WHAT WOMEN WANT

Back in the day, there was a movie by the same name. I believe Mel Gibson starred in it while he was still loved - likely after Braveheart and before his anti-Semitic "The Jews stole my Christ movie" comments. Anyway, in the movie he had special powers. He could hear what women were saying - at least what they were saying internally to themselves.

I wonder what we'd hear today if we had the same powers.

The assumption that what women tell themselves is actually not supportive may be true, at least sometimes. It may be very true depending on where you live, your age, your financial circumstances, how you were raised, and what other people told you to believe. It may be true if you have access to the majority of the media and advertising we're constantly exposed to.

However, to say that the only thoughts running through women's heads are negative is a huge lie and disservice.

For the purposes of this post though, go with me. I want to point out the fact that when this stuff comes up, we can tell a new story.  So, if (and I trust that the ifs are turning in favor of us being kind to ourselves) these are things we may be saying, here are some ways to reframe any limiting beliefs.

In the bathroom:

• Does this body make me look fat?
• My face is aging daily. At this rate, I'll be a crocodile.
• If only I were taller, skinnier, prettier, more white, tanner, more black … and on and on and on…

Instead…

• I know that I've got the goods and I know how to work them.
• Wow, I fill out these jeans. Thank god I've got such a healthy appetite!
• Thank you for making me unique - my best features are my …

*Extra credit. Take 30 seconds (that's it) and look into the depth of your own eyes. See the innate wisdom. Feel the part of you that is regal, that is divine. You are gorgeous, you are kind, you are powerful.

In the boardroom (because  99.9% of the time we are the only woman in it):

• These guys don't know anything about my market or offering yet they've got all the power to fund my idea. I'm sick of constantly pitching. I'm done with them!
• I bet if my name was Jeff or Mike and I had a hoody and a crap idea they'd write me a check today.
• I'm definitely not going to respond to that comment about how good I look in this dress and why my husbands lucky to come home to me. And WTF? That has absolutely nothing to do with negotiating this deal.

Instead…

• I am here because this opportunity can uniquely grow a customer base that can support many of their portfolio companies as well. And, because our offering actually addresses the core problem, we truly differ from the market. Plus, we can make a ton of money together.
• Someone in this room will see the value we bring and recognize that we are the only company that has cracked the code.  Investing in us will bring on average 35% higher returns with 20% less capital (Fact and this is one of many articles that show that women consistently provide higher returns). They will see we are the better investment.
• Yes, I know I look good.  That's exactly why I wore this power dress. I've also got the brains, talent, concept, business model, and team to pull this off. If my presence is a distraction and they can't see that, then they're definitely not the partners for us.  When we partner, especially with investors, we are basically committing to marriage. We want smart money and more importantly, we want to align with them and their values.

*Extra credit. Before you walk in the door, remember your worth. When you're in the room, remember to lean back. You know what you're bringing to the table and you're also assessing them. Are these people you want to be partnered with for the long haul?

In the bedroom:

• If only he'd think about satisfying me…
• Why is this taking so long?
• When will I feel like a goddess again? Or, will I ever?

Instead…

• Babe, will you do all those things that you're really good at?
• I can use this time to practice my breathing and actually get into it. Or, what a gift to have this time together, uninterrupted.
• Yeah baby, I'm hot, I feel like a champion. I know I'm wanted and worthy. I love being the sexiest woman alive!

*Extra credit. Ask, ask, ask… and RECEIVE!

The Law of Attraction says this moment is the pivotal point for what we experience in our future. Decide what we want to experience. It talks about forward feeling rather than being mired in what is especially when we focus on what we don't like about our current situation. What we're feeling now determines what's going to show up next. And language is the best way to predict our future. If everything we experience is based on a story we tell ourselves, let's use our head talk to talk us into the life we want.

Because I believe what women want is the permission to want and the courage to expect that we'll get that which we desire.

So, I'm giving us permission.

Let's become our own storytellers crafting tales of heroines that are the constant recipients of love, success, riches, and bucket list experiences. Let's tell the story of how we came to power, one glorious want at a time.

MARCHING ORDERS

Read and pass on:

What a Triumph! Thank you President Trump.

Brothers and sisters gathered around the world today for one purpose - to remember that we are united. We are all one. All of the electric energy that is around us, all of the feelings that are among us, all of the aspirations and boundless energy, excitement and hope that is evident from one corner of the globe to another... keep it with you.

Get still.

Replay this day and remember every interaction, every word of Truth, every smile, every lesson, every vision of a brighter tomorrow. Give it as much detail as you can. Feel into what it looks like and smells like and sounds like. Physically feel it. Go through your whole day and stack those experiences in rich detail. Then, physically feel into what it would be like to have this be the norm. Think of every example and physically feel it.

This time requires that we project our energy towards what serves us most. It is a requirement that we now step up and be the model of what can be.

The world is calling for a global repatterning. Our human experience will change when we expect only experiences that resonate with the vibration we felt today. We now have a taste of it. It is imperative that we focus on that feeling, embody it, and make that our Collective choice for what reality is. It is imperative that we practice as our mental muscle requires repetition. Once a day or when you start feeling fear or anger, feel today and vision that energy into the future.

With all of the kinetic energy we've kicked up, the most powerful thing we can do is make sure we stop. Massive action resides gladly with stillness.

It is time to listen and lead from love.

All of us are responsible.

Let this be our daily workout and consistently shift our beliefs in the direction of what we want most. This is something that any one of us can do from anywhere whether we are in the smallest of cells in a dark South African jail or sitting in the highest seat in the home of the free and the brave. Our thoughts are our own. We give them power and us alone.

Our shared Destiny requires that each of us teach only what we are - love.

A Course in Miracles defines Patience, one of the characteristics of God's teachers...

VIII. Patience

Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait, and wait without anxiety. Patience is natural to the teacher of God. All he sees is certain outcome, at a time perhaps unknown to him as yet, but not in doubt. The time will be as right as is the answer. And this is true for everything that happens now or in the future. The past as well held no mistakes; nothing that did not serve to benefit the world, as well as him to whom it seemed to happen. Perhaps it was not understood at the time. Even so, the teacher of God is willing to reconsider all his past decisions, if they are causing pain to anyone. Patience is natural to those who trust. Sure of the ultimate interpretation of all things in time, no outcome already seen or yet to come can cause them fear.

We already know the answer. It just requires us to remember our truth.

This revolution starts from within.

Thank you President Trump for our marching orders. Your first day in office was a true success. You have united the world and we owe you our gratitude.

A love letter to Craig Newmark

Thank you Craig Newmark. You've taken the time to really step into our shoes. Beyond saying you believe women are a great investment and showing the stats to prove it, you really feel into our experience. You've taken on the vocalization of a story that's probably a little messy.  You've put together events and opportunities for women-led startups to prevail. Fantastic. You've given women visibility and funding. Amazing.

AND

It is your willingness to consistently be our voice, to provide the words that for some, need to come from your lips to truly land, that makes you our cherished champion.

Thank you,

N

And here's his write-up...

It’s time for men to champion women in tech

By: Craig Newmark - Techcrunch

Folks, when it comes to gender equality in the tech world, we haven’t come very far.

Fifty-three years after the Equal Pay Act and supposedly the advancement of women’s rights in the workplace, Silicon Valley still has the feel of a fraternity.

Despite lots of research that shows how tech companies excel when women lead, the playing field is still heavily tilted in favor of men. How do we turn this around? I want to suggest that as a start, we men can make a real effort to use our male privilege on behalf of our women colleagues.

Women in tech face some tough odds. A recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission survey of some of the top US tech companies found that on average, just 18 percent hold leadership positions, and among certain tech jobs, men still make, on average, 28.3 percent more than women.

At some leading tech companies as few as 10 percent of women occupy tech positions.

For women founders, the numbers are even worse.

Only 7% of investor funding goes to women-led ventures, and according to Digitalundivided,a mere 0.2% of venture deals from 2012-2014 went to Black women founders.

And what about the work place environment? Is it conducive to women’s inclusion and advancement?

Not according to a comprehensive survey of Silicon Valley companies conducted by Vassallo and Madansky, who found that 60 percent of women in tech had received unwanted sexual advances from a male superior, and 87 percent had been on the receiving end of demeaning comments from male co-workers. And two thirds reported being excluded when guys were going out for drinks or to other networking events.

