Girls In Tech

Guest blog entry written by Briana Myricks, Director, Girls in Tech University

Internships are a great way to get real life career experience in the field you’re interested in. They’re more than just fetching coffee for the big guys and doing all the copying and faxing. Interns are getting a first hand look at what it takes to be an industry professional. While most internships take place in the office of a company, and some are with home based business owners, many interns are finding their way into virtual internships.

Virtual internships allow an intern to telecommute for their position, and perform the tasks virtually anywhere that has an Internet connection. I’ve had over 10 virtual internships in the marketing and public relations field, and I prefer them. Some ask you to be available during set hours, while others just ask that you get the job done and send them a progress report weekly. This could be a gift or a curse, depending on how organized the intern is.

So what tools do you need to succeed as a virtual intern?

-Reliable Internet access: Things happen, and most employers are understanding and realize that, but if you have spotty Internet access at your dorm, you should make sure you set up shop where the Internet is reliable. If a library or other free wifi spot isn’t available, look into a mifi device, where you can make a hotspot wherever you go.

-Professional e-mail address: I quickly changed my e-mail address to my first and middle name after one of my intern supervisors thought my e-mail address at the time, a song lyric, would not be appropriate if I would be contacting people on behalf of your business. Sacrifice your “sexy” e-mail address for a professional one including your name.

-A professional web presence: If you’re looking for virtual internships, chances are your employers are computer savvy. They will be doing some background checking online. If you have questionable pictures on Facebook or have raunchy conversations on Twitter, change your privacy settings or delete them completely. Have a website with your name so when they Google you, your information will come up. Include your resume and portfolio information if possible.

-Available hours: The best way to succeed in a virtual internship is to ensure open communication. Tell your employer when you’ll be available either online or by phone and be available. There may be some things they have to tell you and you want to be sure you’re around for them to get in touch with you.

-A Skype account and webcam: You don’t have to have a virtual internship with a company in your town. You can be on completely opposite coasts and still succeed. A Skype account and a webcam can help by talking to your supervisor “face to face”, which can eliminate a lot of confusion and gain trust on both ends.

-Access to a printer/copier/fax: Just because you do your work online doesn’t mean you won’t need access to physical files. Make sure you have access to a printer/copier/fax in case you have to sign agreements and forms, whether it’s for your employer or on behalf of your employer.

-Calendar or Organizer: An internship is just like a job, meaning you’ll have expectations and deadlines. Stay organized by putting your assignments and due dates in a calendar or organizer. You can do like I do and color code what’s for class and what’s for work. Google Calendar is a great tool, as you can color code, set up reminders, and even “invite” others to your tasks.

You can find great virtual internships on Intern Queen, who is a fellow Girls in Tech member. Be sure to look out for scams and verify details about the company. Do your research and take the internship seriously.

Posted in All Chapters, GIT U, Los Angeles | 1 Comment »

Girls in Tech is proud to be part of the Women@TheFrontier  2nd annual conference tonight: Tuesday August 16, 2011 6-10pm at The Tech Museum of Innovation San Jose, CA. This event is open to public. RSVP here

Women@TheFrontier launched in summer 2009- to inspire, to empower and to link female change-agents currently impacting the world through innovation, entrepreneurship, humanitarianism, policy, science and technology.

At its core, W@F celebrates the accomplishments of leading women that are creating positive and innovative change, global in reach and exponential in impact.

W@F also recognizes top organizations empowering and actively changing the lives of women and girls around the world.

 W@F is also collaborating with Women Go Global

follow me @MsSonicFlare

Tags: entrepreneurship, innovation, Ivo Lukas, Science, tech, Women at the Frontier, women go global, women in tech, women's conference
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Events, Girls In Tech, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco, santa cruz, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

Tags: BlogWorld
Posted in All Chapters, Event, Los Angeles | No Comments »

The New York Times writes about “Sites That Send Shoppers What They Might Like” today and features the proliferation of e-commerce sites like JewelMint, ShoeDazzle, and a New York-based fashion startup that is the topic of today’s Seven Question Series: Send the Trend.

