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. Despite how petrified I was of quitting my job at an amazing company to pursue this idea, I was more scared of never taking a risk. While some people can start ideas on the side while still employed, my job was too demanding to allow that, so I took the plunge without any setting anything up for myself. Luckily, I was accepted into the Women 2.0 Labs program shortly after!

My first couple weeks of job freedom were extremely exhilarating — the possibilities seemed endless, and I really enjoyed reading books about entrepreneurship and talking to anyone who’s ever started their own startup. I was just ready to start ramping up on engineering efforts on my idea when Women 2.0 Labs began. I went into this program with the expectation that I could meet potential cofounders and learn a new technology stack for my startup idea. And while I have certainly met all those expectations, I have learned so much more about the right way to get a startup off the ground — the non engineering stuff.

“I probably would have spent 6 months building out my startup idea before launching anything if it were not for Women 2.0 Labs — now I know the important thing is to discover which ideas are good and which are not.”

One big takeaway from Women 2.0 Labs is that it’s not just about passionate people working hard on some magical great idea. Our advisors have showed us how we can verify that there is a market for their product/idea before putting in all the work to build a sophisticated product. I’m learning so much about the mysterious “business” side of things, where everything is new to me!

Another first for me is working so closely with a marketing person and a designer. My group ended up choosing someone else’s idea, and it’s wonderful to see all the thought and market research that has gone into it. I also really like working with a designer and watching her create the concepts for our site. I work on the front-end, and the other engineer on our team is working on the backend and algorithms.

I have to admit, there are some things I miss about working for a big company. I have to learn about every single detail — and since I am a backend engineer with minimal web experience — that’s a lot. I have to figure out how to host my web pages, how to install MySQL on my computer, whether to use Ruby on Rails or Django with Python, etc. The designer on my team has had to learn Adobe Dreamweaver. There’s no IT to call when things go wrong, or limitless number of people to tap on the shoulder for questions.

Overall, being at Women 2.0 Labs this summer has just solidified in my mind that I made the right decision about not working for a big company anymore. While I still enjoy doing technical work, I also really love learning about all the other stuff. If you are another engineer that has aspirations of wanting to start your own company one day — I know I’m not the only one in Silicon Valley, and you want to have a taste of what that might be like, I’d recommend you try Women 2.0 Labs too! You don’t have to quit your job or wait for a “magical idea” to get a taste of startup life.

If you’d like to see what we’ve built so far this summer, please check us out: www.houseofmiko.com.

If you like this post, maybe you’d like fellow House of Mikko team member Kimberly Dillon’s post on the entrepreneurial journey from the new MBA perspective.

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.

When I moved here 4 weeks ago, I was concerned that it would be hard to find my way in the startup scene. I was one of few women at most of the events I attended, and I was consistently the only black woman. Interestingly, my race and my gender have not mattered, in part because I am not letting it matter — because right now I would stalk the King of Sheba if I thought it would help me move this idea forward, and also partially because it just hasn’t mattered — at least, not yet. Instead, I have been receiving great feedback, and all of the people who have helped, critiqued and mentored me up to this point don’t look a speck like me.

This is due in part to programs like Women 2.0, which has played a great role in weaving women into the broader conversation. The Women 2.0 Labs program specifically has been a great immersion into the startup world. In fact, it is the perfect capstone onto my newly minted MBA. Interestingly enough, I was so caught up on being a woman and being black, that I didn’t even begin to think about what having an MBA would mean in some circles in the Bay Area. My MBA has generated some apprehension among a few people I met who appreciate technical expertise over all else. It’s even funnier because I come from a family where my parents didn’t even know what an MBA was.

I went to business school because I thought I was lacking some of the “secret sauce” that made entrepreneurs and business leader great, but when I got to school, I found out that there was no secret sauce. Instead there were a lot of case studies based on assumptions, frameworks and hypotheses, and sometimes the difference between success and failure was a little bit of plain luck. While I am oversimplifying things a bit, I found value in learning that there is neither a formula nor a secret sauce. And while I feel like I did learn a lot in business school, for me it represents a lot of personal growth and invaluable inner awareness.

“But business school is not everything, and one of the key things that I love about Women 2.0 is the bias towards action.”

Last week we had Eric Ries of Lean Startup fame present. He definitely speaks his mind, bluntly, but personally, I love being ripped apart: if I am still standing, well then, “The joke is on you, buddy!” He did not, in fact, rip us apart, but instead got us out of the “thinking” phase and into the “doing” phase.

We threw up a dummy site with a super basic landing page and survey form, and then launched a low budget paid search campaign, put up the requisite Facebook/Twitter page, and even sponsored a Meetup group. The results were pretty surprising. I mean, obviously I think my idea is the BEST. THING. EVER. But to see people sign up was a bit nerve wracking (now what?). Imagine the horror when I found a misspelling or a broken link on our quickly thrown up website. I began to check our signup dashboard on an hourly basis, and I lost some sleep trying to figure out how to optimize our keyword campaign. It still surprises me that people sign up for stuff based on a dummy landing page, and even more that people actually give us personal information about their beauty habits. One 21-year-old so desperately wanted product advice to help her shedding hair that she emailed twice asking when we were going to get back to her. In one week, we got 100 beta testers, nearly 500 Facebook fans, even though we haven’t even figured out how the site is going to work yet. I am guessing that’s next week’s goal.

House of Mikko: Our vision is to build a beauty recommendation engine based on the reviews of like-typed women. Visit us at: www.houseofmikko.com.

You can follow Kimberly on Twitter at @prettylittleceo.

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.

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 Pitch 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.

The idea has been formulating for a while, but my lack of technical expertise has stifled me from pursuing product development. I had perviously been a part of the Founder Institute, a program to train individuals to be world class CEOs, as part of their inaugural class. Most of the participants had a technical background and therefore did not need any guidance on product development. I would recommend the Founder Institute to anyone thinking of building a company, as it is a continuous relationship and mentorship after the program. During this time, I formulated my idea for a company. Essentially I got my inspiration from boyfriend at the time, who suddenly developed epilepsy during our relationship, and it was very difficult to track what was happening and how the cost of healthcare was changing. It was a frightening and stressful time. This is how Cake Health began.

The company moved forward, yet the product lagged. It can be terribly intimidating for someone to have a conversation with an engineer when you have no idea what qualifications you are looking for or how to ask for what you want, in technical terms.

Here is where Women 2.0 Labs stepped in.

First day at the Labs was similar to the first day of school. True Ventures was kind enough to lend their offices at Pier 38 for cowering, so this will be considered our home for the next few weeks. Even though everyone was unsure and nervous, the energy of having so many visionaries and entrepreneurs in one room was infectious. It was refreshing to see a number of men had joined the program, since diversity in any situation provides a richer experience. Most people arrived not knowing what they would work on, but just wanted to be a part of something. Those who came with an idea and a vision, like myself, were given the opportunity to pitch to the rest of the group. Each team is to have a minimum of one business person (myself), a designer and two engineers. All who are willing, will continue beyond the program.

I feel so fortunate to have had some strong people want to join the project I proposed. Adrien Arculeo (engineer), Renuka Wariyar (engineer), and Sarah Kling (designer), complete the group. And not only a strong team, but we seem to have gelled on a personal level, as well. This is most important since we will most definitely be going through some struggles and conflict over the next few weeks. If we approach the situation with a camaraderie, respect, and maybe most importantly a sense of humor, we may avoid killing each other. All of our goal is to build an amazing product worthy of being proud of.

The first day after team formation, we had Steve Blank (author of Four Steps to the Epiphany) and Ann Miura-Ko (Partner at Floodgate) speaking about business fundamentals. This leveled the playing field for everyone, especially so that teams can start on equal footing with engineers and business people. Many of the topics were second nature for me after working in corporate strategy for so long, yet I forget what is not common knowledge for other fields. Anne and Steve started us all off on the right page.

