What is the right time to be an entrepreneur?

The following is a guest post by Esha Tiwary.

This is one question I’ve been thinking about for a while, and that often comes up in conversations. It is an interesting one because it seems to have a “publicly acceptable” answer, regardless of what the individual might personally believe. It is a favorite topic of academicians to disseminate wisdom on, quite ironically I must add. And it is definitely one that has given every budding or struggling entrepreneur a sleepless night or two.

Of course, the well-known answer is, “When you have gathered enough relevant experience.” Everyone knows how important experience is to build a successful business. You can’t possibly know what to do if you haven’t been doing the exact same thing for the past 10 years. Current entrepreneurs will agree because that’s what they were told and they went and got the experience. Investors will agree because this is the only easy filter they can apply to choose amongst the hundreds of proposals they see every year. And academicians, well, serial (and hence, experienced) entrepreneurs make the best business school case studies!

Allow me to propose something drastic. The above answer is wrong. And it is wrong for the simple reason that the question itself is incorrect. I think the right question is, “What is the right attitude to be an entrepreneur?” It is a state of mind and not a biological age that determines when one is ready to be an entrepreneur. And no place better exemplified this than the Astia Doing it Right program this year. It was supremely inspiring to see the absolute range of entrepreneurs there – from a 21 year old to women who had been in the industry for two decades before taking the plunge. And one thing they all had in common was the spark – the desire to build something amazing.

A thing to note is also that you needn’t always have “the idea” to be able to take the plunge. One of the women I met at Astia said that one day she just decided that she wanted to build her own business. And once she made that decision, everything sort of fell into place. Because let’s face it, the right attitude and effort can turn the most commonplace of ideas into a stroke of genius.

- Esha Tiwary

Esha is the Head of Business Development at Embrace, one of the companies selected in the Doing it Right program this year. She is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Guest conversation from Astia VP Europe, Simone Brummelhuis

Astia is a community of experts, building women leaders and accelerating the funding and growth of high potential, high growth women-led start-ups.

I have read and heard this many times, it's on the Astia website, the reason of its existence, it became for me almost a mantra.

And as of this week I know, I have seen that the mantra is true.

I have never seen a group of experts more committed, more experienced, more qualified than this week. And I have never seen a group of women entrepreneurs who are so eager to be leaders and to accelerate their high potential startups. I am overwhelmed, and I am not the only one, the entrepreneurs are overwhelmed, both by the experts as well as their peers.

Last week I arrived in San Francisco -after a 22 year absence- much too long. And the occasion to visit San Francisco is the 2010 Astia Doing it Right Silicon Valley Program.

A full 43 companies and 58 entrepreneurs made it through the rigorous screening of joining this week’s program. Most are North American companies, 2 companies from Europe, 1 company from India and 1 company from New Zealand in industries of clean tech, life-science, enterprise software, medical devices, leisure and retail products.

Many of these female entrepreneurs have built a business before, some in a corporate environment, some have successfully exited their previous businesses. Some of the startups already raised their angel money, and are connecting with Astia for the institutional rounds of funding. Some of them are serial entrepreneurs or -as one woman calls herself- Startup Junkies. But what has been clear from the outset is that the class of 2010 is quite special.

I came to watch, to learn, to support the European companies, and, above all, to get ready for our European Astia program which will take place March 14-18, 2011.

From the first day of the program with a panel of impressive alumni Astia entrepreneurs - who where in the 60% success rate of Astia companies getting funding - to the last day of the program: it has been a roller coaster of panels, workshops and round tables with impressive investors, entrepreneurs, corporate heads and service providers with bios that each read as novels.

The entrepreneurs have -inter alia- stood up to present their ideas, listened to seasoned entrepreneurs who have uncovered their go-to-market strategy, calculated their financial projections together with financial wizzards, shaken hands with illustre giants of the tech industry, given out business cards to gatekeepers of venture capital firms, and established relationships with the global corporate giants.

The week was packed from morning to evening, there was no escape but go for it; a steep learning curve for all the women-led companies as never before. Also, never before were so many men and women of outstanding caliber together to support women-led companies. Tom Kosnik of Stanford, Dan'l Lewin of Microsoft, Bashkar Gorti of Oracle, Bill Reichert of Garage Technology Ventures and Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit. And who says that there are no women in global high positions? With Shellye Archambeau of Metric Stream, Eileen Gittens of Blurb, Andrea Zurek of XG Ventures and Renee Knee of Hewlett Packard, Astia brought forward outstanding rolemodels.

