia.com or follow her on Twitter at @banane.

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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 Piggybackr, a fundraising website that empowers youth ages 8-15 to raise money for their schools and organizations and ditching methods like candy bars and bake sales.  My goal was to confirm that this was a good solution for the educators, parents, and kids I was building it for.

Lesson Learned: A prototype can be made out of paper.

My first prototype was literally a yellow piece of construction paper with a one page sketch of my “website.” I went up and down the neighborhood showing a sheet of paper to parents at playgrounds.  I got great feedback just from their physical impressions of what I wanted to create.  My favorite was - “Why do I need this?  It looks like Facebook.”  It made me realize that to not try to reinvent the wheel. 

Lesson Learned: The uglier the better.  

Don’t be embarrassed about how it looks just yet. You want to get harsh feedback so you can get all the major issues out of the way early on.  If you show them something really polished, it psychologically becomes harder to give “negative” feedback. 

My second prototype was a piece of purple construction paper with a bunch of Post-It notes on it outlining the flow of the website.  It allowed me to move things around to nail down a reasonable user experience flow.

Lesson Learned: Test one thing at a time.

Then came the time to test the functionality.  At this time I started toying with the idea of learning how to build a WordPress site or even hiring a developer.  I ultimately settled on an existing tool called Weebly, which has drag and drop functions, and enabled me to build a page that tested out one key functionality with users: collecting donations and payments.

Lesson Learned: Leverage existing tools. 

After getting enough initial feedback, I started the process of wire-framing the entire website. Tools like Balsamiq made it easy to sketch out a series of linked pages.  However, I wanted to show something more designed so that I could provide a better visual for the kids I was working with. 

I ended up designing over 15 pages of my website using PowerPoint and Keynotopia, a library of predesigned images and icons commonly found on websites or mobile apps, and linked all the pages together. Shown in presentation mode, the result was a working and clickable website.

I’d talk to people on the phone and share my screen with them using a tool called Join.me and walk them through the functionality of my “website.”  Apparently, it was so realistic that one teacher didn’t realize it wasn’t already live on the Internet. 
 
Lesson Learned: Iterate again and again.  

Using my PowerPoint prototype, I tested various ideas and features easily iterating on the deck with the click of a mouse.  It was much easier than actually building the website and continuously changing it.  However, don’t over do it with the feedback.  Once you start hearing the same things over and over again, you’re probably about ready for the next step.  I stopped when I felt like I had something that stuck and genuinely made people excited.  

The best part about prototyping with paper, Post-Its, and PowerPoint, was that not a single line of code had to be written, yet I was able to gain pages upon pages of feedback that made deciding critical features and writing out specifications a million times easier for my minimal viable product.
 
Doing all the research and learning in action rather than wait for someone else to build it also enabled me to ultimately attract a technical co-founder.  Prototyping also gave me invaluable lessons in understanding user interface, user experience, and prioritizing features – all critical pieces for building a successful website.
 
Today, Piggybackr is a website piloting with over 100 kids and many relieved parents and teachers, all eager to ditch the practice of selling candy bars and magazines. Little do they know it started with a yellow piece of paper.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

Photo credit: Ryan Joy on Flickr.

About the guest blogger: Andrea Lo is the Founder of Piggybackr, a fundraising platform that empowers youth ages 8-15 to raise money online for their schools & organizations by making fundraising easy, fun, and educational. She’s always looking for feedback on her “prototype” from parents and teachers. Follow her on Twitter at @andreatlo.

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By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

Above: Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook with the red chair. Below: Wild Frog Studio co-founder Rodica Ceslor in the red chair.

Facebook had a red chair at their Silicon Valley headquarters and invited people to stop by during lunch in the cafeteria. Over 80 Facebook employees had their pictures taken “sitting” in the red chair as a statement of solidarity for women in technology.

What Is The Red Chair?

The Sit with Me campaign encourages women and men to “sit” to take a stand and validate women in technology, recognizing them for the important role they play in creating new technology.

We are excited to see Sheryl Sandberg has sat in the red chair.

In last year’s Barnard commencement speech, Sheryl challenged women to be more ambitious and encouraged the young women to sit down and lean in:

“If all young women start to lean in, we can close the ambition gap right here, right now, if every single one of you leans in. Leadership belongs to those who take it. Leadership starts with you.” She reminded women to “take a page from men and own their own success.”

