Women Entrepreneurs: VC Rejection Does NOT Equal Sexism

I am stating the obvious – or at least what should be obvious – that rejection by a venture capitalist does not automatically equate to sexism. However, of late, the media has started sensationalizing a lot of stories of VC rejection and transposing them as stories of sexism.

These are two different issues, and the cause-effect relationships of the two are ambiguous at best.

In some of these stories, the VCs have exhibited rather stupid behavior, no doubt. However, did they reject the deals because the entrepreneurs were women? I don’t think so. Let’s examine in a bit more detail.
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Mass Customization in Online Fashion E-Commerce: Indochino CEO Kyle Vucko (Part 1)

Mass customization has been the holy grail of fashion e-commerce for the longest time. Meet Kyle Vucko, CEO of Indochino, a men’s fashion company that has cracked the code.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?

Kyle Vucko: I grew up in Victoria. It’s a smaller town on the west coast of Canada. I ended up going to the University of Victoria where I met my good friend Heikal Gani, who is my co-founder. >>>

Top 10 Reasons Why Product Development Projects Fail

By Guest Author Steve Owens

The sole purpose of product development is to generate a positive return on investment. Consequently, it is interesting to note that more than 70% of product development projects fail to produce a positive return on investment. Product Development is risky and always requires some trial and error. However, great companies continuously improve, and product development is certainly an area where opportunities for improvement abound.  It is important to treat product development failures the same as other challenges in business. It is essential to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong and what can be done to prevent it from going wrong next time.   >>>

Mompreneurs Love To Sell Baby Products

Excerpt from my new book, From eCommerce To Web 3.0.

The e-commerce model of business allows women entrepreneurs to have greater flexibility in their lives. That is probably why we see several mompreneurs launching home-based businesses, and some of them scale to much bigger outfits. Of particular significance are mompreneurs selling baby products online. Here are three inspiring stories of mompreneurs who used their love for babies, clothes, shopping, and sharing to create successful ecommerce ventures.

Women Love To Share

Smocked Auctions sells children’s smocks and other clothing through comment-selling on Facebook. It was started by two friends and mompreneurs, Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer. They met in 2008 while trying to get back in shape after having their first children. They had a lot in common – their sons were of the same age and they soon had little girls. They became great friends and it was in the summer of 2010 while attending a sample sale in Dallas that the idea of doing business together was born.
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Entrepreneur Dysfunctions in Cartoons: Is Race An Issue?

There is a general belief in Silicon Valley that the venture industry is biased against blacks and Hispanics. This week, the media is rife with commentary such as this: Tech creating black, Hispanic underclass.
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Thought Leaders in Online Education: John Miller, Chief Operating Officer of Hands-On Learning (Part 1)

There is a huge gap between industry and academia today. Learn more about the lay of the land and identify opportunities for entrepreneurship.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with giving our audience a bit of context about Hands-On Learning (HOL). What do you do? What major online education industry trends are you aligning with?

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Sari Factor, CEO of Edgenuity (Part 1)

K-12 has been a challenge for EdTech companies to build businesses in. Typically, buying cycles tend to be very long. See where Edgenuity is getting traction, and what trends are emerging in the space.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you as well as to your company.

Sari Factor: After a short career in teaching back in 1980, I joined a company to explore technology in education. It was the first electronic publishing division of a major US publisher. I thought technology was going to change the world. I was this young green thing right out of teaching. Here I am many years later and I’m still trying to get technology to change K-12 education.

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Entrepreneur Dysfunctions in Cartoons: Age Bias

Is there an age bias in Silicon Valley? Perhaps.

It is true that all the entrepreneurs who have built major breakthrough technology companies have been very young. Apple, Microsoft, Netscape, Google, Facebook – all were founded by entrepreneurs in their twenties (or teens).

However, if you look closely, a large number of technology companies have actually been founded by entrepreneurs in their forties.

As I studied the issue, the key differentiating factor stared at me: domain knowledge.
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Entrepreneur Dysfunctions in Cartoons: Obsession with FREE

The Internet is full of people who expect that everything should be FREE. In Economics, this phenomenon is referred to as the Free Rider Problem: when people consume value without paying their fair share. Obviously, some people DO pay their fair share. This makes the ‘free riders’ take advantage of those who pay, making the whole equation unsustainable in the long run. Creating value is expensive. Capitalism assumes that value gets created with the understanding that those who consume that value are going to pay for it. If that assumption is violated, the system, eventually, collapses.
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Entrepreneur Dysfunctions in Cartoons: The Silicon Valley Party Scene

There are, really, two Silicon Valleys.

One, that has a rollicking social life, lots of parties, lots of fun.

The second, however, is a relatively tame world where entrepreneurs put their heads down and work. 16 hour days. Juggling large To Do Lists with small teams and limited resources.
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