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Where are all the Women Continued - Resource List
7/28/2010

Resources for Women Entrepreneurs

There are a slew of resources out there to help women entrepreneurs. By no means do I suggest that women entrepreneurs restrict themselves to ONLY looking to women friendly resources, but they are certainly worth a look. Here are a few.

 

Women Friendly Investors

•    Golden Seeds an angel investor group based in Connecticut, and locations in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and San Francisco  that invests exclusively in women-led firms.
•    Illuminate Ventures VC firm founded by Cynthia Padnos focused on early-stage, high-tech investing, with a special interest in supporting women in business.
•    Sophia Angel Fund Women-led angel investment group based in MN that is focused on companies that are owned, led, or operated by women and businesses with products or services benefiting women.
•    Women’s Angels LLC Based in Miami, Florida (with sister chapters around the United States). Comprised of a group of qualified women investors who invest only in majority women-owned companies.
•    Fund Isabella VC firm that focuses on early stage, women-led companies or those operating in the women's market.

 

Boston Networking Groups

•    SheEOs Boston networking group for women founders and CEOs of growth oriented companies of any stage. Organized by Bettina Hein of Pixability, the SheEOs meet the last Wednesday of every month.  As a regular at these meetings, I can personally attest to how incredibly valuable and supportive this amazing group of women are.  Great mix of repeat entrepreneurs and newbies including Jules Pieri of DailyGrommet and Robin Chase of ZipCar. Women interested in joining the group can email here:  info@SheEOs.org
•    Ladies Who Launch Online and offline social network that provides opportunities for women to move their businesses and personal goals forward and whose mission is to make entrepreneurship accessible to every woman. I’ve heard they are a great resource.
•    Boston WomenPreneur Recently launched blog that spotlights women in Boston and Cambridge who are making things happen. I just came across this blog the other day and am already a fan.
•    Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE) Non-profit organization dedicated to helping women start and grow their own businesses. Provides training and resources for new and established entrepreneurs. I’ve only been to one event of theirs (Coffee and Capital event with Golden Seeds sometime back), but I found it very helpful.
•    Downtown Women’s Club Online social network and in-person community designed for smart and sophisticated businesswomen on the go. Their mission is to empower women through access to information and opportunities for collaboration. I’ve heard great things about this group of women.
•    The Commonwealth Institute Non-profit organizion developed to help women entrepreneurs, CEOs and senior corporate executives build successful businesses. I’m not a member but my mentor has invited me to a few of their events and they were quite interesting.
•    Center for Women's Leadership at Babson (CWL) Dedicated to the advancement of women in business. Through education, outreach activities, and research CWL enables the professional accomplishment of women and the success of organizations seeking to leverage their talent and market. Hosts an annual Women's Leadership Conference. Lots of interesting research on how women bring value on their site.

 

What do you think? What can we do to attract more women entrepreneurs to MassChallenge next year? What other resources are out there that support women leaders in Massachusetts? Add your ideas and links to the comments below.

 

About Monika Desai
Monika the co-founder and CEO of Open Runway, a social commerce platform that empowers shoppers and emerging designers to create and shop for women’s fashion (starting with shoes) through customization and community-voted design contests. Monika is a MassChallenge finalist in the 2010 competition. Monika is always looking to meet like-minded entrepreneurs. You can tweet her @monikaadesai or email her at monika@openrunway.com.
 

 

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Monika Desai from Open Runway (A MassChallenge Finalist) on Where are all the Women?
7/27/2010

Here’s the Challenge, Here’s the Pitches, Open the Door…where are all the Women?

As an entrepreneur launching my first startup, I rarely think about the fact that I am a woman but it’s hard not to notice when I am usually one of just a handful of women in the room at most of the entrepreneurial events I go to. Take for instance, WebInno. It always seems like 80% of the attendees are men and only 20% are women. There are even less women who are actually up there demoing their companies.

It’s not just Boston. I noticed the same 20% trend as a participant of the First Growth Venture Network, a mentorship program for high potential tech based startups in NYC. Of the 14 startups participating in the program only 3 of them had female founders.  