Sit down at the table. Lean in. And ask others to sit with you in solidarity for the initiative to retain women in technology and leadership positions. Stay in the game. Succeed.

Why Do Women Need To Sit At The Table And Lean In?

• Women expand the talent pool. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that IT will be one of the fastest growing sectors of the U.S. economy, with nearly 1.4 million job openings between 2008 and 2018. Given the lack of people graduating from college with computing-related degrees, however, two-thirds of those jobs may go unfilled. Women represent a vast, untapped talent pool that can bolster the technical workforce.
   
• Women improve technical innovation. Groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than do homogenous groups, and the presence of women in a group is more likely to increase the collective intelligence (problem-solving ability, creativity) of the group.
   
• Women increase your ROI. Research shows that companies with the highest representation of women in their management teams have a 34% higher return on investment than did those with few or no women.

Sit With Us – Join Us At Women 2.0 PITCH Conference On February 14!

Save 10% on your ticket to the Women 2.0 PITCH Conference with discount code “SITWITHME”.

Join Women 2.0 for a full day of product innovation leaders presenting case studies and best practices. Watch the finalists of the Women 2.0 Startup Competition pitch to a panel of investors for top prize. Participate in speed mentoring during lunch, and check out the exhibit hall. Network with 800+ of the Women 2.0 community and friends on February 14, 2012 at the Computer History Museum.

We will have a red chair and photographer at the Women 2.0 PITCH Conference to note when you join the cause. Share your story. Tell your friends. Inspire others to stay in tech and leadership roles.

Won’t you join and sit with us?

Photo credit: Sit With Me on Flickr.

About the guest blogger: Angie Chang co-founded Women 2.0 in 2006 with Shaherose Charania. She currently serves as Editor-In-Chief of Women 2.0 and is working to mainstream women in entrepreneurship. Previously, Angie held roles in product management, web UI design, and entrepreneurship. In 2008, Angie launched Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners, asking that guys come as the “+1″ for once. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.

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By Hadiyah Mujhid (Co-Founder, Black Founders)

So if it isn’t obvious, I want to clarify that the title of this post is just a catch-title. But I also want to clarify that the organization Black Founders is not just for black people. In fact, the organization is created for all. This statement does not take away from the mission of “increasing the number of successful black entrepreneurs in technology”. But an attempt to uncover the broader purpose of organizations that are founded in diversity and equality.

I attended a couple of startup networking events this week. Typical protocol at these events is to introduce who you are and your projects/company. Many times I share the organization Black Founders to the people that I meet at these events, (who are often non black).

If I am talking to a white person, a popular response (in an effort to be supportive) is an offer for an introduction to the other black person (in tech or startups) that they know. Although, this response is well-intentioned, it demonstrates the lack of understanding of the problem. I normally reply with a direct invite for the person to become involved with the Black Founders organization and to attend an event.

Why? Why is it important for non blacks to be involved with the organization and attend events? For the same reason why anyone attends a startup networking event. To expand your network, meet people that you normally wouldn’t meet, possibly learn something, and free beer. This is the reason why I’ve enjoyed attending startup events hosted by various cultural associations.

And can proudly say that I’ve met great entrepreneurs who have become friends from various countries and backgrounds.
Why create another organization? Why not encourage blacks to attend other startup events? We do. Unfortunately, for various reasons, some blacks are not exposed to some startup events. Many blacks in tech entrepreneurship are not even aware of Black Founders until we’ve outreached to them.

The Black Founders has served as a hub that actively outreaches to the black community and encourages participation in the broader startup community. In addition, to facilitating connections, we provide visibility for successful black entrepreneurs. Visibility of successful black entrepreneurs provides encouragement for the aspiring.

Lastly, my favorite question: “Aren’t you encouraging segregation? Blacks would be upset if there was a White Founders organization.” A little truth is that there are White Founder groups. Not by official name, but by description of majority of the participants. I’m assuming that white males don’t pre-think networking events with thoughts of stupid race-based questions/comments they will have to answer.

Most of my experiences at networking events are pretty good, but it’s usually the one off-colored question/comment that can stain a night. (ie: being described as a “black” engineer as opposed just engineer, frequent questions about my hair — questions are fine, but i’ve met people who are obsessed about talking about it the entire night)

As a mentor told me this week, one of our goals is to create a commonness of black entrepreneurs, that we can get beyond the race conversation. And this is why Black Founders is for White People too.