As someone who carries a full time job, and supports myself in every aspect of daily life, I certainly have fears about being able to survive with running a startup. Currently I have a full time job at a large market research firm, and am working nights and weekends to work on the startup. The exhaustion is intense, yet the feeling of motivation and determination is nothing I’ve ever felt before. There is something that hits you, that you’ve always heard about from other entrepreneurs, that changes your whole life and way of physically dealing with things. The stress suddenly becomes unreal and not like any other stress that you would ever feel. Finally, it’s the entrepreneurship high. On one of our first days, Steve Blank came to speak to us, and he said that the moment entrepreneurs remember the most is at the very start, where the excitement is highest, where the possibilities are endless. So remember this moment in time, and the goal is to keep that feeling as the company grows, although this is nearly impossible. This is every entrepreneurs goal.

At the moment, the excitement of the team is high. We have high hopes for what we will accomplish in 5 weeks. Inevitably, we will reach a moment where we will face discouragement, as most do, and wonder if we can pull through. We will not be the only one. My own personal goal is to have the product fly once the 5 weeks are over, at least into alpha testing, and I hope the rest of the people on the team will be excited enough to want to continue.

At the end of the 5 weeks, we’ll post an update as to what we are doing, how our team has developed, what we have learned, and where we are going from that point on.

Sarah Kling’s Story

Rebecca’s story above resonates very strongly with me - the sentiments she expresses make me really just want to say “ditto” to just about everything she has expressed. The main difference in my story and my journey to land here starts at my reason for coming here. But first, a little about me: I founded and still lead a successful User Experience Design consultancy called UEVision. We focus on providing product design and strategy services for high tech companies. We’ve designed and developed everything from consumer educational products (LeapFrog) to healthcare portals (Blue Shield of California) to IT security software (Oracle), with just about everything in between.

My business has been going strong for over 5 years and my team and I have had the wonderful opportunity to work on many different products with many different companies, from up-a-coming startups such as Groupon to large industry leaders such as Oracle and Fujitsu. I’ve learned a great deal about many aspects of business and product design and development as a result of this exposure and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

However, I came to realize recently that after 5 years of designing, developing and then turning products over to their rightful “owners” at the end of each product engagement that something was missing. I really long for a “product of my own” to see through from start to finish; I want to be there at the very beginning and shut the lights off at the very end (if it comes to that). I look forward to making the opportunity for myself to apply the skills that my 12+ years of experience in this industry have given me, and to creating a great product that customers not only want and need, but find intuitive to use.

My 5 weeks in the Women 2.0 Labs will not only give me a taste of that, but it will no doubt set me on a course that will open many doors that my consulting practice would not have opened for me. I’m very excited about everything about the Labs experience so far - the people, the program, and the organization behind this make it a rare and excellent opportunity to try something exciting and new and — let’s be honest — a little bit scary, too. My team and I are ready to take this all on together, though, so that makes it all the easier to plunge ahead.

From the Cake Health team:

Want to be part of our beta test? Be a part of our 5 week (and beyond…) development and help us out by testing our product. Request a beta invite and we will email you when we have something ready for you to try out. Go to www.cakehealth.com.

Will you help us in our development? We will either personally call you to ask you your opinion or send you a survey to help guide what we are working on. Help us build what you need the first time. Plus, we’re giving away a $50 gift card to one lucky survey taker. It could be you. Take our survey here.

For more information about our project, you can reach us at info@cakehealth.com, rebecca@cakehealth.com, and sarah@cakehealth.com.

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.

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 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 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.

Women 2.0 has partnered again with Startup Weekend! And this time, it’s all about Mobile! On Friday, July 23rd through Sunday, July 25th, 2010, Startup Weekend San Francisco will be happening at KickLabs to focus on mobile startups.

For the ones who don’t know Startup Weeekend, this is your chance to go from idea to prototype in a weekend! For those who have been to a Startup Weekend, this is a good way to experiment and try new thing, to be a better entrepreneur (ie. learning by doing!). For more info and to register, click here.

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

We are holding a Founder Friday at District wine bar on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 @ 5pm. Afterward, we will be walking over to Startup Weekend together. For more info on Founder Friday San Francisco and to register, click here.

Founder Friday is a Women 2.0 networking event organized in partnership with like-minded organizations like Startup Weekend. Everyone has to eat, so why not share a meal and startup stories? Meet fellow Women 2.0 members in your city! This time we’re meeting in Tel Aviv before Startup Weekend.

Women 2.0 Founder “Two-sday” on Tuesday, July 13th in Tel Aviv!

Ruthy Kaidar, an entrepreneur in the medical devices field, has made dinner reservations for us on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 @ 6:30pm. Join fellow Women 2.0 founders, aspiring and current, for dinner to meet each other before attending Startup Weekend Tel Aviv. Please RSVP here by Sunday, July 11th, 2010 so we know how many people to expect for Founder “Two-sday” in Tel Aviv.

Founder Fridays are usually on Fridays as Startup Weekends usually start on Fridays. However Startup Weekend Tel Aviv starts on Wednesday, we are hosting Founder Twos-day on Tuesday. “Founder Two-sday” refers to Women “2.0″ as well as the saying “Twice as good on a Tuesday.”

Women 2.0 members save 50 shekels on Startup Weekend Tel Aviv tickets when you register here.

Founder “Two-sday” Agenda:

18:50-20:20 — Guest speakers:

Einat Metzer (Associate, Gemini Israel Funds) — Intro to women entrepreneurship.
Daria Shualy (Founder & Co-CEO, Sense of Fashion) — “Being an entrepreneur - are you born with it or do you become one?”
Idit Biton (VP Marketing & Strategic Partnerships, SIT) — “Where to find your next idea for a startup?”

20:20-21:30 — Dinner and mingling

Please RSVP above with your contact info by Sunday, July 11th, 2010 so we know how many people to expect. We have made the reservation for 20 people. Space is limited, so please sign up ONLY if you intend to come.

Join this event on Facebook!

The ticket is free but we expect each attendee to order dinner or appetizers and pay for their respective orders. We have reserved the VIP room so everyone can mingle. Should you have to cancel, kindly inform us ASAP, so that we can allow other women to attend.

Women 2.0 Labs is a new 5-week program (July 6 - August 5, 2010) for engineers, designers, biz dev 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.

Application to Women 2.0 Labs is now closed. Selected participants will be notified June 25, 2010.

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 a female engineering student?

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

Schedule for Women 2.0 Labs - July 6th through August 5th, 2010

Women 2.0 Labs participants will meet on Thursday nights from 6pm to 9pm from July 6th through August 5th, 2010. Teams present their latest product releases each Thursday evening. Teams are allowed to use the San Francisco space to work on their startups on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday from 6pm to 9pm.

Week 0 - Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
Idea Brainstorming and Team Formation.

Week 1 - Thursday, July 8th, 2010
Visiting Advisors: Ann Miura-Ko (Partner, FLOODGATE), Jon Callaghan (General Partner, True Ventures) Steve Blank (Creator, Customer Development).

Week 2 - Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Visiting Advisors: Eric Ries (Creator, Lean Startup).

Week 3 - Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Visiting Advisors: Ryan Spoon (Senior Associate, Polaris Ventures), Saad Khan (Partner, CMEA Capital), and Rebecca Lynn (Principal, Morganthaler Ventures).

Week 4 - Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Visiting Advisors: Dave McClure (Investor, FF Angel LLC) and Mari Baker (President & CEO, PlayFirst).

Week 5 - Thursday, August 5th, 2010 — Final Pitch Day
Visiting Advisors: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Polyvore), Julia Hartz (President, Eventbrite), and 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 you are interested in becoming a sponsor.

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.

Biographies for Women 2.0 Labs visiting advisors:

Ann Miura-Ko (Partner, FLOODGATE) - Thursday, July 8th, 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.

Steve Blank (Creator, Customer Development) - Thursday, July 8th, 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.

Eric Ries (Creator, Lean Startup) - Thursday, July 15th, 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)
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.

Rebecca Lynn (Principal, Morganthaler Ventures) - Thursday, July 15th, 2010
Rebecca focuses on early-stage investments in mobile, health 2.0, Internet services and financial services. She serves on the boards of Lending Club and Practice Fusion. Rebecca began her career at Procter and Gamble, then joined NextCard as an early employee and led product development, later serving as VP of Marketing. Rebecca holds a JD/MBA degree from Haas School of Business and U.C. Berkeley School of Law. She also holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri.