So, it’s not particularly surprising that more than half (56 percent) of women in tech jobsdon’t stick around, or that they opt to leave the private science, engineering, and technology workforce.

But when women are supported, encouraged, and funded to lead, they excel. In fact, tech companies led by women are more capital-efficient and achieve, on average, a 35 percent higher return on investment than firms led by men, according to a Kauffman Foundation report.

Women tech entrepreneurs (working from the disadvantage of having received 50 percent less VC funding), are still able to generate 20 percent greater revenue than their male counterparts, according to a Forbes study.

Further, tech companies with a woman founder performed 63 percent better than those companies with all-male founding teams, according to a First Round Capital report.

Despite the mounting evidence that equal access for women in tech enhances the value of companies, we’re not doing enough to help women succeed — to say the least.

Despite the mounting evidence that equal access for women in tech enhances the value of companies, we’re not doing enough to help women succeed — to say the least

This is a really big problem, folks, and it’s one that we have the ability to change. We need to do a lot more, and that includes us men sharing some of our privilege and helping women colleagues get a fair shake. How would that look?

 Networking is a big deal in business and the tech world. That’s how deals get done. As part of this, men need to open our doors and share our contacts. If you know of a promising women-led startup, introduce them to investors. Another way to help women entrepreneurs is to offer some mentoring.

So for instance, if you’ve had a lot of success writing winning pitch decks, offer to review their pitch and provide concrete feedback. (Jonathan Beninson recently shared a great post on Medium about structuring mentor/mentee relationships.)

We can also help women in their job searches by spreading the wealth of contacts.  More publicly, you can speak up when women are getting a raw deal (discrimination, harassment, exclusion etc.) And we need to speak up to support women in meetings.

That includes creating space, and letting them say what they have to say without interruption or ignoring what they’ve said. Another way to be an ally:  when we’re invited to a tech panel that is an all-male affair, we can ask the organizer to include some women experts and offer some suggestions about who to invite.

We should all just say no to speaking on panels when organizers refuse to include women.

We should all just say no to speaking on panels when organizers refuse to include women.

“Tech companies want to solve the toughest problems facing our communities nationally and globally, but in order to do so, they must invest in fostering a more diverse workplace culture and where women are at the decision-making table,” says my colleague Allyson Kapin, founder of the Women Startup Challenge. “This is how we will begin to move the needle.”

I’ve been working with Allyson on the Women Startup Challenge for the last year. It showcases and helps fund women-led startups across the U.S. through pitch competitions (like the one we’re doing at LinkedIn in San Francisco on June 14th) and crowdfunding campaigns.

I’ve been learning a lot from our partnership, including some of the small but important things men can do that are a big deal for women.

I figure that if you’ve done well, as Kevin Spacey says, it’s your job to send the elevator back down — meaning we need to be intentional about opening our doors to women and helping them expand their networks and clout. This is about fairness. Plus, there’s the business advantage I mentioned earlier. Let’s do this and become our women colleagues’ best allies.

List of Female Angel and Early-Stage Investors in Tech

From McKenzie Burnett on Medium. June 8, 2015

Researching all these individuals and their experiences, I felt like I was reading about the superheroes of the tech startup world.

I am starting a software company with a few friends. As a mixed-gender founding team, we all believe strongly in gender equity and in the collective strength brought by diverse teams. We wanted this to translate into a gender-diverse board of investors and advisors.

Why is this important? As Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, founder and CEO ofJoyus, mentions in her article promoting entrepreneurs to #ChoosePossibility, “Diverse thinking can benefit private tech boards potentially even more than public ones, and there is no reason to wait.” Everyone can benefit from a diversified investor board. Cassidy gives one option for achieving this diversity, saying, “Entrepreneurs seeking to enhance their startup’s performance can choose today to add their first qualified female board member or investor.”

When I went to research early-stage investors, however, I found it incredibly difficult to find anyone other than male investors in my startup’s space (application infrastructure/PaaS/enterprise). Determined, I found with a little digging that the information I was looking for was there — it was just scattered across the internet. Starting with female investors, I consolidated my findings into a descriptive list of experienced angels and early-stage investors with experience in all sorts of tech, so that anyone can easily use it to choose today to pursue diverse investor and advisory boards.

In addition to doing my own research, I’ve talked to top investors, industry leaders, and close friends to source content for this list. I hope it will serve as the beginning of a growing resource and discussion. Anyone can suggest additions and offer their own experiences working with gender-diverse investors in the tech industry, thus adding to the public knowledge and reputation of each of these awesome individuals.

Angel networks

#Angels. A group of some of the most powerful women at Twitter (or formerly at Twitter), these six angels are investing individually but still pooling their collective expertise around their investments. The individuals are included in the list below.

37 Angels. Awesome network of female angels. Invests in deals between $50k and $150k. They “also offer an unique training program to educate novice angels in the fundamentals of investing in young companies,” according to their website.

Broadway Angels. This network of around 20 angels is “an angel investment group made up of world-class investors and business executives who all happen to be women.” While they mostly invest in information technology, they are open to other areas of investment, as well. The individuals are included in the list below.

Female Investors Opportunities List. Collection of over 100 female investors, organized by Sarah Kunst. According to Sarah’s Medium article, “It’s a Google Group comprised of every female startup investor you know of and tons you don’t. They’re smart, they write checks and they are available to speak, be interviewed, mentor, judge and invite to your super private influencers dinners. They’re from all over the country, they will travel for the right opps and they provide insight and capital you’re otherwise lacking.” Email kunstsar at gmail with any opportunities and she will share them with the group.

Golden Seeds. With both an angel network and a venture capital side, this organization strongly supports female investors and is one of the largest and most well-known female angel networks in the country. With offices in New York, Boston, Silicon Valley, Southern California and Texas, Golden Seed’s angel network covers some of the biggest tech hubs in the United States.

Pipeline Fellowship. With the characteristic t-shirt slogan, “This Is What an Angel Looks Like,” Pipeline is all about changing the face of angel investing through training women to be angel investors. While they do focus on social entrepreneurship, this would be a great place for any entrepreneur to start looking to build relationships with a number of the country’s top female angel investors. Founded by Natalia Oberti Noguera.

Angels and early-stage investors

Aileen Lee, Founder of Cowboy Ventures, Partner at KPCB. Typically invests $100k-$1m per deal. Invests in wide variety of tech, such as enterprise, mobile, analytics, payments, e-commerce, SaaS. Has invested in Librato, Rent the Runway, DocSend, and a number of other companies. Also part ofBroadway Angels.

Alicia Syrett, Founder and CEO of Pantegrion Capital. Typically invests $10k-$50k per deal. Invests in consumer internet, e-commerce, and mobile. Invested in Little Passports, Golden Seeds, HeTexted, BeautyBooked, and more. Board member of New York Angels.

Allison Thoreson Bhursi, Angel Investor. Typically invests $10k per deal. Invests in health tech, mobile, and education. Invested in Boostable, True Link, MasteryConnect, LocoMotive Labs, and more. Twenty years of business experience in finance, consumer products and technology. Previously worked for eBay’s Business Incubation Group with a focus on social and mobile e-commerce. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Amy Banse, Managing Director and Head of Funds of Comcast Ventures. She “spent the early part of her career overseeing the development of Comcast’s cable network portfolio” according to her bio on the Broadway Angelswebsite.

Ana Díaz-Hernández, Investment Associate at Kapor Capital. Invests in seed startups w/ social impact, in markets like consumer internet, enterprise software, mobile, healthcare, education, and fintech.

Andrea Zurek, Founding Partner of XG Ventures. Typically invests $25k-$100k per deal. Invests in consumer internet (mobile, video, gaming, social media, and online media sectors), but also scopes wider to include SaaS, cloud computing, and analytics. Prolific investor, has invested in Facebook, Apptimize, Keen IO, and over 50 other companies.

Angela Lee, Founder of 37 Angels. Experience in education space. Assistant dean at Columbia Business School.

Anita Brearton, Founder of CabinetM. Typically invests $10–25k per deal. Invests in consumer internet, digital media, IT. Invested in Crimson Hexagon, Lark, Gracious Eloise. Based in Boston.

Ann Miura Ko, Co-Founding Managing Partner of Floodgate. Typically invests $500k-$1M per deal. Invests in enterprise software and mobile. Invested in Lyft, Modcloth, Refinery29, TaskRabbit and others. Also a Stanford PhD/lecturer.