Send the Trend, founded in late 2010, is a an e-commerce site for fashion accessories such as earrings, scarves, necklaces, sunglasses and bracelets.  Users take a short and fun Style Survey and each month, the Send the Trend team personally selects an accessory for the user and has it sent – the discovery process of finding the season’s best styles is simplified with Send the Trend, and all items on the site are $29.95, no matter what.  Send the Trend’s founders are Divya Gugnani, Christian Siriano (yes, the designer from Project Runway) and Mariah Chase.  Divya and the Send the Trend team are announcing some big news on Monday: they have raised $3 million from Battery Ventures and other angel investors. So, it is definitely perfect timing that Divya is featured on Girls in Tech this week.  Check out and enjoy this week’s Seven Questions, answered by a truly dynamic and brilliant entrepreneur.

1.  Who or what initially inspired you to start Send the Trend?

DG:  I was a venture capitalist before I turned into an entrepreneur. When I worked as a VC, I could shop at high-end departments stores and enjoy personalized service. When I launched my own business I said hello to 20-hour workdays filled with passion and progress and said goodbye to a paycheck. Hence, I found myself trying to update my look on a budget each season. I found accessories to be the perfect fix but value-price retailers didn’t offer any personalization. I launched Send the Trend with two co-founders, Christian and Mariah, to provide a curated selection of fashion accessories for women to update their look without breaking the bank.

2.  If the name “Send The Trend” was taken, what would alternative name would you give your startup?

DG: Accessorize Yourself! I like Send the Trend because it allows for category expansion beyond accessories. Right now we offer fashion jewelry, scarves, sunglasses, hair accessories and umbrellas. We will continue to grow our product mix to keep our customers coming back to Send the Trend for all their fashion needs and wants.

3.  How would you describe your management style?  Has it changed since you became an entrepreneur?

DG:  Collaborative. A good CEO needs to be a true listener. I listen and believe that the strong talent we’ve recruited at Send the Trend deserves a voice when it comes to setting our strategy and executing. I’ve always embraced teamwork but since I’ve become an entrepreneur I’ve learned to lead with a solid emphasis on collaborative decision-making.  I guess my first job at Goldman Sachs rubbed off on me. They always used to say “there’s no I in Goldman Sachs.”

4.  What is one piece of advice you would give yourself if you could go back in time five years ago?

DG:  Think “who” not “what.” When I started Behind the Burner I focused my energy on what we were doing not who we were hiring. With Send the Trend I took an entirely different approach. I’ve been focused on talent and the “who” part of our organization. It’s these smart people who then get to figure out “what” to do

5.  What trends in social media are you most excited about?

DG:

1.  Location-based networking

2.  Enhanced mobile engagement

3.  Consolidation of social media access so you don’t have to log on to five different accounts!

6. What are the tech buzzwords you are already hearing for 2011?

DG: User Engagement, Crowdsourcing (an oldie but it’s not going out of style anytime soon), Social Media Blackmail – when customers threaten to post their bad customer service experience on their social media outlets unless you credit/refund/or give them free stuff

7.  What is a book that you would recommend to women in the technology and startup community?

DG:  Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup by David Cohen and Brad Feld

WYR:  Would you rather: be forced to eat the same thing everyday OR Be forced to wear the same thing everyday? (clean clothes, but the same thing)

DG:  I would rather eat the same thing every day- I can live on greek yogurt & berries with a little honey. However, I can’t live with a uniform!  Fashion is an expression of ourselves and who wants to sacrifice that?!

Posted in All Chapters, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco | No Comments »

After days of heated debate with your co-founder, you’ve finally settle on the perfect name for your startup. You go to check if the .com is available and, lo and behold, the domain is taken and being parked at Go Daddy. To add insult to injury, Go Daddy won’t even tell you who the seller is unless you fork over $75 for one of their “certified representatives” to fetch the information for you.