Ryan Spoon (Senior Associate, Polaris Ventures) - Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Ryan Spoon is a senior associate in San Francisco at Polaris’ Dog Patch Lab. He focuses on investments in internet, technology and digital media. Prior to Ryan was VP of Marketing & Business Development at Widgetbox. Ryan spent 2003-2007 at eBay Inc as part of the internet marketing team, focusing on user acquisition, search engine optimization and social content properties. Most recently, Ryan launched and managed the Kijiji.com business. As a collegiate swimmer, Ryan founded beRecruited (acquired by RVS Ventures) and currently serves on the board. Ryan holds a B.A. from Duke University.

Saad Khan (Partner, CMEA Capital) - Thursday, July 22nd, 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, July 29th, 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.

Mari Baker (President & CEO, PlayFirst) - Thursday, July 29th, 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.

Julia Hartz (Co-Founder & President, Eventbrite) - Thursday, August 5th, 2010
Julia is a reformed Television Network Executive and comes to Eventbrite by way of Hollywood. During her tenure in the television industry, Julia was a creative executive at FX Networks. Prior to FX Networks, Julia worked in creative development at MTV Networks. Julia brings the creativity and energy of the entertainment business to Eventbrite, leading the company with innovative thinking and a keen sense of the consumer audience. Julia holds a B.A. from Pepperdine University.

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Polyvore) - Thursday, August 5th, 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, August 5th, 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.

Betty Kayton (CFO, Dropbox)
Betty has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry, as a key member of the executive team at high-growth, venture-funded start-ups. Her contribution ranges from strategic planning and fund raising to tactical challengers such as building appropriate infrastructure without stifling growth. Betty concurrently serves as CFO of several high tech companies (Wi-Fi/mesh networks, consumer products, Web 2.0, eLearning), and previously was CFO at Leapfrog, Nominum, MGA Entertainment. Betty holds an MBA from the University of Southern California and a B.A. from Pomona College.

David Newman (Artist in Residence, Women 2.0 Labs)
David is an American artist living in San Francisco documenting innovators in Silicon Valley & beyond with portraits painted from life since 2006, most recently painting exclusively with the iPad. A former student of painters Wayne Thiebaud and Joan Brown at UC Davis and UC Berkeley, Newman has painted with graphics systems, including the Mac, since the early 80’s. He worked in marketing with pioneering computer graphics firms including Via Video, Inc., Networked Picture Systems, and Island Graphics Corporation. As a courtroom artist (UPI) he covered notable trials, including the trials of Huey Newton and Dan White, in the 70’s.

Sponsorships

StartupToDo.com is graciously providing 6-month access to their productivity application for all Women 2.0 Labs participants!

Healthy Cakes is graciously donating an all-natural, sugar-free cake for the Women 2.0 Labs Pitch Night festivities!

Women 2.0 gives companies, organizations, and individuals the opportunity to invest in a future female startup founder with a $555 Women 2.0 Labs Scholarship.

Each scholarship covers the cost of the program for a female participant of Women 2.0 Labs, enabling a deserving applicant to join the new 5-week program (July 6 - August 5, 2010) for engineers, developers, biz dev folks, and marketing mavens to develop high-growth technology ventures in San Francisco, CA. Women 2.0 Labs 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 the following companies and organizations that donated a Women 2.0 Labs Scholarship! PayPal even donated TWO of them!!

Support a future female founder!
Email Shaherose to sponsor a Women 2.0 Labs participant this summer.

Join Etsy and Women 2.0 for a Cocktails and Crafts event on Thursday, June 10th from 7pm to 10pm in San Francisco, CA.

This is a free event, and we will be accepting donations at the door for Women 2.0 Labs scholarships.

Meet Chad Dickerson (CTO of Etsy) and make some geeky crafts like DIY screen-printed mousepads at upstairs at Pier 38 in San Francisco. Have a cocktail or two on Etsy.com — or do both. Etsy is opening a new engineering office in San Francisco, and wants to get to know their neighbors.

Women 2.0 Labs Scholarships will be the beneficiariy of funds raised at the door, so please come and support us! For more info, click here.

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. A business model competition measures how well the team learn how to pivot, for example. For more about this, read his blog post here.

A handful of startups will be chosen to pitch live in San Francisco at the PITCH event 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:

1. The founding team must have at least one female.
2. The founding team must have a technologist* on the founding team. A technologist is an engineer, scientist, mathematician, biologist, etc.
3. 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.
4. PITCH is focused on companies with high-growth potential.

How to Apply to PITCH: Women 2.0 Startup Competition

Your submission to the Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition has 3 parts:

1. Fill out the application here — You may edit your application anytime prior to the closing date of October 1st, 2010. The application fee is $50 per startup.

2. Mail in your business plan 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 the live PITCH event. 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.
   
   
3. 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. Finalists will be notified October 14th, 2010 and invited to pitch to a live audience and a judging panel at PITCH in San Francisco on November 4th, 2010. If you are selected as a finalist, the entire team must be present at PITCH. Questions? Email them to askpitch@women2.org.

Applicants can apply in one of six categories:

Eligibility and Rules:

The application must represent the original work of members of the team. You may have a team of up to FIVE individuals. At least ONE member of the founding team must be female — this is a Women 2.0 production after all! Submissions that do not adhere to the submission process and rules will be disqualified.

We accept businesses in alpha and beta launch only. Submissions accepted globally. The competition is for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up, or early stage. PITCH 2010 is intended for growth companies and the judging panel will ask “Is this a fundable venture?”. Generally excluded are the following: buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, and spin-outs from existing corporations. As if you’d be silly enough to submit that anyway.

The submission process utilizes Angelsoft, the industry standard to manage deal flows. By submitting your business plan, you are agreeing to the Terms of Service for the Angelsoft platform and agree to be bound by the terms described in the Angelsoft Privacy Policy.

See into the next three years of cloud computing at GigaOm’s Structure 2010 June 23-25, 2010 in San Francisco.
This two-day event will provide you with a content-rich look at the next three years of cloud computing. In two full days, you will experience:

• 10 keynote speakers and fireside chats including VMware, IBM, Salesforce.com, Facebook, Amazon, CA, Akamai and more.
• Over 100 session speakers in 25 sessions
• 18 workshops on topics such as marketing cloud to SMBs, social enterprise, cloud architecture, storage and more.
• 8 company announcements from companies including Spiceworks and AMD.
• 11 LaunchPad companies
• 4+ hours of networking time
• 50 top-tier press including GigaOM editors
• 1 research report from GigaOM Pro on industry solutions for private clouds FREE with your registration

Only GigaOM’s team of experienced journalists and industry analysts can bring together the people and uncover the opportunities in the IT infrastructure market with their signature insight, knowledge and candor.

Women 2.0 members save $100 on tickets with coupon code “WOMEN2″ when you register here.

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 June 11th in NYC!

Tal Flanchraych (Co-Founder & VP Marketing, Cabulous) has made a dinner reservation for us at a Cuban/Spanish restaurant on Friday, June 11th, 2010 @ 5:15pm. Join fellow Women 2.0 founders, aspiring and current, by NYU for dinner before walking a few blocks over to Startup Weekend NYC together after dinner. We have made dinner reservations, so please RSVP here for dinner.

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

Mobilize 2010 (September 30, 2010 in San Francisco) is the future of the mobile web. The conjunction of mobile computing and cloud-based services will unleash an entire new wave of product and market growth. Mobilize 2010 brings together thought leaders and practitioners of mobile web ecosystems for discussions, demonstrations and debate.

Women 2.0 members save $50 when you register for Mobilize 2010 here.

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.

TOPICS INCLUDE:
What the “mobile cloud” will do for innovating services and products
How new wireless broadband networks will enable consumer adoption of cloud services for mobile
What impacts touch devices and new form factors are having on markets
Where the opportunities are for Internet-connected objects – “The Internet of Things” or M2M (Machine-to-machine)
Which mobile monetization options are succeeding
Why the architecture of wireless networks will be linked to cloud-based services
Which mobile web technologies are being funded and why

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
Kevin Lynch (CTO, Adobe)
Tom Key (COO, MetroPCS)
Glenda Dorchak (CEO, VirtualLogix)
Derek Kuhn (VP of Emerging Technology & Media, Alcatel-Lucent)
David Marcus (Founder and CEO, Zong)
Scott Raney (Partner, Red Point Ventures)
Rob Coneybeer (Managing Director, Shasta Ventures)
Steve Subar (President and CEO, Open Kernel Labs)
Nicholas Negroponte (Founder and Chairman, One Laptop per Child)
Steve Mollenkopf (EVP and President, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies)

Mobilize will feature a stellar line-up of speakers representing all aspects of the mobile Internet from blue-chip companies to start-ups to investors. Our schedule and our speaker list is increasing daily. For more info and to register, click here.