This post was originally posted at Engineers Don’t Blog.

About the guest blogger: Hadiyah Mujhid is an entrepreneur and software engineer currently working on early stage startups in San Francisco. She co-runs Black Founders, an organization that promotes diversity in the startup ecosystem. Hadiyah blogs at Engineers Don’t Blog. Follow her on Twitter at @hadiyahdotme.

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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 entrepreneurs, as a former non-profit person:

Reason #1: I can still be a “do-gooder” and run a for-profit business.

Yeah, I said it – that dirty word had never been part of my vocabulary – profit. And it’s nothing to feel guilty about. So much of my identity came from waking up each morning knowing that I was committed to saving the world. Through my current business I am able to create events for purpose-driven startups, social mission based non-profit organizations, and tech companies that are kicking ass and taking names.

Reason #2: I crave a startup atmosphere.

As entrepreneurs, we wear a lot of hats and work until the task is done, then drink espresso, self-motivate and work some more. Someone once told me that if you can be successful growing a non-profit, you can be successful with anything. Every day I was thrown to the wolves to teach myself how to run a business – I learned everything from scaling to fundraising and operations, to strategy, marketing and public relations. I was bootstrapping before I’d even heard of the word.

What I’ve learned as an event planner is that you have to be a “little” bit good at a “lot” of things – the same goes for the startup world. Non-profits taught me that, and entrepreneurship forces me to continuously challenge and teach myself new things, which is the equivalent to breathing for entrepreneurs.

Reason #3: I get to surround myself with smart people.

This is another thing savvy entrepreneurs do. I’ve created conferences with female founders who serve as role models to women of all ages, colors and cultures. I am inspired by men and women who are open to sharing their missteps, because this is a world where risk is expected and failure is accepted. Smart people tackle obstacles head-on, understand the importance of showing they can do both the mundane and high-level tasks, and have a desire to retain everything important along the way. This is what makes a successful business leader.

Reason #4: A good non-profit keeps up with new technology, streamlines, and is open to change.

Everything a high-growth tech startup does. There is still a lot of stigma around poorly run non-profits. Luckily, I worked for one that kept up with all the new technology. In order to gain leverage with our high-net worth tech-savvy donor base, we were guinea pigs for just about every cursed new crowd-sourcing, SurveyMonkey’ing and Google Doc’ing technology that came our way.

Reason #5: I am an entrepreneur and I believe I am capable of anything.

I begged my father to let me get a job when I turned 15. I remember coming home from my first day of work and telling him “I don’t want to have a boss, ever!” He laughed it off at the time, but never questioned me when I dismissed my promise to become a lawyer and instead moved from city to city seeking new opportunities, rules to defy, naysayers to disprove, institutions to question, money to seek, ears to listen to me while I pretended to know what I was talking about, networks to tap, partnerships to establish, GREAT ideas to abandon that I’d been so passionate about just five minutes ago, and loving every damn minute of it.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

Photo credit: Toni on Flickr.

About the guest blogger: Heather McGough is Founder of Urbanity Events. She began her career working in the non-profit sector and still commits her time to serving local and global causes. Her business focuses on startup conferences, speaker series’ and other high-tech events while donating time to non-profits. She is a volunteer at with Women 2.0. In her free time, Heather enjoys travel, the outdoors, playing basketball and is writing a detective fiction book about organized crime.

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By Simone Brummelhuis (Founder, TheNextWomen)

A new group of angel investors are entering the world of informal investments.

The Pipeline Fellowship – which trains women philanthropists to become angel investors through education, mentoring, and practice – has just announced its 2012 NYC Pipeline Fellowship class:

Fradel Barber
Fradel is the Visionary Entrepreneur and Director of Expansion World Financial Group. She is a member of the Leadership Network of World Financial Group — a group of hand selected individuals who will serve as the next wave of leaders for World Financial Group entrepreneurs — and is a Brooklyn Community Services Fundraising Dinner 2011 Honoree.

Leah Belsky
Leah is VP of Strategic Development & Associate General Counsel at Kaltura, an Intel Capital funded startup launching the world’s first open source media platform. She sits on the boards of Philadelphia Game Lab and Public Knowledge, an organization dedicated to preserving freedom on the web. She writes regularly about open technology, entrepreneurship, and the future of education at Opentec.org. Leah holds a BA in Human Biology and Political Theory from Brown University and a JD from Yale Law School.

