article placeholder

Mac Vs. PC: Does One Say “Tech Founder” More Than the Other?

By Caroline Green (Director of Business Development, IvanExpert) If you're creating a tech startup, how do you decide whether to get a Mac or a Windows PC? Which one will broadcast to potential investors, partners, employees, and customers that you're the real thing?

Here's our cheat sheet to the Mac-PC divide for startup tech firms.

Why having a Mac makes you a real tech founder

Three reasons why if you want to be seen as a serious tech founder, you've got to go Mac.

... Read More...
article placeholder

Do You Know America’s Next Great Teen Entrepreneur?

By Janine Popick (Co-Founder & CEO, VerticalResponse) If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably read lots of stories about entrepreneurial teens doing amazing things, from developing a hot new app to spearheading socially or environmentally mindful projects. Here at my company, VerticalResponse, we’ve met or heard about many of these incredible teens through our work with Startup Weekend and Women 2.0.

That’s why I’m thrilled that VerticalResponse is launching the Next Teen Tycoon video contest – we’re searching for tomorrow’s business leaders, today!

... Read More...
article placeholder

What’s New For PITCH? Speed Mentoring! Demo Tables! Exhibits!


For the past few months, we've been working on creating the most impactful full-day innovation conference for Women 2.0 members and their friends -- to educate and inspire builders, thinkers and doers.

Here are 6 reasons you should join us on Valentine's Day for Women 2.0 PITCH Conference:

  1. Learn from the best product innovation leaders in tech - Flickr, Facebook, ZipCar and more.
  2. Watch finalists of the Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition present to a panel of investors.
  3. Hear case studies and best practices for building awesome products and business models.
  4. Check out the Exhibit Hall from 8am to 5pm.
  5. Speed mentoring at lunchtime! We'll be taking signups in the morning (first come, first serve).
  6. Join us for cocktail hour after the conference - sample truffles and wine while networking.

Special Note: If you are bootstrapping, umployed or a student, apply for a deeply discounted ticket. (We will be granting discounts on need basis, and will notify recipients of discounted tickets by February 1)

... Read More...
article placeholder

4 Handy Tools For Working Remotely And Productively

By Sepideh Nasiri (Director of Sponsorships & Events, Women 2.0) It wasn’t that long ago that being an employee meant coming in to the office at 9am and having in-person meetings and presentations all day. Not everyone is fit for this kind of role, maybe because their team is not all in one location, they live a long distance from the office, or perhaps they just prefer a job where they don’t have to put in much face time.

Whatever the case may be, there was a problem that needed to be solved – actually getting your work done without being at the office.

Luckily for us, there are now many solutions

... Read More...
article placeholder

Cartier Seeks Exceptional Women Social Entrepreneurs

By Cecile Ney (Coordinator, Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards) Cartier Women's Initiative Awards is a business plan competition for startups led by women, organized by Cartier in partnership with McKinsey and INSEAD business school.

This social entrepreneurship competition aims at supporting creative, financially sustainable and responsible women-led startups in all countries and industries. We are currently calling for applications phase for our contest and are looking for women leading for-profit responsible enterprises between 1 and 3 years old.

The Award will be given to six laureates who

... Read More...
article placeholder

Women In Tech: Start Speaking At Conferences

By Chiu-Ki Chan (Android Developer, Monkey Write) My resolution this year is to be a public speaker. One of the difficulties in breaking into the speaking circuits is to be aware of conferences six months in advance to meet the call for participation deadlines, so whenever I hear about one, I share it with others.

Recently I shared the call for participation for FluentConf:

"Are you a JavaScript performance guru? Have you got big ideas and mad JavaScript skills? Do you know the ins and outs of future ECMAScript specifications?

... Read More...
article placeholder

10 Startup Entrepreneur Mistakes To Avoid

By Joyce Chuang (Marketing Coordinator, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP) For those who have started a company and have seen the challenges first hand, you have an idea of just how much energy and effort goes into creating and building a company. Not only do you have to worry about establishing it, but at some point you’ll have to find investors to fund it, build a team, hire and fire employees, and so much more.

What if someone could provide you with a road map for it all? We can’t, but we can offer some suggestions and advice.

Our panel with

... Read More...
article placeholder

The Face of Success: Women and Venture Capital

By Vivek Wadhwa (Contributor, Inc) In my last two articles, I discussed why, based on my research on immigrant entrepreneurs, I believed that Silicon Valley was the world’s greatest meritocracy. That was before I moved to the Valley and learned that this so-called meritocracy is highly imperfect, omitting women, blacks, and Hispanics. When I researched the dearth of women, I could find no explanation.

Women are equally motivated to become entrepreneurs; are equal or more competent at managing businesses; match boys in mathematical achievement; dramatically outnumber

... Read More...
article placeholder

The $100,000 Chris Rock Story (Risk, Meet Reward)

By Ramit Sethi (Author, I Will Teach You To Be Rich) Telling a story about Chris Rock helped me earn over $100,000 in scholarship money to attend college. During senior year of high school, my parents — immigrants who raised four kids and didn’t have money to send us to college — encouraged us to apply to every scholarship we could find.

Since I’m a big weirdo, I built a system that allowed me to apply to over 60 scholarships in a few weeks (I’ve detailed parts of the system I used to get so many college scholarships).

The largest scholarship I received had an extensive

... Read More...
article placeholder

Saying No To Sexual Harassment At Startups

By Dyuman Bhatt (CEO, Red Seraphim) Just after college, I took my first job in retail sales as a part of a management training program. While there was a lot to learn, one issue that stood out was the inescapable daily reality of sexual harassment.

The company did its best to train its managers and entry level employees to deal with the matter, but there was no sense of prevention. For almost all women working there, it wasn’t a matter of if they would be sexually harassed, but more a matter of when. Sometimes, it was a sleazy customer asking,

... Read More...
article placeholder

Lessons Learned Building VC Industry In Latin America, Caribbean

By Susana Garcia-Robles (Principal Investment Officer, MIF Early Stage Equity Group) Established in 1993 as part of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group, the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) was created to develop effective approaches to advance private sector development, improve the business environment and support micro and small enterprises in order to promote economic growth and poverty reduction in the Latin American and Caribbean regions (LAC).

Drawing upon a resource base of $ 2.2 billion in assets, the MIF works with governments, NGOs and financial intermediaries, using a range of instruments including

... Read More...
article placeholder

Women’s Advantage In Building Next Wave E-Commerce Startups

By Geri Stengel (President, Ventureneer) In the early days of online shopping, when most of the products sold were computers, software, music, and consumer electronics, men ruled e-commerce. That may be changing now that product choices have expanded to everything from cosmetics to shoes to toys. Just as women dominant shopping in the brick-and-mortar world (women account for 85% of all consumer purchases), they will dominant shopping in the online world.

Mass e-commerce sites such as Amazon and eBay will always have a place in e-commerce, just as Walmart does

... Read More...