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Choose Investors Thoughtfully: The Levo League Founders

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Video interview with Levo League founders Caroline Ghosn and Amanda Pouchot. By Pemo Theodore (Founder, Ezebis)

Founded in 2011, Levo League’s mission is to help young professional women to thrive in the workplace without compromising their identities as women.

Caroline Ghosn is co-founder and CEO who spent over three years at McKinsey, where Caroline met co-founder and CIO Amanda Pouchot on the first day of the job. The two were the youngest in their respective assignments and frequently the only women. They have raised $1.25M in their initial round of funding.

Below is a partial transcript of the video interview

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Words Of Advice From Women Entrepreneurs At DEMO Asia

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By Sharon Lourdes Paul (Contributing Writer, SGEntrepreneurs) Let’s face it. There is still a dearth of female entrepreneurs in startup land. As I walked around the booths at DEMO Asia 2012, only about 10% of startups had female founders. But what does this mean for all of us aspiring, or current, female founders?

I was fortunate to interview three inspiring women and capture their words of advice for us.

#1 - Being female does not handicap you.

Rebeca Hwang, co-founder and CEO of YouNoodle, expressed that gender-bias is not as rampant as perceived by some.

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To Get More Confidence: Do Confidence-Building Things

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By Debra Benton (President, Benton Management Resources) If there are ten traits to being a leader, the first seven – no, the first eight – would be confidence.

With confidence, you hire and develop the right people because you aren’t jealous of the abilities of others. Differing opinions get voiced because folks aren’t apprehensive of your insecurities.

You’ll make decisions sooner because advancement, not fear of failure, is the driving force behind your actions. Communication improves because

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Creating A Valuable Business Concept (March 22 In Oakland)

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Explore how an idea becomes a validated business concept. By Darlene Crane (Executive Director, Alliance for Community Development)

Women have many more opportunities to pitch their ventures, thanks to Women 2.0. Based on conversations with women CEOs, investors, and supporters of women entrepreneurs, more is needed to get through successful deal negotiations and grow a business. To fill this gap, I have added CEO Forums to our Bay Area Capital Connections program with smaller groups and higher engagement.

We want to do our part to get more entrepreneurs into signed deals, and are kicking off these CEO Forums on March 22. Sign up for all four forums for only $25 by March 22 here.

The first forum is "Creating a Valuable Business Concept", exploring how an idea becomes

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Entrepreneurs: Win One Of Five $25k Startup Office Makeovers!

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Video submissions currently being accepted for $25k office makeover giveaway. By Nicole Lim (Brand Advocate, Turnstone)

Turnstone, a Women 2.0 PITCH Conference sponsor, will begin taking video submissions where five companies will win $25,000 office makeovers. Winners will be announced this spring. Check out the video for how turnstone helped Zaarly create their sweet new office!

The contest will award five makeovers to startups with less than 100 employees. Each makeover includes space design by turnstone and $25k in furniture. Entrants are asked to submit a video that shows why a better work space will make a difference

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Interview With Michelle You, Co-Founder And Chief Product Officer Of Sequoia-Funded Music Startup Songkick

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From philosophy to product, the Songkick founder explains it all. By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

In 2007, frequent concert-goer and music fan Michelle You wanted to make a website to scan her iTunes library and email her when concerts come to town.

Today, the English and philosophy major is known for co-founding the concert info startup Songkick, second only to Ticketmaster's Live Nation for concert information. Her title: Chief Product Officer.

We caught the London-based startup founder at SXSW in Austin.

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Co-Founder Breakups: Startup Lessons Learned (The Hard Way)

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Learnings from the "How to Lose Co-Founders and Alienate Startups" panel at SXSW. By Dana Rosenberg (Startup Enthusiast, Self)

There are any number of failure points for startups – lacking focus, scaling your product too quickly, draining capital, pursuing a derivative idea, hiring the wrong people, execution.. the list goes on.

No matter how many things you can think of that would bring down a startup, few mention the real Achilles Heel – founder breakups.

