The Woman's Playbook

As more women earn top-drawer degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, they’re moving full STEM ahead to leverage that knowledge with startups that break old molds and rethink business. Meet two entrepreneurs with serious tech chops — one in user experience and visual design and the other in chemical engineering. Smartly focused on niche markets, these passionate founders are outmaneuvering big industry guns by using technological tweaks to transform familiar household products: Tina Israni is cofounder of Zoraab, a retail subscription service of men’s accessories and apparel, “founded,” she says, “to disrupt the ecommerce space.” She also is cofounder of Mint Socks, street-art-inspired socks for guys. A user experience designer and writer, Tina does UX/UI consulting and is currently UX designer in residence at General Assembly. Supriya Hobbs is cofounder of startup Miss Possible, which will manufacture dolls that represent real women in science, along with apps for girls, age 6-10, to play with on-screen. A recent chemical engineering grad, Supriya and cofounder Jenna Eaves just launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund their Marie Curie prototype and science kit.

Technology may now dominate every facet of business, but most women-led enterprises aren’t founded on tech products. Typically, women still don’t code. That lack of high-level tech often puts women entrepreneurs at the mercy of hired developers. So how do you know what the tech gurus are working on? How do you define the deliverables you expect? And how do you monitor and keep IT pros on track? To provide answers, workshop leader and technology expert Nelly Yusupova developed TechSpeak, a smart bootcamp that teaches non-tech entrepreneurs how to communicate with tech teams. Nelly offers clear, practical ways to effectively oversee and engage a development team, including cautionary red flags to notice and how to catch mistakes early enough to minimize damage. Key to TechSpeak lessons for moving your business forward, says Nelly, is overcoming the fears of failing. “Failure is the biggest opportunity to learn,” she says. Learn to talk TechSpeak with the best of them, with guest: Nelly Yusupova is CTO of  Webgrrls International, chapter leader of NYCWebgrrls, @NYCWebgrrls, and founder of Digital Woman.  Named to Fast Company’s “League of Extraordinary Women,” and the Wall Street Journal’s “Women on the IT Fast Track,” Nelly also is a Web technology consultant, national speaker and creator of TechSpeak for Entrepreneurs and Build Your Social Media Footprint bootcamps

The country’s nearly 2 million women veterans suffer the same challenges male vets do — isolation, unemployment, work-family pressures, homelessness, adjusting to civilian life, psychological and physical disabilities. And, of course, women vets transition with the burdens of all workingwomen: lower pay for equal work, gender discrimination, lesser opportunities and promotions. Yet most of the resources go to the men. To reinvent the wheel, in 2011, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) partnered with Syracuse University to launch a smart, focused, nationwide entrepreneurship program for women vets. Called Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE),  the three-phase program has to date trained over 1,300 female service vets and military spouses – and counting. Its impact has been remarkable in encouraging women vets to steward their fate and realize their dreams. In honor of the Fourth, learn how V-WISE, @VWISEconference, is reshaping options for women vets, with guests: Noelle Cherubim enlisted in the US Army in 2004,motivated by 9/11. She became a nuclear biological chemical operations specialist and, in 2005, was selected for recruiter training, earning numerous awards, especially for recruiting Arabic speakers. After her service and completing the V-WISE program, Noelle, @CherubimArt, founded Les Artistes De Cherubim (LADC), which uses art to improve cross-cultural communications. Me’Shae Brooks-Rolling, CSEP, CEPF, directs  conferences and special events for IVMF and V-WISE. She has dual expertise in special events and conference management as well as financial literacy education. As a senior special events coordinator at City Hall in New York during the Giuliani administration, she discovered her passion for financial literacy, and later wrote  “How to Save Money & Organize Your Finances.”

Across the country, a new breed of incubators and accelerators has sprung up to support women who are starting or growing a business. These female-friendly biz labs, both commercial and academic, embrace next-generation role models, P2P collaboration, access to funders, digital tools and, most of all, strategic blueprints that bolster women’s innovation. The June 26 show spotlights how the new labs take participants from idea to market and put the pedal to the mettle for women entrepreneurs. We’ll hear from two women with hands-on experience at a high-profile women’s accelerator: Susan G. Duffy directs the Babson College Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership, a learning lab for women. Expert in teaching entrepreneurship, management and organizational behavior, Susan, @SusanGDuffy, has also been an assistant professor at Simmons College and Executive Director of the International Council for Small Business at George Washington University. Before entering academia, she was co-owner of a commercial construction company and owned and operated a Chinese restaurant franchise. Brittany Lo, a freelance makeup artist, is a recent graduate of the Women Innovating Now (WIN) accelerator lab at Babson. She is launching Beautini, a makeup bar that uses all-natural cosmetics for high-quality and convenient makeovers. Brittany is seeking funding to open doors in NYC and a pop-up shop in a NY fitness center.  

Stories of women being harassed, hit on, passed over and put down continue to roil through the industry — even as more women work on technology’s cutting edges. It’s clear that men are hardly throwing down the welcome mat. In fact, women in technology are leaving the industry at a staggering 56% rate, and usually just as they hit mid-level careers — that is, when their talent is most valuable in an industry desperate to hire more experts. At the same time, women themselves are wrestling with how to deal, how to get ahead and, overwhelmingly, how to integrate life and family into the 24/7 maelstrom. On June 19, we lift the lid off the simmering controversies to look at women who code, with guests: Sabrina Majeed, @Sabrina, is a product designer at BuzzFeed, an online social news and entertainment company. She recently joined eight women colleagues to post About Feminism, a call to action for the industry to rethink its attitudes and behavior. Ashley J. Swartz, @RedFuryNYC, is the founder of Furious-Minds, an advertising technology collective that focuses on the changing business models and ad technologies of TV and online video. Her company helps startups deliver revenue and accelerate to market in the landscapes of TV 2.0, online video and television and digital automation.

