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 – 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 »
Published on: June 17, 2013 – 6:00 am
Lauren Bacon talks to Kate Sutherland about the “inner work” founders can do to better integrate their emotions into their decision making.
By Lauren Bacon (Author, The Boss of You)
How do you make your best decisions?
For many years, I bought into the cultural myth (thanks, Plato) that rational, analytical decision-making was good, and intuitive, emotional decision-making (AKA following your gut) was bad. I diligently drew up lists of pros and cons, and tried to weigh them from as dispassionate a perspective as I could muster.
Then, sometime in my early adulthood, I learned about how that whole rational decision-making idea has been roundly debunked by neuroscientists, and in fact we need our emotions to make decisions well. Read More »
Published on: June 14, 2013 – 9:00 am
Do you have some coding skills but still feel like a fake? You’re not alone, writes Angelina Fabbro, and the best thing you can do is talk about your feelings.
By Angelina Fabbro (Programmer, realityhacking.ne)
If you write code, if you participate in the act of programming, then you are a programmer. We can add a clause to this that suggests regularity — someone who programs often is a programmer. That’s all it takes to be a programmer. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just started and worked your way through the fundamentals like control structures and taming functions. It doesn’t matter if for some reason you don’t feel like a programmer. It doesn’t matter if someone pays you or not, unless you really find it important to be a professional programmer. If you program and you do it over and over, you become a programmer. Read More »
Published on: June 13, 2013 – 12:19 pm
Last night Women 2.0 CEO Shaherose Charania participated in BA’s UnGrounded flight, a transatlantic hackathon en route from San Francisco to London. This morning she reports in on the experience, shares some pics and explains what her team came up with.
By Jessica Stillman (Editor, Women 2.0)
As we reported earlier today, our CEO is having a wild week. Shaherose spent last night abroad BA’s UnGrounded. a hackathon on a flight from San Francisco to London, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present the group’s findings at the G8 Summit.
Sleepless but stoked to have participated, she reported in from Healthrow this morning, sending pics and explaining what her team — including heavy hitters like Peter Ragone, Andreessen Horowitz partner Todd Lutwalk, Sejal Hethi and LearnUp co-founder Alexis Ringwald –have accomplished so far. Read More »
Published on: June 13, 2013 – 11:00 am
Nope, female bosses don’t fight more with the women below them, a new study suggests. We just judge women’s conflicts differently than men’s.
By Jessica Stillman (Editor, Women 2.0)
It’s a dirty little secret among professional women that, as much as they are for female empowerment as a general principle, when it comes to their individual careers, some worry that working with high-powered women can be dicey. Aren’t there lots of women that reach the top by acting especially aggressive to counter stereotypes that they’re too soft to hack it. Don’t women often climb up by kicking down, particularly in the direction of any female competition below them? In short, aren’t there plenty of ‘Queen Bees’ lurking in the upper ranks of business?
If you look at media hand wringing you’d certainly think so. The only trouble if there’s actually not a whole lot of evidence that women are particularly nasty to other women at work. At least that’s what a new study suggests. Read More »
Published on: June 13, 2013 – 8:00 am
Realizing we can’t “have it all” is a pretty depressing discovery, but there are ways to achieve as much of a balance as possible when it comes to juggling business and family.
By Amy Noble (Guest Editor, Women 2.0)
As a young woman who went to an all-girls school, I spent my teenage years being reliably informed that “when I grew up”, I could have it all. I could be a doctor, a lawyer or an astronaut and still have time for my family.
Much as I appreciate the sentiment, this simply isn’t true.
It wasn’t then, it’s not now and probably never will be. It’s not surprising, then, that Teresa Taylor, former Fortune 200 COO, speaker, author, active board member, wife and mom, also tells us that ‘balance’ does not exist. What may be more surprising is her suggestion to bring your kids to work for an hour or two on a Sunday if you want to get ahead. Read More »
Published on: June 13, 2013 – 8:00 am
Mohith Julapalli answers all the usual questions he’s asked about working at fashion startup Boutiika with a bunch of women.
By Mohith Julapalli (Co-founder & CTO, Boutiika)
It’s 10 am, and I’ve already had an outrageously busy day. After hitting the snooze button more times than I should have, I had to spend an extra couple minutes on some highly unruly hair. I grabbed a coffee on the way into the office, and a couple more for my coworkers. Once caffeinated, we had a rousing debate over shellac vs. nail polish, complimented each other’s new haircuts and then broke to give one team member some less-than gentle teasing about the fact that she’d worn the same top last week.
No, I’m not the lead character of “The Devil Looks Like Donatella.” I’m a 31-year-old, red-blooded American man. Read More »