And on top of it, there was Female Internet Hero, Susan Wojcicki of Google who presented her case to give her support to the Astia female entrepreneurs.

As one of the first employees from 1999 at Google (she let her garage to Sergey and Larry), now a top 10 leader in Google and responsible for 97% of Google's turnover, while being a mom of 4 children, she puts in practice her own advice: Have a mission and you and other people can work harder for you, collect the best insights and make them your own, continue innovation and not perfection and believe in the impossible and it can become true, and KEEP GOING!

The great things is, that it's all applicable to the Astia class of 2010.

We want this in Europe too!

Simone Brummelhuis joined Astia in 2008 as a member of the Astia European Advisory Board. A former attorney, today she runs Astia Europe as the Vice President of that market. Simone lives in Amsterdam with her husband and three daughters.

Open Letter from the CEO to the new Astia companies

November 2010

Dear Entrepreneur,

Welcome to Astia!

Today begins your relationship with a ten-year-old community that spans the globe and seeks to ensure your success as a business and your success as an entrepreneur. We focus on what matters most to high-growth entrepreneurs – skills and networks. We know that it takes specific skills to succeed in high-growth markets and that those skills can be learned (think “not recreating wheels”). Of equal importance, it takes a network to connect you to your investors, customers, suppliers, employees and acquirers (think “the individual does not scale”).

All of this we know because of who we are. We are a community of entrepreneurs, investors, industry leaders, and others who influence and benefit from the high-growth, innovation ecosystem.

Our model is extremely unique, in that it is:

High touch – over 1,000 advisors work to help our entrepreneurs grow their businesses and achieve success. On average, Astia Advisors spend over five hours per week with our companies during the Doing It Right program.

Highly customized – the Astia screening process gives us critical information that enables us to build a program and an Advisor team designed for each company and entrepreneur’s specific needs, based on stage and location of company, market opportunity, technology, CEO experience, and every other bit of information you have provided. This approach is how we will continue to work with you long after your experience at the Doing It Right program.

High impact – since 2003, our clients have averaged a greater-than 60% success rate – a level unparalleled in the industry. Each Advisor relationship is tied to measurable results. This is not a networking group. This is a group that delivers real and measurable results for the entrepreneur.

In today’s uncertain investment climate, you must focus on your business. Let us join you in that effort. As I said at the beginning of this letter, Astia is a community – and as of today – Astia is you!

Yours sincerely,

Astia CEO Sharon Vosmek Participates in Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference at The White House

SAN FRANCISCO | October 12, 2010

Astia named in Opening Session as providing great leadership to women entrepreneurs

Astia, the premier Silicon Valley venture accelerator for women-led high growth companies, today announced that CEO Sharon Vosmek participated in the Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference convened by The White House Council on Women and Girls, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Treasury on October 4, 2010. Astia was named in the Opening Session by Karen Mills, Administrator US Small Business Administration, as providing great leadership and was invited to share with these agencies the learnings, perspectives, and experiences unique to women high-growth entrepreneurs. The day was comprised of opening keynotes followed by working break-out sessions to discuss challenges and solutions moving forward.

While women have made great strides in growing businesses and creating jobs over the past few decades, significant challenges still remain. This Conference brought together a mix of business owners, women leaders, advocacy groups and government officials to address the critical challenges, opportunities and public policy initiatives needed to move the women’s business agenda to the next level. The event was a clear sign of the Obama Administration’s commitment to creating opportunities for women and fostering their entrepreneurial spirit.

“I commend The White House Council on Women and Girls, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Treasury for convening this conference and recognizing the important role of women entrepreneurs in the economy,” said Sharon J. Vosmek, CEO of Astia. “I was honored to be invited to the conversation to ensure that the unique needs of high growth companies were discussed, as compared to small businesses and micro enterprises.”

According to Astia, two of the greatest challenges for high growth women entrepreneurs are:

• Access to networks. Men and women in different networks is a societal issue that is magnified in the investment or fundraising scenario and a gender inclusive approach is needed. Currently there are too many women-only solutions and this approach excludes women from opportunities to which they should have access.

