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How To Launch And Learn With Big Ideas And Small Resources

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Properly integrating and utilizing health-related information generated by sensors and genomic technologies presents a tremendous opportunity and I had an idea of how to approach the problem. By Irene Gabashvili (Founder, Aurametrix)

Once upon a time, the path from an idea to a product was possible only through teams of specialized experts spending months or years on prototyping or writing elaborate business plans. Then came the “think small” era, encouraging entrepreneurs to quickly launch on simple ideas and later figure out what to do with them on the go. The business climate is now changing again and entrepreneurs are encouraged to target more ambitious ideas. Should they?

I always liked big ideas. The kind like “it will be done in 10 years” so let’s play in the sandbox. Examples of my projects included artificial intelligence tools for geneticists in the early 90s

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EduTech Startup Insane Logic And Female Founder Zoe Peden

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Insane Logic's co-founders Zoe and Andrew released flagship product MyChoicePad a year ago, targeting schools and the speech and language therapy markets. Since then, MyChoicePad has taken over Zoe’s life. By Sramana Mitra (Founder, One Million By One Million)

Women entrepreneurs abound in the world, but they don’t seem to get the same amount of recognition as their male counterparts. As a serial entrepreneur with a focus on technology, I’m always excited to learn about and, in this case, work with other technology focused female entrepreneurs like Zoe Peden, co-founder of Insane Logic in our One Million by One Million Premium program. Insane Logic is an education technology (EduTech) startup that provides interactive communication products for the education and health sectors.

Zoe Peden spent the first nine years working in the education and academic publishing industry in product

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Top 10 Ways 500 Startups Open Doors For Love With Food

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The 500 experience has definitely helped us grow in many unimaginable ways, more than I can list... By Aihui Ong (Founder & CEO, Love With Food)

There are so many incubator/accelerator programs in Silicon Valley (e.g. AngelPad, 500 Startups, YC) and each has a different application process, providing different levels of investment in exchange for equity. However, they all share a common trait - they aim to open doors for you, help propel you to the next stage of your startup growth. What they don’t do is spoon-feeding. Hand holding not included.

Love With Food is fortunate to be part of 500 Startups (graduated Feb’12), one of the top 10 startup incubators

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Crowdfunding – Do You Know Who Your Friends Are?

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The vast majority of successful campaigns raise small amounts of money from large amounts of people. By Susan Quinn (Co-Founder & CEO, ToutSuite Social Club) Ok, I have a lot of friends. I love a LOT of people. Entire towns full of people, as a matter of fact. And nothing makes me happier or more fulfilled than cooking a hearty feast for them, or sabering a bottle of bubbles in the backyard, or showing up with makings for bacon-infused Bloody Marys when a friend is down, or splurging, occasionally, on a storied bottle of wine for a special pal’s birthday regardless of expense. Car broke down? I’ll be right there. Lost your wallet? Here’s $20 bucks. After over a year pitching angels and VCs on our startup ToutSuite Social Club and hearing the ubiquitous Has-Potential-But-Too-Early response, we launched a crowdfunding campaign

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Sherpaa, Co-Founded By COO Cheryl Swirnow, Raises $1.8M To Help SMBs Find Better Health Insurance

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Brooklyn-based healthtech startup raises venture capital to disrupt the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry. By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

Brooklyn-based healthtech startup Sherpaa provides personalized medical advice and/or routes you to the medical professional as necessary. Sherpa announced raising $1.8M last week from investors including O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures (its first healthtech investment), First Round Capital and Collaborative Fund.

Sherpaa was co-founded by Cheryl Swirnow, who spent the last 10 years in human resources helping companies choose and manage their healthcare plans. With Sherpaa, technology will facilitate smartphone conversations between doctors and patients

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This Is What An Angel Investor Looks Like – Sara Weinheimer

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Women 2.0 profiles women angel investors in our "This Is What An Angel Investor Looks Like" series. By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

Los Angeles-based angel investor Sara Weinheimer finances women-led startups, with a keen interest in social media and cleantech. She has invested in about a dozen women-led companies through her participation in the Golden Seeds angel investor network and is an LP in the Golden Seeds Fund II.

