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Date An Entrepreneur — The Female Edition

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By Heather Payne (Head of Sales and Marketing, Pinpoint Social) (Based on “Date an Entrepreneur” by Bridget Porowski and “Date a Girl Who Reads” by Rosemarie Urquico)

Date an entrepreneur. Date a girl who spends her money on iPads and web apps instead of trips to the mall. A girl who doesn’t mind being told that her idea isn’t going to catch on. One who’s kept a running list of things she’s wanted to change since she was a kid.

Find an entrepreneur. You’ll know that she is one because she will always have her smart phone out. She’s the one skimming TechCrunch and Women 2.0, the one who can’t stop

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Why Are Women Business Owners So Reluctant to Raise Their Debt Ceilings? (Raise The Roof)

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By Rieva Lesonsky (Contributing Writer, Small Business Trends) Just 41 percent of the women entrepreneurs surveyed plan to make capital investments in the next six months. Nor are they eager to take on new outside financing. Instead, PNC found, most women business owners are funding their businesses with credit cards and personal savings. Nearly 60 percent use a business credit card and 44 percent are using personal or family savings to finance business growth.

We all know it’s tough to get financing these days, but I think these statistics reflect ongoing issues among women business owners just as much as they reflect the state of

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Working Women Hot Topic This Week

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By Darah Hansen (Contributing Writer, Vancouver Sun) Catalyst has published a new study linking women's career success to on-the-job sponsorship by someone in a key position:

“Good sponsors can supercharge a woman’s career by providing her with access to essential networks, bringing her achievements to the attention of senior-level executives, and recommending her for key assignments,” Ilene H. Lang, President and CEO of Catalyst, said in a media release.

“Effective sponsors also provide career coaching and

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Learning to Be a Lean Startup: Interview with Elizabeth Yin of Recently Pivoted LaunchBit, an Ad Network for Email

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By Cass Phillipps (Executive Producer, Failcon) I had a chance to chat with Elizabeth Lin on the mistakes made in her first startup. She is now the CEO and Co-Founder of LaunchBit, an ad network for email. Learn more http://launchbit.com.

Cass Phillipps: Before LaunchBit, I’ve heard you founded and lost a fair amount of time and money on an unsuccessful startup. Can you give me a little bit of background on that?

Elizabeth Yin: I previously had a social shopping web application that my friend and I worked on for about 1.5+ years

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7 Reasons To Start A Company While In School

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By Swathy Prithivi (Head of Corporate Development, Sonim Technologies) Rockstar career trajectories aren’t about playing it safe. Luckily if you’re in school, starting a business might be the smartest risk-free career move you could make.

While in graduate school at Northwestern last year, I was a student by day and the co-founder of a social gift recommendation startup, Present Bee by night.

Drawing from my experiences, here are the top 7 reasons for starting a company while you’re still in school:

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Interview with a Plasma Physics Ph.D Dropout Turned Energy Entrepreneur: “Physics is Like a Bootcamp for Your Mind”

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By Danielle Fong (Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, Lightsail Energy) One month ago, I was interviewed by Jane Affleck as a profile piece for my Alma Mater, Dalhousie University.

Interviewer: You “started” a PhD at Princeton… why did you stop? Was it boring? Did you feel driven to just do your own thing?

Danielle Fong: I was more temperamentally suited towards my own thing -– though that was only part of it. I entered a program in Plasma Physics to focus on fusion energy –- the process that powers the sun. I thought that with a few good ideas, we could

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BeCouply Presents at NewME Accelerator Demo Day

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By Becky Cruze (Co-Founder, BeCouply) As detailed in a previous post, my boyfriend Pius Uzamere and I co-founded a tech startup called BeCouply. BeCouply is the mobile 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.

Pius and I are part of the inaugural class of the NewME Accelerator, the first accelerator in Silicon Valley that is focused on minority-led startups. The nine-week program, which is based in Mountain View, CA with co-working space in San Francisco, is the subject of CNN’s Black in America 4 with Soledad O’Brien, which

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Business Models: The Forgotten Middle Children of Startup World

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By Andy Barkett (Engineering Manager, Facebook) I hear a lot of elevator pitches. The most common conclusion to the pitch is, “Well, what do you think of my idea?” Honestly, I love most of the ideas and yet hate most of the pitches. It’s hard to answer, because the question can mean three different things:

  1. What do you think of my cool product idea? -OR-
  2. What do you think of my idea for a new business model? -OR-
  3. How do you like my business plan?

What’s the difference between these questions?

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Navigating the “Glass Maze” — Give Women a Technological Edge

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By Dr. Jane LeClair (Dean, School of Business and Technology, Excelsior College) Fifty-six percent of women working in technology vanish from their field in mid-career. That's 56 percent.

Think about that number for a second. For every woman entering a tech field such as engineering or software development after college graduation, there is a higher chance she will leave the profession than she will finish her career. It's really no wonder, then, that men hold nearly four out of five technology jobs. The industry will never achieve robust diversity until we figure out how to retain the women in their chosen technological fields.

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Bringing the Women 2.0 Revolution to SXSW 2012 – Please Vote!

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By Veronika Sonsev (Founder & CEO, InSparq) The tech industry has traditionally been a boys' club -- women have been under represented as developers, founders and c-level executives. However, thanks to traditional and social media, a network of loosely associated groups (Women 2.0, Change the Ratio, RailsBridge, Girls in Tech, Women in Wireless, etc.) and an army of women driven to change the ratio, we are starting to see some early signs of improvement:

  1. More women are pursuing computer science degrees.
  2. The number of startups lead by women is growing.
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54 Hours, Limitless Possibilities, Ideas & Pizza: My Startup Weekend Experience

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By Chelsea Rustrum (Entrepreneur, Free Mania) HoodPerks Team at Startup Weekend6:27pm on Friday night – I arrive at AOL headquarters and I'm greeted by the organizer, Ahmed, who I'd met before. I quickly fill out a "Hello my name is" badge and slap it against my thigh.

The building is open, airy and I can hear the entrepreneurial roar.

There appear to be 100 men milling around, talking in clusters, but I'm so stoked to be there I barely notice the vast gender imbalance.

I simply smile while greeting familiar faces and pushing through the crowd to get to the only other girl I can see, who

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