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StartupLive Video Interviews From Women 2.0 Conference

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By Arabella Santiago (Executive Director, TechWeek) My co-founder, Suzanne Debrunner, and I had the great pleasure of covering the Women 2.0 Conference for our startup, StartupLive, and Women 2.0 media partner, Techweek. The event was full of positive energy and brilliant thinkers and visionaries of startup technology and entrepreneurship.

Being a woman founder ourselves, we couldn't help but be captivated by the people and content of the conference. We hope that the videos below help you get to know some of these insightful and engaging startup founders who attended the conference this year.

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3 Things That Keep Us Women Down Regarding Entrepreneurship

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By Larry Chiang (CEO, Duck9 & Stanford University EIR) I'm a supermodel man. As a representative of the male supermodel community, I can say we have lots of similarities to women. Recently, I started to say things women say. I did this for fun but also to gauge effectiveness and play.

In playing, I learned the equivalent of a year in business school. These are things they can't teach / won't teach.

Here are my insights and here is what you, as a burgeoning fem-preneur, should pay attention to on our specific transition from pre-entrepreneur to founder.

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Think You Have What It Takes To Start A Business? (Triptrotting)

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How to convince a software engineer to join your early-stage tech startup. By Edward Kim (Senior Engineer, Triptrotting)

Almost once a week, I get a random phone call, email, message, etc. It goes something like this: “Hey Eddie, I’ve got this million dollar idea. I just need a programmer to make it.” Before I go on any further, if you’re an engineer, I’m sure this already sounds familiar to you. “I checked and there’s nothing like this out there. It’s sort of like Facebook but better. It’s like Facebook meets Twitter meets Google! Well? What do you think? We’ll go 50/50 on this. You handle the programming, I handle the business side of things.”

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From Students to Startups: Rebellion Photonics Founder And CEO Allison Lami Sawyer

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By Angeline Evans (Writer & Blogger, The New Professional) Allison Lami Sawyer was born to be an entrepreneur. The Rice University MBA student always knew she wanted to start her own business, and armed with a master's degree in nanotechnology, she hit the pavement in Houston in search of the right product. After a year and half, she met her co-founder, and before the ink on their diplomas was dry, Rebellion Photonics was born.

In the two years since Allison and her co-founder finished their degrees and started the company with $175,000 in business competition winnings, Rebellion Photonics has grown

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50 Things I Learned At 500 Startups

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Personal observations and blatant rip-offs from the 500 Startups family. By Kim Dowd (Co-Founder & Designer, Daily Aisle)

1. Dave (our funding overlord) is a zoo keeper. He gives tours to wide-eyed visitors who cluster together and avoid eye contact. Founders and habitats - cluttered desks, Post-It note rampages, white boards, esoteric tee shirts covered in hash tags - are photographed.

2. As tattoos are to musicians, stickers are to geeks. How far someone has delved into the startup world is directly proportional to the number of startup stickers on their laptop.

3. Bootstrapping does not involve holding one’s boots

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Why You Should Become The CEO Of A Company

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By Debra Benton (President, Benton Management Resources) Sometimes people say to me, “I’m not sure I want to be CEO.”

My response: What! Why not? That’s the best job in the company!

Most everyone wants to be the top dog, the honcho, the chief; but most feel it’s unrealistic, so they turn it around and act like they don’t want it anyway. But they wouldn’t turn it down if offered!

It’s going to happen to someone; it might as well be you.

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Attend A Reception With First Lady Michelle Obama In My Place!

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Contest rules updated on March 26, 2012. By Shelly Kapoor Collins (CEO, Enscient Corporation)

I’m issuing a challenge today that is about the power in numbers that the grassroots community brings to any campaign. Attend First Lady Michelle Obama’s reception to be held in San Francisco (3/30) in my place....all in support of the Re-Election campaign.

Well, the rules have changed a bit to give everyone a chance to attend and the amount to raise is more easily attainable.