Binta Niambi Brown (pictured)
Binta is a lawyer, philanthropist, and humanitarian based in New York City. Binta has focused her efforts on advancing the cause of women and girls at home and around the globe, advocating for the arts and arts education, and manages a significant global pro bono practice focused on human rights advocacy. Binta was recognized by Crain’s New York Business as a 2011 “40 under 40” rising star in the New York business community; by the National Organization for Women as a Woman of Power and Influence; and, by Super Lawyers as a New York Super Lawyer Rising Star.

Kristin Calve
Kristin is a realtor and serial entrepreneur with experience in startups, mergers, acquisitions, new product development and nonprofits. Kristin is a past President of the Board for the YWCA Darien/Norwalk and currently serves as Nutrition Committee Co-Chair at the Whitby School. She graduated from Fordham University with a BA in English Literature and later went on to earn an MBA in Finance and Marketing, also from Fordham.

Anna Curran
Anna is the Founder of a print on demand startup CookbookCreate.com, and New York Co-Founder for Startup Weekend’s pilot program. Anna has worked as a freelance digital strategist and online communications specialist in New York City assisting startups and nonprofits in developing their digital communications campaigns. She believes in volunteering for great organizations like She’s Geeky, Startup Weekend, Crisis Commons, and New Leaders Council.

Caryn Effron
Caryn is the Founder of GoGirl Finance, an online community empowering women to be more confident when dealing with money. She has spent her career in commercial real estate and currently is a Senior Managing Director for Ackman Ziff, a preeminent real estate capital advisory firm. She is passionate about financial literacy for women and is also active in youth education.

Nicole Faurot
Nicole works in investor relations at Centerbridge Partners, L.P. and currently focuses on representing the firm’s control and distressed for control platform to investors. Nicole chairs the Emory University Alumnae and Women in New York and is the treasurer of the young professionals board of the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families. Nicole worked in roles including investment banking, strategic acquisitions and business development.

Galia Gichon
Galia is the Founder of Down-to-Earth Finance, an independent financial education company based in New York City. She is on the board of In Good Company, a community for women entrepreneurs and a regular speaker at Barnard University’s Athena Center for Leadership and the Freelancers Union. She earned her BS in Finance from University of Florida and MBA in Finance from Fordham University.

Jocelyn Jacobson
Jocelyn is a litigation partner at Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt. She previously worked as Director of Policy and Budget for the Manhattan Borough President. Jocelyn is a Co-Chair of the Solo and Small Law Firm Committee of the New York Women’s Bar Association. Jocelyn has her JD from the Fordham University School of Law and a BA in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

Kellee Joost
Kellee has a background as an entrepreneur, fundraiser, marketer, and public policy professional. Most recently she was co-founder and managing director of Integrative Pet Care, an animal rehabilitation center in Chicago, taking the entity from conception to capitalization to realization and its sale. Now residing in New York with her husband, she is an operations consultant for Hope Sings, serves on the Season of Cambodia planning team, and is an avid international traveler.

Angela Lee
Angela has over ten years of experience in strategy consulting and corporate training. She is currently involved in an innovation capability-building program in a large pharmaceutical company and has formerly served as an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company focusing on strategy and marketing issues for Fortune 100 clients. Angela is a guest lecturer at Columbia and Columbia Business School and speaks on topics including strategic problem solving and career coaching.

Holly Lynch
Holly is the Founder and CEO of The Good Girls. A native of New York City, Holly is an advertising, strategic planning, and brand communications veteran, with twelve years’ experience at agencies such as Ogilvy, BBH, and StrawberryFrog. She led the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and Self-Esteem Fund; has consulted with Procter & Gamble on how to innovate and promote a healthier, more sustainable product line for future generations; and, sits on the boards of numerous nonprofits. Holly founded The Good Girls in 2010 to champion, position, and build this future for women.

Nandini P. Narula
Nandini is an independent consultant, delivering strategic advisory services to nonprofits and social enterprises. Prior to this, she was the co-founder and CTO of GreenMango, a social enterprise that provides an online marketing platform to low-income entrepreneurs in India. Nandini’s passion for social enterprise was sparked while she worked in the microfinance sector for several years, supporting the growth of microfinance organizations internationally. She started her career in the technology sector. where she managed large-scale web development projects.

