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Forbes Woman: Empower Women Entrepreneurs to Grow Their Businesses
Investing in women business owners is not just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do, according to an interesting article by Forbes author Maria Pinelli. She says: “Another idea that deserves attention is empowering women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.” In the article she says that to help women-owned businesses grow and create jobs, we need to improve their access in three key areas currently not being met:
- access to capital,
- the global supply chain and
- business networks that can help them scale.
Read the full article at Forbes Woman.
Female Internet Hero: Audio Interview with Dina Kaplan of Blip.tv
As part of our Female Internet Heroes series, and in conjunction with NCWIT (the National Center for Women & Information Technology), The NextWomen will be publishing audio interviews highlighting a diverse group of women innovators from small companies, larger corporations, and non-profits, whose ideas and products are changing the way we think, work, play, and communicate. Listen as these women discuss how they first became involved with tech, why they chose to be entrepreneurs and what advice they would give to young people interested in IT or entrepreneurship.
Dina Kaplan, Co-Founder of Blip.tv
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Listen to the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Interview with Dina Kaplan. |
Dina Kaplan
Dina Kaplan is the co-founder of blip.tv, overseeing business operations for the company, including media partnerships, advertising and sponsorship deals, distribution deals, PR, marketing and investor relations.
Blip.tv is the double Webby-award winning video sharing site focused on shows. It enables independent producers to create their own TV shows for the Internet, from scripted sitcoms and dramas, to journalists covering the war in Baghdad. In writing about online video sites, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal recently wrote:
“My favorite is blip.tv.”
In 2008 Business 2.0 named blip.tv in a cover story as one of “25 start-ups to watch.”
Before blip.tv Read more
The USA Debate a Visa For Start-up Entrepreneurs
The BBC last month announced that officials in the US would welcome in the new year by looking at an overhaul of their immigration system with a particular focus on the retention of foreign entrepreneurs within the country.
According to the article and statistics from Duke University research, almost half of all people founding tech companies Stateside originated from the otherside of the pond. Whilst Silicon Valley has as a result seen the launch of many great web start-ups, due to existing visa restrictions many have had to move to other countries where they can secure a long term visa. More and more, foreign immigrants who have been educated in the American University system, are leaving and helping to grow the economies of countries such as China and India because they have failed in securing a residents visa.
The original visa established in 1990, will be refined to allow applicants that fullfil the following criteria to remain in the country: Read more
Hatchery: American Idols for Tech Startups who Want to Launch in New York
The Hatchery, American Idols for Tech Startups, came about because of the lack of an entrepreneurial hub in New York. In its mission it says the following:
One of the key reasons why Northern California is a hotbed of technology innovation and investment is that there is a culture of collaboration, even between groups that could be seen as competitors. In contrast, New York’s approach is far more ‘cut throat,’ meaning that organisations often work against each other out of habit.
Co-founder Yao-Hui Huang and CEO at GigaPIxel Creative started the Hatchery in 2007 purely for New York Startups, but has since extended its reach to international companies looking to launch in New York. This autumn, the United Kingdom Trade and Investment Agency brought 3 UK companies to the program, after a selection process where more than 50 companies applied.
When preparing for a Pitch or Speedmatching at the Hatchery, David Blumenstein, fellow co-founder has the following Hatchery 14 points and sequence:
✓ what is the name of your company
✓ what is the mission statement – one sentence Read more
Female Internet Hero: Audio Interview with Tina Sharkey of BabyCenter LLC
As part of our Female Internet Heroes series, and in conjunction with NCWIT (the National Center for Women & Information Technology), The NextWomen will be publishing audio interviews highlighting a diverse group of women innovators from small companies, larger corporations, and non-profits, whose ideas and products are changing the way we think, work, play, and communicate. Listen as these women discuss how they first became involved with tech, why they chose to be entrepreneurs and what advice they would give to young people interested in IT or entrepreneurship.
Tina Sharkey, Chairman and Global President of BabyCenter LLC
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Listen to the NCWIT Entrepreneurial Interview with Tina Sharkey. |
Tina Sharkey
Tina Sharkey has more than 20 years of experience in the evolution of new media, ranging from the introduction of HDTV in 1986 to the forefront of Web 2.0 today. She has been featured as a Top Leader in Technology by Businessweek, Fast Company, and USA Today and currently serves on the boards of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and @d:tech.
BabyCenter is the Web’s #1 global interactive parenting brand, reaching 78% of new and expecting moms online in the United States, and reaching 15 million parents monthly across 18 markets worldwide. Recognised by Advertising Age’s 2008 Digital A-List, BabyCenter is the established leader in providing mom insights and innovative interactive marketing solutions to the world’s leading brands.
