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Testing Your Product at the Idea State (Before Alpha)

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By Sabrina Kiefer (Author, The Smart Entrepreneur) Innovative businesses are typically surrounded by uncertainty. You can’t be entirely certain if your new idea will attract users and customers until you launch it.

If you are a web start-up aiming at the consumer market, your risk is somewhat lower than for other businesses, because your main investment in the early days will be programming time; you and your associates may be able to moonlight on the project while doing other work, put the product out, test it in the real market...

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Why Should We Increase Women’s Participation in Technology, and How To Start Coding

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By Adda Birnir (Co-Founder & Front-End Developer, Balance Media) A week ago, I read a letter to the editor in the New York Times penned by Dr. Jane Margolis, a researcher at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

In her letter, Dr. Margolis expressed the importance of continuing to support the participation of women and minorities in Computer Science, especially in light of the increased interest in the field.

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Cracking The Glass Ceiling: Female Leaders Alexa Andrzejewski, Shaherose Charania and Julia Hu Making Strides at Start-Ups

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By Emily Glazer (Writer, Wall Street Journal) Women represent just over 15% of angel investors, and only 5% to 7% of partners at high-tech VC investor firms in the U.S., according to a recent study by Illuminate Ventures, an early-stage venture firm.

In an attempt to close the gap, a number of mentoring and investing organizations have popped up or grown significantly over the past few years, such as Women 2.0, Golden Seeds and Pipeline Fund.

In August 2009, designer Alexa Andrzejewski, who focuses on product strategy, research and design, attended

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Founder Labs Wraps Up Their First NYC Program

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By Joanne Wilson (Blogger & Angel Investor, Gotham Gal) Founder Labs, a five week intensive program built to help people incubate their mobile start-up ideas just completed their first program in NYC.

Shaherose Charania is the force of nature behind this idea. Fred and I have been a big supporter of what she is doing. We both popped in a few evenings to hear where the companies were in their growth.

I was really impressed with what each of them were able to create in 5 weeks time (without knowing each other before...

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We Need A Black Zuckerberg or Jackie Robinson of Startups

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By Hadiyah Mujhid (Co-Founder, BlackFounders) When I first met my mentee 3 years ago, the first thing that she said was, “I’m so happy that you’re black!” This was an hilarious moment for the both of us. She later explained that when her social worker mentioned that mentors were volunteers, she associated volunteering with white people. And that she was happy to have someone that looked like her -- a black female.

Accelerating the success of minority groups in the tech startup community is part of the work that NewMe Accelerator and BlackFounders are doing through connecting, equipping, and creating visibility. But this is just a start, and currently blacks’ exposure to startup networks are still limited.

The entire startup community needs to understand how diversity can effect innovation, which can impact profit margins.

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No “A” For Effort: Train and Study The Competition

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By Lisa Maki (Co-Founder & President, BeliefNetworks) I was thinking about elite performance today. Some people go after it, some are scared of it, some reject it, some are content to sit and watch it on TV. No matter your stance I challenge you to deny that not all people are created equal, or if we are, we sure don’t end up equal in the end.

I’m not talking about gender, race, or any of those other easy fall-back excuses as to why one or the other of us didn’t see and take our chances, I’m talking about elite performance at the individual level, not a demographic one.

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Cognitive Science and Software-Assisted Psychotherapy Startup Co-Founded by Eve Phillips

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By Eve Phillips (Co-Founder & CEO, Empower Interactive) My background includes computer science degrees from MIT, an MBA from Stanford, and a number of roles in both software/internet operational positions (product management at Trilogy, strategy at Microsoft, CEO at Chirp) as well as on tech investing teams (Vector, Greylock).

These would have set me up well to continue to work in pure-play internet businesses, but I have always been fascinated by psychology and cognitive science...

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Female Founders to Watch in Singapore

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By Aihui Ong (Founding CEO & CTO, Love With Food) Did you watch The Social Network? Where is Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook? He's in Singapore, investing in startups. Even Plug and Play recently opened their Asian Headquarters in Singapore.

With a business-friendly environment and attractive tax incentives for investors, Singapore is quickly becoming one of the hot startup scenes in Asia. Whether it's using technology to educate children or provide entertainment, these female entrepreneurs in Singapore are definitely creating a stir in Asia!

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Angel Investor Esther Dyson on Women Entrepreneurs and Health-Focused Startups

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Women 2.0 asks Esther Dyson, angel investor in companies like Flickr and 23andMe, about opportunities for entrepreneurs and the women entrepreneurs in her portfolio.Esther Dyson: The opportunities for women are basically the same as opportunities in general. They are not currently in video sharing or yet another social network (ie. "if we get 10 million people we'd be wildly successful"). People forget that to get the wide audience you need, you need to spend a lot on marketing or have something unique.

In general, the opportunities aren’t so much strategic, but specific to an individual. What do you know?

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6 Lessons on How To Pitch for Venture Capital

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By Sonia Sahney (Participant, Founder Labs) I’d like to share 6 lessons I’ve learned about building a compelling pitch for VCs, many of which were not initially intuitive to me.

Lesson #1: Use pictures, not words --

This may be counterintuitive to former bankers and consultants, but VCs expect a story with pictures and speak to ideas. They don’t like a lot of text on a slide. Here’s an example of a consulting slide (BAD). Here’s an example of a VC-worthy slide (GOOD). Obviously I’m making a broad generalization and the image I’ve labeled as "good" would need to be weaved into a cohesive story, etc.

The point I’m trying to make is that your pitch shouldn’t feel like a book report; it should be exciting and visual. You don’t need to write your points out in bullet or table form on a page; you should be able to speak to your key points without prompts.

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PyLadies Meetups Expanding to Seattle, Sydney and Wellington

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By Audrey Roy (Co-Founder, Cartwheel Web) PyLadies is a worldwide community of ladies and supporting gentlemen who use the Python programming language.

We are putting together an open-source PyLadies kit to help Pythonistas in various cities start their own local chapters. We'll be putting the contents up on Read the Docs (rtfd.org) shortly. I would like to help interested Python developers start PyLadies chapters in other cities, starting in Seattle, Sydney and Wellington.

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