Sound familiar?

Every day, entrepreneurs with new ideas are discovering that the domains they’d like to build business on have already been registered, most likely by a domain speculator. Since nearly every business these days needs an internet presence, good domains are very valuable properties. Just like physical properties, domains are not fungible. Sex.com is tremendously more valuable ($13 million dollars more valuable, in fact) than xes.com, despite having the same letters. While domains only cost $5 – $10 to register, savvy professional domainers regularly flip them for five to seven figures. Domainers who got in early on the game and scored valuable short dictionary word domains (color.com, disco.com) can flip for millions.

As a broke startup founder, you probably can’t afford to purchase a domain for more than a few thousand dollars. Even if you’re funded, you’d be wise to play the domain acquisition game right to not waste cash. This has lead to the proliferation of intentional misspellings (Flickr, Tumblr) and creative use of international top level domains (Frid.ge, GeneralAssemb.ly). Unfortunately, competition for domains has also led many startups to choose wacky and unwieldy names that make their companies hard to remember.  Before you make this mistake for your startup, get familiar with practices you may be able to use to acquire domains with terms acceptable to you. To get you the scoop on what’s worked for the industry, we talked to a number of experienced domain buyers, sellers, and brokers about how they handled their deals. Here’s the advice we distilled:

Understand the Value of Your Domain

Domain appraisal is a tricky business. Quantitative methods are based on SEO characteristics and historic sale prices while qualitative ones consider upcoming business and product trends. Kevin Ohashi, an entrepreneur and long time domainer, develops algorithms for appraisal competitions. His best algorithims hover around 44% accuracy, while the best ones in competition reach only about 68% accuracy. The long tail is very hard to predict.

Given this, the best way to think about your desired domain is the business impact of the brand value and whether you could possibly work with alternatives. With all the startup competition in the consumer web space, companies with short, easily memorable names like Path or Color have an advantage in standing out amidst the noise. That said, if you’re inventive enough to create your own brandable identity like Yahoo or Zynga, this path could be ideal since you’d own the keyword, but you’ll face challenges early on in trying to get your average consumers to remember just who they hell you are. Finally, if a number of brandable names could work for you, this can improve your negotiating power. If you desperately need a specific domain, you may be out of luck when it comes to price flexibility.

If you need a domain name in order to test a product and aren’t sure yet whether that product will be successful, consider whether social media might be a reasonable alternative to a brand name domain.  Rob Holmes, a cybersecurity expert turned domain broker, has been working with domains since the mid 90s and has represented many high profile clients in his career. In the past, when SEO was king, his clients would regularly pay six figures or more to acquire domains. These days, social media can deliver a superior ROI and many of them have discovered that their $50,000 budget is often better spent on a Facebook and Twitter campaign than on domain acquisition. These days, the domains Rob buys for his clients sell for substantially lower prices.

One final tip: do not be tempted to lowball a domain seller. Domains, like physical property, are valuable. Domainers get emails nearly every day offering joke amounts of money for a valuable domain. Give a reasonable first offer or you’ll risk undermining your own credibility.

Consider Alternative Deals such as Leasing and Buying With Equity

The original owner of Mint.com was Hite Capital, an east cost hedge fund. When raising their Series A round, the startup negotiated an equity deal with the fund to acquire the domain for stock as an alternative to paying six figures cash up front. The hedge fund reportedly received between 1-2% equity, which totaled “a couple million dollars” when Mint sold to Intuit for $170 million.

Equity deals happen surprisingly often with startups, especially because they give the entrepreneur the option for a low upfront cash outlay while preserving seller upside in the increasingly heated acquisition market. One domain broker we spoke to had brokered alternative deals for some of the hottest startups in the Valley. Each deal is individually negotiated, a process which can take months, but one of the more common financing agreements he’s structured involve the startup paying some portion of a fair price up front (usually 1/3 or 1/2) and getting three years to build out their business. At the end of three years, the domain owner can opt to get 0.1-1% of the company’s equity or buy back the domain for $1 if the business fails.