Women 2.0 hosted an Angel Investor and Entrepreneur Roundtable on Thursday, June 3, 2010, 7pm in San Francisco with angel investors Anurag Nigam, Christina Brodbeck, Dan Martell, and Jim Chu.

We have some great pictures from the event here taken by Michael O’Donnell.

About Anurag Nigam:
Anurag (Anu) is an active angel investor, a serial entrepreneur and a community leader. He is President & Board Director of Sand Hill Angels, a group of 60 Silicon Valley angels. He has been an angel investor for the last 8 years, investing in 40+ companies including 3Tera (bought by CA), Modcloth and XGraph. His investing interests range from consumer Internet to medical devices. Anu is currently founder and CEO of BuzzBox, a personalized news service. Anu holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

About Christina A. Brodbeck:
Christina enjoys helping young start-ups, is an angel investor in Heyzap, and sits on the advisory board for Achron. Christina is currently the co-founder and CEO of Pickv, a relationship and dating site that matches people based on their interests such as music, movies, books, and tv shows. Prior to Pickv, Christina most recently worked at YouTube where she joined as an early employee in 2005 and was the company’s first UI Designer. Before joining YouTube, she worked at MRL Ventures, NASA Ames Research Center, and Keynote systems.

About Dan Martell:
An award-winning Canadian entrepreneur, Dan formed his first start-up, Spheric Technologies Inc., at age 25 and watched it grow by an average of 152% per year before he sold the company 4 years later. Now living in San Francisco, Martell spends the majority of his time looking at ways to build a bridge between Silicon Valley and his home province of New Brunswick. As an informal angel investor, he is active in advising entrepreneurs using metric-based marketing tactics to gain market adoption. Dan is the co-founder of FlowTown, a social marketing platform for small businesses.

About Jim Chu:
Jim has been an active angel investor since 2005. He started an internet consulting firm after graduating from Stanford, worked for Cisco where he ran marketing and business development in Latin America and Canada, lived in Africa working for Doctors Without Borders, and in the last 5 years has been investing, running, or working with startups, both bootstrapped and venture-backed. Jim is currently working on a social business venture providing clean water in Haiti. Jim holds both a B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University.

OPEN Silicon Valley (Saturday, June 5th, 2010) is proud to present the OPEN Forum 2010 to be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

OPEN Forum attracts hundreds of professionals and entrepreneurs from top technology companies, exciting start-ups, global service providers and leading venture firms. This one-day conference will give you the unique opportunity to network with and learn from seasoned CEOs, venture capitalists, financial market experts, government policy makers and professionals from the Silicon Valley. Speakers include Sumaya Kazi (CEO & Editor-in-Chief, YoProCo), Leila Chirayath Janah (CEO, Samasource), and Ann Miura-Ko (Partner, FLOODGATE). For more info and to register, click here. Women 2.0 members save 25% with coupon code “women20″.

TaskRabbit seeks Engineer in San Francisco, CA. (more)
Big Tent seeks Developer in San Francisco, CA. (more)
Big Tent seeks QA Specialist in San Francisco, CA. (more)
Catchafire seeks Front End Developer in New York, NY. (more)
Catchafire seeks Back End Developer in New York, NY. (more)
Etsy seeks Sr. Software Engineer in San Francisco, CA. (more)
Grows Up seeks Lead E-Commerce Engineer in San Francisco, CA. (more)
Slide Inc seeks Junior Web Developer in San Francisco, CA. (more)
Efficiency Match seeks Sr. Software Engineer / Developer in Santa Clara, CA. (more)
Etsy seeks Chief Architect and Team Lead: Core Platform in Brooklyn, NY. (more)
Etsy seeks Sr. Operations Engineer in Brooklyn, NY. (more)

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

Engineer (San Francisco, CA)

Are you looking for an experience beyond the normal 9 to 5? Do you want to collaborate with a fun team working on the latest technology? Or maybe you just have too much dry cleaning. Come and join TaskRabbit, where the driving vision is to change the way people get every day tasks done.

<techstuff>We are built with Ruby on Rails, MySQL, and HTML with a sprinkle of jQuery (for added hotness). We’re deploying to EC2 using Capistrano and Bundler and run delayed_job to get stuff done. Our controllers lean on inherited_resources, authlogic, and declarative_authorization. Most of the code is in the models. We have great test coverage in Cucumber and RSpec.</techstuff>

Not used that stuff before, but ready to dive in? Perfect, too. You would be the second full-time engineer on the team and would be working with some passionate, smart, and savvy entrepreneurs who like to work hard, play hard, get home for dinner, and then maybe code a little bit more.

At TaskRabbit, we are creating innovative and impactful web and mobile features through the melding of social graph analysis, high-quality user experience, and analytics-driven optimization. We err on the side of execution over strategy, following the numbers and our guts to get stuff in front of our
customers to see what they think. If you can do that in a solid way, you will be a real owner in TaskRabbit’s future and contribute at a highly impactful level.

We are currently working out of Dogpatch Labs at Pier 38, an awesome environment with a lot of other cool startups and entrepreneurs. We are also kicking off an exciting summer project with Pivotal Labs. This is an amazing opportunity to work with the experts in the Ruby on Rails development space.

Did we mention the PERKS?

• Cash comp will be balanced with high equity – we’re willing to reward and invest in the best talent
• MacBook Pro and any/all resources you need to produce great work
• FREE Tasks done by TaskRabbit Runners – seriously, we have a built-in personal concierge force 24×7 you can make use of.
• Work directly alongside the smartest team of entrepreneurs, advisers, and investors you have ever met.

About TaskRabbit: TaskRabbit is a social networking inspired web and mobile platform, creating a marketplace where a community can connect to get everyday tasks done. Our driving vision is to create a community of solutions, leveraging a people cloud, and providing a standard for a new industry we are calling Service Networking.

We won placement in the Facebook Fund incubator program, called fbFund REV, which brought us to the Bay Area for 12 weeks over the summer of 2009. We are backed by savvy and experienced investors including, FLOODGATE FUND (Maples Investments) and Baseline Ventures. We are
supported by amazing advisers such as Tim Ferriss (4 Hour Work Week), Shervin Pishevar (SGN), and Scott Griffith (Zipcar).

You will work with a dynamic, fast-moving team who are creative, entrepreneurial, hard-working and focused on excelling in everything we do.

Interested in joining us? Send resume and cover letter to careers@taskrabbit.com.

Developer (San Francisco, CA)

BigTent is where trusted communities connect online. We’re a small team supporting real community groups everyday and we’re looking for passionate, smart developers to join us. If you’re looking for a meaningful opportunity in a tight-knit, growing company and have immediate impact on how people connnect with their communities every day, this is a great job for you.

Key activities of this position:

• Working within an agile team, design and implement back-end and front-end software
• Ensure successful scaling of the BigTent platform to meet our rapidly growing user-base
• Write unitests for new code and refactor existing code to make it more testable
• Address performance issues and trouble shoot other problems as appropriate
• Some DBA-type work, e.g., responsible for query and schema optimizations

What we’re looking for:

• Familiarity with LAMP stack and strong proficiency in PHP, JavaScript and MySQL
• Strong command of web standards, CSS based-design and browser compatibility
• Experience writing and optimizing queries against large datasets
• Experience supporting large, interesting, or complex web applications
• Experience with high-volume email delivery
• UNIX SysAdmin experience and hardware knowledge
• Excited about the groups we serve and committed to making their lives better with each line of code you ship
• BS or MS in Computer Science or related technical field preferred
• Extra points if you have experience in Ruby, Python, Facebook apps, mobile development, iPhone apps and/or are a contributor to an open source project
• Experience level – we are looking for good, smart, energetic engineers. If this is you, no matter what your experience level, we encourage you to apply.

