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Zoover and Layar named Leading Online Entrepreneurs of the Year
Stephan Bosman of travel portal Zoover was named as the Leading Online Entrepreneur of the Year in The Netherlands in the first LOEY Awards. Claire Boonstra of Layar and her team received the Starters Award at the LOEY Awards.
Zoover has become one of the largest recommendation & review travel sites in Europe, receiving one million visitors per day who write 1000 travel reviews each day. The company started in 2005 with a team of four and currently employs 60 people, it has a turnover of in excess of 2,5 million Euro and is active in 21 countries. Its software development is done in Romania. Competitors of Zoover are Tripadvisor and Holidaycheck. Read more
Apply now to Business Pitch Competition for Female Tech Entrepreneurs
Female Internet Hero and angel investor, Esther Dyson, will participate in a new Busines Pitch Competition organized by Vator.tv and Girls in Tech for women with great ideas who want to ignite their companies’ visibility and growth.
Fifteen women chosen by their peers and vetted by blue-chip VC judges will have the opportunity to present onstage at the first-ever Amplify event on November 18 in San Francisco.
Bambo Francisco of Vator Tv: “Even if you’re not raising funds, it’s a great opportunity to raise awareness. And, it’s free to participate in the competition.”
Vator.tv, a leading platform for innovators to connect and learn from one another, and provider of news and information through VatorNews, and Girls in Tech, a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology, are hosting an exciting opportunity for innovative technology startups with female leadership.
The BlogHer10 Conference in New York – It’s All About the Communities
Diane Hayman is the Editor and co-founder of PowderRoomGraffiti.com an online women’s community that brings honest, irreverent insights to a global audience. She writes this article as a guest editor for The NextWomen.
Attending a BlogHer conference is all about the chance to meet and talk face to face with some of the most interesting and lively women you can find online – or in real life.
It’s 1 a.m. and I am collapsing into one of New York City’s famous yellow cabs wearing a tutu and carrying a giant tote bag filled with cookies, skin cream and business cards. I’m hoarse, exhausted, and my feet are killing me. But this is only Day 1 of the 6th Annual BlogHer Conference – I’ve got more of the same coming up tomorrow.
‘Where are all the women bloggers?’
In 2005 when Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins and Elisa Camahort Page the founders of BlogHer organised a conference to answer the question: ‘Where are all the women bloggers?’ They managed to attract 300 women to San José, California. Their mission was to ‘create opportunities for women who blog to gain exposure, education, community and economic empowerment.’ Their success in accomplishing this is evident, as this year’s conference attracted 2400 participants and sold out months ago.
This is my 2nd BlogHer conference – I am no longer a ‘newbie.’ I know that like any other conference there will be keynote speeches, content sessions, and break-out groups. But I also know that, unlike most conferences, there will be groups of women hugging and squealing, several people in costumes and tiaras, and a Lactation Lounge.
The emphasis within the conference is all about ‘the community.’
In fact, as the number of women online increases and becomes more vocal, so do the number of interest groups or tribes within that community.
This year there are conference sessions devoted to (among others) Latinas in social media, Fashion bloggers, Autism bloggers and Sex bloggers. In addition, the ‘Birds of a Feather’ lunchtime tables encourage bloggers who write about specific topics to congregate together and chat informally while they eat their lunch.
Stories of greedy Swag Hags Read more
Top 50 High-Flying Female Executives in Mobile Content
credits photo: CGPGrey.com
Tim Green of Mobile Entertainment Magazine has again compiled a list of the top 50 high-flying female executives in mobile content, and he has kindly permitted us to publish the full article, with all the credits for him and his magazine.
Its an impressive list of female business heroes who have started companies as pioneers, such as Claire Boonstra of Layar, or who have exited their company, such as Cheryl Dalrymple, CFO of Admob (sold to Google for almost 1 billion…!)… and we want to interview all of them!
The names and text below is republished from ME.
TOP 50 High-Flying Female Executives in Mobile Content
Julie Ask, principal analyst, Forrester
When ME asked its audience to suggest names for this list, Ask came up more than most. One of the analysts that wields true influence in this space.
Kate Barry, general manager, PlayPhone
PlayPhone is one of the big winners in the post-D2C era, one of the few to flourish in transferring its skills to B2B, social media more. Barry is one of its key players.
Balbir Blugan, app acquisition manager, Sony Ericsson
As part of its reinvention as a maker of sleek touchscreens, Sony Ericsson is also looking afresh at apps – with former THQ exec Blugan in charge.
Claire Boonstra, co-founder, Layar
AR is undoubtedly mobile’s new new thing. And Layar, the firm founded by Boonstra, is its biggest champion.
Jennifer Byrne, director of business development, Verizon Wireless
Verizon has always been associated with content, thanks to Get It Now and V-Cast. Byrne was involved with all of this, and is now taking the operator into new areas.