Annie Kadavy, Investor at CRV. Invests in all kinds of tech, including SaaS, retail, design, electric vehicles, bicycles, transportation, and more. Invested in Patreon, DoorDash, ClassPass, Cratejoy, and Laurel & Wolf.

Anu Duggal, Founder of Female Founders Fund. Invests in consumer internet.Invested in Manicube, Dating Ring, Loverly, Maven, Minibar, and F Cubed. Female Founders Fund invests seed capital and mentorship in women entrepreneurs.

April Underwood, Founding Partner of #Angels. Invests in cleantech, healthcare, enterprise, and more. Invested in Glassbreakers, Hale Health, and Cue Health. A ton of experience with product development from her time as Director of Product at Twitter.

Beth Ellyn McClendon, Angel Investor. Typically invests $100k–$200k per deal. Invests in a wide variety of tech, including hardware. Invested in Leap Motion, Shyp, AngelList, Lightbox, and others.

Caryn Effron, Managing Director of Ackman-Ziff. 20 years of experience in commercial real estate finance, founded GoGirl Finance. Member of Pipeline Fellowship. Focus on education, real estate, and finance.

Caterina Fake, Founder Partner of Founder Collective, Chairman of Etsy.Invests in a wide variety of tech. Previous co-founder of Flickr and Hunch, Caterina currently serves as both an investor and chairman of Etsy. Also has invested in Chloe + Isabel, Typekit, Wavii (acquired by Google), and Zipongo.

Chloe Sladden, Founding Partner of #Angels. Invests in cleantech, mobile, health, digital media and analytics. Invested in Cleanly, Other Machine Company, Moxxly, and Blockchain Capital. Brings experience in digital media as the former Vice President, North American Media at Twitter.

Christina Bechhold, Investor at Samsung Open Innovation Center. Also co-founded Empire Angels. Invests in e-commerce, social media, fintech, IoT, consumer internet, and more. Invested in Hullabalu, weeSpring, StatSocial, Human Demand, ZoomCar India, MyDROBE, and The Infatuation.

Christina Brodbeck, Founding Team Member of YouTube. Typically invests $15k–$25k per deal. Invests on consumer tech, with a skillset/focus on UI/design. Invested in Storify, Fobo, inDinero, and others.

Christine Herron, Investor at Intel Capital. Typically invests $5k-$15m per deal. Invests in consumer tech. Invested in Goldbelly, Yummly, FundersClub, and others. Also serves as a Board Advisor to StartX and a Venture Advisor at 500 Startups.

Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Partner of Illuminate Ventures.Typically invests $100k-$500k per deal. Invests in all sorts of tech, including cloud computing, mobile, enterprise, SaaS, sales automation, marketing, and more. Invested in Influitive, Sense, yozio, Unshackled, Coupang, Allocadia, BrightEdge Technologies, Red Aril, and more.

Claudia Iannazzo, Angel Investor. Invests in mobile, social media, digital media, advertising, and more.

Cyan Banister, Angel Investor. Typically invests $50k-$1m per deal. Invests in consumer internet, enterprise, Bitcoin, SaaS. Invested in Uber, Rapportive, Zappos, and many more. As someone commented on AngelList, getting early/lead investment is a sign “that many other angels watch.” Find Cyan on Twitter.

Eileen Burbidge, Founder Partner at Passion Capital. Typically invests $250k per deal. Invests in mobile, B2B, analytics, and more. Invested in Mattermark, Maven, DueDil and others. Product and business development experience at Apple, Skype, Sun. Based out of London, so she has strong contacts in both the U.S. and the U.K./Europe. Invests as an angel and as a partner at Passion Capital.

Ellen Levy, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Connect. Recently referred to as the most connected woman in Silicon Valley. Invests in all sorts of tech, ranging from application platforms to hardware to education. Extensive experience working in senior leadership for LinkedIn and Apple, as well as with Stanford University. Invested in RelateIQ and Piazza, among others. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Ellie Wheeler, Investor at Greycroft Ventures. Invests in all sorts of tech, including enterprise software, B2B, e-commerce, automotive, and social ventures. Invested in Xobni, Plain Vanilla Games, Daily Secret, Mister Spex, NuORDER, Windeln.de, BaubleBar, and Fisoc.

Emily Melton, Partner at DFJ. Invests in mobile, cleantech, healthcare, and enterprise software. Invested in Pulse and Other Machine Company. Advisor to Poshmark. Formerly a partner at DFJ. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Heidi Roizen, Operating Partner at DFJ. Invests in consumer internet, social media, digital media, and mobile. Invested in Draper University, Vango, and advised Socialize. As someone mentioned on AngelList, “Heidi is a legend in Silicon Valley (just go look up the HBR case study on her).”

Irena Goldenberg, Angel Investor. Invests in e-commerce, games, social media, mobile, payments. Investor in Privalia, Spartoo, Photobox, and Glassesdirect.

Jalak Jobanputra, Founder/Managing Partner of FuturePerfect Ventures.Typically invests $50k-$500k per deal. Invests in enterprise software, mobile, analytics. Investor in Ticketfly, Thumbplay, Outside.In, and others. Also an advisor for L’Oreal and an investor at Intel Capital.

Jana Messerschmidt, Founding Partner of #Angels. Invests in developer APIs, Android, mobile, social media, and more. Currently Vice President of Global Business Development & Platform at Twitter.

Jennifer Carolan, Founder of Reach Capital (NewSchools Venture Fund).Typically invests $50k per deal. Invests heavily in education, with a broad depth of experience in the education space. Invested in NoRedink, Motion Math, Engrade, MasteryConnect, CodeHS, and more. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Jennifer Lum, Founder of Adelphic. Typically invests $10k-$25k per deal. Invests in all kinds of tech, including backend/cloud services. Invested in Crashlytics, Kinvey, and TribeHR. Based out of Toronto/Boston.

Jennifer Scott Fonstad, Founder of Broadway Angels, Co-Founder of Aspect Ventures. Typically invests $250k-$1m per deal. Invests in mobile applications, consumer and enterprise application services, and energy management. Invested in Athenahealth, Achex, NetZero, and more. Currently managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Jenny Fielding, Angel Investor. Typically invests $20k per deal. Invests in wearables, mobile, IoT, consumer tech. Invested in Techstars, Kinetic, Bitfinder, and others.

Jenny Lefcourt, Founder of WeddingChannel and Bella Pictures. Typically invests $500k-$1m per deal. Invests in marketplaces, mobile & enterprise. Invested in Main Street Hub, MomentFeed, P. Relan YouWeb Incubator, and Shuddle.

Jessica Livingston, Founder of Y-Combinator. Probably one of the most influential women in the startup/investor world, AngelList only lists one investment for Jessica — Wevorce. Her experience at Y-Combinator speaks for the rest.

Jessica Peltz, Investor at kbs+ Ventures. Typically invests $100k per deal. Invests in mobile, location-based services, retail, big data, analytics, and more. Invested in Adsnative, wedgies, Mezzobit, Roost, Indicative, and MONTAJ.

Jessica Verrilli, Founding Partner of #Angels. Invests in mobile, analytics, digital media, enterprise software, social commerce, SaaS, and more. Invested in ZenPayroll, Getable, and Philz Coffee. Formerly Director of Corporate Development & Strategy at Twitter, now a partner at Google Ventures.

Jill Preotle, Angel Investor. Typically invests $50k-$100k per deal. Invests in all sorts of tech, including mobile, marketplaces, consumer goods, fashion, and e-commerce. Invested in TaskRabbit, ezCater, Zipcar, Playrific, Rifiniti, Crimson Hexagon, and RallyPoint.

Joanna Drake Earl, Angel Investor. Invests in mobile, social media, supply chain management, and more. Invested in Feed Media, Rocksbox, SupportPay, Other Machine Company (OMC), and more. Founded Current TV and sold to Al Jazeera. Immense experience in intersection of technology, consumer, media and television sectors. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Joanne Wilson, Angel Investor. Typically invests $10k-$100k per deal. Invests in all sorts of tech, including e-commerce, online retail, big data, analytics, and more. Invested in Blue Bottle Coffee, LE TOTE, EDITD, Hullabalu, and over 50 more companies.

