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Every Startup Has A Story (Mine Is Out Of A Bukowski Novel)

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By Maren Kate (Founder, Zirtual) Behind every startup, there is a string of stories. Some stories are sad, some stories are funny, and most are a mixture of both. My story started like something out of a Bukowski novel.

On a baking hot summer evening I sat straddling a bar stool, planted in front of a fan at the local dive where I tended bar. Cigarette smoke choked the air and the soft sounds of video poker chirped in celebration when someone hit a flush. Occasionally one of the gamblers, or truckers, or industry folk fresh off a 12 hour shift would holler at me to pour them another drink.

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The Rise Of Pinterest And The Shift From Search To Discovery

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By Semil Shah (Operations, Votizen) The current toast of the web is Pinterest, the visual pinboard for collecting and sharing content online. The “pinning” phenomena is spreading from its modest beginnings to appearing in national media outlets. There are over 2.5m monthly active Pinterest users on Facebook. A co-founder of the site has over 500,000 followers on Pinterest. Ron Conway (an investor in the site) remarked that Pinterest’s user growth rate is what Facebook’s was five years ago. Earlier in 2011, it was valued through venture financing at $40m and, most recently, just a few months later, at around $200m.

What is going on here?

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Social Proof Is The New Marketing, Says Prominent VC Aileen Lee

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By Aileen Lee (Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers) As I’ve written before, we’re in an amazing period of the consumer Internet. Despite a shaky economy, many web companies are in hypergrowth. This is reminiscent of the five-year period over a decade ago when companies like Amazon, Netscape, eBay, Yahoo, Google and PayPal were built.

One challenge, which isn’t new, is the battle for consumer attention. If you’re looking to grow your user base, is there a best way to cost-effectively attract valuable users? I’m increasingly convinced the best way is by harnessing a concept called

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Boston Angel Investing Training Launches 10 Pipeline Fellows, Provides Discount To Conference For Angel Investors

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By A. Lauren Abele (COO, Pipeline Fellowship) Editor's note: The Pipeline Fellowship hosts a 2011 Boston Pipeline Fellowship Conference on angel investing in Boston on Friday, December 2, 2011. Women 2.0 members receive 50% off tickets with discount code "women2". For more info and to register, click here.

The Pipeline Fellowship, which trains women philanthropists to become angel investors, has announced its inaugural Boston class.

The 2011 Boston Pipeline Fellowship Conference features a series of educational presentations and engaging panel discussions on the angel investing process.

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Confessions of a Female Entrepreneur: My Women 2.0 Startup Weekend Experience

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By Karen Song (Developer, Women 2.0 Startup Weekend 2011) My name is Karen Song and I am a female entrepreneur living in Silicon Valley. This past weekend was my first Women 2.0 Startup Weekend experience -- and it was so powerful that I am starting a blog just to talk about it.

Let me start off by saying I don't relate to women very well. I attribute this to several possibilities. This may sound strange but I can actually go for days without seeing another female because I work with males and then come home to my boyfriend. I am also strangely intimidated by women and the feminine expectations

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11 Lessons Learned From Women 2.0 Startup Weekend

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By Audrey Fischer (Participant, Women 2.0 Startup Weekend 2011)  

Editor's note: These are 11 tips & tricks direct from a Startup Weekend attendee. As always, the freshest startup advice is picked daily here at Women 2.0.

  1. Brainstorm before before you arrive.Think about how you can contribute. I initially thought Startup Weekend was all about taking the improvisation route, figuring it out as you go along. In retrospect, I could have saved myself time over the weekend by taking full inventory of my skills ahead of time, and maybe even... Read More...
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Black Friday: Get Your XX On! (Change The Ratio)

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By Rachel Sklar (Founder, Change The Ratio) Here’s the deal: Starting today, there is going to be a LOT of money spent this holiday season. Much of it is going to be spent, directed or otherwise influenced by women. Women control over 80% of consumer spending, drive huge internet shopping sites like Gilt Groupe, Zappos and Groupon, and control the destiny of The Muppet Movie.

Aside from their financial spending clout, women also start businesses, too. See where I’m going with this? Of course you do: Women buying stuff + Women selling stuff = A beautiful, well-monetized match made in heaven.

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Louis C.K.: The Next Steve Jobs Will Be A Chick

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Editor's note: This article is from Louis C.K. as told to Nancy Miller of Fast Company. Let me start off by saying that in the natural order of things, girls appear to be the preference. They tend to make up 51% of the population overall, because men tend to do stupid things and die off before they're 40. So if you trust in nature, nature is saying that the world is a better place when there are more girls around than boys. It's not just me saying girls are better.

I myself have two daughters, a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old, and I've learned from those girls how to be a better man. If I'd had a boy, then there'd be two shitty versions of me.

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Are Women Competitive Enough? Competition: It’s Good For You

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By Blake Landau (Blogger, What's Your Story) Editor's note: Apply to the Women 2.0 PITCH Startup Competition for early-stage startups with at least 1 female on the founding team. Deadline to apply is November 30, 2011.

When I was a kid, I was your average millennial -- by which I mean I was on a tight schedule of brownies, soccer practices, Hebrew school, mall outings and birthday parties.

In the context of AYSO soccer games, I was scary for someone only three and half feet tall.

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Women: Start Businesses About Shopping

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By Tara Tiger Brown (Contributor, ForbesWoman) That’s what a woman, on a panel made up of women, said to a room full of women at a women’s tech conference. Wait, it gets better. The panel was titled “What if you could create a startup?” and the female panelist that provided this sage advice is a Partner at the Venture Capital (VC) firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Imagine for a second what your reaction might be if you went to a panel to hear from other women about their experiences doing a tech startup and a VC, the person that funds startups, told you that she thinks that women should work on things

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Reading This Post Won’t Help You (Hold Your Hand to the Fire)

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By Sarah Tavel (Senior Associate, Bessemer Venture Partners) Several months ago, I wrote a post about the four stages of learning. Implicit in the transition out of stage 1 (the "enthusiastic beginner") is the fact that to really learn something, you need to try to do it, and inevitably, do it wrong.

Given the wealth of fantastic content out there in the blogosphere, especially when it comes to starting a company, raising capital, building a product, etc., it can be tempting to try to read blogs and hope that they'll help you navigate potential road mines.

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Newsflash: Grass Is Green, Sky Is Blue, VCs Are White Men

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By Lisa Suennen (Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Psilos Group) On November 21, the National Venture Capital Association and Dow Jones VentureSource released the results of the 2011 Venture Census, which reported statistics about ethnicity, gender and other characteristics of the venture capital industry garnered from a poll that included 600 VC industry participants.

Not surprisingly, the Census reaffirmed what most of us already knew: it’s good to be a white male. Of the total 600 respondents, 87% were Caucasian, 9% were Asian, 2% were African American or Latino, and 2% were of mixed race. This is pretty much exactly the same as when

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Partner Event: What Startup Employees Should Know About Their Equity (December 6 in San Francisco)

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Are you a startup employee or shareholder interested in learning more about your rights, liquidity options and the value of your equity or stock options? Join SecondMarket for "Cocktails & Conversations: What Startup Employees Should Know About Their Equity" on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 from 6:30pm to 9:30pm in San Francisco.

Women 2.0 members save 50% with discount code "Women20VIP".

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