Women 2.0 conference was “Beyond a Spark”

Last Saturday, I attended the Women 2.0 “Beyond a Spark” conference in the city of Stanford. I sat at the table with the CEO of Rapouts, a few students, and other working professionals. They kicked off the conference with a fireside chat with Rachel Payne, Founding member of Google.org. Google.org is a hybrid company (non-profit and for-profit) focused on transformative change and has three main operating arms - goal development, public health development, and climate. I’m assuming Payne worked in the goal development arm b/c she knew a lot about it. Payne says that there’s a gap between friends and family funding and VC and angel funding. Next there was a few panel of entrepreneurs. One of my favorite startups that I heard was AllVoices.com, user generated news with no filtering.  I just think it’s a great idea and the founder was so passionate about it.  Lastly, the pitch fest (hahaha play on words, get it? rhymes with “pitch fest”…) with Koollage as the final winner. I do have a few minor gripes about the event: 1) at any tech conference there is always wifi available, but not at this one (is this why techie men are better than techie women? I’m kidding, just want to create some drama), 2) it’s a shame that there was too much sunlight for us to see any slides on the projection screen (maybe someone could have printed out the slides to hand out?), 3) no goodie bag (women love goodie bags!), 4) how about some demo stations for anyone to demo? (good constellation prize for those who didn’t make the final cut), and 5) how about having a fun activity like a brainstorming session at each table (this is maybe is outside the scope of the conference, but sounds like a great way to start a spark). Beside all of those gripes, I enjoyed the conference and meeting many like-minded people. It’s great that Women 2.0 holds an annual competition that helps women “ignite the spark”. It’s a good thing.

Here are the tips all lumped together:

  • - build an inner circle
  • - share your dream
  • - confidence and energy to stand the test of time
  • - be open to inspiration
  • - open your mouth
  • - just take the first step
  • - passion
  • - focus
  • - fearless
  • - women entrepreneurs are different and it’s okay
  • - mix of values in creating a company
  • - women as target customers
  • - getting capital
  • - know audience who wants to buy
  • - why do customers want it
  • - strategic alliances
  • - let your customers be your sales team
  • - find the barrier to entry from competition
  • - one angel wouldn’t invest in an entrepreneur unless that person has already lost $500K - $1M
  • - get the right team
  • - important to get prototype out to get feedback
  • - be creative with advertising to what your customers have access to

Pitch descriptions from Women 2.0 website:

Koollage (San Francisco, CA)
One Line Pitch: A social “mini” blogging and “micro”media platform for the mobile generation.

Gaiagy (Newton Center, MA)
One Line Pitch: Distributor of integrated eco-efficiency products, offering a personalized savings calculator via social networking site applications & other channels.

Skill Shop (San Francisco, CA)
One Line Pitch: Putting the right people on the right projects shouldn’t waste time and money; let SkillShop reduce both these pain points to optimize IT resources.

WebVet (Chicago, IL)
One Line Pitch: WebMD for Pets.

Passive Devices (Denver, CO)
One Line Pitch: Maker of SnoopTunes, Passive Devices is an advertising company in the consumer electronics space specializing in portable peer to peer music sharing.