Helaine Olen
Helaine is the author of Pound Foolish, a look at the personal finance industry, which will be published by Penguin’s Portfolio imprint later in 2012. A freelance journalist, she writes frequently on issues pertaining to both women and money, and parenting and finances. Helaine lives in the Hudson Valley, just north of New York City, with her husband and two sons, and received her AB in English from Smith College.

Shaifali Puri
Shaifali is the Executive Director of Scientists Without Borders, a public/private partnership that generates, shares, and advances solutions to the world’s most pressing global development challenges through open and collaborative innovation. In 2011, she was named to Crain’s New York’s “40 under 40” list of the top young business leaders in New York.

Liz Roberts
Liz is the Chief Strategy Officer at SX2 Media Labs where she directs web site positioning, product development, and revenue optimization. She is actively involved in organizations that empower women. Liz holds a BA from Smith College.

Sheri Sandler
Sheri is the director of a family foundation and is engaged in investment management for a family office. She received her BA in Finance from the University of Wisconsin and attended the Master of Arts Program in the History of Decorative Arts and Design offered by Parsons The New School and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Museum of Design.

Sheri Sobrato Brisson
Sheri is a Trustee at Sobrato Family Foundation in Silicon Valley. Sheri’s long-term passion is working directly with children facing serious illnesses and their families. Other philanthropic interests include small arts organizations, youth development, and global programs targeting women and children. She also serves as an advisory board member of the Okizu Foundation, Dance Repertory, and Parents Helping Parents.

Jade Netanya Ullmann
Jade is the Director of Development, Membership, and Outreach for Romemu, the NYC transformative center for Judaism. Jade is on the board of ALEPH, Alliance for Jewish Renewal of which Romemu is an affiliate community. Jade is a member of the Threshold Foundation and has been involved in funding circles and grant making focused on restorative justice, co-existence, and community organizing. She is also involved in her family foundation.

Ming Zhao
Ming currently works for a hedge fund. She is particularly interested in how the emergence of new technologies has impacted and reshaped our society. Ming holds a BS in Computer Science from Nankai University in China and a PhD in Statistics from Stony Brook University.

The 2012 NYC Pipeline Fellowship Conference will be held in NYC on Friday, February 10, 2012, and is open to the public. Aspiring angels, current investors, and entrepreneurs are encouraged to attend.

For interested applicants based outside of Boston and NYC, the Pipeline Fellowship has created an executive program that will be held in NYC (February 2012 – June 2012).

This post was originally published at TheNextWomen.

About the guest blogger: Simone Brummelhuis is Founder, CEO and Editor-in Chief of TheNextWomen, the First Women’s Internet Business Magazine and Community with a focus on startups and growing businesses, led, founded or invested in by women be it in the media, service, retail, communication or any other industry, with a tech or internet angle, from Silicon Valley to Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. A partner of Women 2.0, TheNextWomen is behind concepts such as Kitchen Dinners.

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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 (10%)
• Greycroft Partners: 2 women investors out of 6 investors (33%)
• Kleiner Perkins Cauield & Byers: 10 women investors out of 44 (23%)
• Sequoia Capital: 10 women investors out of 62 (16%) all women are in the India and China locations

Whitney listed 25 VC firms with additional details, and only 4 firms listed have over 15% women in their investment teams. Now 4 out of 25 firms is 16%. Think about that – 16% of notable VC firms funding early-stage startups have 15%+ women in their investment teams.

Before early-stage women entrepreneurs psych themselves out of seeking venture funding and remain at their day jobs forever, Whitney lists the venture firms targeted to women. These funds are much smaller – all “well under $100 million and are generally recognized as angel investors” (compared to the high-profile firms above with funds worth over $100 million):

• Golden Seeds: 8 women investors out of 10 (80%)
• Women’s Venture Capital Fund: 3 women investors out of 3 (100%)
• Belle Capital: 10 women investors out of 11 (91%)
• JumpThru: 1 woman investor out of 1 (100%)
  Joanne Wilson: 1 woman investor out of 1 (100%)

OK so there is hope, and places for women entrepreneurs to seek women investors if desired.

Now what I find the most interesting are the VC firms who “buck the trend” – these are VC firms with funds worth over $100 million that aren’t explicitly targeting women-led startups and reach gender parity in their investment teams:

• Starvest Partners: 5 women investors out of 6 (83%)
• DBL Investors: 5 women investors out of 8 (63%)

What is that? The future? StarVest partner Deborah Farrington wrote a guest blog post on Women 2.0 about how to How More Women Can Get A Seat On The Board And Lead It To Success.

