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"I must have heard the word “no” a thousand times. If you believe in your idea 100%, don’t let anyone stop you! Not being afraid to fail is a key part of the success of Spanx.” Sara Blakeley, Founder of Spanx and the youngest self-made female billionaire in history.

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All the wrong numbers

“Despite owning nearly 30% of U.S. businesses, women attract only 5% of the nation's equity capital and when it comes to first-year funding, women receive 80% less capital than men.” http://huff.to/OjCqcc 

Can Foundher change these numbers? 

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Don’t quit before the miracle. Girls on HBO

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Empowerment through content creation

User–generated content, content created through user involvement and collaboration, has emerged and proliferated in the past decade. Quora is a question and answer site powered by user–generated content and attracts 1.5 million total unique visitors, a 281.3% increase since June 2011. (http://bit.ly/MOFhtG) According to Alexa (www.alexa.com), there is an overrepresentation of males and an underrepresentation of females on the site (no further details are specified). 1:10 is the common ratio relating to online communities, which indicates one active user, a creator, for every ten lurkers, consumers. (http://bit.ly/PlS57f) As Quora does not collect data on the genders of their users, we can not confirm if that ratio embeds a further gender gap, but a quick review on Quora reveals a strong dominance in male-generated responses. Studying the motivations and implications of content creators reveal that an increase of female presence in content creation could positively impact our placement not only on Quora, but as the site increases reach, in society.   User-generated content may be motivated by personal satisfaction, enhanced skill or reputation, improved functionality for existing games or devices, community building, affiliation, games, rewards or monetary gain. (http://bit.ly/Msfoyf) Whether driven by intrinsic or extrinsic benefits, content creation ultimately provides creators with ownership and power. Through our voices, we as creators can produce great value, garner recognition and influence the thoughts of those well beyond their networks. Thus, let’s take our places, flaunt our worth, and divert women from mere content consumption to creation.

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We’re only at the beginning of what we have to do here. Bill Gates

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Five things I learned from Smash Summit

1. Know when to spend: 

Small tokens of appreciation can cost less than customer acquisition costs. (Talk by Jeff Lawson, CEO, Twilio

Only 20% should spend on Search Engine Marketing. (David Rodnitzky, CEO & Founder, PPC Associates)

Daily worth has found 50-75% of their customers through paid acquisition and only 3% through social media.

2. Cold contacting is underrated: 

BirchBox aligned their first brands through cold emails to various CEOs.

Daily Worth's Amanda Steinberg got through to her mentor through a cold call (although not initially successful).

.CO internet cold called Angellist and other companies to be their early influencers. 

3. Avoid selling:

First contact should not be selling your product. Build trust and relationships and have customers come to you. (Talk by David Skok, General Partner, Matrix Partners

Make content, not commercials. Etsy does a good job of using their videos to promote artists rather than their products. (Talk by Dror Shimshowitz, Head of Product - Creators & Curators, YouTube)

Consumers placing a pricing ribbon on a pin will get higher engagement but a brand doing so cuts user engagement by half. Whole Foods promotes healthy eating but not their products! (Talk by Ari Lewine, Co-Founder, TripleLift)

4. Leverage Youtube, Pinterest, and Twitter:

Youtube videos offer awareness, an accurate representation of your brand (as opposed to journalists), and helps convey authenticity, as in the instance of crowd funding. If you don't want to create your own videos, try partnering with vloggers or curating various videos that surround your brand.

Warby Parker uses twitter for customer service, video replies, contests, promoted tweets and post-purchase sharing. Twitter is invaluable for their conversions and referrals.

Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Twitter: Drives ~3.6% of all referral traffic. (Talk from Ari Lewine, Co-Founder, TripleLift)

5. Strategy is unique to each business:

Different channels work well for different types of businesses. Mommy blogs, PR teams, SMS short codes, paid acquisition, sponsored stories, lead generation, the list is endless. Create a presence on various networks, test, experiment, and let the results shape your strategy. Pay attention to analyses and details as little tweaks can create huge impact.

Although I was half-numb by the end of the summit (so cold in there!), I can't wait to see what next year's summit has in store. Hopefully some of this information is as useful to you as it is to me!