Laurel Chamberlain, director of digital engagement, Turner Broadcasting EMEA
Under Chamberlain, Turner has become deeply committed to mobile, and thanks to brands like Ben X, it has serious clout.
Erica Chriss, VP of strategy and biz dev, Greystripe
In the midst of the Apple/Adobe spat, Greystripe made much of its Apple-approved rich ad formats. Nice one, Erica.
Cheryl Dalrymple, CFO, Admob
$750m sale to Google? AdMob must have a decent CFO. Step forward Cheryl Dalrymple, one of the original AdMobbers.
Mary Dillon, CEO of U.S. Cellular
The only female CEO of a US wireless carrier – albeit it a tier two carrier. Just a few months into the job. Will be interesting to see her approach to content
Julia Dimambro, MD, Cherry Media Read more
Seedcamp Week 2010 sees Increasingly Savvy and Female Entrepreneurs
Seedcamp Week 2010 will take place on September 13-17 in London, and the participating teams will come from all over Europe. According to Seedcamp, among the applications this year the following trend was found: technology + fashion, SaaS, further geographic diversification, more female entrepreneurs, and increasingly savvy entrepreneurs.
Seedcamp was started 3 years ago, it is a for profit micro-fund with large investors behind it, such as Balderton Capital, Daughty Hanson, Nesta and Index Ventures, and a large pool of volunteering mentors.
The increasing prominence of Seedcamp has been described by Saul Klein, the founder in a very lengthy and interesting article, called Seedcamp: thoughts on the evolution of a startup, in November 2009 on his blog.
Seedcamp Week is an intensive week-long event held in London every September and is targeted at young entrepreneurs from across EMEA. At the end of the week, the fund will make the funding decision to invest up to €50K each in 5 teams for a small equity stake (8%-10%).
To get into Seedcamp week, teams apply to the regional mini Seedcamps happening all over Europe during the year. The best teams from this selection will then be determined by a judging committee which will select up to 20 teams to participate in the event.
Since 2007, Seedcamp has handled more than 2,500 applications, hosted 25 events around the world, mentored 540 teams and made 22 investments. The portfolio and alumni have attracted follow-on investments by from top tier firms including Union Square Ventures, Redpoint, Index Ventures, TAG and Eden Ventures. Read more
Saska Graville from Red Magazine Advises Female Business Owners on a Successful PR Pitch
For the 10th Kitchen Dinner, The NextWomen received Saska Graville, deputy editor of Red Magazine as the special guest of The NextWomen Summer Kitchen Dinner. The 25 women who were gathered for this intimate and relaxed networking include many business founders and directors. Indeed, 76.5% of them own or lead a company.
As the attendees arrived and prosecco and canapés were served, each person had to introduce herself to the rest of the group and this showed that once again, The NextWomen Kitchen Dinner received a group of very inspiring business women.
Editors Career Path: via Sydney, Newspapers and Redundancy back to the UK
After the starter, the set of ambitious women had the honour to receive a keynote from Saska Graville, deputy editor of Red Magazine, launched in 1998 for “women growing out without growing old” and which is followed by 225 000 readers monthly. Red Magazine has currently a UK and a Dutch issue.
Saska gave an overview of her magazine oriented career before joining Red Magazine. At the end of her 20s, Saska moved to Sydney. She was hired at the New Woman magazine where she shortly had to be made redundant as the magazine had to be sold.
In her today’s opinion, she couldn’t agree more with what one of her managers told her:
“Everyone has to be made redundant at least once in their career”.
This led her to work for one of Australia’s best selling newspapers Sydney Morning Herald but with her magazine background, little was expected of her. However, she managed to give a touch of lifestyle to the newspaper that actually turned into a surprising success.
Red Magazine: Proud of “Grown-up” Work Experience and – finally- ONLINE
Before she turned 40, she decided to come back to the UK as media is quite a “young” industry and that is when she joined Red magazine. With a lot of competition from other woman’s lifestyle magazine, Red managed to grow rapidly by reflecting the reader’s thoughts and responding to the audience’s needs. Today, Red Magazine is expanding its brand through its Red Hot Women Awards, “Grown-up” Work Experience, Red Direct and – as one of the last print magazines- by going online.
Business Matching and Business Issues of Female Business Women Read more
Cosmo Blog Awards Finalists Announced – Last Chance to Vote!
Cosmopolitan has revealed the shortlist for its 2010 Blog Awards in association with Collection 2000. The Award is aimed at celebrating the “creme de la creme” of the blogging community, and we are very honoured that you have made us part of it.
Thank you to all of our readers who have voted for The NextWomen and allowed us to be among the 6 finalists in the News and Current Affairs category! You can view the list of finalists in all other categories on the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards finalists page, where you can also cast your final vote for your favourite Blogs.
To vote for The NextWomen, visit the News and Current Affairs finalists page and cast your vote with your email address.