Joyce Chung, Managing Director at Garage Technology Ventures. Typically invests $100k-$1m per deal. Invests in cleantech, IT and internet startups. Invested in SimplyHired, WhiteHat Security, and Zilliant.

Julia Popowitz, Angel Investor. Typically invests $25k–$50k per deal. Began her career after graduating from Harvard Law School at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich Rosati, and then moved on to Facebook in 2006 as the second attorney in the legal department. Has a wide breadth of investments including focus areas in e-commerce, mobile, digital media, SaaS, big data, finance, and more. Invested in Uber, Stripe, Ali Baba, Palantir, Survey Monkey, Locu, Spreecast, ZenPayroll, and more. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Julie Blanc, Investor at Two Sigma Ventures. Invests in consumer internet, enterprise software, SaaS, robotics, and more. Invested in Two Sigma Ventures and Pluralsight.

Julie Chin, Angel Investor. Typically invests $5k-$25k. Invests in mobile and other markets. Invested in Heroku, RidePal, and 280 North.

Katherine Barr, General Partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures. Invests in a lot of different types of tech, including IoT, healthtech, and big data/analytics. Invested in Ticketfly, Visible Measures, and Retention Science. Advisor for 500 Startups.

Katie Jacobs Stanton, Founding Partner of #Angels. Invests in cleantech, health care, digital media, social media, analytics and more. Invested in Lowercase Capital, Change.org, Shape Security, and iAutos (China). Currently Vice President of Global Media at Twitter.

Katie Rae, Investor at Techstars. Typically invests $10k-$50k per deal. Invests in internet tech. Invested in peerTransfer, Spindle, and Bison. As someone on AngelList mentioned, “[Katie] finds a way to be on the entrepreneur’s side and build them up — for real, and for good — rather than simply point out problems. Even if she’s giving you tough love, you know she’s in your corner helping you get out there to go another round.”

Kay Koplovitz, Founder of Boldcap Ventures, Springboard, and USA Network. A serious veteran in the media/television world, Kay now focuses on helping women-led companies in technology and life sciences. Also founded NY Fashion Tech Lab (NYFT Lab).

Kelly Hoey, Angel Investor, Columnist in Inc.com. Invests in various tech sectors with a heavy focus on mobile. Investoed in Levo, Hullabalu, SQL Vision, flowthings.io, Smigin and CloudPeeps. Prior investments include AppGuppy (acquired by Flow) and Philantech (acquired by Altum). Sits on the boards of two startup accelerators, JuiceLabs (Cairo) and Tampa Bay WaVE. Also the Chief Technology Ambassador for the YWCA of NYC’s Geek Girls Club.

Kelly Quann Bianucci, Managing Principal at Discover Capital LLC. Typically invests $25k per deal. Invests in aerospace, consumer internet, enterprise software, healthcare, and more. Investor in TrueFacet, TomboyX, Storyvine, Pharmajet, and Investor’s Circle. Based in Denver.

Kim Polese, Founder of Marimba. Invests in all sorts of tech, including hardware, enterprise software, mobile, and healthcare. Invested in TrustedID and Vonage. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Kirsten Green, Founder of Forerunner Ventures. Typically invests $500k per deal. Forerunner Ventures focuses on “technology enabled consumer companies.” Invested in Bonobos, Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club and Birchbox, among others.

Kristina Montague, Managing Partner at TheJumpFund. Invests in clean tech, mobile, enterprise software, and more. Invested in Feetz, eDivv, Rimidi, Rooibee Red Tea Company, and SuperFanU.

Lara Druyan, Angel Investor. Typically invests $50k per deal. Invests in application platforms, e-commerce, mobile, big data, and other software. Invested in Quixey, Powerset, and Index. Formerly General Partner at Allegis Capital.

Lauren Flanagan, Founder of BELLE Capital USA, Phenomenelle Angels Fund.Typically invests $25k-$500k per deal. Invests in SaaS, big data, e-commerce, mobile, biotech, wearable tech. Invested in Eragen Biosciences, Stemina Biomarker Discovery, Finomel, and more.

Laurie Yoler, SVP Business Development and President of Qualcomm Labs.Typically invests $50k-$100k per deal. Invests in digital media and consumer goods. Invested in Tesla, Packet Design, and others. Founder of GrowthPoint Technology Partners. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Leslie Blodgett, CEO of Bare Escentuals. Transformed Bare Escentuals from a small Bay Area store to a cosmetic empire, taking the company public in 2006 and seeing it through a $1.8 billion acquisition by Shiseido, the Japan-based leading cosmetics company. Leader in the cosmetic/beauty industry, servces on the board of Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW). Also part ofBroadway Angels.

Linda Holliday, Founder and CEO of Citia. Typically invests $25k–$100k per deal. Invests in digital media. Invested in Small Demons, Comixology, and SetJam.

Lorine Pendleton, Angel Investor. A Pipeline Fellows alumna, Lorine invests in mobile, legal tech, clean tech, consumer internet, enterprise software and more. Invested in Hire an Esquire, Traklight, and Cisse Trading Co.

Magdalena Yesil, Angel Investor. Invests in SaaS, cloud computing, security, and more. Invested in Salesforce.com, 3Ware, Claria, Securify, and Valicert.

Maha Ibrahim, General Partner at Canaan Partners. Typically invests $2m-$5m per round as a partner at Canaan. Invests in data centers, internet infrastructure, networking, digital media, video games and more. Invested in Kabam, Mobilitec, Virsto Software, 3Crowd Technologies, SenSage, eBillMe, Pickspal, and Inhale Digital. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Mar Hershenson, Founder of Tocata Mobile, Sabio Labs, & Barcelona Design. Invests in consumer internet, enterprise software, mobile, and healthcare. Invested in Qwiki, Heap, Washio, True & Co, Lumoid, DoorDash, Wevorce, and Sensor Tower.

Marissa Campise, Vice President at Venrock. Typically invests $250k in a seed round deal. Invests in mobile and IoT. Invested in Klout and Netservice. Also a Senior Associate at Greycroft Partners.

Mary Jane Elmore, Angel Investor. Invests in specialty foods, e-commerce, digital media, advertising, and more. Invested in Deal Decor and Foodydirect. Former General Partner of and current advisor to Institutional Venture Partners (IVP). Also part of Broadway Angels.

Meagan Marks, Angel Investor. Typically invests $15k-$30k. Invests in mobile, social media, and more. Based in London.

Megan Quinn, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers. Invests in consumer internet & mobile. Invested in Square, Uber, Remind, Slack, Codecademy, Nextdoor, Quirky,Shyp, Level Money, and Tradesy. Formerly led product at Square and Google.

Miriam Rivera, Co-founder of ULU Ventures. Typically invests $25k-$100k per deal. Invests in enterprise software, IT. Invested in Palantir, GCommerce, Huddler, Jubon, Matchbin, and more. Also part of Stanford Angels.

Natala Menezes, Angel Investor. Typically invests up to $50k per deal. Formally worked at Google, Amazon, and Microsoft and has experience with product design, UX and go-to-market decisions. Invested in Shift and Belle Clementine.

Nisa Amoils, Angel Investor. Typically invests $10k-$100k. Invests in consumer internet/goods, beauty, health and wellness, food and beverages, nutraceutical/nutrition. Member of NY Angels and 37 Angels, involved with Wharton Entrepreneurs.

Patricia Nakache, Partner at Trinity Ventures. Interested in the “impact of mobile and social media on the next generation of Internet services.” Invested in Eat Club, Kixeye, Lucky Group, Owler, RelayRides, Ruby Ribbon, and ThredUp. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Paula Brooks, Angel Investor. “Paula was an active leader during the formative years of the software industry. She was first an executive at various enterprise infrastructure technology companies, then an entrepreneur and later an angel investor and active director of several more including WebMethods, Descartes Systems Group and Systems Center.” Also active politically, having served as a White House Fellows Commissioner under President George W. Bush. -Broadway Angels bio

Sapna Shah, Founder of Retail Eye Partners & Mind the Chap. Invests in retail, digital media, e-commerce, fashion, consumer internet, fashion tech, and wearables. Invested in BeautyBooked, Iterate Studio, Wine for the World, Section 101.

Renata Quintini, Investor at Felicis Ventures. Invests in all kinds of tech, including education, healthcare, social media, SaaS, and more. Invested in Baby.com.br, Twice, Cambrian Genomics, and Kiwi Crate.

