Sophia Perl of Wisdom

Calling online fashionistas at Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner #6

One of my other favorite organizations in the bay area is Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner (I’ll call it baggd for the sake of laziness).  A few weeks ago, I attended baggd #6 at the Computer History Museum hosted by Polyvore, an online fashion dressing room where you create clothing sets and share them.  This was my 2nd baggd event.  It’s so interesting to see the type of women who attend these events based on the topic du jour (or topic du event?).  I can definitely tell you that there were a bunch of stylish women, but not so sure how many of them were geeks.  So I am a geek and I love fashion so this event was a perfect match for me.

The evening started off with some nibbles and drinks.  Then they had a 4-5 person panel about online fashion.  The food was good, but it was gone soon after I arrived.   Women love to eat.  They also had a fun photo booth with props in the lobby.  This is the second time that I’ve seen a photo booth at an event.  It’s becoming quite popular.

Now the panel, it was okay.  It went a little long and  the focus more on fashion than on geeky topics.  It would have been good to get a balance of the two topics.  The CEO of Polyvore did the moderation with folks from Polyvore (of course), Chictopia, Moxie, and eBay.

I did ask two questions: 1) since this is girl geek dinner, who makes the technical decisions at your company? and 2) are you profitable?  I didn’t get a straight answer, but eBay said that a woman (not her) makes the technical decisions.  Yeah!  For the profitable one, the Polyvore CEO said that they are and commented by saying profitability is not a good measure of success.  Not sure why she said that because I did not infer that profitability a success factor or even the only success factor.  Hmm…  The CEO said that she didn’t want to be profitable so early in the company.  If she thinks profitability is a bad thing, then someone should let her investors know to pull the plug.  Hahaha.

My notes from the panel discussion:

• soft goods like fashion, jewelry is surpassing hard goods like tech, soft goods make up a small percentage of spend (eBay)
• users influence what designers they carry (Moxie)
• luxury brands want to control messaging like Twitter (Moxie)
• brands with prominent face for the brand like DVF (Diane Von Furstenberg) can leverage Twitter a lot better (Polyvore)
• luxury brands fear loss of control in the internet space (eBay)
• we use Ruby on rails, focus on core set of features/functions, get feedback from influencers to shape the product (Chictopia)
• eBay is good at search, need to be sure that users can find items, how can a user find more things to buy, leveraging image search to find products, open up the minds of users, users do 80% search 20% browse (eBay)
• start social media in public relations, don’t ignore social media (Moxie)

Aside from the event agenda, I really enjoyed networking with new and old friends.  You can count on baggd events to give you that opportunity.

Top postings in the last week

For the last week, these postings were the most popular.  I added a few comments not found in the original postings.

• Tony Hsieh’s “Delivering Happiness” book - people love giveaways, what can I say.  an idea from the book that I’d implement is the idea of having mini-promotions instead of a long time period for  promotions.  the idea gives employees the feeling of progress.
• Women 2.0 Angel Investor Round Table - Be open to feedback but don’t let it deter you.  Do you think investors would like the idea of facebook or foursquare without seeing the users?  I think not.  Build it, show results, and the people will believe.  If you have nothing built, then treat the feedback with a grain of salt.  Who knows if your idea will catch like wildfire.
• Jennifer Convertibles lacks customer service - would you believe that this posting is very popular?  apparently JC doesn’t have many happy customers.  I suggest that someone from their PR team does some online damage control.  do a google search and you’ll see why.
• So you wanna pay someone to create an iPhone app? - lots of interest in iPhone apps,
• Startup Weekend makes a pitstop in San Jose - there was an associated press article on startup weekend in NYC.  awesome press for the SW team, but we all know that Silicon Valley is still the best place to start up.  one thing to comment, the SW coordinator for San Jose said the true test is whether you are still working on the idea 6 months later.  good challenge!
• Chic Meets Geek V1.3 entertains - You can see more pictures on their facebook page.
• Partying with (PR2) Robots at Willow Garage - Nothing much to say here.  The best parties are with robots.
• Willow Garage launches PR2 Robot Beta Program - ditto.
• Use Zilox.com to rent out your goods - this is an old posting and not sure why it’s showing up.  could it be the green thing kicking in or the bad economy?  why rent when you can buy cheap on craigslist?
• Tips for shameless networking - my personal favorite, if anyone has done of these things, let me know if they worked.  I’d like to add, if your boss asks you to join her, get coffee or lunch for the 2nd time that day.

