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Getting Your Startup Team to Understand Your Customer

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By Poornima Vijayashanker (Founder & CEO, BizeeBee) It's been 8 months since we launched our first product at BizeeBee. Since launching, my desire to please customers hasn’t stopped. The buzz bee and I spend nearly every week talking to customers on Twitter, Facebook, via email, or on the phone. I’m always asking for feedback on the product, improving how we react to bugs, and listening to their problems.

Why am I so obsessed with talking to customers? And why do I care about their business? Because no one on my team including myself has ever owned or managed a yoga studio!

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When Might it Be Your Time to Quit?

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By Nilofer Merchant (Contributing Writer, Harvard Business Review) I want to share this: just because you stop doing something doesn't mean you are quitting. Sometimes it's bravery to know it's time to stop and walk away. Experiencing failure isn't the same thing as failing. Letting go doesn't mean you're giving up. And stopping isn't quitting; it is just a pause that lets you sort out where you'll turn next. In our black-and-white, win-or-lose society, we admonish quitters and we celebrate survivors. But life is more nuanced than that.

When might it be your time to "quit"? I can't answer that for you, but I can give you this as a guideline: You can quit things

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Building the VoxBloc Platform for Brands Across Social Networks

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By Patricia Dao (Co-Founder, VoxBloc) Sitting in a 200-person lecture halls in college gave me opportunities to sit in the back of class and daydream all day. Although I was an Economics major aiming to pursue a career in the corporate world of finance, I always dreamed about becoming an entrepreneur.

Ten years later, after working at corporations and startups, I’m happy to say I took the plunge and am now living out my dream.

Taking the leap of faith

My background in the music industry, combined with

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Productivity: How Evernote Works for Moms, Businesses and Everything in Between

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By Carley Knobloch (Founder, Digitwirl) In my experience, I’ve found that women have different needs than men when it comes to technology. Women often ask: How will this save me time? How can this save me money? How will it help me get things done faster so I can spend more time with my family?

When I became a mom, I was struck by how my life was turned upside down and I wasn't as organized as I used to be. It inspired me to create my coaching and consulting practice, Mothercraft. I started a weekly newsletter and when I began attaching a video to the newsletter, it really took off...

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Really Listening to Advice as an Entrepreneur

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By Daniel Palacio (Co-Founder, Authy) As an entrepreneur, you are constantly bombarded with advice on everything, from what you should be doing, to how you should dress. No matter who you talk to, chances are he/she will offer you some advice. Thus entrepreneurs seem to develop a shell around them, and most of the time, simply ignore the advice. This is completely rational: if you just took all the advice you received, you would probably end up dressing like Lady Gaga, and your product would look like a MySpace profile.

However, not everything is binary.

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Thornberg & Forester Invests in Intellectual Property, Development

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By Elizabeth Kiehner (Co-Founder & Principal, Thornberg & Forester) Having already started a successful design studio in New York, I am interested in launching yet another business. Thornberg & Forester is a creative boutique launched four and a half years ago with just three of us in a co-working space.

We are now 15 people strong and are in the middle of our best year ever from a financial standpoint. We are also entering a new phase and getting back into start-up mode by investing in our own IP and application development. Many design firms are conceiving of and selling their own products and platforms.

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A Dating Site for Couples: Meet Mobile Startup BeCouply

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By Becky Cruze (Co-Founder, BeCouply) I am the co-founder of BeCouply, the app that helps couples have epic social lives by making it easy to discover new date ideas, capture special moments and connect with other couples. I never imagined I’d wind up co-founding a tech startup... and there have been many twists and turns on my journey to BeCouply!

After graduating from George Washington University with a degree in political communication in 2008, I took a job as a paralegal at a small law firm in Washington, DC. The firm handled family matters, primarily divorce and child custody disputes.

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Green Energy: A Day In The Life of a Cleantech Entrepreneur

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By Danielle Fong (Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, Lightsail Energy) LightSail Energy is a green energy startup company that’s trying to make it possible, and economical, to power the world with nothing but clean, green energy. We’re tackling what some call the holy grail of green energy -– how to economically and efficiency store energy such that intermittent renewables such as solar and wind can reliably and economically power our electrical grid.