Here are three easy steps to get started, once you click on the link below:

  • Set a goal that you want to raise. $500 gets a General Reception ticket and $1000 gets a VIP ticket.... Read More...
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4 Ways Female Entrepreneurs Can #FixYoungAmerica Together

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Sharing brilliance to be better young entrepreneurs. By Kelly Azevedo (Contributing Blogger, Young Entrepreneurs Council)

When the Young Entrepreneur Council (of which I am a member) and its partners unveiled the #FixYoungAmerica campaign, a solutions-based movement that aims to end youth unemployment, one particular phrase from the video convinced me that women entrepreneurs in particular need get involved and lend our voices to this important endeavor. Says YEC's founder Scott Gerber: "We've seen what works and now we're all coming together to fix young America, to highlight the solutions that are rarely talked about."

As women, we often approach business and persuasion differently than men. We tend to work collaboratively

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Building Trust in the Digital Age: Privacy Identity Innovation 2012

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There’s been a lot of buzz lately about data being the “new oil”. At the same time, businesses from small startups to Fortune 500 companies are under pressure to improve their privacy practices, especially following the White House’s recent release of a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. So what does it mean for you and your business? How can you make the most of data while building trust with users? Find out at the 3rd annual Privacy Identity Innovation conference (pii2012), taking place May 14 in downtown Seattle.

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Do You Cry Like Steve Jobs?

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By Rania Anderson (Co-Founder, Women's Capital Connection) The news about the latest iPad and Apple’s dividend payout these past few days has gotten me thinking again about the genius of Steve Jobs.

When I read Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson last fall, I was struck by three aspects of his life that seemed to me to hold valuable career advice and lessons for women professionals and entrepreneurs.

  1. Steve Jobs cried a lot! Apparently he cried when he was happy, mad, sad, or frustrated. Now, crying is not (in and of itself) a thing of which to be proud, and tears... Read More...
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Finding The Right Accelerator Program For Women Entrepreneurs

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Learnings from the "Exploring the Top Startup Accelerator Programs" panel at SXSW. By Dana Rosenberg (Startup Enthusiast, Self)

It’s no secret that technology startups is a male-dominated field. As a woman in tech, and with the recent rise of accelerator programs, I wanted to hear about startup accelerators that have proven benefits to female entrepreneurs.

At a panel at SXSW on finding the right accelerator program for you, I took advantage of the opportunity to ask the panelists about their approach to female founders. I wanted to know what percent of their companies are female founded, whether they take gender into account when selecting their classes and whether

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Partner Event: MIT Sloan Hi-Tech Conference

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MIT Sloan Hi-Tech Conference (April 13, 2012 in Cambridge, MA). Come and hear leading speakers that together represent many of the most influential figures in the global technology sector, including both established leaders and entrepreneurs driving fundamental disruptions in internet, media, and mobile markets.

Women 2.0 members save 10% with discount code "WOMEN20" when you register here.

Keynotes from Jeff Nick (CTO, EMC), Stephanie

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Ambient Social Is Dependent On Interests, Except Maybe Grindr…

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By Renee DiResta (Associate, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures) There have been lots of interesting posts lately about how Highlight, Glancee and Sonar performed at SXSW. As a SXSW n00b, I installed all three.

Unfortunately, the battery drain made continued use impossible, but I did notice that there was almost no overlap in the connections they suggested. This could be because smarter people only installed one of the three, but the lack of consistency got me thinking that the way the app parses your social and interest graphs is critical - and that no one really owns the interest graph.

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The Label Or The Characteristic: CEOs And Marriage (Stereotypes)

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The problem with looking at a demographic label rather than a person’s individual characteristics. By Laura Yecies (CEO, SugarSync)

This headline caught my eye last week: “The Marriage Plot: Single CEOs Make for Riskier Investments”.

The CNNMoney article summarized a study conducted by two Wharton professors and released by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The study tracked 1500 public companies and found that the stocks of companies headed by executives who are single are riskier than shares of companies run by married CEOs:

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The Women 2.0 Editorial Staff.