More about Big Tent: We’re four years old, funded by top venture capitalists, women-led, and quickly moving towards profitability. Our team is made up of 20 smart, fun, and creative people from all backgrounds and interests who share a singular vision of making it easier for groups to stay connected and organized. We’re located in lovely South Park in San Francisco with no plans to move. We look forward to meeting you!

To apply: Send us a quick introduction and current resume to jobs@bigtent.com. Candidates only. If you’re a recruiter, please don’t be offended when we don’t take calls or return email.

QA Specialist (San Francisco, CA)

BigTent is where trusted communities connect online. We’re a small team supporting real community groups everyday and we’re looking for a QA specialist to join us. If you’re looking for a meaningful opportunity in a tight-knit, growing company, you want to have immediate impact on how people connnect with their communities every day, and you’re looking to play a big role as a QA specialist, we want to talk to you.

Key activities of this position:

• Work closely with developers, designers, and customer support in a tight-knit and agile environment
• Manual and automated testing with a focus on cross-browser dependencies
• Generate and document test plans on-the-fly for daily, incremental feature releases
• Report and track bugs using standard bug-tracking software
• Increase front-end automation coverage in Selenium (IDE and RC)
• Manage staging environments and daily release tags
• Try to break our app and poke security holes by testing all crazy corner cases you can imagine

What we’re looking for:

• 2+ years QA experience with proven ability to deliver a polished Web-based product
• Experience testing AJAX-rich web applications with complex user scenarios
• Experience developing and executing test plans in a highly iterative development process.
• Experience with a range of testing tactics: functional, unit, regression, etc.
• Experience or familiarity with a source control system like SVN, GIT, etc.

Nice to haves:

BS/MS Computer Science degree
• Energized by the opportunities and challenges of a start-up
• Experience / familiarity with continuous deployment and build automation
• Scripting abilities a plus
• Basic MySQL knowledge

More about Big Tent: We’re four years old, funded by top venture capitalists, women-led, and quickly moving towards profitability. Our team is made up of 20 smart, fun, and creative people from all backgrounds and interests who share a singular vision of making it easier for groups to stay connected and organized. We’re located in lovely South Park in San Francisco with no plans to move. We look forward to meeting you!

To apply: Send us a quick introduction and current resume to jobs@bigtent.com. Candidates only. If you’re a recruiter, please don’t be offended when we don’t take calls or return email.

Front End Developer (New York, NY)

Catchafire is one of the hottest new funded technology companies in New York City with a social mission. We are looking to hire top engineers who want to join a fast-paced, nimble and hard-working team and who are hungry to change the world.

Catchafire is a web-based solution that connects nonprofits with skilled volunteers. We are changing the way people volunteer and the way that nonprofits both find and utilize skilled volunteers. Our platform allows nonprofits to identify their needs as short-term, discrete, individual projects, which Catchafire then matches to volunteer profiles in our system. Catchafire’s mission is to make it easy for every professional to volunteer their skills and for every nonprofit to access and effectively use skilled volunteers.

Catchafire is located in New York, NY. Position open immediately. Please don’t apply unless you meet all of the following criteria:

You are motivated by the opportunity to:

1. Put your mark on an early-stage start-up
2. Lead a team
3. Make the world a better place

You are:

1. An independent worker and thinker
2. Team-oriented
3. Dog-gone hardworking
4. Honest and funny (or, at least, have some sense of humor, we don’t care if it’s warped).

If you possess all of the above, read below for more information and how to apply.

Responsibilities:
You will be the primary front end developer and responsible for everything that goes with it, including a vision for success, a plan to execute on this vision, spec development, usability testing, and analytics.

Qualifications:

• Highly experienced in front end technologies. You have at least 3 years of experience in javascript development as well as the ability to read, write and build using HTML, CSS and JS by hand.
• You have your own philosophy on how front end code should be organized and structured.
• Experienced in the use of one or more common javascript frameworks. (e.g. Prototype or JQuery)
• You are comfortable working in a Linux environment.
• Strong working knowledge of web architecture, object-oriented software, and design patterns
• You have a very strong understanding of UI design. You have your own philosophy on how to build and design pages that are extremely user friendly.
• You have experience managing website designers and enjoy it.
• You enjoy and are proficient in user testing.
• You have, or will quickly develop, an in-depth understanding of scalability and the challenges that fast-growing web applications experience
• You believe in rapid prototyping and fast-paced development.
• You have the experience, knowledge and confidence to be a leader and own your own work.
• You have a passion for excellence and getting things right.
• You are customer oriented and have a passion to build things that are easy and enjoyable to use. You enjoy a UI challenge.
• You are an independent worker and creative thinker. You will not be handed specs. You will be expected to help develop these specs.
• When you are engaged in a project, you have a vision for success and a plan to execute on it.
• You are hungry to learn new things and develop new skills.
• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in computer science or equivalent preferred.

Compensation & Benefits:

• Highly competitive salary for a early-stage, angel-funded start-up
• Opportunity for stock options
• Generous healthcare benefits
• Unlimited vacation days
• Casual and fun work environment (bring your dog to work!)
• Flexible hours

How to apply: Email Rachael Chong at rachael@catchafire.org with your resume. It would also be nice if you could send a brief note along with your resume to let us know why you’re interested in working with us and why you think you’d be a great fit.

Back End Developer (New York, NY)

Catchafire is one of the hottest new funded technology companies in New York City with a social mission. We are looking to hire top engineers who want to join a fast-paced, nimble and hard-working team and who are hungry to change the world.

Catchafire is a web-based solution that connects nonprofits with skilled volunteers. We are changing the way people volunteer and the way that nonprofits both find and utilize skilled volunteers. Our platform allows nonprofits to identify their needs as short-term, discrete, individual projects, which Catchafire then matches to volunteer profiles in our system. Catchafire’s mission is to make it easy for every professional to volunteer their skills and for every nonprofit to access and effectively use skilled volunteers.

Catchafire is located in New York, NY. Position open immediately. Please don’t apply unless you meet all of the following criteria:

You are motivated by the opportunity to:

1. Put your mark on an early-stage start-up
2. Lead a team
3. Make the world a better place

You are:

1. An independent worker and thinker
2. Team-oriented
3. Dog-gone hardworking
4. Honest and funny (or, at least, have some sense of humor, we don’t care if it’s warped).

If you possess all of the above, read below for more information and how to apply.

Responsibilities:
You will be the primary back end developer and responsible for everything that goes with it, including our matching algorithm, community tools, and corporate solution API.

Qualifications:

• Highly experienced in back end technologies. You must know your basic LAMP stack technologies down cold and others are a plus. You have your own philosophy on how back end environments should be organized, structured, and accessed.
• Expert in creating, optimizing, and maintaining a scalable, data-heavy back end.
• Strong working knowledge in web architecture, object-oriented software, and design patterns.
• Strong working knowledge of html, css and javascript.
• Mastery of the Linux environment.
• You have, or will quickly develop, an in-depth understanding of scalability and the challenges that fast-growing web applications experience.
• You believe in rapid prototyping and fast-paced development.
• You have the experience, knowledge and confidence to be a leader and own your own work. You have a passion for excellence and getting things right.
• You are customer oriented and have a passion to build things that are easy and enjoyable to use. You enjoy a UI challenge.
• You are an independent worker and creative thinker. You will not be handed specs. You will be expected to help develop these specs.
• When you are engaged in a project, you have a vision for success and a plan to execute on it.
• You are hungry to learn new things and develop new skills.
• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in computer science or equivalent preferred.

Compensation & Benefits:

• Highly competitive salary for a early-stage, angel-funded start-up
• Opportunity for stock options
• Generous healthcare benefits
• Unlimited vacation days
• Casual and fun work environment (bring your dog to work!)
• Flexible hours

How to apply: Email Rachael Chong at rachael@catchafire.org with your resume. It would also be nice if you could send a brief note along with your resume to let us know why you’re interested in working with us and why you think you’d be a great fit.

Senior Software Engineer (San Francisco, CA)

Etsy seeks versatile and experienced senior software engineers to build awesome products for our community with code that is beautiful, functional, and easy to maintain. You’ll be extending Etsy in new directions as well as streamlining and re-factoring our existing systems. Our site is growing by leaps and bounds, so candidates should thrive in dynamic environments where development is fast and the only constant is change. Etsy is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, but this position is based in San Francisco, California. This position requires occasional travel to our office in Brooklyn.
 
