Uncategorized

article placeholder

When Babies Become Taboo (Work/Life Balance)

Editor

By Melissa Fudor (Program Manager, Women in Wireless) I have babies on the brain. As a woman in my mid-twenties, starting a family has always been something that will eventually happen in the far and distant future. I have the timeline figured out: finish college, travel, start a great flexible career, meet someone, fall in love, get married by 30, and get pregnant (the latest) by 32. But recently I’ve been dreaming up some pretty hefty career goals which includes becoming an entrepreneur and starting my own business, which has left me wondering two things:

  1. Where a family fits into my ten-year plan
  2. If having a baby will sabotage my career goals.... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

A Very Unusual Startup Horror Story (Startup Lessons Learned)

Editor

By Grace Ng (Lead Interaction Designer, Snapette) There is a giant push for more female entrepreneurs right now led up by empowering initiatives and resources like Change the Ratio, Women 2.0, WITI, and The Daily Muse. With so much support and encouragement from the growing women in tech community, now is definitely a great time to take your step and run after your dreams. But as a female entrepreneur myself, I would like to take this time to share some of my experiences and missteps

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

Crowdsourcing Conversation on the Startup Funding Gap

Editor

By J. Maureen Henderson (Contributor, Forbes) Australian entrepreneur Pemo Theodore spent five years in London trying to drum up venture capital funding for her digital matchmaking start-up. She came away empty-handed, but with a desire to explore the well-documented gender gap in funding for female-led startups.

Theodore interviewed dozens of venture capitalists, female founders and tech industry experts (both female and male), quizzing them on the challenges facing female founders and soliciting their perspectives on what was driving the female funding shortfall. In the end, she packaged a cross-section of these interviews

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

We Can See the Future: Collaborative Ecosystem for Startups

Editor

By Myra Landsburg (Brand Champion, Grow VC)  

When we started building what is now the Grow VCM platform, we had a vision for the future of entrepreneurship and investments, where anyone could participate in startup funding and be part of new innovations. We saw that entrepreneurs could gain the backing of larger global communities to create tomorrow’s innovations and participate in the journey from early on. Today, looking back, we’re delighted to see how far we have come as not just an organization but as a larger community in shaping the future of innovation. We’ve seen the global community

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

Skeptical About Networking? Here Are My Career Results

Editor

By Kelly Hoey (CEO, Foundation for Social Change) Beauty Creams. Exercise Videos. Diets. We’re all skeptical -- “will it really work“ -- until we see actual results... It’s the same with networking. Until you hear that a friend was offered a job or scored a sought-after interview or received a career-enhancing assignment, you wonder if all the time and effort is really (I mean, really) worth it. It is worth it. Really.

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

Why Women Make Excellent Entrepreneurs in the Digital Age

Editor

By Nellie Akalp (CEO, CorpNet) In 2010, women became the majority of the U.S. workforce for the first time in the country’s history. Also, 57% of college students are now women. While men continue to dominate the executive ranks and corporate board rooms, women now hold a number of lucrative careers: they make up 54% of accountants, 45% of law associates and approximately 50% of all banking and insurance jobs. These statistics, which appeared in Hanna Rosin’s Atlantic article “The End of Men”, have prompted considerable attention and debate.

Women are advancing in entrepreneurship as well.

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

Entrepreneur Amy Senger: Changing Wikipedia’s 10-to-90 Ratio

Editor

By Leslie Bradshaw (Co-Founder & President, JESS3) When you think about the need for more women occupying more power seats, what comes to mind? How about things like the boardroom, the C-suite, the Fortune 500 and the Forbes 400? What about places like Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Capitol Hill and The White House?

Well folks, add to your list: Wikipedia.

As the world’s #1 resource site in the world, we should all take pause in thinking about what it means that less than 10 percent

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

Women-Led Startups Have Fewer Failures: But What Does This Actually Mean?

Editor

By Alicia Liu (Co-Founder, Benbria) An Inc. article was posted a few weeks ago provocatively titled “The Case Against the All-Male Start-up”, and the same story appeared in Business Insider under “TRUTH: Women-Led Startups Have Fewer Failures”. The article cites a recent study conducted by Illuminate Ventures (registration required to download), which itself references and summarizes a wide body of other research. Notably, that women-led tech companies are less capital intensive, and have fewer failures.

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

Let’s Learn To Code Together (Stanford “Intro to CS” Online Class)

Editor

By Natasha Murashev (Co-Founder & Director of Operations, Holler)Since coming to Silicon Valley a little over a year ago, I fell in love with the hacker culture. It was incredible to meet people who had ideas and then actually went out and made them happen!

The problem was, I was a psychology major and do not have any coding experience. Nevertheless, I found some amazing people to start a startup with and it’s been an incredible journey so far. Yet, it is clear that my startup could use some more engineering help, and frustrating to have my hands tied up when it comes to helping out. That is why I decided to learn to code

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

How to Self-Promote Without Backlash (Women’s Career Advice)

Editor

By Joan C. Williams & Rachel Dempsey (Authors, The New Girls' Network) As we discussed in our last post, a recent study by the non-profit Catalyst found that the best strategy to get a raise is to make your achievements known around the office. Seems simple enough, right? Let your co-workers know about a deal that went your way. Be sure to get credit for ideas you originate. Mention that big account you just landed at the next partner's meeting. Except, as it turns out, self-promotion is just as likely to make people think you're a jerk as it is to make people think you deserve a raise or a promotion.

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

Single, Working, and Preparing for Pregnancy

Editor

By Ellie Cachette (Founder & CEO, ConsumerBell) Running a startup is demanding -- long hours, last-minute changes to tasks and projects, fast-paced days and zero time to myself. Stress levels can stay at a permanent HIGH setting for months -– even years. Sometime it feels as if I already have a newborn.

“Oh, you have time!”

I hear that often when asked about babies. But the truth is: time evaporates. Seasons change, projects launch and when honed in on a mission, time goes by even faster.

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read
article placeholder

MoboTurbo Hack-a-thon: From Idea to Demo (and Second Place!)

Editor

By Nina Gerwin (Founder & CEO, Eye Capture) Editor's note: Join us for Women 2.0 Startup Weekend 2011 in San Francisco on November 18-20, 2011! Get your ticket now.

On Saturday, I went to my first ever hackathon, the MoboTurbo 2011 Mobile Game Hackathon + Conference.  There are plenty of hackathons in Silicon Valley but this was the first hackathon to be organized by women, Shirley Lin and Bess Ho, and staffed with only female volunteers. It was being held at Color.com’s Palo Alto HQ. I’m not a hacker, but an idea person

... Read More...
Uncategorized0 min read