It's one of the most common issues startups face, but also one of the most under-discussed. Just look at the top reasons startups fail and you'll be hard pressed to find someone that cites the dissolution of the founding team. Founders who've fallen

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The Acceleration Of TechStars (The Numbers)

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Last day to apply for TechStars Boulder is Friday, March 16, 2012. By Brad Feld (Managing Director, Foundry Group)

It dawned on me last night that as of tomorrow, TechStars will have three programs running at same time with about 40 companies actively engaged in programs in Boston, New York, and San Antonio.

Last week David Cohen, the co-founder and CEO of TechStars announced that he had raised a new $28 million seed fund called Bullet Time Ventures II. The final companies are being selected for The Kinect Accelerator.

The TechStars Boulder applications for this summer’s program close on Friday, March 16, 2012.

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How To Increase Your Business Without Networking

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By Steph Auteri (Founder, Word Nerd Pro) I’m an introvert. Extended social interactions exhaust me and, after awhile, I hit a wall. There are so many things that terrify me about networking. Where I struggle in person, I shine on paper. Instead of small talk, I tweet. Instead of appearing on panels, I blog out my expert advice. Additional marketing? My portfolio speaks for itself. That and I give good email.

Writing — it’s how I’ve managed to build up a business in which the work practically comes to me. So where can you let your writing do the talking?

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Saving Music: Michelle You (Co-Founder, Songkick) At SXSW

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London-based Michelle You speaks in Austin at SXSW about music and her startup Songkick. By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

At the SXSW "Can Social Music Save the Music Industry?" panel, the panel discussed the direct-to-fan relationship with social media.

Michelle You, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Songkick introduced herself by stating she started Songkick because "we loved going to shows." She adds, "The average American goes to one concert a year and we think that's completely atrocious."

Songkick is the second largest music website behind Livenation, and announced series B funding from Sequoia last week.

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Hiring An Associate At Bessemer Venture Partners (Silicon Valley)

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We’ve noticed that people who are successful in VC have already formed relationships with people in technology and are incredibly resourceful. By Sarah Tavel (Vice President, Bessemer Venture Partners)

We are looking to hire an Associate to join me and my colleague Jeremy Levine at Bessemer. This is a Silicon Valley-based opportunity, though we anticipate that it will involve frequent and extended travel to New York, at least initially.

As an Associate you will actively participate in all stages of identifying and evaluating investment opportunities while supporting Jeremy and me in our ongoing involvement with portfolio companies. We spend most of our time looking at opportunities in the cloud computing, internet, e-commerce and consumer web space.

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Women 2.0 Meets Hundreds Of Women Entrepreneurs At SXSW

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Founder Friday Austin Launch and official "Women in Tech" Meet Up hosted at SXSW. By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

We hosted a sold-out Founder Friday Austin Launch at SXSW. Over 150 people visited the Alcatel-Lucent Trend Lounge at SXSW to find out about Women 2.0, meet our community of entrepreneurs, and discussed resources for starting startups.

We met women from the east coast (New York, Chicago, Boston) as well as the west coast (San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles). Women came from all corners of the state of Texas in hopes of meeting more like-minded women. Even Colorado and Mexico had women represent!

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Female Founders To Watch: TechStars NYC Spring 2012 Class

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Women entrepreneurs heard TechStars' call for applications earlier this year and as a result, the newly announced TechStars class of entrepreneurs has a better gender ratio than ever.

Nearly half of the newly announced TechStars startup companies have women founders. TechStars is an accelerator for early-stage startups in cities like New York City, Boston, Boulder and Seattle. The program is mentorship-driven and each company receives $100,000 seed investment through a convertible note (basically a loan that converts into equity when you do a future raise).

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No Traditional Business Plan Needed: Interview With Jenn Vargas, Founder Of Accompl.sh

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By Doreen Bloch (Author, The Coolest Startups in America) I met Jenn Vargas, the founder of Accompl.sh, when we were both college interns at Yahoo! Inc in 2007.

Since then, she’s been a star product manager at Yahoo! and Etsy, and now has her own venture, Accompl.sh.

Jenn is a powerhouse developer-entrepreneur, and I look up to her immensely as an inspiring female founder. She dishes to me on her strategies for user engagement, why she’ll never write a business plan, and what female founder she admires most.

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The Women 2.0 Editorial Staff.