Sarah Guo, Investor at Greylock Partners. Typically invests $100k-$25m per deal. Invests in cloud infrastructure and enterprise software. Invested in Dropbox, Camio, Skyhigh Networks, and Avi Networks.

Sarah Kunst, Investor at Mohr Davidow Ventures. Invests in drones, farming tech, retail tech, mobile, marketplaces, finance and consumer internet. Invested in Zuckerberg Media. Also writes for The Daily Beast and Entrepreneur.com. According to someone on AngelList, Sarah brings “[t]remendous insight into all things user growth and acquisition, tech, finance, venture. Honest, truthful, and possesses a lightning-quick wit.”

Sarah Tavel, Product at Pinterest. Typically invests $10k per deal. Invests in mobile, e-commerce, social media, retail, and mobile advertising. Invested in Convertro, The Fridge, Pinterest, and more.

Shana Fisher, Managing Partner of High Line Venture Partners. Invests in all kinds of tech — B2B, enterprise, consumer, mobile, SaaS, cloud computing, etc. Invested in Knewton, Pinterest, Tilt, Onename, Makerbot, and more.

Shanna Tellerman, Partner at Google Ventures. Invests in consumer internet, enterprise software, and mobile. Invested in LE TOTE, Shelf.com, and Wanderable. Also founded Sim Ops Studios, which was acquired by Autodesk.

Sharon Vosmek, CEO of Astia. Invests in cleantech, consumer internet, mobile, and enterprise software. Invested in Poshly, nVision Medical, Sandstone Diagnostics, RenovoRx, FINsix, EcoTensil, Prima-Temp.

Sharon Weinbar, Partner at ScaleVP. Invests in mobile and internet companies. Led ScaleVP’s investments in Teros (acquired by Citrix), MerchantCircle (acquired by Reply.com) and Glu Mobile (IPO). Extensive experience working at Adobe Systems. Serves on the board of directors for Microsoft’s Venture Advisory Committee. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Sherry Coutu, Angel Investor. Typically invests $50k-$750k per deal. Invests in consumer internet, B2B, cleantech, and more. Invested in Bonobos, Zoopla, Maven, Covester, and others. Advisor to LinkedIn. Located in Cambridge, U.K.

Sheryl Schultz, Angel Investor. Typically invests $10k-$25k per deal. Invests in telecommunications, e-commerce, social media, edutainment. Invested in Fab.com, ViralGains, Crowdly, and more. Focuses on marketing/customer advice. Located in Boston/Maine.

Shruti Ghandi, Managing Partner at Array Ventures. Typically invests $1m-$3m per deal. Invests in all kinds of tech, including mobile, e-commerce, big data, and enterprise software. Invested in True Ventures, Engrade, LearnSprout, Agnitus, and Array Ventures. Previously an investor with True Ventures and Samsung Ventures. Founded Penseev.

Shuly Galili, Co-founder of UpWest Labs. Typically invests $25k-$300k. Invests in all kinds of tech, including IoT, mobile, cybersecurity, big data, analytics, and data security. Invested in Honeybook, SentinelOne, Keywee, and more.

Sonja Hoel Perkins, Founder of Broadway Angels. Invests “broadly in all stages and areas of information technology throughout her career,” according to her bio on the Broadway Angels website. Her AngelList says she’s looking for investments in mobile/IT in consumer, enterprise and infrastructure. Invested in Flurry, 3VR, Ditto, HealthTap, Kitchit, Mee Genius, Minted.com, nCircle, Prism Skylabs, Sky Channel, Stravus, and UrbanSitter. Currently managing director at Menlo Ventures.

Stephanie Hanbury-Brown, Angel Investor. Typically invests $100k-$250k per deal. Invests in life sciences, SaaS, consumer goods. Invested in eJamming, Carnegie Speech, Saladax Biomedical, HarQen. Located in NYC.

Susan McPherson, Founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies. Typically invests $10k-$25k per deal. Invests in social media, digital media, consumer internet, hardware, fashion, fitness and more, with a focus on female founders. Invested in The Muse, Loverly, Zady, Theli.st, Reserve, GoldBean.

Sutian Dong, Investor at FirstMark Capital. Invests in all sorts of tech, including social media, social fundraising, edutech, retail tech, mobile, enterprise, data security and more. Invested in Pinterest, SecondMarket. Based in NYC.

Theresia Gouw, Founder and General Partner of Aspect Ventures. Invests in consumer, social commerce, and security in the “new mobility space.” While a partner at Accel, Theresia led the series A or seed rounds for Birchbox, HotelTonight, LearnVest, Trulia, and Joyus. Also part of Broadway Angels.

Vijaya Gadde, Founding Partner of #Angels. Currently General Counsel and Secretary at Twitter. Immense experience working with IPOs, M&As, and other legalities of massive tech companies from her time with Twitter and before that her 10 years of experience as an attorney with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C.

Victoria Song, Founder of So She Did. Typically invests $2m per deal. Invests in mobile, enterprise, energy management, consumer internet and more. Invested in Crashlytics, Rothenberg Ventures, Tracelytics, and SHADOW. Former venture capitalist at Flybridge Capital.

Virginia M. Turezyn, Angel Investor. Typically invests $25k–$50k per deal. Invests in all kinds of tech — enterprise software, SaaS, mobile. Invested in Retailigence, Cloud Cliques, unseat.me, Kaazing, and Jambok.

Wayee Chu, Co-Founder of the NewSchools Seed Fund. Typically invests $25k-$50k per deal. Invests heavily in education/edutech, but also in SaaS, social news, and social media. Invested in Knotch, Handle, Tugboat Yards, True Link, Prompt.ly, LocoMotive Labs, CodeHS, Tynker, and more. Also part ofBroadway Angels.

Online resources

• AngelList
• Crunchbase
• Quora’s lists of female investors (here and here)
• Joshua Henderson’s Ultimate Guide for Finding Women Investors (gives great resources for searching for female investors)
• Melissa Pierce’s list of 105 female venture capitalists and angels (for those seeking later stage investors)

Mackenzie is the CEO of Distributed Systems, Inc., a startup building managed infrastructure for service-oriented applications. Read more about her motivations for writing this article here. She’s figuring out most of this as she goes along, so come along for the journey by recommending this article to others and/or writing a response. Did she miss anyone or anything? Reach out, and she’ll add to this list.

Thanks to Maran Nelson, Anastasia Marchenkova, Cyan Banister, Christina Cacioppo, Jeff Hilnbrand, Josh Taylor and Sukhinder Singh Cassidy for suggesting edits and/or additions to this resource list.

Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 launched by Ingrid Vanderveldt

Source: Upstart Business Journal 

Author: Caroline McMillan Portillo. Bizwomen reporter

"After 8 years in my own mastermind group - The Billionaire Girls Club - I know first-hand how transformational cultivating these relationships can be. These women have introduced me to serious players, provided numerous opportunities from speaking to publishing, given me feedback, advice and have flat out told me the truth. They have helped me grow my business, been champions for my personal growth and have been a constant source of support.  

One of our Billionaire Girls Club members, Ingrid Vanderveldt was recently featured by BizWomen in an article called, "On the Hunt For Her First Billion" where she talks about how important her own mastermind group was to her success. 

Turns out we're really lucky because many of the top women leaders I speak to feel like they're out on their own. Even if they are running wildly successful companies, they are often too busy heads down scaling their businesses to actually step back and focus on strategy and what's driving the business…and more importantly what's driving them. They also tell me how rare it is to meet other women who get what it's like to operate at their level and how excited they'd be to finally have an intimate setting where they can get honest feedback.

This is exactly why I wanted to provide other women with the same opportunity by creating the Art of Leverage Mastermind Group for 5 extraordinary business women. This is the process I use with my clients to remove all limiting beliefs so they can scale, multiply their valuations, get tied in with partners from Hearst to Coca Cola and create the biggest impact possible even when they have minimal resources. The Art of Leverage Mastermind starts with the biggest point of leverage, mindset. Mindset matters. It shows up in the messaging they use, what they offer, the people they hire, the partners they choose, the asks they make and their bottom line. We then focus on messaging so that they're perfectly positioned and monetization so that they implement those tweaks that can maximize profits with ease and grace. And, these women now have the ability to leverage each other. " - Nicole 

Ingrid Vanderveldt officially launches her global mentorship program at SXSW — and you can join it. 