You should have in-depth knowledge of:

• basic data structures and algorithms
• C/C++ and Java
• at least one of PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, or Scala
• object-oriented design patterns
• low-level operating system and network concepts including file systems, sockets, and IPC
• relational databases and application-level scaling
• fault-tolerant and robust systems, including availability and performance monitoring
• caching approaches in both an application and network context (including CDNs)
• RESTful web services APIs for developers, both building and using them
• performance tuning web applications from the frontend to the backend
• experience with lighttpd, Apache, memcached, and Squid environments
• mentoring and developing others
• scale and what it takes to be successful at a community-driven web site where the word “millions” is used frequently and in many contexts

Bonus experience:

• HTML, CSS, JavaScript and associated frameworks (jQuery, prototype, YUI)
• Lucene/Solr and other enterprise search technologies
• practical experience with database sharding
• social networking applications and associated design patterns
• credit card gateways, PayPal, and PCI compliance issues
• abuse and anti-spam approaches and technologies

Ideally, you will hold a B.S. or M.S in Computer Science, or have equivalent self-directed study and experience. Also important:

• Shipping – You can point to products on the web today that you built and shipped
  love of the web and a sense of fascination with the endless possibilities it creates
• Comfort with the occasional high jinks
• a sense of fun and playfulness
• Excellent communication skills

If you’re interested in joining the team at Etsy, please send a cover letter along with your resume telling us what inspires you about Etsy and why you think you are perfect for the team. If you contribute to an open source project, write a blog, or practice another craft besides software, that means something to us, and we would love to hear about it when you write!
 
Etsy is the world’s most vibrant handmade marketplace. Our mission is to enable people all over the world to make a living making things. Etsy is growing rapidly and needs awesome, motivated people to join that mission. The growing Etsy community brings over 700 million page views per month, and Etsy counts over 4.4 million registered members in over 150 countries. Our sellers collectively list 2 million new items and sell more than $20 million of goods each month. Etsy operates transparently and you can check in to see how the Etsy community is doing in our monthly weather reports.

Lead E-Commerce Engineer (San Francisco, CA)

Grows Up seeks E-Commerce Developer and technical visionary to lead the development of core platform from day 1 1/2. You’ll be involved in everything from helping us develop the base platform and processes. It’s a big responsibility, so we’re looking for the best.

Ideally you’ll have:

• 5 years or expert knowledge of PHP with an emphasis on using PHP in an object orientated framework, specifically the Zend framework
• Experience with Magento e-commerce platform, community or enterprise edition, a big plus
• Experience developing architecture of high quality social web applications and scaling them
• Familiarity in utilising and building API’s and data feed
• Experience integrating and tweaking online payment systems
• A solid understanding of Javascript, HTML/XLST, Postgre SQL/MySQL and AJAX
• Experience building and managing a small, but focused technical team
• A good sense of humor and the ability to roll with the punches

You’ll also have an undying passion for the web, technology and coding, perhaps demonstrated by an active participation in open source software and a blog/Twitter sharing your insights; experience in (and/or passion for) working in a start-up environment where there’s no limit on ambition or creativity and where energy and enthusiasm are a must; the ability to work in a small, focused team to achieve big, ambitious goals.

Grows Up is creating a family-friendly marketplace for Moms to buy and sell their new and used children’s clothing and goods. We are located near the Financial District in San Francisco, CA and have seed funding from Atomico Ventures (aka the Skype guys). Our team is expanding and, like our name, we want people to grow with us. We are looking for passionate, talented and dedicated people that thrive on complex technical challenges, innovate in their sleep and eat good user experience for breakfast. We are excited by ecommerce. We are excited by community building. We are excited by technology, but we are equally excited by creating a platform for the good of mankind! Not a small feat, but that is how we roll.

Do you have what it takes? If so, please send a brief email presenting yourself with your resume attached to: jobs@growsup.com Grows Up offers competitive base salary, stock options, health benefits, flexible hours, and a great group of people to work with.

Junior Web Developer (San Francisco, CA)

The SuperPoke! Pets team are looking for a Junior Web Developer to help build features that delight the growing and passionate SPP community.

Requirements:

• B.S. in Computer Science, or equivalent experience
• 0-3 years of industry experience, (We will consider fresh graduates with strong internships, co-op or open source contributions)
• Strong object oriented skills to design and implement complex object-oriented abstractions
• Healthy analytical and problem solving skills, with attention to detail
• A desire to learn, excel, and contribute as part of a team building a product that reaches hundreds of thousands of users daily

Candidates should have experience with at least one of these technologies, and be excited about potentially learning the others:

• Experience with Python (or other object-oriented scripting languages) to develop backend and business logic
• Demonstrated skills in dynamic front-end web development, expertise in JavaScript/HTML/CSS, including familiarity with JavaScript frameworks (jQuery, YUI, Dojo, etc.)
• Expertise in Actionscript, preferably AS 3

Slide builds engaging communities driven by user-created content. We aim to empower virtual entrepreneurship by enabling thousands, if not millions, of our users to build wealth through our products. We offer users virtual “building blocks” with which to create their own amazing content to show off to friends, or trade and sell with others in the community. We define true success as our users becoming profitable.Our portfolio of products include fun applications and virtual communities such as Slideshow, SuperPoke!, SuperPoke! Pets, SPP! Ranch, Top Friends, and FunSpace. Slide was founded in 2005 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin and is backed by Mayfield Fund, Blue Run Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund.

Apply here and mention you heard about us on Women 2.0. Bonus points for creating a pet first here and including your pet’s URL in your cover letter!

Sr. Software Engineer/Developer (Santa Clara, CA)

We are recruiting for a Senior Software Engineer/Developer. Authorization to work in the United States is preferred. Full-time employment, not contract position. We are not interested in outsourcing. Relocation possible, local candidates preferred.

Senior Software Engineer/Developer:
IVR, Verification, Ruby, Rails, Perl, MySQL, Ruby-on-rails, IVR, Agile, Scrum, Extreme programming, SQL, LINUX, Javascript, J2EE, Java development, C++ or a mixture of C++, hand coding flash, Rich Internet Applications, Macromedia Flash, Object Oriented Action Script 2/3, Flash Remoting, Data Binding, Components, Flex or Lazlo, Action Script 2.0/3.0, Script Based Animation, Object-Oriented Programming, Flash Video (Progressive or Streaming), Event Driven Programming and XML, Design Patterns, Advanced Object-Oriented Programming,

Benefits:

• STABLE - Stable and profitable with work schedule and location flexibility - allowing work from home periods during the week.
• ANTI-TOIL - Move or stay in the SF Bay area while working REGULAR work hours instead of exerting all you have on someone else’s vision TOILING AWAY crazy startup hours or working for a company whose reputation is to work you to the bone for little reward.
• SALARY - Get paid a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits rather than a bootstrapped startup salary with basic health care. Use that competitive salary and PEACE OF MIND to allow you to start thinking of bootstrapping your own startup.
• LOCATION - Surround yourself with fellow San Francisco Bay area developers and find your next startup co-founder all while getting valuable programming experience from the original founders and engineers from Netscape/Mosaic, AOL, Tellme, eBay and Microsoft.
• LEAN - Learn valuable lean startup techniques by working at a nimble company and attending local bay area events that have the original lean startup speakers like Eric Ries and Sean Ellis available for you to meet and talk to - RIGHT HERE by being a part of the Silicon Valley developer community.
• LEARNING - Continue to learn and apply scrum, agile and lean methodologies while working with your team.

Our client is a privately held company headquartered in Santa Clara, CA and backed by Menlo Ventures and Benchmark Capital. They have been profitable since 2006 with a solid financial track record.

If interested, please send your resume in Word format to ryan.navratil@efficiencymatch.com Other positions are at Gaming and Mobile application development companies.

Chief Architect and Team Lead: Core Platform (Brooklyn, NY)

Etsy is seeking a Chief Architect who will own the overall architectural vision for everything Etsy, including web, mobile, and platforms of the future. This position is based in Brooklyn.