Another interesting deal structure he’s brokered is the 99-year lease model. In this arrangement, the value of a domain is paid out to the owner in what is effectively a lifetime annuity (ex: $4000 a year). Should the business fail, the seller simply gets the domain back and retains all accrued earnings from the lease.

For this article, we ran a survey of founders to see how open you guys are about these alternative models. While 73% of you said you’d much prefer to buy outright, 76% of you said you would consider a leasing arrangement if an outright buy wasn’t an option. 58% said you would consider renting monthly at an average max rate of $220 a month or $2460 a year.

Should you be interested in such deals, we highly recommend speaking to an experienced domain broker. If you’re a venture-backed startup, email us for introductions.

Profile Your Seller

The domain investor crowd is quite diverse. You’ve got everyone from your stay-at-home mom looking to make a few extra bucks on the side to hugely profitable domain investment firms that manage over 500 million domains. In between are professional full-time domain speculators who manage anywhere from a few thousand to a few hundred thousand domains.

The first thing domain brokers do after collecting client requirements is dig up information on the seller. To conduct a strategic negotiation, you need to understand what type of seller you’re dealing with, how savvy they are, and what sort of return they’re looking for. About 10-15% of domains have a legitimate business built on top of them, so you’ll have to compensate the owner for having to rebrand their company after you buy their domain.

One unique way to research a seller, recommended to us by an experienced broker, is to make an offer on another domain in their portfolio, not the actual one you’re looking to buy. This allows you to gauge the range in which a seller is hoping to sell a certain type of domain. When you can’t agree on a price, ask to see what other domains they have in their portfolio.

If you’re hoping a seller will be open to leasing or selling for equity, be mindful that one characteristic that unifies domain sellers is that they like things simple. Most aren’t willing to deviate outside of the standard practice of selling outright, especially since alternative deals can mean months of negotiation between parties. Large companies like Oversee have the resources to monetize their domain portfolios and generally consider leasing to be leaving money on the table. To monetize unsold inventory, Oversee builds out quality content and makes money through SEO and advertisements. This process generally requires a high degree of industry knowledge, solid SEO skills, and website development expertise. Additionally, content development takes about 6-9 months to start generating revenue. Given this, individual domainers without content development capability might be your best targets for a leasing deal.

The sentiment may be changing, though. Nick Hoffmann, COO of Auzzy, a domain marketplace, has considered implementing a lease-to-buy model for his company. Adam Strong, an experienced domain investor and broker, has brokered several leasing deals for entrepreneurs. Even Oversee might be interested in working with you if you sell them the Mint.com story.

Founder’s Block would like to thank the many contributors to this story, including:

Kevin Ohashi, Entrepreneur
Adam Strong, Domain Investor & Broker
Nick Hoffmann, COO of Auzzy
Rob Holmes, CEO of IP Cybercrime
And several others who preferred to remain anonymous

Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Boston, Girls In Tech, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, santa cruz, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

AcademyX is offering an exclusive 20% discount for Girls-in-Tech members for hands-on, instructor-led computer training in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, and Los Angeles.  There are class offerings in MS Office, Adobe applications, programming, web technologies and more.

AcademyX has an outstanding reputation in the training community with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Google and Yelp, state-of-the-art facilities at convenient locations, and an average class size of 5 students with independent workstations.  The company is also Microsoft Certified and Adobe Certified Partner.

Lisa Blodgett, the Director of Social Marketing for AcademyX Los Angeles states “…during these times, furthering and pursuing more advanced computer skills is a vital asset; our curriculum offers a direct relation to Girls-in-Tech member interests and I do think we have an offering for everyone’s interest and skill level. I especially believe as a woman – empowering other women through education is an absolute must!”