Women entrepreneurs typically start businesses with about a third less capital than men, content to bootstrap while dialing down bank loans and other funding. They hire fewer staff than men, try to do everything themselves and, as a result, often end up with smaller companies and less revenue. Bottom line: You can’t build a business without asking for what you need. So what’s the story with women? Lack of confidence? Fear of rejection? Confusion about what to ask for? Inability to delegate? The 6/12 show boldly takes on why women so often duck the direct approach while offering the tools and techniques they can develop to prepare and practice the pitch. Tune in to meet an internationally successful fundraiser/asker and an award-winning young entrepreneur poised for next-stage growth: Laura Fredricks, author of four go-to guides for fundraising and business success, is an attorney-turned-philanthropic advisor who has achieved high-profile, multimillion-dollar asks and pioneered practical strategies for getting what you ask for and deserve. Madison Maxey, winner of a Thiel Fellowship, works on the cutting edge of fashion and technology. She is the founder of CRATED, a design consultancy for wearable materials and research, and was named “Female Founder to Watch” by Women 2.0.

For a quarter-century now, women have been leaning in so hard to achieve corporate recognition that they’re nearly bent double. The upshot? Women hold a paltry 4.2% or 22 Fortune 500 CEO positions. So they’re leaning out. Women are jumping off the think-pink bandwagon to launch enterprises of their own, gaining control, independence and way more satisfaction. Public and private funders now see benefits in supporting women entrepreneurs, which means there’s never been a better time. Are you ready to start up? On the 6/5 show, meet a practitioner and a professor who each have hands-on experience in what entrepreneurship means for women: Camille Hugh, a young serial entrepreneur, runs her own real estate agency, wedding planner service and online fitness site, called Thigh Gap Hack. She’s also developing The Interview Master, an online business to help job seekers, which won recognition at the 2014 Pace Pitch Contest. Bruce Bachenheimer directs the Entrepreneurship Lab at Pace University and organizes its annual pitch contest and business plan competition. He’s a board member of the MIT Enterprise Forum, NY chapter, and LeadAmerica and consults with New York City’s Small Business Services and Economic Development Corporation. Bruce also speaks widely on entrepreneurship, including to groups at the United Nations and the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.    

The Olsen Twins, who know a thing or two about marketing and money, launched a fashion line for older women, debuting the designs at their first standalone boutique in L.A. The intended customer, said Ashley, is in her 40s or 50s, but “it really could be any age.” Mary-Kate noted that their clothing is made in the US. Take the hint: Four out of 10 of the nation’s top 3 million wealth holders are now women, says the IRS. More than a third (35%) of those women are age 50 to 65. Yet marketers are scarcely paying attention to the most affluent, most educated and most loyal customers in history. On the next show, meet Nancy Beltrandi, makeup artist and hairstylist to celebrities who’s now developed BeautyBe, a line of makeup for women over 40, and Freda Thomas, founder of Freda L. Thomas Consulting, a State Certified Business Advisor with two decades of hands-on expertise in helping entrepreneurs build the business of their dreams.

The iPhone clearly changed life forever. First put on sale on June 29, 2007, the most in-demand gadget ever released delivered on the promise of mobile computing. Today, a mere seven years and thousands of apps later, tablets and smartphones allow us to meet needs and realize dreams wherever we go, anywhere, anytime, all the time. Next step: Developing the app and business model that makes hay out of the hype. On the 5/22 show, meet two women who are leveraging the pull and profit of mobile apps for women: Lori Cheek, founder of Cheek’d, an online dating platform that combines the charm of old-timey calling cards with the reach of the Internet. Z. Kelly Queijo, founder/CEO of Smart College Visit, a multimedia platform that makes it easier for teens and families to plan college visits.

Purpose-driven enterprises blur the line between for-profit and nonprofit, fueling the fast-rising “fourth sector.” At the forefront are women and, typically, Gen Y visionaries frustrated by the pace of social change and flattened opportunities in the New Normal. On this show, meet Andrea Lo, who launched Piggybackr.com in 2011 when she was 25. The San Francisco-based crowdfunding site helps kids learn how to fundraise online. More startup advice will come from Elizabeth Smith Kulik, co-founder and CEO of ProHatch, a New York-based crowdfunding platform offering access to investors as well as consulting expertise and tools.

The rewards of sustainable products have moved well past cost-savings into generating serious revenue. As consumer demand grows, women entrepreneurs are creating sustainable, family-friendly, nontoxic products that serve the triple bottom line: purpose, profit and planet. On the May 8th show, Patricia A. Boswell tells how she created Safonique, a 100% all-natural biodegradable washing detergent with only essential oils. Patricia was named a top entrepreneur by The Small Business Wall Street Journal and her product is now sold in over 600 locations, including Wal-Mart. We also talk to Sarah Shaw, serial entrepreneur and CEO at Entreprenette LLC, a coaching service that helps women take products from concept to reality. Sarah has been a Hollywood costume designer, launched national designer handbag businesses and learned a ton about manufacturing, pricing, securing celebrity attention and getting onto retailer shelves.

The rising profile of women entrepreneurs means it’s high time we rethink our notion of how women entrepreneurs walk, talk and think. The Woman’s Playbook premiere show, The Goldilocks Syndrome, is a deep dive into what happens when women launch a business. Women don’t seem to scale up or go for the brass ring as often as men do. What gives? Is this gender inequity or lifestyle choice? We hear from PR maven Samuella Becker, founder of New York City’s TigressPR, and her personal story of how ambition and success square off against family and independence. Then we hear from Jamie J. Ladge, management professor at Northeastern University in Boston, whose work and research focuses on the intersection of women’s careers, identity and work-life integration.