The UpTake: Ingrid Vanderveldt, who has built and sold two tech companies, launches her own global mentoring program at South by Southwest.

Ingrid Vanderveldt has built and sold two tech companies. She's worked with dozens of others. She's hosted her own TV show on CNBC. And she knows this much in her core: Entrepreneurs need mentors.The rest of the world knows this: If Vanderveldt wants to empower a billion women in the next five years, she needs a full-blown movement.That's where her global mentorship program comes in. And amid the hubbub of South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Vanderveldt announced its official launch on Sunday night. She also introduced a key corporate partner: global consulting company Frost & Sullivan, which will be helping companies around the world get involved.Vanderveldt's movement is called "Empowering a Billion Women by 2020," and she began working on it when she was Dell's first entrepreneur in residence, a post she left last fall. The entrepreneur in residence position is traditionally found at venture capital firms. At Dell she worked to bridge the gap between the company and the small business owners who need its technology. She started the Dell Innovators Credit Fund and also launched her own passion project, Empowering a Billion Women by 2020, a company founded to put a mobile device in the hands of every woman around the globe.Think that's lofty? At Dell, she reached 600 million women.The program is also about giving women the support they need to be successful in business.Until Sunday, the platform had only had a private launch.

But for months, Vanderveldt has been galvanizing women across the globe around the idea of supporting one another to boost their success as leaders and entrepreneurs.And their medium for doing so is mentorship.The number one issue that keeps women from leadership is lack of confidence, Vanderveldt said. "People build confidence when they can take action," she said. "And people can take action when they find a mentor."Now, any woman around the world can sign up, for free, to be a part of the movement, which operates on a pay-it-forward model.Women who have mentors will also mentor other women. Once they sign up, every woman is put in one of five categories based on her income level or business's revenue.The first is for women who've lost everything and have nothing to start with. The second is for women making up to $50,000 a year with their business. The third is for $50,000 to $250,000. The fourth is for $250,000 to $1 million, and the last is for women whose businesses bring in more than $1 million in revenue a year.Every woman will be mentored by someone in the group just above them — someone who isn't so far removed from her protege's situation that she can't relate, Vanderveldt said."She's gone through what you have," Vanderveldt said. "She knows your challenges and opportunities."The program also includes 25 handpicked global ambassadors who working in their communities to evangelize the program and effect change in local policy. The global ambassadors are mentored by Vanderveldt herself.

And once women have a mentor, Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 wants them to create their own "circles of five" — made up of like-minded people, peers, who are dealing with similar situations.Vanderveldt's has met in a group of five for the last seven years. They call it the "Billionaire Girls Club."Members include: Vanderveldt; Carrie Silver-Stock, the executive director of Empowering a Billion Women by 2020; Nicole Casanova, founder of Casanova Ventures, a consultancy that helps startups scale; Traci Fenton, founder of WorldBlue, a company that works to bring democracy to the workplace; and Sarah Endline, founder of chocolate company Sweet Riot.None of them are billionaires (yet), but every month, they have a standing conference call to discuss their ideas, struggles and plans. In the weeks between, they text and email. And one a year, they gather for an informal meeting, to talk, laugh and do yoga face to face."Now we've created a platform that invites more corporations, more policy makers, more media committed to the success of women worldwide," Vanderveldt said. "And we're really bridging those organizations to women in a way that helps them grow and thrive."

How Masterminds are Powering Women & Why You Should Be in One

After 8 years in my own mastermind group - The Billionaire Girls Club - I know first-hand how transformational cultivating these relationships can be. These women have introduced me to serious players, provided numerous opportunities from speaking to publishing, given me feedback, advice and have flat out told me the truth. They have helped me grow my business, been champions for my personal growth and have been a constant source of support.  

One of our Billionaire Girls Club members, Ingrid Vanderveldt was recently featured by BizWomen in an article called, "On the Hunt For Her First Billion" where she talks about how important her own mastermind group was to her success. 

Turns out we're really lucky because many of the top women leaders I speak to feel like they're out on their own. Even if they are running wildly successful companies, they are often too busy heads down scaling their businesses to actually step back and focus on strategy and what's driving the business…and more importantly what's driving them. They also tell me how rare it is to meet other women who get what it's like to operate at their level and how excited they'd be to finally have an intimate setting where they can get honest feedback.

This is exactly why I wanted to provide other women with the same opportunity by creating the Art of Leverage Mastermind Group for 5 extraordinary business women. This is the process I use with my clients to remove all limiting beliefs so they can scale, multiply their valuations, get tied in with partners from Hearst to Coca Cola and create the biggest impact possible even when they have minimal resources. The Art of Leverage Mastermind starts with the biggest point of leverage, mindset. Mindset matters. It shows up in the messaging they use, what they offer, the people they hire, the partners they choose, the asks they make and their bottom line. We then focus on messaging so that they're perfectly positioned and monetization so that they implement those tweaks that can maximize profits with ease and grace. And, these women now have the ability to leverage each other. 

Our next Art of Leverage Mastermind starts January 27th. Although the call for applications has passed, because we're hand-curating the group (we want to make sure there's an interesting mix and that everyone is totally aligned) and because of the response we've received, we are considering starting another concurrent group. 

This is what we look for:

1. A female business rock-star who makes big bold moves

2. A woman who will provide a wonderful contribution

3. A woman that gets the need for community, collaboration, and connection with women who will push you further

4. A woman who understands that she is the true leverage in her business

If you are this brilliant woman, we want to know and support you.  If you know a woman you'd like to nominate that would benefit from the power of leverage in her business and the power of leverage in her network, please send her our way. 

You can reach us at info@casanovaventures.com.

BTW - My personal mission is to shift the game. 2015 - I'm choosing women.  And, a mastermind is one of the best starting points to make that happen. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank and the father of micro-lending specifically talks about the power that comes from circles of 5 women.

When we light the fire so these women entrepreneurs skyrocket, ooh baby - watch out!

THIS IS THE YEAR WE SHIFT THE GAME.

THIS IS THE YEAR WE SHIFT THE GAME

One of the wonderful women that supported me in creating my game, Shift, reached out to me recently. Kristen had seen my Facebook post. 

“Bigger and better in 2015. Just burned my game, Shift and, did a forgiveness ceremony. Think I’m finally ready...”

— Me, Facebook

She was really concerned about me. 

Yet...I'm fantastic.

I had no clue how long it had been. We published Shift a decade ago. 2005. I spent a better part of a decade building a story that didn't serve me. That night I let go of all sorts of judgment, anger, and frustration and all these limiting beliefs I had tied up in it. It took almost an hour to fully burn and it felt oh so good.

I read through everything - the rules, the box, our meditations...every card. It really was so well done. The graphics and the content... even the rules. All amazing.  

I am so thankful to the women that helped me birth it. There is no way I could have done it without their loving guidance and belief in it, in me, in us. 

I had discounted it for so long. I cringed every time someone asked about it and I don't think I opened one of those boxes in the last 5 years. 

It caused so much stress. Everything took a toll - my marriage, my finances, my relationship with my family...even my health. 

Everyone thought I was crazy. I thought I wasn't enough.

I thought I had failed. But the reality was, I kept at it, for a very long time. Freaking years and years. I believed in it so much and when it didn't reach the level of success I needed it to, I judged it... I judged me... as a failure. Maybe it was the business model - a physical product with no marketing budget for pull is hard. Maybe it was that we were just too early. I remember companies laughed us out the door when we said the words, "limiting beliefs." Producing and distributing a physical product, live streaming multiple videos - things were so expensive to create then. Startups now have so many advantages and for the new entrepreneurs, failure is a badge of honor. 

I've been working with these amazing entrepreneurs lately. They've totally inspired me to step back into my truth. They totally get that mindset matters and that consciousness is indeed cool. They get it. They think from possibility. They lead with love. 

It's a decade later and all of these things that I was just too ahead of my time for are now starting to convene. Now people have a willingness to see what's driving them and let go of anything that doesn't support them reaching their highest potential. 

And so as the New Year approaches I've asked myself, "What really wants to show up?" I'm so good at avoiding and not listening but I've been hearing it clearly.  I am here to own my worth as a successful business woman and give other women the opportunity to create their biggest impact. 