AcademyX provides courses in a variety of formats including public enrollment classes (classroom training), customized group training, 3-month evening courses (Web Design, PHP/MySQL, and Online Marketing), one-on-one tutoring, online seminars in advanced topics, and mentored learning targeting certification in MS Office and Adobe applications.

The Girls-in-Tech member discount is for 20% off of the hands-on classroom based training in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, and Los Angeles.  Use the special ‘GirlsInTech’ discount code when registering today!

Details:

Locations:

• San Francisco
• Sacramento
• San Jose
• Los Angeles

Format: hands-on classroom based training
Discount code: GirlsInTech
More Information: AcademyX

Tags: academyx, online marketing training, online training, programming, training
Posted in All Chapters, All Chapters, Girls In Tech, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

The Founder Institute (www.founderinstitute.com), a pre-seed incubator, recently unveiled a program designed to increase the number of females founders in technology. Their goal? To launch 175 female-led tech companies in 2011.

The Female Founder Fellowship program will provide extraordinary female applicants the opportunity to launch their dream company with the Founder Institute – free of charge. The Institute will subsidize the course fee for the most extraordinary female applicant in each of it’s ten Spring Semesters; including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., San Diego, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, New York City, Boston, and Singapore.

Best part of all:  Any female who applies to any of these Spring Semesters is automatically eligible. Many of the deadlines are approaching, so apply today at http://founderinstitute.com/join.

To date, 16% of the Founder Institute’s 250+ graduated technology companies have been founded by females – which sadly is quite higher than the industry average. More importantly – the Institute’s acceptance rate amongst female applicants is essentially equal to that of the men, while the graduation rate amongst women is almost 20% greater than that of the men. With this in mind, the Institute hopes to double the number of female applicants with this program – which will in turn push the number of female graduates over 30%, equating to over 175 new female tech founders in 2011.

Some notable female graduates of the Founder Institute include:

1.     2RedBeans (www.2redbeans.com) – Q Zhao (Bay Area)

2.     Ergolution (www.ergolution.net) – Charissa Shaw (Los Angeles)

3.     EximFlow (www.eximflow.com) – Stacey Arbetter  (Boston)

4.     Fashioning Change (www.fashioningchange.com) – Adriana Herrera (San Diego)

5.     Memetales (www.memetales.com) – Maya Bisineer (Seattle)

6.     Micromobs (www.micromobs.com) – Himani Amoli (Bay Area)

7.     MySweetsBox.com (www.mysweetsbox.com) – Regine Harr (Berlin)

8.     Skimble (www.skimble.com ) – Maria Ly (Bay Area)

9.     WhatsFun.com (www.whatsfun.com ) – Katherine Chalmers (Washington DC)

10.  Zebraminds (www.zebraminds.com) – Oza Klanjsek (Denver)

Apply today!  *(You know who you are!)

Tags: entrepreneurship, female founders, Founder Institute, The Funded
Posted in Berlin, Boston, DC, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Diego, San Francisco | 2 Comments »

FEMALE HIGH-TECH MENTORSHIP OPPORTUNITY:

Would you like to mentor high school girls as they develop computer science and entrepreneurship skills?

The Technovation Challenge is a nine-week course that brings together teams of high school girls and pairs them with female high-tech professional mentors, university engineering students, and cutting edge technology. Students learn entrepreneurial skills and mobile app programming concepts via Google App Inventor for Android(TM). Each team creates a mobile app prototype, business plan, marketing strategy, and funding pitch for their app. The program culminates at “Pitch Night” where students demo their apps and present their business plans to venture capitalists, competing to win prizes including professional app development and distribution on the Google Marketplace.  Spring 2011 courses will run from February to April 2011, in Mountain View, Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City. Dates and locations TBA. More info: http://bit.ly/technovation_professional

Mentor Responsibilities:

• Attend an orientation session in January 2011
• Attend the nine-week Technovation Challenge course from February to April 2011 (meets twice per week for two hours)
• Mentor a group of 5 students, giving them insight into professional opportunities in the industry
• Guide students through the Technovation Challenge program and entrepreneurial curriculum
• Support them as they create a mobile app concept and develop a prototype and business plan
• Coach students on high-tech career paths and building a virtual high tech company

APPLY NOW! VISIT:  www.TechnovationChallenge.org

FOR QUESTIONS, CONTACT: annalise@iridescentlearning.org

DEADLINE TO APPLY: DECEMBER 15TH!