Women 2.0 Angel Investor Round Table

One of my favorite organizations in the area is Women 2.0.  I do my best to support the organization because I believe in their mission of helping women entrepreneurs to start up.  A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Women 2.0 Angel Investor and Entrepreneur Round Table in San Francisco.  There were 4 angel investors ready to share their thoughts and feedback on people’s ideas and business models.  You can find the bios of the angels here.

My notes:

• show repeat visitors to your website
• make sure investor understands your business
• need to be able to answer questions quickly otherwise it appears you don’t know the space
• can you convince someone on the phone to have a follow-up meeting with you?
• describe a type of customer, who would pay for this?
• angels try to find a reason to say no
• you need money when people will no longer work for free
• don’t raise money that you don’t need, it takes time to raise and you get stuck with a valuation
• if you want millions of dollars, you need more operational skills to grow the team
• top-down market numbers could work if you can make it relevant to your business
• if someone steals your idea, it’s good, go to someone else and say that you’re the one with the vision
• if you can explain it to non-techie people, that’s good
• find companies in your space and go after their investors
• get someone to give you an intro to an investor, cold calling/emailing doesn’t work
• what prevents a competitor from going into your space?

Some business ideas that were shared include connecting scientific experts with people looking to contract expertise, improve retaining knowledge and deliver education through the phone, and end-to-end vertical ad network.  One woman flew from NYC just for the event, well it gave her a reason to visit her friends out west too.

My conclusion, angels want to see some family and friends investing and money making now whereas VCs could invest in an idea with huge potential payout.  Whether you have an idea or not, it is always educational to hear what someone has to say about different ideas.

Tony Hsieh’s “Delivering Happiness” book giveaway

This week is the launch week of Tony Hsieh’s new book, “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose“.  For those of you who are not familiar with Tony Hsieh, he is the CEO and investor in Zappos.com, an online shoe retailer that just got acquired by Amazon.com for over a $1B.

The book goes over his early upbringing and introduction to Zappos.com, how he and others kept the company afloat during trying times, then how they sustained and grew the performance of the company.  At first, the book reads a bit slow, but started to become more interesting as it got into the Zappos.com story.

My highlights:

• Tony likes poker and raves
• Find a market that’s huge and figure out how relevant it is to your company (e.g., 10% of online goods sold were shoes)
• If shipping was a core function, vendor relationships and location of goods (e.g., east coast warehouse in addition to west coast location) were important, don’t outsource your core
• Every interaction with the customer is your chance to do good marketing/PR
• Core values come from the employees and make it part of the culture
• People work harder when they are happy because they care
• Very open communication with employees is a good thing, Zappos had Q&A with their employees often

When I think about delivering happiness in general, I think about how employees need to feel happy as well as customers.  You can’t have one or the other.  For instance, how often do companies ask their employees, “besides compensation, what would make you happy working here?”  If someone asked me that, I would say free tissue boxes, a big flat monitor, and business cards.  Something so simple.  I’m just saying.

Alright, so I just happen to have one extra book to give out to the my blog readers.  I will personally mail it out to you.  The first person to tell me via my blog comments 1) Where did Tony Hsieh go to undergraduate school? 2) What is your favorite SophiaPerl.com blog post and why?  Good luck!  Note: You will not see all the comments until I process them.  This helps prevent comment spammers.

Please note that I received two free books (one for me, one to giveaway) as part of the book’s blogger program.  I have been asked to write an honest review during the week of the launch.

Chic Meets Geek V1.3 entertains

If you don’t know what Chic Meets Geek (CMG) events are all about here is my interpretation.  Imagine an event where geek culture (not just tech either) is melded with pop/fashion culture (hence the chic part).  Well that’s Chic Meets Geek.  I sort of think of it as a renaissance approach of bridging the two worlds.  Carol Tran, founder, has a pretty melded background herself - legal, theatre, neuroscience, and business.  I wonder who she modeled the idea from, hmm…  I will say that Carol is in the know and one to follow.  Attendees from all walks of life somehow knew Carol in one way or another.  I was impressed at who she had in her network.