She established the southern California chapter for the Golden Seeds angel investor network investing exclusively in women-led early stage companies. At Golden Seeds, she manages deal flow, mentors and advises female-led startups, leads deals, finances

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When Talking To Users Saves You Time

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Jane’s team then had a similar conversation with other customers and potential customers. The product team gladly put the much smaller Feature X, minus the expensive live video feature, onto their product roadmap. They also left out a few other parts of Feature X that didn't solve actual user problems... By Laura Klein (Principal, Users Know)

I mentor a few young designers, which is great, because not only do I know exactly who I want to hire when I’m building a team, but they also share interesting stories about their current companies.

I was speaking with one of them a couple of weeks ago, and she shared a story that sounded incredibly familiar. I think this happens to all designers who work with a sales force at some point.

The designer, whom we will call Jane, is working on the user experience for an enterprise product for hiring managers.

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Women Entrepreneurs: Get Certified As A “Woman-Owned Small Business” (WOSB)

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By using alternative ways to bring in funds, you don’t have to eat ramen and you can maintain control of your company during its formative stage. Being a WMBE gives you more leverage. By Catheryne Nicholson (Co-Founder & CEO, MommaZoo)

Hey women founders, do you know that if you own and control 51% or more of your company, you can qualify as a woman-owned business? And if you are also a small-business owner, you should consider getting certified as a woman-owned small business (WOSB).

Why does a certification matter? Because it can be profitable.

Many U.S. federal government agencies, large enterprises and utilities have revenue set aside for diverse small businesses. For example, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued GO156 which mandates

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Meet PITCH NYC Online Judge Laurel Touby, A Successful Entrepreneur-Turned-Investor

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After exiting her company, Laurel began advising select seed-stage startups and investing in others. By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

With just over a week left to submit your application for this year's PITCH NYC 2012 Startup Competition - I'm excited to introduce online application judge Laurel Touby of Mediabistro fame.

She is active in the NYC startup community, having founded Mediabistro and as CEO, pulled the company through two recessions, pivoted, managed growth with minimal resources - and sold the company for $23M earlier this year.

After exiting her company, Laurel began advising select seed-stage startups and investing in others.

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Kauffman Study Finds Collegiate Entrepreneurs Critical To Sparking Innovation Out Of Universities

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Business incubation at universities requires more than a capable technology transfer office. By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)

A recent Kauffman Foundation study confirmed that graduate and post-doctoral students are critical participants in university commercialization efforts.

The "University Technology Transfer through Entrepreneurship: Faculty and Students in Spinoffs" study looked at students' roles in collegiate-level startups, comparing faculty, entrepreneurs and students' functions and responsibilities in successfully moving innovations out of the university into the market. Author Wai Fong Boh from Nanyang Technological University, Uzi De-Haan from Technion

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Rock Health: Ideas We’d Like To Fund

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Rather than see the EMR market as closed, slow or incompetent, we’re looking for people providing key technology on top of an EMR – an Amazon of Healthcare, so to speak. By Halle Tecco (Co-Founder & Managing Director, Rock Health)

Applications for Rock Health’s fourth class open next week! You bring the idea and team, and we’ll provide the funding and support to turn your startup into a success.

What do we look for? Big ideas executed by smart and driven entrepreneurs, to really move the needle in healthcare. Ideas should be addressing large problems in the system, with a business model that is sustainable and scalable.

Here are a few examples of ideas we’d like to see:

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The Arriving Storm For Devices

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"Smart" products, or things connected to the Internet, are ushering in an amazing era of innovation that’ll change the world in many ways - not just be small devices or objects, but things of all sizes and shapes, fixed (meaning not movable) and mobile (but not cellular platform). By Patricia Handschiegel (Founder & CEO, 9)

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal this past week about entrepreneurship increasing around consumer electronics, or devices/hardware.

Some are connected to the Internet, some are not. All are in part possible because the Internet is here, even if they’re connected to the platform or not.

In the coming year, there’ll likely be much, much more. Most of it will be "smart" products, or things connected to

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