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 »
Published on: June 13, 2013 – 4:30 am
And Women 2.0 CEO Shaherose Charania is there to fill us in on every detail. Here she explains the idea behind the innovative experiment.
By Shaherose Charania (Co-founder & CEO, Women 2.0)
These next few days are a whirlwind of activity as myself, along with 130 other Silicon Valley movers-and-shakers solve the world’s problems in 10 hours. At 30,000 ft.
I’m part of the 130 hand-chosen Silicon Valley movers-and-shakers to participate in British Airways’ UnGrounded flight, a hackathon on a flight from San Francisco to London, culminating in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present our findings at the G8 Summit. Read More »
Published on: June 12, 2013 – 1:00 pm
In our efforts to be politically correct about gender, are we glossing over the richness and benefits of our differences?
By Camille Preston (Founder & CEO, AIM Leadership)
I believe that men and women are fundamentally different. (Gasp.) We are built differently, we are wired differently, we learn differently, and we are acculturated differently. And, we provide different benefits to the world. Skeptical? Did you know that when women multitask their IQ drops by five points, but when men multitask their IQ drops by 15 points.?
In all our well-fought initiatives to promote equality, have we neutralized our unique strengths? Have we minimized our value? Have we diluted the benefits of diversity? Read More »
Published on: June 12, 2013 – 6:00 am
Did you start your business not for passion or to save the world but just to make lots of money? Don’t be ashamed, writes Leah Eichler. The world needs more founders like you.
By Leah Eichler (CEO, r/ally)
I love change. Honestly. Two years ago, when I realized that my division at work was slated for the chopping block, I turned to my boss and said, “Great. How can I help wind us down?” I needed the push to launch my own venture and although I felt incredibly passionate about my new company, I can now admit that I had another motivating reason – money.
Unlike previous generations, launching a company now seems no riskier than accepting a new role. When was the last time we used the term “job security” without snickering? In fact, fostering entrepreneurship has become a mantra for those looking for solutions to the economic recovery. According to U.S. data, job growth is entirely driven by startups. Read More »
Published on: June 11, 2013 – 10:00 am
By celebrating amazing female Betaspring grads, the accelerator’s program manger hopes to demonstrate that such programs aren’t just for young guys with no commitments who can pack up and move at a moment’s notice.
By Melissa Withers (Chief of Staff & Nerd Whisperer, Betaspring)
For a little over a year now, I have been working to evaluate how Betaspring–a startup accelerator based in Providence–can better attract and support top-notch women founders. Why? Because women are one of the most underleveraged resources in our collective quest to launch a startup revolution.
Integrating more women into the accelerator scene is a work in progress. Some great women-led companies are percolating at Betaspring and at demo days across the country, but my gut tells me we have a ways to go. Read More »
Published on: June 11, 2013 – 9:00 am
“Be bold and honest about your personal life,” writes Joanne Wilson, who argues that “until more women start speaking up in a work environment about the realities of their own personal lives we can not move forward.”
By Joanne Wilson (Blogger & Angel Investor, Gotham Girl)
Tech communities are bubbling up all over the globe. The same issues we have here in regards to women entrepreneurs or gender balanced companies are also taking place in all of the tech communities. I do believe that many of the conversations around women are changing. Certainly there are plenty of women in the tech community where a decade ago there were very few. More women are graduating from college with computer science skills, more women are starting companies that are built on a technology platform, more women are becoming CEOs of large companies, more women entrepreneurs are getting funded to build their businesses and more companies are striving to be gender balanced.
One of the constants we see are that women are really beginning to support each other. There are women groups being formed, cocktail parties being thrown, listservs being built and conferences being thrown to build networks and a support systems. It is a great but there has to be more. Read More »
Published on: June 11, 2013 – 6:00 am
The founder of TechStars startup weeSpring talks about why she initially missed the boat on mobile for her mom-focused company and why you shouldn’t make the same mistake.
By Ally Downey (CEO & Founder, weeSpring)
A few months ago, my team sat in a room with one of our mentors, who was advising us on product design. He stood up in front of the whiteboard and drew a vertical line with some hash marks across it.
“This,” he said, “is your user’s day.” He pointed to a couple of the dashes. “This is when she wakes up, feeds her kids, takes a shower, runs off to a meeting. When does she have time to sit down in front of a computer and use weeSpring?” He handed me the dry erase marker. I didn’t move from my seat. Our users don’t have time to sit down in front of a computer; how had we overlooked that in our design? We know mobile is important, because everyone says mobile is important, but thinking about that timeline made me finally understand why. Read More »
Published on: June 10, 2013 – 10:00 am
A new index compares and contrasts different countries to see what aspects of the cultural and business climate are key to fostering female-led businesses, as well as ranking nations for their friendliness to female founders.
By Jessica Stillman (Editor, Women 2.0)
Which countries are friendliest to women starting up and why?
That’s the question the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute together with Dell delved into, comparing the institutions, access to technology and capital, and entrepreneurship culture of 17 countries to see which factors were most important for women’s entrepreneurial success. The results were announced at The Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network conference in Istanbul recently.
So what did the report find? Read More »
Published on: June 7, 2013 – 6:00 am
Denise Abulafia describes how the winding path that took her from being a lab scientist to an entrepreneur passed through three countries.
By Denise Abulafia (Co-founder & CEO, Educatina)
Many times during these last months I have sat down, looked back at my professional career and asked myself this simple question: How did I become an entrepreneur?
I was clearly committed to becoming a scientist. I had always loved science and enjoyed every biology class I took, so I never hesitated about studying biochemistry. However, I never thought I was going to live in three different countries, let alone that was I going to quit the lab bench, and become the CEO of my own company! Read More »
Published on: June 5, 2013 – 11:00 am
“Lean in” is too aggressive and only puts women under greater pressure. We need to “redefine the phrase to convey a vision that is as big in spirit and excitement as it is in raw ambition.”
By Dr. Michal Tsur (President & Co-founder, Kaltura) and Leah Belsky (SVP Operations, Kaltura)
We live in a world where young, ambitious women will now contend with a new, and sadly pressured life question – are you “leaning in?”
While Sheryl Sandberg, the second in command at Facebook and author of recent bestseller Lean In, and her ambitious following of female professionals have a nuanced understanding of the concept, in common speak, the words “lean in” convey something too simple, intense, and aggressive. Read More »