That’s why it didn’t surprise me to learn that of the 425 applicants who applied to MassChallenge, only 18% were female. Because there were so few female entrants, only 15 of the 110 finalists are woman (see list of female finalists here). For those of you keeping track that’s 13%!

After learning that I was one of only a handful of women founders that applied to MassChallenge, I started wondering if the trend I was seeing was indicative of the rest of the nation.  A quick search revealed that it is: only about 20 percent of U.S. companies with $1 million or more in revenue are women-owned.

Why are there no Women?

I wanted to understand why there are so few women entrepreneurs starting high potential, high growth companies so I embarked on some research. While I came across several theories, I came to the conclusion that there are 2 main factors: 1) lack of access to capital and 2) few role models.

Less Access to Capital: According to the Center for Women’s Business Research, data shows that while about 41 percent of private companies in the U.S. are owned by women, only 3 percent to 5 percent of them get venture capital. The US Global Entrepreneurship Monitor says that women start ventures with eight times less funding than their male counterparts. I thought perhaps women were simply not seeking capital but then I saw this stat: women-owned businesses accounted for 21 percent of the entrepreneurs that sought angel-investment capital in 2009, but only 9.4 percent of those females were successful in their quest, according to a report published by Jeffrey Sohl, director of the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire.

While there are several reasons why women have less access to capital, one factor is the scarcity of female venture capitalists. A quick look on TheFunded revealed that only 3 of the 95 venture capitalists on the 7/19 list of “Top VCs” were women.  Research shows that having female VCs does have an impact on women getting funded. According to Cindy Padnos of Illuminate Ventures, a venture capitalist, firms with at least one woman partner are 70 percent more likely to lead investments in a woman-run company than a VC firm with all male partners. 

Few role models: How many women can you name that have founded companies that have become household names? I don’t know about you, but I can count them on one hand.  In the tech space, at the highest level in the biggest companies, we have a handful of role models: Meg Whitman (eBay), Carly Fiorina (HP), Carol Bartz (AutoCad, Yahoo!), Marissa Mayer (Google) – great women, great leaders, instrumental in their company’s success but they didn’t found these companies. Women need more examples of women who have founded and led high impact companies to inspire them to build high growth companies.

Women Build Great Companies

So why do we need more women entrepreneurs anyway? The bottom line is that women led ventures ROCK. Here are a few interesting stats that show why:

•    Women are more Capital Efficient: Venture backed companies run by women have 12% higher annual revenues than those run by men using on average one-third less committed capital according to a study by British researcher, Library House.
•    Women create more Jobs: A Babson College study found that if female entrepreneurs started with the same capital as their male counterparts, they would add 6 million jobs to the economy in 5 years – 2 million in the first year alone.
•    Women do more with Less: Venture-backed start-ups run by women use, on average, 40 percent less capital than start-ups run by men and are increasingly involved in successful initial public offerings of stock, according to a recent white paper by Illuminate Ventures.
•    Women Fail Less often than Men: Despite having less capital, women-owned businesses are more likely to survive the transition from start-up stage to established company (Illuminate Ventures)

A New Wave

All that said, I do think we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift. A new wave of women entrepreneurs are quickly leveraging existing technologies to create new business models online that are disrupting industries. GILT founded by Alexis Maybank  & Alexandra Wilkis Wilison is a perfect example of this. GILT is one of the fastest growing companies in e-commerce history, and has made Flash Sales a household word. There are hundreds of competitors both in the US and worldwide that are all trying to capture the GILT magic for every conceivable niche.

Caterina Fake (Flickr, Hunch) is another favorite of mine. Flickr, the company that she co-founded completely disrupted online photo sharing, people’s perception of content sharing, and showed the hundreds of companies that followed that the freemium model can create a self-sustaining and capital efficient business. She’s now moving on to her second, big endeavor, Hunch, and has teamed up with some top tier investors and advisors.

These women and others, who are creating disruptive companies, and having successful exits are laying the foundations of a new generation of role models, and are tearing down the barriers that might keep women from embarking on building high growth, high return companies.

