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Raising Money And Moving Past Imperfections

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By Sonya Lee (User Experience Design Consultant, Mowie Media) Being Asian, I have learned from my Chinese parents and family to aim for perfection. The viral Troll.me image of "You are the 99? Why not 100%?" strikes a deep cord in my soul because it is so true!

It is this sense of perfection has both helped push me to owning a design consulting business but also held me back in taking my next new venture, Wine and Food Travel, to the next level.

Sheila Lirio Marcelo of Care.com hit the nail on the spot when talking about raising capital for startups. She elaborates, "When are you ready to raise money and start a business, it isn’t

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You Can’t Just Listen, You Have To Feel (PITCH Sketchnotes)

Editor

By Alexis Finch (Pencil, GraphiteMind) 1000 women in one room, and every one of them ready to start something. PITCH was enough to leave you gasping, at the pure potential, at the achievements, at the wisdom you could pick up from eavesdropping alone.

How do you capture an experience like this so you can look back at it clearly? Grabbing business cards, scribbling notes in the margins of the program... With speakers as powerful as Caterina Fake and Robin Chase, that's not enough.

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From Lazyboy To Productivity Girl: Space Matters

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By Nicole Lim (Brand Advocate, Turnstone) Editor's note: Thanks to turnstone for being a sponsor of the 2012 Women 2.0 PITCH Conference.

When I was a 16, I noticed an interesting phenomenon.

My bedroom had a massive desk in the middle of the it, facing the bed, and the back of my desk chair was facing my closet. These were the days when your desktop was so big you would be lucky there was any space left to put a mug or a pen cup. I had this terrible fluorescent work lamp over the desk that resembled a white alien with a very big rectangular head and a long extending neck, with light that brought out every flaw in my pubescent skin.

I noticed that I never worked at my desk, my chair

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Startups (And Angel Investors) Are A Girl’s Best Friend

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By Katherine Hague (Founder, ShopLocket) This is the story of how my startup, ShopLocket, found its first investor, Heather Payne.

In startup land, we spend a lot of time thinking about that elusive first dollar. Whether it’s from a customer, a bank, or an investor, they often say that it’s the first dollar that’s the hardest.

Every startup’s path to that first dollar is different, but each is surely equally reliant on pixie dust and the stars aligning. Here is my story.

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Partner Event: Learn To Create, Design For Your iPhone App

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By Jen Gordon (Designer, Tapptics) Editor's note: Women 2.0 members save big on this course - only $79 now until February 28, 2012.

Your mobile app design is the number one thing people look at to judge the quality and “buyability” of your app. Before a single review or description is read, your apps visual design makes an impression on your potential customer.

Are you making a good or bad impression on shoppers in the App Store? Don’t fret. Until now there hasn’t been a place to learn the process of Mobile App Design. But now there is.

This mobile app design course provides detailed video training PLUS layered, pixel-perfect Photoshop design templates to get you started quickly:

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What Do Good Housekeeping, Computerworld Have In Common?

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By Laura Yecies (CEO, SugarSync) Consumerization of IT is a hot topic these days. What does this mean? There is no official definition but in the technology press there are a few important ideas.

  • The use of consumer technologies within the company IT infrastructure. For instance, employees buying an iPhone – they purchased it and they own it, but they are using their personal device to manage their work email and perhaps other applications. This leads the enterprise IT manager to use tools and technologies to secure and manage... Read More...
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The Coolest Startups In America (Featuring Women Entrepreneurs)

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By Doreen Bloch (Author, The Coolest Startups in America) I am ecstatic to debut on Women 2.0 the launch of my first book, The Coolest Startups in America.

Women 2.0 is a revered space online to inform people about accomplishments by women in the startup community; through my book, I bring a similar mission to the offline world – informing mainstream audiences, who may be new to the world of innovation, all about the incredible startups all around the US and why they should care.

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3 Tips For Early-Stage Startups Pitching To Win Investor Love

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By Connie Kwan (Writer, TriplePundit) At the Women 2.0 PITCH Conference and Competition this past Valentine’s Day, I hung out with 300 talented and inspiring technology women to watch women-led startups compete for meetings with Silicon Valley venture capitalists.

Startup ideas range the gamut from financial management for solo-entrepreneurs (Prosperity) to coupons for doctor visits (DocPons).

The top 9 startups were chosen from a pool of over 200 applications to publicly pitch at the Valentine’s Day PITCH

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Why Your Next Board Member Should Be A Woman

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By Aileen Lee (Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)  

Good questions have been asked lately of tech companies without gender diversity on their boards of directors. While women comprise 51% of the population, they make up only 15.7% of Fortune 500 boards of directors, less than 10% of California tech company boards, and 9.1% of Silicon Valley boards.

Why should we care? For one, women are the power users of many products and it’s just smart business to have an understanding of key customers around the table. Could you imagine a game company without any gamers on the leadership team or board?

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The Power Of Cooperative Outreach (Diversifying PyCon)

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By Jessica McKellar (Software Engineer, Ksplice, Oracle)  

I want to share an email I received recently from a woman named Pam. It is a response to an email I sent to the DevChix mailing list, calling on DevChixen to attend PyCon, the largest annual Python conference, and submit posters for the PyCon poster session:

"Holy wow. I’ve had your email starred since you sent it, and only just now realized that you’re the Jess who was at PyStar Philly. Because of this email:

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Quick Survey For Female Startup Founders

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By Pokin Yeung (Writer, Pokin on Product) Is there something unique about female founders? Are there any characteristics that all startup founders have in common? Do things like birth order, family unit, family history of entrepreneurship, childhood experiences, or other factors have any influence on your likelihood to start a business?

I am curious and hoping you are also curious enough to help me out.

If you are a female startup founder, please take this quick survey.

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5 Lessons Learned From A Day With 1000 Women Entrepreneurs

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By Thomas Korte (Founder & Managing Partner, AngelPad) I was invited this week to judge the Women 2.0 PITCH Competition. I blocked out the day with one goal: give a lot of feedback and advice to entrepreneurs. And I am glad I did.

The conference was unlike any I have attended in recent years. 1000 women-tech entrepreneurs, many of them not from Silicon Valley, skipped Valentine's Day to listen to the learnings, inspirational and success stories of fellow women entrepreneurs. 99% of the audience were women and Dave McClure, Naval Ravikant, Jeff Clavier and myself were the only men on stage.

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Alice Wang’s Spark Box: Toys For A Child’s Developmental Benefit

Editor

By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0) A former investment banker, entrepreneur Alice Wang watched her extended family grow in size with the arrival of three babies. She found it inspiring to see how the families experienced parenthood, and subsequently, how quickly the children got sick of toys.

She thought there had to be a better way to test toys with the child and provide some educational value to the experience.

This was the spark that launched her startup Spark Box, a toy rental company providing an eco-friendly way for parents

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