I interviewed to DBL Investors’ Managing Director Cynthia Ringo last year about women-led firms and solving big problems in a conversation where she said:

“I started my high tech career as an IP lawyer, then worked at startups. The first one was a relational database system that was aimed at decision-support as opposed to online transaction processing. And the second was to enable the carrying of voice over DSL lines. These were big ideas, and I think that’s the biggest challenge that we see on a routine basis, which doesn’t mean we don’t see women with big ideas -— we do, and we fund them! If we see a big idea, first we judge the idea, and then the fact it’s women-led to us is the cherry on the sundae.”

Seeking a billion dollar company, venture capital firms by definition must seek the startups with the largest markets, market maturity/timing, etc.

Can your early-stage startup anticipate hitting such high numbers?

On a related note, Elizabeth Knopf has a good analysis of venture capital investments in e-commerce plays with some solid insights on venture capital’s take on the current trend of funding e-commerce startups. It’s worth a read.

And if you have read down this far, do check out Whitney’s blog post about “selling the product, not making it” regarding the majority of positions that women occupy in tech startups.

I don’t need to tell you why it’s important to have women involved in building products…

To meet the who’s who of venture-funded women in tech who have built great products, check out Women 2.0′s fifth annual PITCH Conference & Competition on February 14, 2012 in Mountain View, CA.

Photo credit: Grant Hollingworth on Flickr.

About the guest blogger: Angie Chang co-founded Women 2.0 in 2006 with Shaherose Charania. She currently serves as Editor-In-Chief of Women 2.0 and is working to mainstream women in entrepreneurship. Previously, Angie held roles in product management, web UI design, and entrepreneurship. In 2008, Angie launched Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners, asking that guys come as the “+1″ for once. Angie holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at @thisgirlangie.

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By Kati Bicknell (Co-Founder, Kindara)

I’m the co-founder of Kindara. Our mission is to provide women with a full solution (hardware, software, support and education) that makes the Symptothermal Method of fertility management easier than ever before.

We graduated from the New York Spring 2011 Founder Institute at the top of our class, and recently closed a Friends and Family round of funding. I’m a member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and one of the few women in the country being trained as a Fertility Awareness Educator.

I studied art at notoriously liberal Bennington college, where I was encouraged to think outside the confines of a typical college curricula. Collaboration ruled the day, and by the end of four years I had worked on projects with students of many disciplines.

This experience of wearing multiple hats laid the groundwork for me as an entrepreneur. Now, on any given day I may be researching, copywriting, art directing, evaluating feature sets, pitching investors, reconciling the books, or any number of troubleshooting and problem solving activities.

I was working at TED.com when I had the idea for Kindara. Being exposed to so many brilliant people, day after day, led me to believe that with the right team, and enough passion, it was possible to turn world changing ideas into reality.

The idea for Kindara came out of my own search for non-hormonal, side-effect free contraception. A friend lent me “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” by Toni Weschler, a book about the Symptothermal Method of fertility charting. I learned that when used as contraception, the Symptothermal Method can be up to 99.6% effective, that’s as effective as the pill. I decided to start charting my cycle, and was disappointed with the lack of sleek, easy to use fertility charting software.

I brought this problem to my co-founder Will, an entrepreneur and mechanical engineer I met at Burning Man in 2009. After talking it over, we realized that there is a huge opportunity to create technology that gives women better results with their fertility, whether they want to avoid or achieve pregnancy.

We spent that winter researching the fertility space. We validated our idea by researching the current solutions to the problem we were trying to solve, and evaluating where they fell short. We searched US patents, to see if our innovations might be patentable and did lots of brainstorming on how to give women a seamless experience managing their fertility.

In summer of 2010, we quit our jobs and began working on Kindara full time. In fall of 2010, we brought on a CTO to build out our web application and a graphic designer, both of them worked in exchange for equity in the company. (This did not work as well as we had hoped. Turns out friendship and excitement are great motivators, but they do not pay the rent. We had to let both of them go off to greener and more immediately lucrative pastures in 2011)

In March 2011, we were accepted into the Founder Institute incubator in New York, graduating in June at the top of our class. This experience proved to be very valuable, and we made great connections to mentors, advisors and investors.

It’s been an incredible journey filled with ups and downs. When my co-founder Will told me about the Lean Startup movement, essentially: “the reason nine out of 10 startups fail is because they build a product nobody wants” I realized that we had built the charting software I wanted to use, assuming that it was what everyone would want to use, and that this does not a sustainable, profitable business make.

