Published on: June 13, 2012 – 12:45 pm
Today, we take our mission mainstream by partnering with the world’s largest beauty company, L’Oréal.
By Shaherose Charania (Co-Founder & CEO, Women 2.0)
We’ve had an exciting few months at Women 2.0. We launched PITCH NYC Competition and Conference, we also launched Founder Friday in Austin, San Diego and Orange County. We didn’t stop there, we are now in Latin America – having launched Founder Friday with Ellas 2.0 in countries including Chile, Argentina and soon in Mexico (July).
Today, we take our mission mainstream by partnering with the world’s largest beauty company, L’Oréal.
While I am not getting any free L’Oréal product samples nor am I getting a makeover to go from my jeans, boots Read More »
Published on: June 19, 2013 – 1:00 pm
Who says business has to be unpleasant? Courtesy costs nothing and ultimately benefits everyone, so why not make a little effort and discover how great the rewards can be.
By Alexandra Ross (Senior Counsel, Paragon Legal)
I just wrapped up an exceedingly pleasant business negotiation. Why did this experience stand out amongst the seemingly endless, often difficult and typically contentious negotiations of my career? In trying to pinpoint the reason why this particular deal went so smoothly, I realized that the opposing legal counsel and business representatives were so…. courteous.
Something as simple as having a civil and positive interpersonal interaction enabled us to focus on the issues and achieve an optimal result for our respective clients. Read More »
Published on: June 19, 2013 – 11:00 am
A product development veteran shares her favorites for analytics, storage, prototyping, product management, code management and feedback and support.
By Poornima Vijayashanker (Founder, Femgineer)
My approach to product development covers the following stages: ideation, market research, customer discovery, prototyping, usability testing, product roadmap, building an MVP, and finally putting in analytics and metrics.
In parallel, I’m of course thinking about recruiting teammates, and figuring out how to fund the creation of the product.
As a founder this can seem pretty daunting, and ONE of the keys to being able to ship product and keep your teammates happy is to find the right set of tools! Read More »
Published on: June 19, 2013 – 10:00 am
WordPress maker Automattic takes a simple route to ensuring it has a women-friendly workplace; it just strives to build an awesome company culture for everyone.
By Janet Choi (Contributing Writer, Women 2.0)
“Choose your own adventure” is the first section on the jobs page of Automattic, the makers of WordPress. Its roughly 170 employees, who are completely distributed all over the world, power over 66 millions websites.
Yet Automattic stands out not just for its all-remote team but for the thought put into creating an environment where talented people thrive. The company’s approach of flexibility and communication form the vital building blocks of their collaborative, quirky culture. Read More »
Published on: June 19, 2013 – 6:00 am
How five high school girls won Technovation World Pitch 2013 and wowed the judges with an impressive app to solve a real-world problem.
By Nicole Blandford (Academic Technology Director, Nightingale-Bamford School) and Dan Ristea (Technology Specialist, Nightingale-Bamford School)
What began as a simple computer science project by Hope Jin, a junior at the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York, NY, ended with a team of five girls celebrating at Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, after taking first place in the Technovation World Pitch 2013, the longest-running international app development competition for girls. Joining Hope from Nightingale were senior Alex Damley-Strnad, junior Emma Chesley, and sophomores Kystal Molina and Graciela Garcia. Read More »
Published on: June 18, 2013 – 1:00 pm
Just starting out? Think you have to say ‘yes’ to any and every opportunity that comes your way? We’ve got one word for you: No.
By Megan Conley (Founder & CEO, Social Tribe)
When I first started Social Tribe, I was often asked about my vision for the company. I usually hemmed and hawed something about being the best social marketing agency on the planet.
In reality, making enough to pay rent and put food on the table were my KPI’s. In my opinion, “dream big” is a great philosophy, but in the early stages of building a company it’s often accompanied by side dishes of getting stuff done, staying afloat and drinking from the fire hose. The primal needs of survival often outweighed the big picture essentials like strategic planning.
The danger of living in survival mode for too long is that you start to adopt a “here and now” mentality. I noticed a cycle emerging: when any opportunity came knocking at my door, I said “yes!” Not a bad practice in theory, except that I found myself working on projects that didn’t always align with my passion, interests or skill sets. By adopting a yes attitude, I was inadvertently diluting my service offering and morphing into a jack-of-all-trades. Read More »
Published on: June 18, 2013 – 11:00 am
The female-founded social media success story just received a $20 million investment led by Steve Case’s investment company.
By Jessica Stillman (Editor, Women 2.0)
Just how much are Facebook fans worth to a startup? In the case of North Carolina-based children’s clothing company Lolly Wolly Doodle, $20 million dollars.
The female founded startup just announced a $20 million investment led by AOL founder Steve Case’s company, Revolution Growth. While the company, founded in 2008 by first-time entrepreneur and mother-of-four, Brandi Temple, may not be a household name, it can boast an incredible social media following of more than half a million highly engaged fans. Read More »
Published on: June 18, 2013 – 9:00 am
For New York-based startup Bib + Tuck, taking a brand to the next level may mean losing a customer or two in the process. And that’s okay.
By Lorraine Sanders (Contributing Writer, Women 2.0)
Being all things to all people may be an excellent strategy for Amazon, but it’s fast becoming popular consensus that any retailer hoping to grow using a strictly traditional ecommerce model is, more or less, doomed to fail. Instead, startups with their sights set on growth are becoming increasingly comfortable diving deep into niche territory, a place where brand identity and customer loyalty have the potential to be stronger.
“We might, as a brand, alienate some people in the process of building a brand with a point of view,” says Sari Azout, who co-founded Bib + Tuck with her childhood friend Sari Bibliowicz last fall Read More »
Published on: June 17, 2013 – 2:00 pm
You can start up in any area that you love and that are confident will make you a profit, but it can be hard to know exactly which industries offer the best opportunities for female founders. The good news? We’ve found nine to get you started.
By Holly Mangan (Managing Editor, Money Crashers)
Nearly eight million businesses in the U.S.are owned by women, and woman-owned businesses are expected to account for one-third of all new jobs created by the year 2018. Additionally, there are a good number of female CEOs and influential business women leading large corporations.
In spite of the encouraging numbers, women do face many obstacles that men simply do not encounter. For example, even though the growth-rate of women-owned businesses continues to exceed the growth rate of all other businesses, total revenues only represent 4% of those generated in the private sector. Read More »
Published on: June 17, 2013 – 11:00 am
If you’re interested in empowering and nurturing your female employees, think long and hard before you set up an internal women’s network, warns one female CEO — they often backfire.
By Jessica Stillman (Editor, Women 2.0)
Here on Women 2.0, posts outlining what bigger tech companies are doing to attract, empower and inspire female staff get a great reception. And why wouldn’t they? Everyone here is in favor of increasing women’s ambitions, career satisfaction and levels of professional success.
But just because you’re for all these good things, doesn’t mean you should be for any old women’s network your company sets up, warns Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, author and CEO of gender consulting firm 20-first, on the HBR Blog Network recently. Read More »