To vote for all your other favourite blogs, visit each of the categories finalists pages and cast your votes.
Deadlines are not mentioned on the website.
£10,000 Award for Under 30 Entrepreneur of The Year
Shell’s social investment programme LiveWIRE is taking applications for “Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2010″. The winner of the £10,000 award will be announced during the Shell LiveWIRE LIVE! event in London on 13th October where various speakers will be talking about entrepreneurship, including Sir Tom Farmer and Mark Prisk MP.
The panel includes entrepreneurs, experts and investors, with 5 women out of the 10 judges deciding who takes the prize home (or to the Bank):
- Emma Jones (Enterprise nation)
- Professor Sarah Carter (Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship)
- Josie Emberton (UnLtd)
- Melanie Lane (UK Retail at Shell)
- Hermione Way (Newspepper/Techfluff.TV).
If you are or know young entrepreneurs aged 16 to 30 that have been running a start-up for up to 18 months, do not forget to apply before the deadline on 6th September 2010.
You can also apply to Shell LiveWIRE’s monthly “Grand Ideas Award” for a prize of £1,000 and extended visibility and support.
Female Founders Pitch at Mini-Seedcamp London
Every year we attend start-up events and start-up pitch competitions, from GeeknRolla to LeWeb, and yet we hardly ever see more than a couple of Women pitch. It was a very pleasant surprise to see 5 out of the 20 start-up pitches be led by women Founders at this year’s Mini Seedcamp in London, which took place on Tuesday the 27th of July.
Not only were there 5 women-led pitching startups among the finalists, but one of them was only 21. Jessica Ratcliffe impressed the audience of over 70 web experts, investors and successful entrepreneurs while pitching her business GaBoom, an online swap platform for gamers already live in beta and getting traction, alongside her business partner James King.
The Women-Led finalists were:
- EDITD - The Bloomberg for apparel retailers and brands that forecasts fashion trends – Founded by Julia Fowler and Geoff Watts – One of the 5 Seedcamp Winners
- GABOOM - An online marketplace to swap and sell video games – Founded by Jessica Ratcliffe and James King
- MATCHIK - The first Crowd Sourcing Platform for Home Design – Founded by Joana Picq, COO of The NextWomen
- SCRAMBLR - A SaaS application that enables creative teams to have their own online studio – Founded by Jane Young and Andrew Webb
- SWEEBLE - A web-based self-publishing tool designed to help schools and groups raise funds – Founded by Sue Greenwood and Greg Finney
All other finalists also had very impressive teams and compelling concepts; there was an interesting range of startups, from very early stage/pre-launch to more established and even profitable companies looking for advice and investment. Returning mentors thought this year’s finalists were especially good teams, and all teams were impressed with the quality of the advice given by the mentors at hand – Reshma Sohoni, Philipp Moehring & the Seedcamp team attracted a very interesting crowd to this event, which made it a success.
On top of the quality advice given by mentors, startups also had the opportunity to hear an interesting panel discussion with former VCs turned entrepreneurs about the challenges of fundraising, led by Saul Klein (Chairman of Seedcamp).
Here are some of the insights given by each panelist:
- Avid Larizadeh – now founder of Boticca
“Angels are often the best alternative to early stage startups as they can be more active and give valuable advice. It’s very important to choose the right investor, and not just any investor.”
- Greg Marsh – now Founder of OneFineStay
“I would start looking for early stage funding with friends and family, and look for the good VCs with seed funds.”
And when asked by the audience on what is ‘a little investment’:
“It depends where you are. You can find many people in the streets of Palo Alto who will think $1M is a ‘little bit of money’ – unfortunately they’re very hard to find in Europe. In the UK a “little seed investment” will often be of around £250K. “
- Max Niederhofer – now Founder of Qwerly
“Fundraising is like dating – don’t tell investors you are looking for money, try and pretend you don’t need it.”
“Don’t create unnecessary overhead in your company so early in time – avoid VCs even with seed funds.”
Mini Seedcamp London 2010 has proven to be a very worthwhile event, especially for startups, as it brought some of the most experienced and creative web experts together to provide constructive feedback and advice to early stage businesses trying to break through. We’ll be sending announcements when the next Seedcamp event opens for applications.
Cosmo Blog Awards – Vote For Your Favourite Blogs
Cosmopolitan Magazine launched the first Cosmo Blog Award ever this year, in search of the best and “must-click” blogs on the Blogosphere. You can vote for all your favourite blogs until August 4th, across various categories, from Sex & Relationships, to Beauty, Fashion, and Gadgets. If The NextWomen is on your favourite Blogs list, visit the Cosmo Blog Awards page and nominate The NextWomen under the News & Current Affairs category.
This might be your last chance to vote for us as your favourite Blog, as we are about to launch The NextWomen online Magazine website in September 2010, meaning we will replace the blog with a full news site.
Nominations end next week on August 4th – support your favourite blogs with your votes today!
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