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And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk more. Erica Jong

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The Pros and Cons of Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a new concept and while it seems like a no-risk way to raise donations, there’s much more to it than what meets the eye. Compared to other funding alternatives, here is how crowdfunding’s pros and cons stack up: PROS: 1. You maintain control of your company. No equity to give away, no investors to report to. 2. An organized method to receive capital from your friends, families and fans. It is much easier to spread the word via the built-in social networking tools, track your progress and most importantly, thank/reward your donors. 3. Garner attention to your project and attract an audience you never might have otherwise. Have strangers find you and become new funders and potential customers. 4. Validate your idea. Although a large percentage of your funds raised may come from your friends and family, unlimited fund caps and open forums allow for honest feedback and a glimpse of your market potential. 5. Attainable goal. Anyone can crowdfund. You only need an idea, passion and dedication, along with inspiring words, pictures, and/or a video to move a crowd. In most cases, posting projects are free and founders are only charged if they raise their full fund within their time limit. Here’s an inspiring story of a once homeless man who is harnessing the power of the crowd to turn his life around: http://mashable.com/2012/07/23/homeless-musician-kickstarter-album/ 6. Forgo alternative fundraising. Banks may have preventative regulations and restrictions while standing in front of institutional investors is intimidating, time-consuming, and rarely successful. The internet allows access, indirect contact and is awake 24/7. CONS: 1. Creating a meaningful campaign is no simple task. Projecting finance, creating a video, writing clear but entertaining descriptions and updates, creating rewards, and answering questions-- these are not tasks that one is usually accustomed to. You may need to enlist the help of your friends or even outsource for a small fee to perfect your campaign and have it stand out amongst the hundreds of others projects created daily. 2. Rewards. Although this is a big part of the campaign, it’s so big I need to list it separately. You need to choose enticing but practical rewards, allocate a budget for them, create, sort and distribute them. Founders may run out of inventory, send their rewards out too late, or realize their reward budget was a quarter of the actual amount needed. But hey, nothing in this world is free and how better to celebrate a fund raised than by sending out rewards to your donors? 3. If you’re lucky, you’ll post your project and strangers will swoon to your page, dying to donate. But in other (most) cases, projects raise funds through their friends and family. Be it by email, social media, or some other creative outlet, you need to spread the word and ensure it keeps spreading. 4. You don’t get the expertise/network of institutional investors. Founders often choose to raise capital from investors not only for the money, but for their expertise and network in an industry. As they have invested in a product/service/company, they are more likely to do what’s in their power to ensure success. So there’s my account of the pros and cons of crowdfunding. If you are looking to fund a project and crowdfunding sounds right for you, Foundher (mytechletter.com/foundher) will be going live in two months and we are looking for our first posters! If you are still hesitant and have any questions, feel free to email me at foundherbeta@gmail.com!

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Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be. Elizabeth Gilbert

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The need for Foundher

Foundher is a crowdfunding platform to for female-founded projects, with the ultimate goal of encouraging female entrepreneurship. Crowdfunding, the process in which a fund is collectively raised from the public, has been an exploding phenomenon due to the media attention of various successful campaigns, implementation of the JOBS Act and the resulting proliferation of crowdfunding platforms. The rising inability for individuals, especially women, to access capital dismisses vast opportunity and potential. As crowdfunding serves to fill this large financing gap and is a viable alternative to loans, angel finance, and venture capital, it certainly seems to deserve the attention it’s garnered. However, because there already exists an array of established crowdfunding platforms, you may be wondering why Foundher aims to be, yet another platform. The initial thought of competing with Kickstarter, Indiegogo, and the like is daunting to say at the least. This post seeks to reveal our decision-making and justification process, included with hard facts that will hopefully resonate with you and provide insight on the necessity of this site. Following are the revelations have ultimately intertwined to shape and differentiate Foundher. What’s missing in other sites:

Women Psychology: Women have similar biological and social responsibilities that position us to understand and empathize with one another. Thus, it makes perfect sense that we’d have overlapping wants and needs, and could utilize ‘women psychology’ to offer products and services to those who hold 85% of consumer purchasing power: women. Varietal Categories: There are platforms for the creative, independent artists, science, education, non-profit, books, mobile apps, television, and the list goes on. But there is not one for categories especially pertinent to women! How cool would it be to find assorted projects suited to your interests! Art, food, fashion, fitness, pets, motherhood and weddings, are personally at the top of my list, but as time progresses, we will hopefully curate what all of you lovely ladies are looking for. Heart and Soul: Sometimes, I want to know more than what a product is about. I care more about the means to an end than the end itself. Because that’s what tells a story, and stories move me. Thus, Foundher wants to put a visible face, name and history behind each project. Marketing Strategy: I know women of different ages in industries ranging from Medicine to Law to Fashion to Religion. Yet, not one has heard of Kickstarter or crowdfunding! From aspiring entrepreneurs to career changers to stay-at-home moms, imagine how many lives we can change by reaching a larger demographic. Through guerilla marketing and infiltration of as many women networks possible, we will strategize to educate a new means of access to capital beyond the socially connected and technologically savvy. That is a whole lot of untapped population and talent. A Network: Thankfully, we are building Foundher out of a women’s business accelerator. This means we have access to a wide network of women and organizations who already care. We all share the common goal of helping women succeed and each fill an important role in doing so. Higher potential to go viral: According to a mashable article released earlier this year, “About 57% of Facebook and 59% of Twitter users are women... Pinterest has the heaviest gender imbalance — 82% of users are women.” This domination in social media will give Foundher an edge as crowdfunding stimulates the entrepreneur to strongly leverage his or her social networks to interact with the crowd. Higher probability of an overall success rate: Women are more risk-averse than men. Contrary to its implications though, being conservative when taking risks can help entrepreneurs as demonstrated in a recent survey conducted by the Hartford Financial Services Group. Hartford’s Janice Co states “as women realize they’ve built successful businesses, they tend to sharpen their focus on protecting their accomplishments against future uncertainty.” Further, women are more likely to invest in their community, and thus projects may reach higher levels of funding on Foundher than on other crowdfunding platforms. The overarching economic implication: Funding women will fuel the economy. The biggest and baddest reason for Foundher: Funding women -> New Jobs-> More income -> More spending -> Growth of overall economy. As the average American woman is expected to earn more than the average American male by 2028 and already makes 85% of all consumer purchasing decisions, just think of us as fuel to the fire. And that concludes our long list of reasons for creating Foundher. If you see our vision, and want to be part of change, join our movement at www.foundher.co. Receive or give, speak or listen, find or be found, let's all show the world how influential and promising woman can be.

Sources:

The Economics of Small Business: An International Perspective By: Giorgio Calcagnini

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/01/24/the-top-30-stats-you-need-to-know-when-marketing-to-women/ http://mashable.com/2012/03/09/social-media-demographics/ http://we-initiative.com/2012/06/being-more-risk-averse-makes-women-business-owners-feel-more-successful-than-their-male-counterparts/ http://ir.thehartford.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=661465

http://philanthropy.com/article/Most-Women-Give-More-Than-Men/125035/

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My best successes came on the heels of failures. Barbara Corcoran

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Foundher is born (the long version)

I found my first business, a mobile loyalty program, when I was 22. With no experience as an entrepreneur, much less a technology entrepreneur, many, many things went wrong. The team progressively clashed, competitors grew, and funds ran dry, ultimately leading to the business’ demise just one year later. With much embarassment and no savings, I finally gave into my parents’ 5-years long request to take the LSAT in preparation for law school. Obviously, I wasn’t going along with it without a plan of action-- I’d brainstormed various possibilities on how to eventually mesh the law profession and the booming NY tech startup scene.   While looking for a legal internship during this summer before the next round of law school applications, Deborah Jackson, a truly inspirational mentor I met earlier this year, approached me regarding an opportunity to help her at Jumpthru (her company) with Plum Alley, an e-commerce site to launch Fall 2012. Secretly ecstatic but apprehensive that I’d waver on my difficult decision to apply to law school, I agreed under the condition that she’d introduce me to some of the legal aspects of her site and connect me with lawyers in the start-up world who could provide insight on their careers. To briefly summarize, Deborah’s mission is to empower and support female-founded companies, and she builds amazing products and businesses around this mission. On my first day at Jumpthru (which was so uplifting as I hadn’t been in an office atmosphere in over a year), Deborah gave me a long contract to read over. I remember glancing at it and wanting to cry. That was such a brief, yet powerful moment as I knew where my heart belonged, and it certainly wasn’t in law. After a week of sorting out various roles and where I could contribute, Deborah looked at me out of the blue and said, “Don’t you think there should be a female Kickstarter? I really wish someone would build one.” I nodded, nervously glancing around to see team Jumpthru collectively looking at me, and Foundher was born.   Since that day, Min, a Jumpthru intern has been furiously teaching herself HTML, CSS and PHP to build Foundher on Wordpress. Jumpthru brainstorm sessions and Deborah’s guidance have further helped lead to a functional website and although we still have ways to go before we can test it with the public, it’s mind-blowing what becomes possible with a healthy blend of support, passion and persistence. I know they say the third time’s the charm, but I sure hope this time around, ‘second’ will do.