Look out world, here we come!

 

 

By: Monika Desai

 

About Monika Desai
Monika the co-founder and CEO of Open Runway, a social commerce platform that empowers shoppers and emerging designers to create and shop for women’s fashion (starting with shoes) through customization and community-voted design contests. Monika is a MassChallenge finalist in the 2010 competition. Monika is always looking to meet like-minded entrepreneurs. You can tweet her @monikaadesai or email her at monika@openrunway.com.
 

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Full List of 110 Finalists
7/23/2010

Top 110 Finalists are (in alphabetical order):

1. 3PlayMedia

2. 7Solar Technologies, Inc.

3. Abroad101

4. Altaeros Energies-Airborne Wind Turbine

5. Architexa

6. Aukera Therapeutics, Inc.

7. AutoMob

8. Axios Biosciences

9. Back In Focus

10. Bank Depot Corp

11. Cadio, Inc.

12. Clean Energy Innovations

13. Chromatan

14. Day 2 Night Convertible High Heels Shoes

15. Diagnostics For All

16. Drop the Chalk

17. Embed.ly, Inc.

18. Emergent Energy

19. Energesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

20. Enertaq

21. Evolve Foods, Inc.

22. Extend Biosciences

23. Fenugreen

24. EveryFit (formerly FitFriends)

25. FiVi.com

26. FloDesign Sonics

27. Fluorescent Nanoscope

28. g2g Connect

29. GentleMed

30. Gramify

31. greenbean recycle

32. HanGenix

33. HomeHubBub

34. Honor Our Troops Inc.

35. HuddleHub, Inc.

36. hydroGEN Technologies

37. ImBed BioSciences

38. Infrared5

39. inStream Media

40. Invizual

41. JoyTunes

42. jumpFare

43. Kigo Kitchen

44. Ksplice, Inc.

45. Leiva Strings Inc.

46. LiveProud Group

47. Localocracy

48. Localytics

49. Loudcaster

50. Meet Impact

51. Mobile Guide (tentative name)

52. Mogoterra, Inc.

53. My Life List LLC

54. My Paperless Bill

55. MySuperMe

56. Nairobi Capital, Inc.

57. Nanolab

58. Naughty Nutritionist

59. Netblazer

60. NetVirta, LLC

61. Neumitra

62. NeuroScouting

63. Niize

64. NodeRabbit

65. Novophage, Inc.

66. Open Runway, Inc.

67. Orthogonal Inc

68. OsComp Systems

69. OsmoPure

70. PCCA Technologies, Inc.

71. Pearl’s Premium, Inc.

72. peerTransfer

73. PerfectSight Opticals

74. Primus

75. Privo Technologies

76. Project Jarvis

77. Proximity Health Solutions

78. Pushpins

79. Rally Point Webinars, LLC

80. Rate It Green

81. Relay Technology Management, Inc.

82. RelayRides

83. Remcor

84. Rentabiltiies

85. Rentcycle

86. Resolute Marine Energy, Inc.

87. Samanta Shoes

88. Savinz

89. Schedulist.com

90. ScholarPro Inc.

91. Seeding Labs

92. signedOn Inc.

93. Silicon Solar Solutions

94. SkinnyTrip

95. Solar Engineering Solutions Inc.

96. SolSolution, Inc.

97. Sproxil

98. Starching

99. StorageByMail.com

100. Stromatec LLC

101. Symmetric Computing, Inc.

102. Take on Life

103. TaskPoint

104. Teleos Solar

105. ThinkLite

106. Trace Bio Analytics

107. ViThera Laboratories

108. Wheel Watcher Inc.

109. Zazu

110. Zyrra

Congrats again to our 110 finalists! To all the semi-finalists: we wish we had room for all of you. Thank you to all of our 150+ judges over two rounds. The judges clearly had some hard choices to make and they are fully confident that all of you have the potential to be successful. Here's to another new beginning. We're excited for all of our new teams to move into our space. Gearing up for orientation on August 2nd. Stay tuned...

