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Preparation is Half the Battle: What Startup Weekend’s Partnership with Google Means For You

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By Maris McEdward (Community Manager, Startup Weekend) Entrepreneurs are always asking “what’s next?” -- What’s the next step? What’s the one connection I can’t afford not to make? What tweak can I make to make my product stronger/better/faster?

But an equally important question is “what can I do to prepare?”

At Startup Weekend, we encourage entrepreneurs to come to us with fresh idea and a willingness to meet and work with potential co-founders. But that doesn’t mean Startup Weekend attendees can’t prepare before the event

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Founding CEO Barbara Fox of Avaxia Biologics Raises $2.2M

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By Lori Valigra (Correspondent, Mass High Tech) Avaxia Biologics Inc., a Lexington-based developer of oral antibody drugs for the gastrointestinal tract, completed its first close of $2.2 million of a Series A financing led by angel investors, its CEO and founder Barbara Fox told Mass High Tech.

Of the total, $1.2 million was convertible debt, most of which came in in May, and $1 million was new funding that closed last Friday. The company is looking for $1.5 million to finish the Series A round by the end of the year, Fox said.

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ER Accelerator in NYC Accepting Applications Thru November 20

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By Murat Aktihanoglu (Managing Director, ER Accelerator) ER Accelerator is accepting applications for its January 2012 program. Application deadline is November 20, 2011 -- apply here.

ER Accelerator is an early-stage investment fund and accelerator based in New York City. Ten selected startups for January 2012 get:

  • $25,000 investment for your startup.
  • 3 months of free collaborative office space in the heart of NYC at Times Square (January 9, 2012 - March 30, 2012).
  • 200+ amazing mentors from the NYC startup... Read More...
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TEDWomen: A Celebration of Global Women Entrepreneurs

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By Francine Gordon (Co-Organizer, TEDxBayArea TEDWomen) Last year, TED held its first TEDWomen conference in Washington, DC. Recognizing the phenomenal community of women in the San Francisco Bay area, TEDxBayArea decided to organize its own day-long program dedicated to women.

About 175 people heard TED-type talks by more than 20 presenters including Jill Tarter (Center Director, SETI), Debra Bowen (Secretary of State, California), Tara VandDerveer (Coach, Stanford Women’s Basketball Team), Shaherose Charania (CEO & Co-Founder, Women 2.0),

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Ask For What You Need: CEO Shares Encouragement For Women

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By Julia Hu (Founder & CEO, LARK) I was rushing around the country kicking off LARK’s partnership with Tumi this week when I was asked to write this blog post. The catch: they asked on if I could turn it around in one day. I kept trying to write whenever I had a free moment, but felt guilty that I didn’t have enough time to put into it. I knew I was going to let great women down. I finally decided to email and I asked if I could extend it to the weekend. Their response: "Sure!" It was that easy.

Just by asking, internal struggles were no longer necessary. And it struck me that I, and many women I know, don’t like to

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ConsumerBell CEO Ellie Cachette on Avoiding the Female Ghetto

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By Ellie Cachette (Founder & CEO, ConsumerBell) There’s something happening in New York Tech Scene: The female community is finding and establishing itself among the ranks of the techies in the Big Apple.

For a lot of reasons New York is not Silicon Valley, where the culture has matured to the point that everyone seems to look and dress the same; engineers rock their T-shirts or hoodies while VCs strut their nice leather belts. Everyone has their part to play. The culture is so cemented that it can replicated in startup communities around the world. It’s as if Silicon Valley is almost a nouveau social class which can be spotted nearly anywhere by a seasoned veteran.

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Maeghan Smulders: 1 Girl, 10 Jobs, 112 Days (Working Life)

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By Heidi Isern (Contributing Writer, Women 2.0)  

Upon graduation, Calgary born Maeghan Smulders was offered not one, but 29 different jobs.

Overwhelmed with choices, she decided to do something innovative. She decided to “date” her companies: “Rather than just pick one, I decided to see if I could try out all of them first!”

Pick a Career Like a Spouse: Date Around First

Most college graduates take a traditional route and accept the first job offer they receive, often knowing little about the job or

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Is Your Startup Ready for Investor Funding? (3 Questions To Ask)

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By Cari Sommer (Co-Founder, Urban Interns) Startup fever is in full gear these days. Between the startup IPOs, billion dollar valuations, and enthusiasm in the investment community, there’s a lot of energy around entrepreneurship right now. These are exciting days for those of us running startups.

Thankfully, the economic mood surrounding startups changed substantially from when my business partner, Lauren Porat, and I launched Urban Interns in late 2008 / early 2009.

Confident that our business idea was timely

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DressRush Pitch Deck Heard ’Round The Web Now Yours To Copy

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By Jennifer Van Grove (Writer, VentureBeat) To hell with PowerPoint -- with a web-based slide deck you can achieve some eye popping effects and maybe even get the attention of dozens of potential investors.

And don’t worry if you have no idea how to do this, because a startup called DressRush has open sourced its pitch deck, which became an overnight sensation last weekend.

DressRush, a fresh-faced 500 Startups accelerator class member few have ever heard of, tweeted a link to its unconventional pitch deck on Friday and subsequently found itself

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A Pregnant Pause For The New Wave of Female Executives

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By Heddi Cundle (Founder & CEO, myTab) A friend recently complained that she’s not seen me for ages and expressed her disappointment that I hadn't gone to her baby shower. I explained that I am incredibly busy with myTab.co, my startup, and how it’s a round-the-clock business.

She still didn’t understand why I’d not be interested in her new motherhood, coo’ing her with the type of attention any expecting mother… expects.

I told her that I’m simply too busy, I have my own baby

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Sheryl Sandberg On Women Lacking Ambition (Close The Gap)

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By Rip Empson (Writer, TechCrunch) By this point, women in technology, especially those in powerful positions, are probably tired of hearing about: women in technology.

But, tonight, during a conversation with Charlie Rose, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was asked exactly that: If the tech industry is today a place where women can find the level of opportunity that she, as a top executive at one of the world’s most well-known companies, would like them to be able to find.

Sandberg holds that women have made

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The Impact of Twitter on RailsBridge (Learning Ruby on Rails)

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By Jennifer Lindner (Organizer, RailsBridge & Freelance Open Source Developer) Twitter not only helps facilitate organizing across the world, they invest in their local community by hosting RailsBridge workshops in their San Francisco office.

We're doing it. We're teaching each other technology.

Not how to use it: how to build it.

We're teaching and learning software development. How to use our command lines and be comfortable in the guts of our machines. How to contribute to the open source projects of others and

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