“My purpose is to shift the game.”

— Nicole Casanova

Turns out I've got a ton of limiting beliefs that have kept me from owning this message. I could not say the following sentence:

I am the original internet marketer (1995 yo!) who coaches women leaders on owning and asking for their worth.

So much here that felt icky. I had judgment about:

- Internet marketers (obnoxious and shady) - yet all the ones I know give tremendous value and are truly leading from love

- Coaches (airy fairy and definitely no business acumen) - yet the biggest pivot points in my life came from the work I did with my coaches

- Women - (Oh my - so much here. Not enough, not a big enough market, not taken seriously enough... I suppose just not worth as much) - yet I have surrounded myself with some of the most amazing women on Earth who are wielding their power for good!

This women one is big. And so this is my year to shift this huge limiting belief. We teach what we are. That means owning my worth as a woman - a bad ass business woman.

In 2015, I will support women (especially the ones positioned to have huge impact) in empowering themselves. And I will start with me. It's freaking time I shifted my game.

So after a ton of requests to create a mastermind similar to the one I've been in for 8 years - The Billionaire Girls Club - I'm finally offering a high touch version specifically designed to escalate a founder and her company's value from the inside out. There will only be 5 for now, so if you know a rock star woman leader, send her my way...

Thanks for providing the confessional. It is truly appreciated.

Best wishes for a New Year filled with abundance, love and laughter,

Nicole

BTW - Since we're speaking of fully owning your message and leading a company from love, my friend Corey Blake from Round Table Companies just wrote an amazing article for HuffPost. Check it out -  2015: An Opportunity to Redefine Your Identity. 

Women Entrepreneurs Fight for Their Piece of the Pie

By Zoë Schlanger / May 7, 2014 5:47 AM EDT

On a clear Friday morning in April, in a room near the top of the New York Times building with a humbling view of lower Manhattan, the world’s financial epicenter, eight groups of women wait to pitch their businesses.

Women Entrepreneurs to Bet On

Women are pushing their way into the world of venture capital and building their own businesses.

They’re vying for $25,000 in early-stage investment by five so-called angel investors. First up is Miki Agrawal, who speaks casually, convincingly and fast. She has done this before. She locks eyes with the five investors, one by one, as she describes something every woman in the room can relate to—the fear of period leaks.

The line of underwear she developed with the other two women who founded Thinx would end that worry forever, she says, with four high-tech layers of fabric in the crotch. By the time she gets to the part where girls in developing countries often miss a week of school while they are menstruating simply because they lack proper sanitary supplies, and how her company would donate washable pads for every pair of underwear sold, the investors are nodding, totally into it.

The entrepreneurs have just completed something called the Pipeline Fellowship, which is trying to level the playing field for women in angel investing, an increasingly integral part of America’s capital formation. startups with at least one woman on their founding team are roughly 18 percent less likely to attract equity investors than their all-male counterparts, according to 2013 data from an ongoing survey by Emory University. Yet they are almost 20 percent more likely to have generated revenue—and that’s no small distinction in a world where the vast majority of venture-backed startups fail. Data collected by PitchBook found only 13 percent of all venture capital deals in the United States went to women in 2013, a significant increase from the firm’s 2004 data that put the figure at 4 percent. But that still means 87 percent of deals are being given to all-male teams.

The numbers paint just part of the picture. The rest is made up of the experiences—often ranging from frustrating to infuriating—of female entrepreneurs navigating the world of equity investors, where 96 percent of senior venture capitalists are men.

The anonymous confession-sharing app Secret is rife with posts by female entrepreneurs bemoaning the process of finding financial backers. “Just got out of a meeting with a [venture capitalist] who couldn’t stop staring at my boobs. Not sure whether this means we have a better or worse chance of getting his investment,” reads one.

Kathryn Minshew, who co-founded the career advice and job-search tool The Muse in 2011, says women are frequently asked to drinks by VCs who say they might be interested in investing. But instead of a business meeting, it turns out to be a date. Over the course of her company’s first year, Minshew says, she spent “probably 30 hours, maybe more” going on bait-and-switch drinks of that nature.

“One of the very common questions I get from younger entrepreneurs is, How do you very nicely confirm with an investor that something is a business meeting and not a personal meeting, without offending them?”

Natalia Oberti Noguera, the founder of the Pipeline Fellowship and a self-described “LGBTQ Latina and a feminist with a capital F,” has come to terms with that bias. That’s why the crowd assembled in the Goodwin Procter offices for the pitching event is almost entirely women. Just two men are in the audience, to support their co-founder Holly Pressman, who is pitching their finance-education site FinLit.com. Oberti Noguera’s program trains women to be angel investors, through mentoring with seasoned investors and workshops on issues like due diligence and valuation. The five women at the table in the pitch meeting—an insurance executive, a mortgage executive, two magazine executives and the vice chair of a New York City school, were nearing the end of the program, the part where they narrow down eight potential investments to three.

“People will probably invest in people who make them feel safe, and usually that means people who are not different. So if that’s how we work, let’s get more women and people of color on the investing side,” Oberti Noguera tells Newsweek.

In the first half of 2013, according to the Center for Venture Research, just 16 percent of companies pitching to angel investors were women-owned, but 24 percent of that group got funded—a higher rate of success than the deal rate overall. That may in part be thanks to programs like Pipeline Fellowship, Golden Seeds, 37 Angels and others like them. Angel investors back projects they feel passionate about, and that are in their early stages of development, in return for equity in the businesses. They are a different financial species from venture capitalists, who invest institutional money—from pension funds, university endowments, wealthy individuals—in much larger sums, and typically require a seat on the board of the business they back, as well as an equity stake.

In a study released by Harvard in March, investors, both men and women, heard real startup pitches adapted from real businesses. Each pitch was shown in one of four ways to different investors: in one version, a male voice presented the pitch alongside a photo of an attractive man. In another, the voice was male and the photo of the man was less attractive. Another two versions were narrated by a female voice, one with a photo of an attractive woman and one with a less attractive woman.

Investors chose businesses presented by men 68 percent of the time. Only 32 percent of investors chose to fund the ventures presented by women, despite the pitch being exactly the same. The pitches by more attractive men fared considerably better than the ones by less handsome, while better-looking women did slightly worse, by a negligible margin, than their less pretty female counterparts.

You read that right: Both men and women would rather invest in a man over a woman, especially if the fellow has the right look.

“It’s more about intuition than data,” says Deb Nelson, the executive director of Social Venture Network, which connects social entrepreneurs with socially conscious investors. In traditional profit-driven investment, especially with early-stage funding where data are scarce, the decision of who to fund can come down to which entrepreneurs look and sound as if they will succeed. As long as the image we conjure in our collective imagination of a capable business leader is an attractive (likely young, likely white) man, that intuition will look a lot like sexism, racism and ageism. “We need to unlearn how we’ve been socialized,” Nelson says.

Natalia Oberti Noguera founded the Pipeline Fellowship as a way to put more women on the other side of the table, deciding which companies to invest in. Bryan Thomas for Newsweek

PICKING WINNERS

Consider the story of a tech startup called Clinkle. Its 22-year-old white, male CEO, Lucas Duplan, raised $30 million in investment over the past year. Now, the company has laid off a quarter of its staff, lost its chief operating officer and has been christened a hot mess by the tech news website Re/code, all without putting out its product yet, an app to stealthily transfer payments between smartphones.

“I don’t think it was the app that was impressive,” one former employee told Business Insider. “I think it’s Lucas who is so compelling. He sells the vision of what every investor wants, which is a 20-year-old, white, male Stanford computer science major. He fits the bill. He appears to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and he carries himself that way.” Duplan declined to comment for this story.

Oberti Noguera says there’s a wider lesson to be learned from such stories.

“If a guy has a really great exit, then of course that guy was awesome. And if a guy doesn’t do well, it’s like, ‘Well, he must’ve not had the pricing strategy down pat.’ But if a woman doesn’t end up succeeding, it’s ‘Oh, women suck,’” she says. “We don’t have enough female success stories, so the failure stories end up overshadowing everything. We have so many white–guys stories, but that doesn’t mean that if the guy is white and wearing a hoodie that he’ll succeed.”