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MassChallenge Finalists Announced today - Press Release from event
7/22/2010

 

MassChallenge Announces Competition Finalists

110 entrepreneurs enter the final stretch of the world’s largest global startup competition, vying for their share of a $1 million prize pool for the most innovative, high-growth startups

 

Boston, MA – July 22, 2010 – Today, Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Gregory Bialecki joined John Harthorne, David Constantine and Akhil Nigam, the founders of MassChallenge, and MassChallenge sponsor Ken Morse, Founding Managing Director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center, to announce the 110 finalists in the world's largest global startup competition. The competition was designed to accelerate the development and success of high-growth, high-impact new businesses, while stimulating job creation across the Commonwealth and beyond. These finalists now enter the accelerator phase of the competition and in mid-October an expert panel will identify the winners of $1 million in prize money.

"We're thrilled to be reaching this critical stage of our pilot competition," said John Harthorne, CEO and founder of MassChallenge and a 2007 MIT $100K Business Plan Competition winner. "MassChallenge is a collaborative effort involving dozens of organizations all committed to igniting a global, startup renaissance and helping entrepreneurs win. The results of our competition will be immediate and far-reaching."

An initial group of 440 entrants from 26 countries and 24 states began the competition in April. An initial round of judging reduced the group to 300 semi-finalists, who recently completed in-person pitches to a large group of professional judges. This pool of semi-finalists, from which the 110 were chosen, are some of the brightest entrepreneurs in the world, working on an incredibly diverse spectrum of fascinating and innovative business ideas. These range from technology and media to life sciences, manufacturing and environmental efforts. The MassChallenge winners have the potential to go on to become some of the most exciting new companies the business world will ever see.

"What's exciting about MassChallenge is that it has attracted some of the most talented, exciting and innovative entrepreneurs to Boston," said Mayor Menino. "With the Innovation District we are creating a modern hub of knowledge, creativity and inspiration along Boston's Waterfront; a place where businesses can bring their most inventive new ideas to develop and thrive."

Of the 110 finalists announced today, 108 are from the US, one is from Russia and one is from Israel. 78% of the finalists are from Massachusetts, 84% are from New England, with others from various states across the country. 14.6% are in the Energy and Clean Technology industries, 46.4% are High Tech, 19.1% are in Life Sciences and Healthcare, 8.2% are Social Impact companies, with the final 11.8% from general business categories.

The final group of entrepreneur teams will work from ONE Marina Park Drive at Fan Pier on Boston's new waterfront to maximize networking and mentorship opportunities during the intensive three-month accelerator phase of the competition. During this phase, MassChallenge sponsors, partners and supporters will provide one-on-one mentoring and free resources, strategic advice, and targeted introductions to potential customers and funding sources as the finalists work towards winning the competition. Ultimately, between 10 and 20 winners will receive cash awards of $50,000 to $100,000 toward launching their high-impact businesses. These MassChallenge grants will be awarded to winners in October 2010.

With Fan Pier’s proximity to downtown Boston, Cambridge and the surrounding communities that are home to local innovation and corporate visionaries, it was a natural fit for MassChallenge to have their home base at Fan Pier. "Our new office building - ONE Marina Park Drive - is the perfect backdrop to host this global program and our amenities at Fan Pier will benefit everyone during their experience with MassChallenge," said Joe Fallon, President and CEO of The Fallon Company. "The elements that foster entrepreneurship are definitely all right here."

The State of Massachusetts pledged $500,000 through the collaboration of various aligned quasi-governmental organizations dedicated to bolstering entrepreneurship and innovation to help launch MassChallenge and keep the competition local, while helping to extend its reach world-wide. Additional funding and support was secured from multiple sponsors including Microsoft, the Winvest Group, the Deshpande Foundation, Mass Tech Collaborative, The Fallon Company and The Blackstone Charitable Foundation.

“These MassChallenge finalists further demonstrate the Commonwealth’s ability to ignite and excite the entrepreneurial spirit at an international level,  said Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki. “This competition will further ignite entrepreneurial activity in Massachusetts, create long term, sustainable jobs, and move the state’s innovation economy forward.”

 

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