OK about the events.  I had heard about the CMG events, but just hadn’t had the chance to attend.  At first glance, the ticket prices throw you off (e.g., $65 regular ticket), but if you read the details you’re actually getting a lot.  For instance, drinks and nibbles for the whole night and for some early birds, a schwag bag.  So try it once and see for yourself.

On a Thursday, the third Chic Meets Geek event was held at Automatic Lounge at Pier 38 in San Francisco.  I attended the VIP hour where I was treated well like a VIP.  I got first dibs on food and drinks and started off my networking with elbow room, a good perk.  The agenda included a violinist, a panel of geeky women and chic men,  a fashion show, and a raffle.  There is also a non-profit element to all events.  At this particular one, there was a silent auction with 100% proceeds going to Glide, a local SF charity.

DId I mention the event was streamed live?  You missed your chance to attend virtually, but I can help.  Here is my virtual layout of the event for you.  You walk in and on the right you’ll find Mighty Leaf Tea tea sandwiches, Socola bacon chocolate truffles,  Jet Cake cupcakes, and sliders from a local SF restaurant.  You will also see a photo booth from Photo Booth Royale.  BTW, I love my photo booth souvenir.  Continue into the room and on your left, you will see many kinds of cheese to taste from Marin French Cheese.  There was some soup also, but I didn’t know from where.   The bar is located in this area too.  There you have it!

My general assessment, I think that it’s a good event for sure if you enjoy good food and drinks, then it’s icing on the cake to have the cultural exposure and mingling with geeky chic people or chic-ey geek people.  It was hard for me to tell who was a true geek because of all the chic brewing in the room.  One person said that he was surprised that I coded.  Ahhh, I fooled everyone into thinking that I’m chic and not geek.  I did meet a lot of CMG virgins which tells me the event is catching on with new folks.

Here’s whom I met:

• Evangelist from Microsoft
• Hardware techie that makes wearable technology
• Buddies who I know from other startup events
• Jay Nicolas Sario,  Fashion Designer on Project Runway
• Project manager consultant
• Women 2.0 coordinator
• Sales person from an ISP company

Partying with (PR2) Robots at Willow Garage

Tonight, I attended an invite-only PR2 robot beta launch party at Willow Garage in Menlo Park.  These guys spared no expense on the party - valet parking, huge white tent, hip lounge atmosphere, catering by Le Papilion (I think), and the most luxurious port-a-potties that I’ve ever been in (yes, it’s true!).   About a couple hundred people attended (based on my visual estimation).  Willow Garage presented the PR2 robots and the selected participants for the beta program.  Eleven projects received a PR2 robot to “play with” for 2 years.

The evening began with an introduction from Steve Cousins, CEO and President.  Then he handed it off to Scott Hassan, Founder.   Scott described how robots have changed the gross world product (GWP) over time.  During his lifetime, he wants to improve the current GWP ($60 trillion) by 100 times with the help of Willow Garage robots.  A daunting task nonetheless.  He continued to elaborate about the challenges of robots.  There are 3 disciplines that must play nice together - mechanical engineering, EE, and computer science.  Scott suggested that food most often solves any conflict between the three.

Then the PR2s came out in a marching line and waved flags back in forth while in a standing position.  It was fun watching the robots, like a show at Epcot.

Some folks that I talked with during the party:

• Angie Chang, a founder of Women 2.0, was excited to see the robots in action and didn’t want to leave
• A NY Times Writer attending the party from NY as a Texai telepresence robot
• A USC PhD student who is working on getting a PR2 to be aware of its social setting.  For instance, if a robot was standing in a group of people, knowing how to square off shoulders to appear part of the group, etc
• A PhD student from Kathoieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) who was excited about being part of the uprise of the robotics industry.  In two years when he graduates, he hopes to have a promising career in robotics.
• A WG researcher, PhD in Mechnical Egnineering, demoed a PR2 charges itself by plugging itself into a wall socket
• A VP of Engineering from Fwix.com, a local news aggregator
• A person from SocialText
• A woman from Palo Alto Daily
• A Google gmail developer
• A Director of Corporate Development at EA
• A TED organizer

I would say that the party was a success.  Congratulations to Willow Garage!