To do this, we’re taking compressed air, an elegant technology from a more civilized age, and using it to store energy. Compressed air is already considered to be the most inexpensive method for storing energy. Our objective is to make it more efficient.

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One Year in San Francisco as an Engineer Turned Startup Founder

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By Hadiyah Mujhid (Co-Founder, Black Founders) Here is a timeline of my first year in San Francisco. You can also view the timeline on Dipity. Hint: You may want to start at the bottom and work your way up.

One year in Startup Valley -- August 5, 2011

It's been a great first year. Gearing up for year 2 in the city. The upcoming year, I will be focused on turning my web apps into a company (one that can make money). Learning how to live on less, as I am now an unemployed engineer turned founder.

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Technical Tips for Early-Stage Startup CTOs

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By Cathy Edwards (Co-Founder & CTO, Chomp) Chomp is an app search company that I co-founded with Ben Keighran. We let you search for apps based on what they do (e.g. "tip calculator", "free puzzle games" or "to do list") rather than needing to know the name of the app.

As Chomp's CTO, I’ve learned a lot about about the engineering challenges in a new startup.

Here are some lessons that may be useful to technical co-founders of early stage companies, particularly in that initial period before and just after you launch.

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Call for Applications: Investors’ Circle Committed to Women-Led Social Enterprises, Seeking More To Apply By August 5

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By Nick Flores (Director, Investors' Circle) Hopefully you've seen the recent press, highlighted in established periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal and Inc., that cites a study focused on the role of women in angel investment organizations. The University of New Hampshire discovered that when these groups have more than 10% women in their membership, the number and/or size of investments increase, thereby dispelling the stereotype that female investors are more cautious.

Perhaps this is the reason why Investors' Circle, which is 28% female, has already funded 10 companies this year -- five of which are led by women.

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ROI [Return Of Ignoring]: Social Media for Entrepreneurs, Startups

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By Maria Sipka (Founder & CEO, Linquia) There is an inordinate amount of tick boxes for entrepreneurs when looking to build a profitable business and reputation for their aspiring brand, and one tick box that is becoming increasingly popular is the various channels within social media and digital, and how they can be utilized as a marketing strategy.

Social media is a relatively new concept (in the great scheme of things), and as marketers grapple with its nuances -– think of the evolving spectrum of Google analytics or understanding the difference between engagement and spamming on Twitter -–

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My First Year as an Angel Investor at Apricot Capital in Boston

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By Jennifer Lum (Angel Investor, Apricot Capital) I've been angel investing for a year now and I’m thoroughly enjoying it! I started investing so that I could collaborate with top entrepreneurs and investors.

I invest through Apricot Capital with my co-founder Peter Wernau. We've invested in 8 companies and are thrilled to be working with a stellar group of entrepreneurs. Our first investment, Peekaboo Mobile, was acquired in April 2011 and our second investment, OnSwipe, closed a Series Awesome in June 2011.

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How to Use Lean Startup to Stop Insanity and Denial

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By Sue Kim (Founder, Dress Me Sue) It's been the most unexpected turn of events. I'll start at the beginning.

Two years ago, I got bit by the startup bug and then proceeded through all manner of motions at entrepreneurship. One of my major mistakes was thinking one could do a startup on the side if one just worked hard enough. I first tried to juggle the startup alongside a consulting biz. Then shut down the biz in favor of a full-time job [fact: I actually thought this would work].

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Building on a Mobile Platform: Why iOS Today, Android Tomorrow

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By Christine Herron (Director, Intel Capital) If you're figuring out which mobile platform to launch on, here's a quick sketch on why you should choose iOS today, but maybe start with Android in the future.

  1. Are you a designer or a developer? There's a "cultural incumbency" for iOS with designers, so you tend to see better designed apps on iOS. Not to mention, iOS offers "pixel perfect" layout, so it's easy to get the design just as you like. On the other side, Android requires that you design for multiple layouts, which is just as complex... Read More...
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The Women 2.0 Editorial Staff.