Prior to joining BabyCenter, Tina worked at America Online, Inc., where she led AOL’s social networking initiatives, including the AIM (Instant Messenger) and Social Media groups. Tina also led AOL’s network programming and directed the transformation of AOL.com into an open online destination. Before AOL, she served as Group President of Sesame Workshop’s Online Services and prior as co-founder and chief community architect of iVillage.com. Prior to iVillage, Tina collaborated with Barry Diller on a new home shopping channel, Q2, a division of QVC; helped launch the Adobe Acrobat and New York 1 brands, and has managed corporate brand strategies for Time Warner, QVC and Sony.
NCWIT is the National Center for Women & Information Technology. They are a coalition of more than 170 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to increase women’s participation in information technology (IT). NCWIT was established in 2004 with startup funding from the National Science Foundation, Avaya, Microsoft, Pfizer, Bank of America, Intel, HP, the Kauffman Foundation, and Qualcomm.
Forbes Entrepreneurial Stories of Women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s
Diane Hessan, Communispace CEO
What does it take to start an egg donor company in your 20s, lead an IT business in your 30s, grow an oil products company in your 40s or reinvent yourself as head of an Internet firm in your 50s?
Forbes Magazine has just finished a series of entrepreneurial stories about women of various ages, including: Diane Hessan, Kathy Lehne, Cassandra Sanford and Julia Alkire & Stephanie Goldman. Here are the stories:
Entrepreneurial success in your 50s: Diane Hessan, president and CEO of Internet firm Communispace, creating social communities.
Entrepreneurial success in your 40s: Kathy Lehne, founder of oil products company SunCoast Resources.
Entrepreneurial success in your 30s: Cassandra Sanford, Co-founder and CEO of KellyMitchell
Entrepreneurial success in your 20s: Julia Alkire & Stephanie Goldman of Family Creations
Jules Pieri puts Products and their Stories at the heart of her Startup
Jules Pieri from jules.dailygrommet.com
Jules Pieri is founder and CEO of Daily Grommet, which connects shoppers with one unique product – a Grommet- a day by sharing the story behind its creation in a short video. Creatively, the definition of a Grommet reads as follows:
* It’s a wonderful product still waiting in the wings, just ripe for discovery.
* It has great utility, or style, or invention. Or, very often it has all three.
* It comes from a designer, or inventor, or artist, or manufacturer who is clearly passionate about what they create. Someone who loves to share their creations and talk to people about why they do what they do.
* It comes from a company that treats its customers well.
* Finally, like any intelligent or beautiful product, it has a great story, ready to be told.
Eventhough the company puts the product and the story at the core of their business, and thus says that those products, and their creators, and the people who love them (the products, that is) are the real heroes at Daily Grommet, it is Jules who came up with the refreshing concept, based on her long term expertise in strategic products development.
Jules has been building consumer brands and developing innovative products for over twenty years. She held positions in Strategic Planning at Stride Rite Corporation and in Strategic Marketing and Licensing at Keds Corporation. She also worked with Playskool as product strategy consultant, and at Design Continuum, a leading international product design and engineering consultancy. She lived in Ireland from 2001-2005, where she consulted to consumer facing enterprises. Jules’ expertise and enthusiasms span social media, retail, brand, and product strategy.
As a consumer products expert, she considers her core competency to be cultural anthropology; in other words, figuring out why people do the things they do, and making businesses and products that respond to real consumer behaviours and needs. Jules often writes about these topics on her blog, and also contributes to Intent.com, a wellness destination for capturing and sharing peoples’ intentions – personal, social, spiritual and environmental.
Jules studied Industrial Design, Graphic Design, and French at the University of Michigan, and was conferred an MBA degree by Harvard University, where she was selected by faculty members to receive the Ellis-LeBaron Fellowship. Following her blog gives you insight in the design, social media, cultural anthropology and her own start-up.
Interview: Co-founders of Meebo
Elaine Wherry, Seth Sternberg and Sandy Jen
Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen were recently selected by Fast Company as two of the most influential women in technology. In 2005 they co-founded instant messaging company Meebo (together with Seth Sternberg) which now boasts more than 40 million users. Meebo allows you to chat with friends from any location and using any IM network. In other words, an MSN user can talk directly to a Myspace IM user.
What are your backgrounds?
(Elaine) All three of us are connected through Stanford University. Sandy majored in Computer Science. I majored in Symbolic Systems. When we graduated, we both joined companies that focused on very large computer hardware challenges. That made it fun to think about side programming projects that tackled our individual user problems. It was one of those projects that led to Meebo.
What’s the business model for Meebo and are you in profit?
(Sandy) Currently Meebo’s business model is advertising and we’ve been ramping up that effort for the past 8 months. Our philosophy has been to treat ads as a product feature, rather than an add-on. Our ad units are designed to be fully integrated into the Meebo experience, and users have responded positively. We’re mainly focusing on high-end brand advertising and so far we’ve met with success.
How is it going with the Meebo developer platform?
(Elaine) The Meebo developer platform allows others to add features to Meebo without waiting for Meebo to build them. We are inundated with user requests and while we would love to be able to build every game that has been requested, it’s better to be open and let others innovate. And in most cases, it’s a better experience for our community. It’s also a great way for our developer community to get a large audience that might be harder to attract on a separate website.