Some of the responsibilities for this position include:

• Writing code in PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, Objective C, and other languages to build amazing products for the Etsy community
• Building awesome products with code that is beautiful, functional, and easy to maintain and extend
• Leading teams of software developers on key projects and mentoring individual team members
• Defining standards for the Etsy engineering team to follow
  leading code reviews
• Making sure that Etsy continues to be fast as we grow and release more features
• Designing and building tools that make it a joy for developers to write and ship code

This is a leadership position on the team, so you should have done these things before:

• Led teams of software developers building awesome products
• Implemented high-performance, high-availability, and highly-scalable systems at a consumer-facing web site with hundreds of millions of page views and tens of millions of passionate users
• In-depth knowledge of
  HTML, CSS, JavaScript and associated frameworks (jQuery, prototype, YUI)
• Relational databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL
• Database scaling at the application level and practical experience with database sharding
• Caching approaches, from object caching to CDNs
• Lucene/Solr and other enterprise search technologies
• Social networking applications and associated design patterns
  abuse and anti-spam approaches and technologies
• RESTful web services APIs for developers, both building and using them
• Credit card gateways, PayPal, and PCI compliance issues
• Performance tuning web applications from the frontend to the backend
• Squid proxy, lightttpd/Apache, and F5 BIG/IP load balancers
• Project management tools and/or bug tracking systems like Trac, Bugzilla, and Jira
• Source control systems like Subversion and git

Ideally, you will hold a B.S. or M.S in Computer Science, or have equivalent self-directed study and experience. Also important:

• Shipping - You can point to products on the web today that you built and shipped
  love of the web and a sense of fascination with the endless possibilities it creates
• Comfort with the occasional high jinks
• A sense of fun and playfulness
• Excellent communication skills

We’re growing rapidly and are well-funded with a proven business model and established revenue to help us continue growing and serving our community.

If you’re interested in joining the team at Etsy, please send a cover letter along with your resume telling us what inspires you about Etsy and why you think you are perfect for the team. If you contribute to an open source project, write a blog, or practice another craft besides software, that means something to us, and we would love to hear about it when you write!

Etsy is the world’s most vibrant handmade marketplace. Our mission is to enable people all over the world to make a living making things. Etsy is growing rapidly and needs awesome, motivated people to join that mission. The growing Etsy community brings over 700 million page views per month, and Etsy counts over 4.4 million registered members in over 150 countries. Etsy was founded by Robert Kalin, Chris Maguire, and Haim Schoppik. Union Square Ventures is an original investor, as are the founders of Flickr and Delicious. In early 2008, Etsy received $27 million in funding from Silicon Valley’s Accel Partners.

The technical staff at Etsy believes that code is craft, good software and systems designs are works of art, and that the work we do is part of larger creative culture represented by the hundreds of thousands of inspired makers who make Etsy such a wondrous marketplace. We believe that small, empowered, self-motivated teams can do big things. We also believe in the right tool for the job, not language-as-religion. Our current systems run PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, Solr/Lucene, Postgres, MySQL, and more. Check out our Engineering blog!

Sr. Operations Engineer (Brooklyn, NY)

Etsy is seeking a seasoned Web Operations Engineer to join our ops team, to help build and maintain Etsy’s fast-growing infrastructure. You’d be on a team of infrastructure supernerds, working extremely closely with Etsy Engineering to come up with solutions to complex problems.

Responsibilities:

• Building and maintaining Etsy’s infrastructure, from installed iron to production
• Taking part in a 24×7 on-call rotation
• Tightly cooperating and collaborating with development, product, community and customer care

Requirements:

• Experience with configuration management systems and concepts (Chef, Puppet, Cfengine, etc.)
• Experience in systems programming and general scripting tasks (perl, bash, php, python, etc.)
• Experience with high-volume web applications with social components
• Experience with multi-datacenter architectures, global fault tolerance, and CDNs
• Experience with fault-tolerant replication strategies
• Experience with mission-critical search and realtime database architectures (Solr, Lucene, MySQL, Mongodb, Postgres, etc.)
• Experience working with customizing network management systems and monitoring tools (Nagios, Ganglia, Graphite, Cacti, etc.)
• Strong understanding of web application architecture, including TCP/IP and HTTP, and caching strategies at all layers
• Support of software engineers and their development environment and code repository (Subversion), including code deployment to production
• Enterprise experience with internal core systems, such as but not limited to DNS, LDAP, NTP
• Experience with data center management, including strong knowledge of power, space, and cooling issues
• Experience with credit card gateways and PCI compliance issues
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal

Bonuses:

• Experience in a “continuous deployment” environment
• Experience in social networking or community-generated content
• Experience with managing the infrastructure for a growing open API
• Database query optimization
• Hands-on network security tasks, including VPNs/firewalls configuration
• Network experience with BGP, EIGRP, OSPF, VLAN, PVLAN,Spanning-Tree, MSTI
• Knowledge of programming languages such as Python, PHP, JAVA, Ruby

If you’re interested in joining the team at Etsy, please send a cover letter along with your resume telling us what inspires you about Etsy and why you think you are perfect for the team. If you contribute to an open source project, write a blog, or practice another craft besides software, that means something to us, and we would love to hear about it when you write!

Etsy is the world’s most vibrant handmade marketplace. Our mission is to enable people all over the world to make a living making things. Etsy is growing rapidly and needs awesome, motivated people to join that mission. The growing Etsy community brings over 700 million page views per month, and Etsy counts over 4.4 million registered members in over 150 countries. Etsy was founded by Robert Kalin, Chris Maguire, and Haim Schoppik. Union Square Ventures is an original investor, as are the founders of Flickr and Delicious. In early 2008, Etsy received $27 million in funding from Silicon Valley’s Accel Partners.

The technical staff at Etsy believes that code is craft, good software and systems designs are works of art, and that the work we do is part of larger creative culture represented by the hundreds of thousands of inspired makers who make Etsy such a wondrous marketplace. We believe that small, empowered, self-motivated teams can do big things. We also believe in the right tool for the job, not language-as-religion. Our current systems run PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, Solr/Lucene, Postgres, MySQL, and more. Check out our Engineering blog!

Want to hold a Founder Friday in your city?

If a Startup Weekend is not being held in your city, you may host an independent Founder Friday event. Please note that we are more likely to host a Founder Friday in your city sooner if a Startup Weekend is coming up. Founder Friday leads must be approved by Women 2.0 before hosting the event. Fill out the form here if you are interested in hosting a Founder Friday in your city!

Here are some frequently asked questions:

I’m a guy. Can I go to a Women 2.0 Founder Friday?
Founder Fridays are geared toward current and aspiring female founders, but they are open to both men and women, as are all Women 2.0 events. The majority of the attendees are women (as usually seen on the Attendee List on Eventbrite) but a few men attend, usually as the female entrepreneur’s co-founder, or the +1 of a current female founder.

Founder Friday is sold out. Can I still go?
If Eventbrite shows that Founder Friday is sold out, sign up for a “Waitlist” ticket. If any attendees cancel, we will let you know of the open spot in the order that you signed up for the “Waitlist” ticket.

I’m a current or aspiring founder but I’m not planning to attend Startup Weekend. Can I still go to Women 2.0 Founder Friday?
Yes, but… The purpose of Founder Friday is two-fold: We recommend Founder Friday attendees to attend Startup Weekend for hands-on experience with the entrepreneurial process. Similarly, we encourage female Startup Weekend attendees to check out Founder Friday to meet fellow female startup enthusiasts and build their networks. However, if you have other obligations and are unable to attend Startup Weekend and are interested in Founder Friday, you are most welcome to join us!

It’s the day of and I’m running late. Is there anyone I can call to let them know?
Don’t worry, come as soon as you can. The event is structured such that attendees can walk around and mingle as they eat, so don’t worry that they’re waiting on you to serve dinner or start the event.

Based on the Attendee List on Eventbrite, it seems like the other attendees are much further along in developing their companies or have years of industry experience, while I’m much earlier in my career (current university student or recent grad). Can I still go to the Founder Friday?
The event is aimed at current as well as aspiring founders of companies. There are indeed quite a few founders, but those earlier in their careers do attend, including current students or recent grads. Also, realize that some attendees only list on Eventbrite the company they are founding or co-founding, so the list doesn’t show the other job(s) that they may or may not hold.

