Join us!
Partners
Female Numbers Increase In US Education and Business
Number of Female Graduates Grows
An article in the New York Times earlier this week gave some interesting statistics on the rise of women in US Academia and employment. Year on year the number of women graduating from higher education has increased, with them now accounting for 58% of all college undergraduates and 50% of law and medic graduates. Indeed in 2008 the same trend was seen in the UK and yet both countries are reporting lower proportions of women in business degrees (43% in the US), perhaps backing the theory that the ruthless nature of men makes business more appealing to them.
These figures seem more impressive when you consider that only a few decades ago men outnumbered women in higher education by 2 to 1.
As in the UK, female workers in the US still experience a disparity in earnings of on average 20% less than men. This discrepancy is apparent the world over, with the Guardian reporting in 2007 that male graduates were paid £1000 more than their female compatriots within the first three years of graduation. Read more
Franchisor Spotlight: Krystal Kolenich, ‘Sexy’ Aradia Fitness – Franchisee to Franchisor
Krystal Kolenich started life as an x-ray technician, before buying a franchise with Aradia Fitness when they were just starting up. Since 2007, she has been the Canadian franchisor for Aradia fitness, as well as continuing to run her own franchise locations. Aradia Fitness, which is expanding rapidly, currently has 21 franchises across Canada. Talking to Krystal is fascinating as she has a strong sense of both sides of the fence – having been both franchisee and franchisor – the franchisee relationship at its best.
Franchise Offering
Krystal’s franchise has the possibility to be very controversial when you consider that Aradia Fitness’ line of business are pole dancing lessons. Talking with Krystal you realise she is extremely passionate about the benefits of her franchise, and what it offers the women who come. She’s fighting against a strong stereotype (that pole dancing is for strippers) but is very convincing about the benefits of Aradia Fitness and full of amazing stories about what it has done for different women of different ages and all different levels of fitness. Krystal says:
“Women don’t want to be sexy 24/7, but we give them a place to be sexy when they want to. There’s no sexuality in the workplace or in many women’s lives – that’s not a bad thing, but we want to be able to bring that back; to give women the confidence – after the first class, it’s amazing; they walk out with their heads high and walk differently down the street and they don’t care what anyone thinks”.
Straddling Both Sides of the Fence
One of the biggest challenges/opportunities for franchises is the relationship between the franchisee and the franchisor. This can be a source of great growth & energy for a franchise, but it can also be very painful when things go badly. When Krystal became the franchisor, she thought a lot about whether to continue as a franchisee or whether to sell her franchises. She decided to continue as a franchisee so that she would be equally affected by corporate decisions. Read more
Interview: Katz Kiely about the playground for creatives, innovators and visionaries
Katz Kiely is the founding director of Just b Productions, a company that makes the interactive world possible. By using freelancers and collaborators they are able to respond to each bespoke task, from the design of an interactive project be it a website or a game to networking events with a spark and development programmes making ideas into workable prototypes.
June 11th – 12th 2009, will see FACT in Liverpool play host to their annual Media Geek gathering, b.Tween– A must-attend event for those who matter in the media industry: a playground for creatives, innovators and visionaries with a commercial edge, a purpose built test-bed for innovation and new applications of digital media.
Here, Katz Kiely talks to The NextWomen about the upcoming conference and her involvement in the world of tech:
Can you tell me a little about the forum?
Many Web 2.0 companies are still running 17th century conferences. b.TWEEN aims to break down any barriers that prevent innovation and development of new applications of digital media. We bring big players and indie talent together in one unusual, organic and honest environment where hierarchy does not exist. Successes and failures are shared across professions and positions – no single person has all the answers.
b.TWEEN is the only forum of its kind. No other uses digital art installations to inspire people, or simultaneous webcasts to widen its audience. We even project the chat room back into the auditorium so that comments made online can be shared in real time and with everyone engaging. By addressing questions in this way throughout the event, we no longer have a stifling Q&A session at the end of the day when people have either forgotten their questions or feel too much in the limelight to come forward. Read more
Blocter: The Face Behind the Blog
Dutch Cowgirl, Marjolijn Kamphuis - from Blocter
A student project called Blocter from the Academy of Arts in Rotterdam, is using multimedia to showcase the driving forces and faces behind blogs. Started out of curiosity by Jorrit Spoelstra, it has become his thesis and major final exams project: A series of short, especially for the web created, documentaries/interviews on blogs and the people who run these blogs.