Your partnerships with music companies like Universal are interesting. How did that come about?
(Elaine) Music labels wanted to get artists closer to fans. They also wanted to embed real time communication into their sites which drives engagement. We’ve seen on average about 20% boosts in user time spent on music when Meebo rooms (chat rooms) are adopted on sites.
Is there any advice that you wish someone had given you when you were starting the business?
(Sandy) You can’t figure everything out! Sometimes we over-analyze events, trends, or just things in general when we’re unsure of why something happened. I think as entrepreneurs, we have an itch to create something interesting and we are hungry to make it successful. Part of that is being able to fix things that are broken. But sometimes, as we’ve learned, it’s just luck, chance, or good/bad timing. It’s been an enormous amount of hard work, perserverance, good choices, bad choices, and luck too, that’s gotten Meebo to where it is today.
Was there a particular low moment that you remember in the early days?
(Sandy) I think the lowest points are when we’re struggling to create a product but we’re vastly under-resourced, which pretty much happens a lot in the start-up world I suppose 
The painful part is when you have to sacrifice development on a key feature, or cut the specifications in order to meet a deadline. It takes a lot of discipline and we’re getting much better at it. However the struggle to create a really awesome product with limited resources is always going to be a challenge.
what’s your biggest ambition for the future?
(Sandy) I think the best thing for me has been to see the people we’ve welcomed into the team take “our baby” and make it their own. Meebo’s really grown up from the little product it was almost 4 years ago, and even though the beginnings were very much rooted in Seth, Elaine, and myself, the current company and product has turned into something amazing. Meebo today has the DNA of every single member of the team in it. It really blows my mind sometimes, in a great way.
My personal ambition for the future is to be able to stop by any random town around the world, say the word “Meebo” and have their eyes light up with recognition. I think that would be an awesome thing to see.
Michelle Dewberry Launches Chiconomise
flickr: Michelle Dewberry
Founded by former Apprentice winner, Michelle Dewberry, Chiconomise has launched its site after six months as a weekly newsletter. Timed perfectly (for the consumer) with the recession, the site helps ladies economise their chic ways, and has amassed an ever increasing following of chiconomistas. Drawn to the site with the promise of finding ‘the stuff you love for less’, it acts as a platform for discounts from across the world of fashion, beauty, living, travel, lifestyle and food.
The site is a virtual treasure trove of ever changing discounts, from exclusive deals on jewellery and shoes, to 20% off Atelier Annick handbags, not to mention bargain furniture and discount flights. As well as endless deals, the site caters to every need of the fashion conscious – from news and trends to Splurge Vs Steal, where catwalk glamour can be found at high street prices – and has a great diary highlighting designer and sample sales.
Of course no site is complete without a blog these days, and theirs is cleverly written by shopping addicted, salary cut Ellie Bly – an account manager at a media company who lives in Shoreditch with her piles of unopened bank statements, a sizable debt from university, cancelled credit and a passion for shopping.
It’s difficult to pick holes at the site, after all, who doesn’t want to know where they can get a pair of discount Jimmy Choos?
Interview: Sarah Beeny of Mysinglefriend is Looking for a Modern Gentleman
Here the team behind online dating site mysinglefriend.com – Amanda Christie and serial entrepreneur Sarah Beeny of property ladder – talk to The NextWomen about their love of matchmaking, how the business is enjoying growing success and where they hope to be in the future.
Sarah Beeny and Amanda Christie
Tell me a little about mysinglefriend
mysinglefriend was created by childhood friends Amanda Christie and Sarah Beeny – Sarah, an avid matchmaker, wanted to create a way for all her single friends to meet each other virtually; Amanda, whose background was web design and development, realised that this could turn into a unique dating site. Both loved the fact that the format would lend itself to a more open and honest approach to dating and would do wonders for ditching the stigma attached to the industry. mysinglefriend is still really young, just 4 years old, but we’re already making waves in the industry – standing out for our honest and open approach.
How do you differ from other online dating sites such as Match and Toyboywarehouse?
mysinglefriend is a niche dating site unlike any other – it’s the UK’s first social dating site! Your friend has to recommend you, giving you a virtual wing man to help you along the way. Once you’re up and running members can link up with other single friends on the site; so potential love interests can see who your friends are and develop a realistic picture on what you are really like. The fact that your friend has to recommend you means that the profiles are more honest and therefore giving you a greater chance of success.
How does the site make a revenue?
It’s free to join mysinglefriend but if you’d like to take advantage of the sites functions we ask members to pay a fee; members can chose from 1 month (£18), 2 months (£27) or 3 months (£34) – this gives them mail access among some other functionality unavailable to free members. The revenue we receive is used to keep the site functioning and any profits are ploughed back into the company to continually improve and develop the site – keeping it fresh and interesting for members.
How many members does the site currently have?
We’ve attracted around 400,000 members since launch. Read more
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