It was humbling to go back to the drawing board, but luckily our customer development process validated our theory that women want an effective, side-effect free way to manage their fertility.

If I could impart any wisdom to someone considering doing their own startup it would be this:

1. Maintaining balance in your life is important. Left unchecked, the business WILL consume your entire life. Make a point to see your friends, relax, and think about things other than the business or you may go insane (making you ineffective in aforementioned business)
    
2. Be committed but flexible. Have your end goal in mind, but be open to new ways of getting there.
    
3. Make sure you have excellent and clear communication. This is in regard to your co-founder(s).
    
4. Get and stay organized. Our team uses the Getting Things Done approach, and Workflowy to keep everything running smoothly.
    
5. Ask for help. Reach out to people who have expertise in the area you’re interested in.

As for us, after graduating from the Founder Institute we closed a Friends and Family Round in November and used December and January for Customer Discovery. Our next milestone is to raise our seed round so we can implement our plan and make a difference for millions of women.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Kati Bicknell co-founded Kindara in 2009 with William Sacks. Kati is fiercely committed that women have access to safe, effective options to manage their health and fertility. Previously she worked for TED.com. In her free time she enjoys yoga, art, and dance. Kati currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Follow her on Twitter at @katibicknell.

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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 building my own team at LARK, and hope I am living by:

Lesson #1: Build a team based on values

It wasn’t until our team was around 7 and we were interviewing for our 8th teammate that I suddenly realized there was an unspoken common set of values that our team all seemed to share.

We were still small enough that the whole team interviewed every single candidate independently. I then independently asked everyone for their yay or nay – and to my surprise, each candidate, even though some were incredible people, was unanimously voted in or out by the team. We all seemed to know who fit and didn’t fit in our company.

It’s not that our team is similar – we’re all pretty quirky and consider ourselves independent thinkers, but it was the first time that I realized we had made our own set of values. For example, we valued people who listened and then were confrontational, we didn’t value someone being an independent rockstar, that we valued a bit of mischief over poise.

Be extremely methodological about articulating your core values so you can have a framework to prioritize equally “good values” and make hard decisions. What’s hard about this is that values are assumptions and norms that are unspoken, and everyone just takes it for granted. However, the larger your team becomes, the more conscious you need to be in institutionalizing these values.

Lesson #2: Build a core team based on defensible strengths.

Understand what you need to defend and develop to build a successful business, and think of everything else as a support system.

In other words, hiring a team is risky – focus on hiring those that will lower your risk and outsource everything else.

Only when you and your team are ready to be married to a motivated startup-type person and their skills are core to your business should you hire them as an employee.

At LARK, our key defensible strengths are user experience, sleep, and mobile tech. To mirror that, our biggest employee teams are behavior change product people and mobile engineers. However, because sleep expertise is truly a complex academic subject, our amazing sleep experts that help us build out the product are also focused on leading cutting edge research for the top universities, so they are contracted advisors.

Everything else we partner or outsource creatively. Partners have proven models of success, the know-how, and the relationships to de-risk your company. Find the right ones. Manufacturing is really hard for us – so we partnered with the top manufacturing supply chain company, PCH International, and created a new business unit (they never used to work with startups) to scale quickly.

Lesson #3: Reward risk well but don’t forget the 1 year cliff!

On the risk reward curve, there is the most risk at the beginning of the journey, and the least cash, social proof, and other great people to work with.

The real toughness of a startup is at the moment that you need the best people, they are the hardest to hire. But this is exactly the time you can’t settle. You have to be the pickiest you will ever be in hiring to find the most risk-taking and nimble and sharp people to turn an idea into a business.

And once you find those people that add some magic, then hire them as an employee, reward them with a rich stock package, and ask them to take a risk with you.

However, while almost everything else has to be based on faith, I am a firm believer that everyone, including the CEO and founders, should take 1 year cliff on 4 year vesting. After being pretty naive, I realized that not all co-founders and teammates are equally vested in the success of a company. Not everyone will be willing to mortgage a home or work 16 hour days. And for those who don’t fit the bill, splitting up without splitting the baby is important.

And that leads me to the last lesson that I learned the hard way, the one that stresses leaders out the most.

Lesson #4: Firing is part of the job. Fire quickly, experiment often.