May 26th saw him publish his first online video documentary with Marjolijn Kamphuis, co-Founder of Dutch Cowgirls. Aimed at both men and women, the site uses an all women team of contributors to cover news items on trends, tech and gadgets.
Here, Marjolijn discusses how time pressures of a full time job led her to start Dutch Cowgirls, and end her own personal blog which took too much time to single handedly keep up to date. She notes how she is committed to addressing the lack of female voice in tech writing even though Twitter is littered with female tech professionals. Marjolijn is also part of the team at The NextWomen.
Dutch Cowgirls from Blocter on Vimeo.
Heather Gold on Authenticity When being Private in Public
Would you subscribe to yourself? Its the intro to this video of Heather Gold, a Yale lawyer turned Silicon Valley geek turned speaker at events like Webexpo, Blogher and in 2 weeks time at Jeff Pulver’s 140 character conference, where she will speak on being private in public.
In this video Heather focuses on authenticity as the new authority, instead of status or a blackberry as authority. She advises the audience to practice ‘yourself’ and ‘the act of knowing who you are’ by reading one’s own stuff, stop reading self help books, and listen to feedback on your own story. The Stuff Formerly Known as Marketing has been changed in Authenticity.
VC Firm Widens its Net by Out-Sourcing Early Investments to Others
Casting a wider net
VC firm, Founders Fund, has recognised the need to move with the economic times, by giving a selection of entrepreneurs and executives from outside of the company money to invest in a tech start-up they have discovered through their own networking.
It has not gone unnoticed that funds are still becoming available for tech start-ups, with a number of seed programs launching across the globe. In March of this year, American firm Sequoia Capital, joined forces with venture incubator Y Combinator, that takes start-ups from ideas to business, to provide a new fund for tech start-ups. Yet it is this new approach from Founders Fund, that sees the early decision out-sourced to others, that makes it so interesting. The risk is still there for the firm, but the time and effort required in choosing early investments is greatly reduced.
Silicon Valley firm, Founders Fund, has realised the potential to use other peoples’ networking to their advantage. By using successful entrepreneurs and tech executives, they hope to capitalise on their business connections to more efficiently find and back start-ups. After all, a large percentage of an entrepreneurs life is spent networking, and to be able to make use of this could save investment companies a lot of time and effort when the entrepreneur is doing it as a matter of course any way.
Called the Tech Fellow Awards, the annual program has used an ‘open nomination process’ to find 12 leaders or ‘fellows’ that have achieved oustanding innovation in one of four fields: engineering leadership, product design and marketing, general management, and disruptive innovation. Each successful fellow, self-nominated or recommended by others and chosen by a commitee of 21 industry leaders, for the impact they have had in the world of start-ups, will receive $25 000 to invest in a start-up of their choice. In addition to the investment of each individuals prize money, Founders Fund will match the investment with a further $25 000 and reserve the right to increase the capital to $250 000 in the event of a good venture. Read more
The 10 Men a UK Female Internet Entrepreneur Should Know when Starting and Growing a Business
‘Its not what you know, but who you know’ (Paul Arden). This is true for entrepreneurs growing their business and forming their teams and advisory boards. Alicia Navarro, CEO of Skimlinks recently told The NextWomen about the great value a diverse board has given to her company. At best, women should surround themselves with male and female mentors. And those men, who are they, where are they, what can they do for you?
Therefore: Who are these men you should know when starting and growing a business?
Mike Butcher of TechCrunch: For Feedback + Publicity
If media coverage is what you need then Mike Butcher is the man to know. He is the omnipresent European Editor of TechCrunch and his CV is impressive.
Having worked as Editor for UK trade title New Media Age weekly European Tech title The Industry Standard, online marketing and media site Netimperative.com and TechCrunch UK and Ireland, he has also managed to fit in freelance journalism for numerous national press titles including: The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. You would think this was enough work for any man over the last 20 years and yet to date he still has roles as: ‘Technofile’ columnist for The Irish Times; Director of content with MexicoReporter.com, not to mention numerous television appearances for the likes of BBC News, Sky News, Channel 4 and Bloomberg or events at which he speaks or chairs.