If looks aren’t a good benchmark for investors, what is? A 2012 report from Dow Jones found that a company with at least one female executive at the vice president or director level was more likely to be successful than companies with no women at that level. For venture-backed startups with five or more female executives, the report found 61 percent were successful and only 39 percent flopped, compared with a 50 percent failure rate overall. The study did not find any statistically significant relationship between a company having female founders and its success, perhaps because there were so few represented: Of the 20,194 companies in the report, only 1.3 percent had a female founder.

There are those who argue women need to adapt to the system, rather than the other way around—that it’s the women themselves who are to blame. And not all of these critics are unreconstructed Mad Men–era throwbacks.Bryan Thomas for Newsweek

“VCs don’t have a bias against women entrepreneurs; we’re just bad at pitching,” claimed a headline on the website Venture Beat last year. The author, Mauria Finley, a woman who founded Citrus Lane, a subscription service for children’s products, says women don’t think big enough and spend too much time focusing on details. In The Boston Globe magazine, Fiona Murray, one of the authors of the Harvard study, wrote that women should “watch sports” to have something to chat about with male investors.

“Women have to do things proactively against a tide of bias,” Murray tellsNewsweek, adding that “it’s not to say those biases are okay. It’s not just what women can do, it’s what men can do too.”

All the investors Newsweek spoke with say that having something in common does make an enormous difference to winning their support. Having a personal connection with the proposed product also makes a difference.

According to a study of a wide range of corporate firms by the Center for Talent Innovation, 56 percent of employees said the leaders at their companies didn’t value ideas they don’t personally see a need for, “even when there [are] strong data and evidence that it’s a good, marketable idea.”

Jules Pieri, who founded e-commerce site The Grommet in 2008, says she has seen that in action. “Every woman has heard this if her business has a consumer side to it: They say, ‘I’ll go ask my assistant, I’ll go ask my wife about this.’ And you just want to jump out the window,” she says.

Bryan Thomas for Newsweek

BLOWING UP THE MODEL

Projects like the Pipeline Fellowship are focused on getting more women with resources to invest in other women. But such solutions operate within the equity-investing system. Danae Ringelmann wants a better system: online crowdfunding campaigns, housed on sites like Indiegogo, which she founded in 2007. She says 47 percent of the projects that reach their funding goal on Indiegogo are female-led.

“Being able to sell your idea to one person is a dependency that really shouldn’t matter. You’ve changed your whole approach for that one person, what you think that one person wants to hear,” Ringelmann says.

Before Indiegogo, she worked in investment banking. One day, she went to an event in New York City, where people making films and theater productions could meet potential investors, even though she didn’t have the money or influence to fund a project. One director approached her, hopeful that she could help make his production of Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy an off-Broadway reality.

She co-produced a concert reading—where potential investors can attend and consider whether to invest. Ringelmann ultimately couldn’t gather enough capital to get the play staged, partly because she didn’t have a personal relationship with enough theater investors.

“The people who wanted the play to come alive the most didn’t actually have the power relationships to make it happen,” she says. Years later, Indiegogo came out of that sobering experience. “We decided to use the Internet to blow that [model of capital] up,” Ringelmann says.

Indiegogo has helped thousands of entrepreneurs get started. Businesses that want to seek traditional investment later have used the success of their Indiegogo projects as proof of their project’s viability, according to Ringelmann.

For its part, Indiegogo still needed venture capital to get off the ground. Ringelmann says her team was rejected by over 90 venture capitalists before they raised their first VC dollar. But now the funding appears to be flowing: In January, the site announced it had raised $40 million in Series B venture funding, the funding stage meant to speed growth.

CASINO ROYALE

A fact that gets lost in all the bleak reports about the capital gap is that women start many successful businesses without VC funding. Indeed, women own 30 percent of all businesses in the United States. Many choose not to approach investors in the first place. Instead, they grow their businesses at a rate directly proportional to their businesses’ success.

The point of venture capital isn’t necessarily to grow a sustainable business. The point is to make a lot of money. The VC’s investment is worthwhile only if and when the company has a major liquidity event, called an “exit,” by either being bought or going public. Exits are very rare, and most VC-backed startups fail.

When a fledgling business makes a successful pitch and receives a sudden injection of millions of venture capital dollars, it has often made an agreement to grow as fast as possible. Perhaps it moves into offices and goes on a hiring spree. It’s racing toward the exit.

For all their expertise, venture capitalists are basically shooting craps, only with worse odds. Just 2.3 percent of venture capital deals end in a payout of more than $100 million, and 0.18 percent get a payday that exceeds $1 billion, but those are the margins that major firms are gunning for. More than 90 percent of venture capital-backed startups fall short of their projected success, according to Harvard Business School research. Fully 45 percent fail entirely and return nothing to investors, according to data from Sand Hill Econometrics. Another 25 percent might make some money, but fail to return all of the original investment. In both cases, or around 70 percent of the time, the entrepreneur walks away with nothing at all.

MIT engineer Limor “Ladyada” Fried didn’t seek out any investors when she founded Adafruit, her a DIY electronics kits company, in 2005. Adafruit had over $22 million in revenue in 2013 and is expected to double its 50-person staff this year. Fried isn’t opposed to venture capital or angel investment, but with a company that focuses on education and “making more engineers,” rather than short-term profit, Fried doesn’t see how the equity investment model would fit in, at least for now.

Adafruit has more than 1,800 products for sale and is engineering new ones all the time. It recently launched a new children’s show about electronics called Circuit Playground. An investor might consider all those diverse focuses “outside the core business” of shipping out kit orders, but it’s just how Adafruit does things, Fried says.Bryan Thomas for Newsweek

“Had we taken investment and not constrained growth, we could have made some mistakes with hiring and space. It’s given us more flexibility to not have the pressures of a return on investment from an outside group. We’re growing at our own pace and on our terms,” Fried says. “There hasn’t been a challenge that a cash infusion could solve. And we know that taking on investment and investors would take one important thing away that cash definitely cannot solve: time.”

It’s a lesson women and men could take to heart. 

Why You Should Pitch Like A Woman

The first week I went to the dark side and chose to sell advertising rather than buy it, a friend had me watch Glengary Glen Ross. Check out the video below where Alec Baldwin assumes fear is the best source of inspiration. He is awful. Needless to say, I spent the next month freaking out not knowing what I had gotten myself into. This is why so many of us fear sales. We don't want to be perceived as ruthless and cutthroat. The thing is, for any entrepreneur, the most important skill they can have is their ability to sell... and there are ways to sell that feel more like serving. And they work.

There are so many latest and greatest ways to pitch. However, I was curious to see if there were new less male (dominate the meeting, own the frame, show your power) ways of selling.  SPIN Selling explains the science behind consultative selling. Pitch Anything explains how to use influence, the right messaging that lands and setting and holding the frame. I'll explain all of these at a later date and how to incorporate different elements into your close.

Tim Fereiss's  Always Be Closing: Y Combinator and The Art of the Pitch is also a great article that touches on many of the things that work and don't and it's specific to the startup experience. 

And, it looks like there really is a case for being more lady like or let's just say considerate when it comes to sales. 

A recent Harvard Business Review article, How Women Decide by Cathy Benko, vice chairman and a managing principal at Deloitte LLP and Bill Pelster, former chief learning officer and a principal at Deloitte Consulting,  shows the benefits of letting go of the dominate or die psychology of sales.  Instead, they focus on utilizing the behaviors that are innate for women. As more and more women become the decision makers, it's best to model the way they show up and present in a way that they're more likely to receive.

Here's what they found, "We also learned that women see a big meeting with a potential service provider as a chance to explore options in collaboration with an expert resource, while men see that event as a near-final step in the process, when they are narrowing down and choosing among options."

"When presenting to men, we find that they look for holes or weaknesses in our arguments. Again, it’s part of the winnowing process. But women continually seek a creative solution—listening for ideas, adjusting their understanding of what is important, and asking for relevant details."

So today, while interacting with prospective clients, we know to keep asking ourselves, “What’s the deciding factor?” And we make this explicit in our presentations. “We understand you are on a journey to find the best partner,” we tell prospects, “and we recognize that your perspective will evolve as you speak with us and our competitors.”

Our world is becoming more collaborative and the sales process can and should feel like the first step in creating a shared story. Always Be Closing does work. Always be a valued partner works best.

Denver Ranked One of the Top Ten Cities for Female Entrepreneurs (Infographic)

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