In fact, it’s proven through lab research that leaders loathe nothing more than firing their team. I sure don’t – that’s why we don’t hire casually. Most people think about the sunk costs – how much training they’ve received, how much they know about
the product, how they’re cool people and not that bad at their job – and hope the problem will solve itself.

I’ve found that usually there’s two issues:

• They’re doing the wrong job. If you think they can be happier doing another job – help them experiment and move around.
• You’re just not happy with them. And the best advice I got about firing was – “Remember, they are not happy either. They deserve better: they deserve to be somewhere where they are happy.“

Take risks, find amazing people who are unproven, but remember to fire when appropriate.

There you have it – my four secrets to one of the hardest and most rewarding parts of building a company.

Editor’s note: Guest blogger and LARK CEO Julia Hu is a speaker at the Women 2.0 PITCH Conference on February 14, 2012. Get your ticket now to join the biggest Women 2.0 event of the year!

This post was originally posted at Huffington Post.

About the guest blogger: Julia Hu is the Founder & CEO of LARK, a consumer electronics startup that helps couples sleep better together. Prior to LARK, she was National Sustainability Chair for global startup incubator Clean Tech Open, and ran international marketing in China for D.light Design. She received her Masters and Bachelors at Stanford and has half of a MBA from MIT Sloan (a dropout, but they’re nice enough to include her as a case study and speaker). Follow her on Twitter at @ourlark.

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By Manali V. Dighe (Intellectual Property Attorney, Borton Petrini)

Patents are integral for innovation. On the one hand, patents promote disclosure of new and useful inventions. On the other hand, as a “payment” for disclosure, the patent owner gets the exclusive right to make, use, sell, or offer to sell the invention. Patent law will be experiencing arguably its biggest reform to date.

On September 16, 2011, President Obama signed a landmark patent reform act, the America Invents Act. Some changes will go into effect immediately, and some will go into effect 12 or 18 months from the date of enactment.

One of the biggest changes is a shift from the first-to-invent system to the first-to-file system. Right now, patent owners can “pre-date” their filing date with evidence showing prior invention (i.e., dated lab notes, etc.) prior to the application’s actual filing date. As such, under the current system, a patent may be awarded to an inventor who is first to invent even though the application was not the first application filed in the Patent Office for that invention. Eighteen months from now, however, the inventor who wins the race to file the first application will be awarded the patent regardless of the date of the invention.

What does this mean for those wishing to obtain a patent on their invention? The answer is it depends. If the invention is in the “predictable” arts (i.e., mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software, or business methods), then it is likely important for the inventor to file an application as early as possible. For example, if your company is making a new type of pour spout, you should file an application as soon as possible.

If, however, the invention is in the “unpredictable” arts (i.e., biotechnology), then a fine line exists. The application should be filed as soon as possible, but any application that is filed needs to have sufficient disclosure to meet written description and enablement requirements. As such, the inventor is faced with a conundrum – wait to file the application, until, for example, in vivo data is obtained, or file the application right away, with, for example, only in vitro data.

One approach to this enigma is to file multiple provisional applications related to the same invention. Every time significant data is obtained, another provisional application derived from the prior should be filed. The resulting non-provisional application can be a cumulation of the provisional applications. For example, if your invention is directed to an Internet technology, it would likely be very important to file the application as soon as possible.

Another big change is a pre-grant patent application review procedure. A third party can submit prior art to the Patent Office at certain times during the prosecution of a patent application. This provides businesses with the opportunity to block certain patent applications, for example, that they may be potentially infringing if issued. Accordingly, businesses should create some sort of monitoring systems that alert them to the existence of pending patent application publications relevant to their businesses.

I am an experienced patent and trademark attorney. I write and prosecute software, business method, biotechnology, mechanical, chemical, and medical device patent applications, as well as file and prosecute trademark applications. If you are a woman entrepreneur and would like to know what, if any, potential intellectual property rights your company’s products and/or services may be protected by, please call me for a free consultation and discounted IP services.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Manali V. Dighe is an intellectual property attorney at Borton Petrini, LLP. She also worked in the business world as a technical sales specialist. Manali is a registered patent attorney with the United States Patent & Trademark Office. She holds a B.S. in Microbiology & Molecular Genetics from UCLA, a M.S. in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from USC, and a J.D. from Loyola Law School. You can reach her at mdighe@bortonpetrini.com; (310) 663-5100; or (415) 677-0730.