Mike Butcher truly is journalist extraordinaire and with the awards to prove it – ‘One of the 100 Innovators of the UK Internet Decade by GfK NOP in 2004 and number 47 of the Top 100 people to know in London’s creative scene by The Independent in 2008.
Before he considers your start-up worth writing about, he will give you honest, and we mean really honest feedback on your business plan.
Bill Morrow of Angels Den: For Review Bizz. Plan and Seed Capital
So you have the media coverage and now you need the seed investment, but just how do you go about it? Bill Morrows’ previous jobs have included accountant for Telecommunications giant Virgin and CEO of Morgan Chase. Frustrated by the inability to find good investment deals, he has since spent the last few years researching, co-founding and chairing Angels Den – the online platform that brings investors and entrepreneurs together in one single, stress free environment. Refreshingly he is also only one man of a team of four other women.
Since the site launched in July 2007, Bill has reportedly attracted 1000 Angels to the Den. Designed to give entrepreneurs the exposure they need, the site is aimed at achieving under £500k of investment for businesses almost from the comfort of their own homes. Whilst the site does not provide financial advice, for a small fee it showcases start-ups’ business plans, logically placed for potential investors to search and find them. Angels Den is like the first ‘angelic’ step to funding. It allows entrepreneurs to make their plans visible and for investors to instantly understand its nature. Once both parties are interested then the meetings can begin.
In May of this year, the site championed SpeedFunding – an evening session in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of investors in under 3 minutes.
For more information click here
Saul Klein of Index Ventures: For Contacts and VC funding
If it is Venture Capital you require then Saul Klein is the man to know. Joining Index Ventures as a partner in 2007, Saul has spent the last 15 years under various guises, including entrepreneur, seed investor and operator. Saul is one of those men who has experienced the start-up world from every angle and in direct correlation now currently sits on the board of some great internet success stories – Glasses Direct, MyHeritage, LoveFilm and Songkick. Indeed he is co-founder and ex-CEO of LoveFilm and part of the executive team at Skype.
Adamant there are still a lot of European entrepreneurs out there yet to be cultivated both financially and creatively, Saul recently set up Seedcamp – an initiative that pioneers week long events across the globe, aimed at awarding seed funding and invaluable business connections for start-ups. With places for 20 companies, there is the possibility for up to five of them to receive low-level funding in return for a small percentage of the company and three months spent nurturing the teams.
As with the other men we have profiled here, Saul’s endless work for entrepreneurs does not end here. He is also a founding partner of The Accelerator Group and OpenCoffee Club that was started in London to promote informal face-to-face meeting and networking. In line with his Midas touch, there are now over 110 meetings across the globe.
Brent Hoberman of Lastminute and EFC: For Advice and Money
If you want to know how to scale a business, then you should get to know serial entrepreneur, Brent Hoberman whose best known for being the co-brain child of lastminute.com. When the company was floated on the stock exchange in 2000, funds were so great that they have managed to purchase a further 14 businesses over the years. The company was sold to Sabre in 2005, but Hoberman still holds the position of chairman and chief strategic officer. In 2007 Brent went on to found the hugely successful mydeco, the one stop online shop for interior design and products.
With the money he had amassed over his years, he has acted as angel investor in various start-ups including moveme.com, viagogo, t5m, imagini.net, academia and lifestyle and travel social network WAYN for which he also acts as non-executive Chairman.
Of course such great entrepreneurial success does not come without recognition. Over the years he has been included in: Time Magazines Top 25 European digital leaders, Revolutions Internet Person of the Year and the Institute of Travel Tourism (ITT) Travel Business Person of the Year. There seems to be no bounds to this mans success.
His latest venture seems the accelerate the need to get to know him: With Michael Birch, who sold social networking website Bebo, he is setting up European Founders Capital (EFC). EFC wants to fill the gap between business angels, who typically invest £50,000 to £100,000, and venture capitalists who put several million pounds into firms that have matured beyond their initial concept. Planning is to have about £70 million made available by successful entrepreneurs to starting entrepreneurs.
Barry Vitou, ‘Boot’ Lawyer: For Legal Advice for Tech Startups
To tackle your legal issues, you are best to contact with Barry Vitou of Winston & Strawn, and more imporantly, organizer of Bootlaw, a free boot camp for emerging technology, internet and digital businesses and for the professionals working in them who want to learn more about the legal issues they face.