Women 2.0 is a frequent partner for Startup Weekend events in the Bay Area. Here are some female founders to watch that have launched ideas from Startup Weekends:

Sophia Perl (Co-Founder, Eventabulous)
Sophia leveraged the Startup Weekend process and participants to vet and build an idea. Today, she and a team member are developing a working prototype for Eventabulous.

Jennie Lees (Co-Founder & Developer, Project 42)
Project 42, or www.icanhassocialskills.com, came out of the recent South Bay Startup Weekend. Other female co-founders included Vivian C. Chien, Amy Piazza, and Adina Simu.

Alexa Andrzejewski (Co-Founder, Foodspotting)
Alexa brought her idea to Jumpstart Your Startup and then Women 2.0 Startup Weekend in 2009. Fast forward to 2010: Over 45,000 foods have been spotted around the world!

Mariya Genzel (Co-Founder & CTO, SayHired)
Recruiting was a pain point for her startup so Mariya came to the Women 2.0 Startup Weekend. She found a team member and created an innovative tech platform at SayHired.

Sue Kim (Co-Founder, Dress Me Sue)
Sue kick started Dress Me Sue at the Women 2.0 Startup Weekend. She found that the community support and friendships have lasted way beyond the weekend.

Do you know more female founders of startups that came out of a Startup Weekend? Let us know in the comments below.

M.LOVE ConFestival (June 23 - 25, 2010 in Berlin) brings together 200 thought leaders and innovators to discuss the powerful potential of mobile to act as a catalyst for community, change and inspiration.

This year, the speakers include Shaherose Charania (Co-Founder & CEO, Women 2.0), Leila Chirayath Janah (Founder & CEO, Samasource), Michelle Halsell (Founder & CEO, Missing Pixel), Allison Mooney (VP of Emerging Trends, MobileBehavior), Beverly W. Jackson (Senior Marketing Professional, The Recording Academy), Jess Greenwood (Deputy Director, Contagious), Jen McCabe (Founder & CEO, ContagionHealth), and Dawn Danby (Sustainable Design Program Manager, Autodesk). For more info and to register, click here.

Women 2.0 members save 20% on tickets with coupon code “MLOVE2010″.

The Founder Showcase, by TheFunded, is a quarterly startup pitch and networking event that highlights the newest cutting-edge businesses and helps innovators gain traction in Silicon Valley. Founder Showcase will be on Tuesday evening on May 18th, 2010 at Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus. Applications for the showcase close on May 8th — apply today for Founder Showcase.

Save on Founder Showcase tickets and meet the Silicon Valley elite! Women 2.0 members receive 15% off tickets with coupon code “W20″

Watch as ten of the most promising early-stage companies, as selected by over 14,000 registered CEO Members of TheFunded.com, present to an audience of over 200 investors, founders, and members of the press. Rebecca Lynn of Morgenthaler Ventures is now on our Investor Judging Panel for the event! 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 - who will get a number of prizes, including $2500 in cash. Guests will also be treated to snacks and drinks, as well as informative talks by Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, and Bubba Murarka of Facebook. For more information and to register, click here.

Planning on being in San Jose this Friday night for Scrappy Startup or South Bay Startup Weekend? Join us for a Women 2.0 Mixer in the PayPal parking lot in San Jose on Friday!
On Friday, April 30th, 2010, Women 2.0 is meeting up in the PayPal parking lot from 5pm to 6pm. For those of you who are unable to attend Startup Weekend, this is a FREE opportunity to mingle with other startup founders (current and aspiring). People say “never eat alone” for good reason, and Women 2.0 is here to build relationships between entrepreneurs and startuppers! Food trucks in attendance will be MoGo BBQ and Treatbot, providing Korean BBQ tacos/sliders and ice cream, respectively.

Startup Weekend host Franck Nouyrigat on the mic.	Orange Labs’ Maria Iu and Pascale Diaine.
Women 2.0’s Shuchi Rana and Yelena Drabkin.	Attendees of the Women 2.0 mixer networking.

A (Few) Days in the Life of a Startup Weekend Participant

By Sophia Perl, South Bay Startup Weekend Participant

What startup idea can you and complete strangers come up with and work on for an entire weekend? I’ve always found the Startup Weekend concept interesting, more so from the perspective of a non-startup person. If you’re like me, you have many ideas brewing in the head but no time and/or place to let it all out. Startup Weekend gave me a taste of startup life and helped me meet some really cool and smart people.

The evening started off with some speakers on the topic of startups. Then the real fun began. Franck, our trusted Startup Weekend leader, invited whoever wanted to pitch to come up on stage and pitch for 60 seconds or less. About 40 to 50 people lined up to pitch their awesome and not so awesome ideas. Shaherose, Women 2.0 founder, helped out by summarizing the pitches for the audience. This turned out to be a harder task than I would have thought because some (not all) pitches were quite cryptic. Only the pitcher knew what he said and no one else understood. If another person can’t repeat or summarize your idea, it’s generally not good. Imagine having a confused investor.

I desperately wanted to pitch an idea. Then, 10 pitches in, the idea came to me. I pitched the idea of an event discovery application. I related it to an existing business but said it’s for events instead, and was pleasantly surprised that I was able to convey the idea in so little words and time.

My pitch strategy:

• One-line pitch. Figure out how to relate your idea to an existing business so that you can use less words to explain it.
• Who am I? Show that you have street-cred with the audience. People want to work with smart people.
• What is the problem and who has the problem? Explain that you understand the problem well.
• What is my solution? Talk about how only you can solve the problem.
• What kind of skills are needed for the team? Ask for what you want and recruit with a focus.

After all the pitches were done, we were left to organize into groups. It took 30 minutes when all said and done. I did my best to keep my idea alive and recruited like crazy. That night, the survival rate for ideas was 50% (50 pitches boiled down to 25 projects). At the end of it, my team consisted of 3.5 developers (I counted myself as 0.5), 0.5 of a UI person (he was part-time with us), and 3.5 business folks (0.5 for me again!). A group size of 7 is not too bad considering some had as little as 2 and as high as 10/12.

For the next two days, my team worked hard at our assigned tables. Our goal was to have a working demo by Sunday night. We started off by re-introducing ourselves including skills and brainstorming on what we wanted to build. After that, it was work, work, work. We had multiple status checks throughout the day and constantly asked if anyone needed help. Everyone was there to work and get things done. It was great.

Sunday was the big demo/presentation day. It came sooner than we had hoped. Midway through the night, we presented our working demo of a light event discovery mobile web application. We kept the presentation light and somewhat funny because everyone was so tired already.

All groups had 5 minutes to present on Sunday. Most were interesting, some were not so much. Here are ideas presented: Foursquare for music listening, social networking at or before an event, delivery of pre-picked outfits for men, war game of Foursquare mayors, get a map of the parking rules on SF streets, finding the status of a person that you’re waiting for, privacy layer on top of Twitter to exchange messages with non-followers, and product recommendation site. In the end, the winner of the evening was EnglEasy, videogames to teach kids English. The judging criteria consisted of 1) wow factor, 2) investment attractiveness, and 3) team spirit. As a winner of Startup Weekend, EnglEasy got a chance to present (2 days later) at Web 2.0 Expo Launch Pad. Congratulations to them! They were also mentioned in TechCrunch. Woo hoo!

Overall, Startup Weekend was definitely a fun, worthwhile, and tiring experience. I signed up with the high hopes of meeting like-minded people and maybe contributing to a promising startup idea. I came away with both and much much more.

More on Startup Weekend: A hacker-entrepreneur’s survival guide to Startup Weekend by Jennie Lees.

Startup Weekend South Bay is Friday, April 30th through May 2nd, 2010 in San Jose, CA. Anyone can pitch an idea and build it in a weekend. Engineers, designers, marketers… everyone is welcome! The truth is that the Startup Weekend does not always “work” in building a startup in a weekend — 10% of the time, your project is founded, and 90% of the time, you meet someone you’ll still be in touch after the Startup Weekend.

Check out what happened from Women 2.0’s last Startup Weekend.

Not in the San Francisco Bay Area this weekend?
Los Angeles Startup Weekend is happening this weekend as well at the CoLoft in Santa Monica. Speakers include Scott Sangster, Mark Suster, Wil Schroder, and Sean Percival. Women 2.0 members save 20% with coupon code “women20″ here.