Posted in Girls In Tech, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Silicon Valley | 1 Comment »

As a community manager, your social networking habits might differ from those you’d apply to your personal networks. Representing a brand or a company generally requires you to engage with a lot of people on a daily basis. So adding might just be second nature to you. But when it comes to your own network management, I like to think that different rules apply.

A couple of months ago I was listening to the radio and I heard a discussion about Facebook friend etiquette. The question was, “Is it acceptable to not accept friend requests on Facebook?” It was interesting to hear the opinion of everyone who called in, but I was surprised by how many people felt obligated or guilted into accepting requests. To be honest though, I never really gave it much thought.

There are people who request to be added, but if I don’t know them, especially if we don’t have any friends in common, I will ignore the request and not think twice about it. But when the request comes from someone you know, or may have known, the decision isn’t that simple. It’s especially difficult when that person works with you, or worse, is your boss!

The #u30pro crew posted a question to their Facebook group a few weeks ago that resulted in similar answers to the radio discussion: “Are you Facebook friends with your boss? Who added who?”

There was a mix of replies. Some felt obligated to accept from higher-ups, and others worried that by rejecting them that it implied they knew them, but didn’t want to associate with them in public. Many didn’t mind adding their bosses and co-workers to their Facebook networks and others had stipulations (i.e. only after I was no longer working there). I appreciated the variety in the answers though; it doesn’t always have to be black or white.

Personally, I like knowing that I have one place on the internet that is work-free. My personal and work persona mix daily on every other platform. I don’t go out of my way to hide my personal Twitter or blog. I’m more selective about my Facebook friends than Twitter or LinkedIn and I’m afraid I don’t have a good reason for it. It was just the one platform that seemed easiest to control. So if my boss added me, I would probably talk to them, but ultimately decline their request. I like to think that we have a good enough relationship that they would understand why I need that to be my space. And I do have a couple of co-workers as friends, so it’s not like I want that outlet to complain about the company.

I really dislike the sense of obligation people feel when it comes to building a network. You create a network to interact with likeminded people, not to censor yourself or feel uncomfortable. David Reinhardt wrote a really awesome article about handing Facebook requests on The Next Web. I highly recommend giving it a read.

So what about you? Where do you stand on friend-request etiquette? Would you, or did you, add your boss?

Tags: facebook, friend requests, social media etiquette
Posted in Los Angeles | No Comments »

Have you been on a mystery trip yet?  It’s the newest trend in meeting new and interesting people IRL and incorporates social media and socializing in the LA area.  Founded in 2003, the mission of Mystery Trip LA is give people in Los Angeles the chance to experience unique and fun events, eat great food, explore forgotten treasures, discover little-known gems and to interact with the bizarre characters that make our humble little city so wonderful.

With the upcoming holiday season, Mystery Trip LA is the perfect event for friends, co-workers, business and networking associates and anything in between.  Whether it’s tours of historic LA landmarks and odd museums,  meals at socially-conscious restaurants and from gourmet food trucks, or sumo wrestling and roller derbies, you can be sure that you will 1.  have a great time and 2. make your friends envious with your check ins and unique badges.

Most recently Mystery Trip LA was recommended by CitySearch as the next big party movement and was a featured event on EyeSpyLA.

Check out http://mysterytripla.com/ for details on upcoming events or to plan your next party.

brought to you by: laurelk.com

Posted in All Chapters, Girls In Tech, Los Angeles | 1 Comment »