Monthly at their London office they are hosting an evening for the members of Bootlaw where they cover business questions and their legal ramifications from a pragmatic and practical standpoint. The evenings are informative and fun and are intended to put something useful back into the emerging technology and digital ecosystem. Bootlaw’s objective is to enable its members to make informed decisions about legal issues without unnecessarily racking up legal bills. And for individual questions, Barry is the perfect problem solver and provides proactive, timely, pragmatic, and commercial high-quality legal advice to clients. He advises clients in a variety of industry sectors, including financial services, Internet and Web 2.0, media technology, clean technology, traditional industrial, and manufacturing businesses.
Stewart Townsend of Sun Microsystems: For Software+ Hardware Freebies
In order to benefit from all the tech freebies, such as hosting, office space, meeting rooms what can you do but contact immediately the man in the jungle shirts: Stewart Townsend, Manager of Startups and Emerging Markets EMEA for Sun Microsystems. They are specialists in Business and market development; technology adoption, strategy and roll-out; Alliance and Channel development and they have the best contacts to get your startup in all kinds of tech events.
Having worked for the industry giant since 2000, Stewart has spent the last eight years driving revenue, growth and market adoption across EMEA; implementing infrastructure and business software and hardware for corporate accounts, whilst strengthening Web 2.0 and red-shift markets.
Stewart is a consistent driver for this multinational vendor of computers and their components, software and IT services with particular success launching the Web 2.0 start-up customer program.
Alex Hoye of Latitude Group: For Strategic Advice
If you want Harvard MBA quality strategic advice combined with an entrepreneurial mindset, then you should connect with Alex Hoye. Currently, the CEO of Latitude Group, one of Europe’s largest independent digital marketing agencies, he is your best bet for SEO, social media strategies and affiliate marketing.
However, Alex brings far more to the table: He co-founded GoIndustry plc from 0 to a 100 million dollars listed company and 15-country market leader and he has acted as angel investor and mentor in various technology and internet-based projects. The companies are: Skimbit, MyBuilder, RentMineOnline, and GoMix. He also acts as an advisor to private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, a €1B private equity fund focused on technology, media and telecommunications, a member of Cambridge Angels and on the advisory board of Seedcamp.
Whilst obtaining his BA in Economics and International Relations from Stanford, USA and an MBA from Harvard, with enough time left to start a wine club at both, he gained further basics at McKinsey & Co. and Disney, acquiring analytical, restructuring, finance, and M&A skills. He has worked out of the UK, Germany, US, and Latin America, becoming your truly global mentor.
Ashley Ward, Headhunter, Serial CEO and Leadership Trainer: For Leadership Skills Training
If you want cutting edge training to strenghten your leadership skills as (future) CEO of a venture capital and private equity backed business and want to sharpen the range of skills required to meet shareholder expectation, you should contact Ashley Ward, programme head of the European Leadership Programme (ELP) and Partner in Nexec Partners, the executive search practice specialising in meeting the exacting recruitment needs of innovative, high growth companies.As a serial CEO for 26 years Ashley led several businesses to sale or IPO Orchestream which became a FTSE 250 company with a capitalisation of almost £1b. Ashley is passionate about ensuring that search candidates are properly qualified for the role, have a cultural fit and personal chemistry with board colleagues. Using interpersonal skills and industry knowledge he gains a greater understanding of client needs and is able to communicate this clearly and positively to candidates. In addition to his role as a head hunter and leader of ELP he sits on the board of various VC backed businesses.
Nigel Miller, UK lawyer for technology and online: For IT Contracts Advice
In order to avoid the legal pittfalls in negotiating your term sheets and your partnership agreements, you may want to know Nigel Miller, a partner with UK law firm Fox Williams specialising in Commerce & Technology law. One of the firm’s founding partners he also leads the Technology law group. With particular interest in commercial contracts and regulation, IT, intellectual property, data protection and e-commerce his strengths are negotiation and compliance with UK and EU business regulation.
Outside of the law firm he writes and speaks about business law matters and is a fellow and past chairman of the Society for Computers & Law and past president of the International Federation of Computer Law Associations.
Nigel is featured in “Legal 500 – Who’s Who in the Law” and is highly respected as a no-nonsense expert on regulatory matters.
Mike Sigal, CEO Guidewire: For Contacts in Silicon Valley
If you are thinking of taking your startup to the US, and in particular Silicon Valley, then you better call, twitter and mail Mike Sigal, CEO and Co-founder of Guidewire Group. GuideWire organizes numerous events showcasing and identifying Europe’s top startups who are ready to expand to Silicon Valley and beyond, such as Innovate!Europe a three-part program of relationship building with partners, investors, service providers and media.
Mike has a 20-year record of building innovative technology-based businesses for existing and emerging global companies. Previously, he ran a strategic advisory and interim management consulting firm, with an impressive aray of clients. He has lived and worked in Europe, providing marketing and business development services to technology companies as they developed their trans-Atlantic strategies. As director of DASAR, producer of the annual European Technology Roundtable Exposition (ETRE) conferences, Mike built communities which fostered relationships among technology industry executives and investors.
An entrepreneur at heart, Mike has founded a number of technology ventures, including FM Waves and WiFinder. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
A diverse advisory team, according to many reports, provides the most innovative value (McKinsey reports etc.). We hope this list is useful for the men to connect with. Let us know the Men in Tech, that are an indispensable male adviser, investor, connector, trainer, coach for your business.
Cloud Computing set to Reduce the Company IT Bill
Could Cloud Computing be as Beautiful
As Cisco announce they are to start selling servers in competition with the likes of IBM and Hewlett-Packard, The NextWomen delve a little deeper into its potential competition – ‘Cloud Computing’.
A search of the internet finds the following (basic) definition for the phrase:
“Cloud computing offers the ability to access software or information that can be delivered on-demand, over the internet, without the need to store it locally.”
In essence, cloud computing looks to centralise both computer services, processing power and the storage of information through the Internet. In other words, having spent the last few decades making PCs and laptops faster, with more memory and storage and greater speeds, computing giants are now perfecting their online services and storage.
A prime example of this in action is Google Docs – the free service that allows users to compile and store documents online. The advantage of such a service appears to be threefold. Potentially, this would negate the need for software on your computer, making it merely a means to access the internet. With nothing stored on it and without the need for Microsoft Office software, suddenly the specification required is greatly reduced making computing a far cheaper pastime for its users. Gone would be high powered, back breaking laptops and in would be light (possibly more environmentally friendly) sleek computing solutions such as handhelds and ultra-light laptops.
There are essentially four steps that make this phenomenon real: Read more
Hi-Tech Companies Benefit from the Budget
The ubiquitous red case: HM Treasury Photos
Last months Budget saw Alistair Darling highlight particular considerations for small to medium sized tech start-ups:
“To address under-provision of venture capital for technology and high-growth businesses, the Government launched Enterprise Capital Funds. Over the last decade we have seen providers of development capital moving further away from smaller investments. As set out in Building Britain’s Future: New Industry, New jobs, the government will launch a review to consider whether, and in what form, further intervention could increase the supply of long-term growth capital to small and medium sized businesses.”
This is surely good news for tech start-ups at a time when the Government is predicting a 3.5% decline in the UK economy by the end of 2009. However, for those undeterred by such gloomy statistics, will be cheered by the announcement of a £2.5 billion fund to encourage investment in the ‘high skilled jobs of the future’.
With these initial considerations in place, the Chancellor announced yet more good news in the form of millions of pounds worth of extra funding to implement broadband networks in even the most remote of UK locations. Available to hi-tech businesses, the aim of the fund is to establish a 2 Megabits per second connection by the end of 2012. It will be interesting over the coming years to see how this provision will affect the rate of online start-ups.
With green technology hailed as one of the ‘big growth areas in the next few years’, industry professionals are surely questioning whether 2009 will see an influx of well funded hi-tech green businesses.
The in-car ‘Motormonkey’ Charger
The Powertraveller Motormonkey
With the summer fast approaching and the economy in decline, more and more of us are choosing to stay in the UK for their yearly holiday, altering the nature of the ‘staying on top of work’ beast. Holidays abroad have for so long signalled the need for a laptop and the innate ability to search out a WiFi connection in the depth of the Pyrenees or on a snow capped peak. Even with the advent of smartphones and always on email technology, the seasoned camper is still left in need of a simple way to charge their gadgets.
A solar charger is one option, although on a typically cloudy British summer day charging time can be almost half again. If saving the planet is your aim, then this is the way to go. If your break is dependent on a car, however, then Powertravellers Motormonkey could be just the gadget for you. Read more
- br/>
Extras
-