• Self-assurance. Women still self assess lower than men, and therefore their business aspirations are often understated. With access to diverse networks and advisors and the opportunity to scale the business, women succeed.

A new report focused on these challenges, titled “Women-owned Businesses in the 21st Century,” was released at the conference. This report was prepared by the US Dept of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration for the White House Council on Women and Girls. Key findings of the study shared with the group included:

• Women owned businesses contribute $1.2 Trillion to the US Economy;
• Women owned businesses lag behind their male counterparts in growth;
• Key causes for the lag continue to be access to capital and industries chosen by women (i.e. healthcare and education);
• Between 1997 and 2006, majority women-owned firms in the U.S. grew at nearly twice the rate of all US privately held firms;
• Currently 10.1 million firms are owned by women, employing more than 13 million people, and generate $1.9 trillion in sales.

In her opening remarks, Karen Mills, Administrator of the US Small Business Association named Astia and Dr. Patricia Greene of Babson College (pictured in photo above) as key to the day’s conversations. Speakers at the event included Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement & Executive Director of the White House Council on Women & Girls and Valerie Jarrett, Sr. Advisor to the President & Chair of the White House Council on Women & Girls. Approximately 120 people were in attendance.


About Astia
Astia is a global not-for-profit organization built on a community with a distinct focus and mission – to propel women’s full participation as entrepreneurs and leaders in high-growth businesses, fueling innovation and driving economic growth. Guided by a proven philosophy that gender diversity is an essential element of innovation, Astia works with start-ups around the world as they access capital, grow their businesses, and hone the leadership skills of their founding teams.

The Astia model of engaging a community of experts to the benefit of the select start-ups it serves has resulted in an exceptional success rate: since 2003, over 60 percent of companies that have participated in the Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or achieved an exit within one year of presenting, totalling more than $750 million dollars raised and 20 exits, including two IPOs. Headquartered in San Francisco, Astia delivers programs for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, New York, London and India. Astia has also had significant press coverage in major media channels including The New York Times, Businessweek, Forbes, The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times.

For more information, visit www.astia.org.

Improve Digital publishes first ‘market map’ of European online display advertising industry

Publishers struggling to tell their ad networks from their ad exchanges and their DSPs from their agency trading desks have a new tool to help them keep pace with the sub-sectors of the online advertising world. In response to frequent customer requests, Improve Digital (the largest European sell side platform, or yield optimiser) has gathered information from its offices and partners in the UK and Europe and mapped the current European online display advertising ecosystem¹.

'2010 – Display Advertising Market Map Europe', which includes definitions of the various industry sub-sectors, is available to download for free from: http://www.improvedigital.com/market-map-2010

Digital advertising continues to benefit from sophisticated technology that enables increasing effectiveness. As a result, more and more players have entered the market, while others have been taken over by the larger players. A specialist in the sector, Improve Digital is regularly asked to clarify the roles played and the relationships between companies in the industry. With a map already available on the US market (courtesy of GCA Savian), Improve Digital believed an equivalent of the European landscape was required.

This decision was reinforced by the findings of a survey carried out by Improve Digital earlier this year. This revealed that 90 percent of publishers believe that if digital marketing is to reach its potential, the sector must ensure that it provides comprehensive information that is easily understood by people outside the industry. Even those within the sector feel that information is not always forthcoming – nearly a quarter for example said that the difference between an ad exchange and an ad network is not clear.

“The online display advertising market has changed beyond all recognition over the past few years,” explains Joëlle Frijters, CEO of Improve Digital. “This is good news because it encourages all-important innovation, but it can make it difficult to understand the complexities, even for people working in the industry. The US market map has proved popular and useful, and we wanted to make it equally easy to have an 'at a glance' view of the European ecosystem. At the same time, the dynamic nature of the sector means that the positioning of the different players changes fast and on a continuous basis, so this is very much a ‘snapshot’ of the current situation, as perceived by various partners and premium publishers in the market.”

Note 1: The current version of ‘2010 – Display Advertising Market Map Europe’ has been prepared gathering information and knowledge from Improve Digital’s largest publishers and demand partners in the UK and Europe. Special thanks to Elevage Media, Sembassy and Market Edge.

Is there a movement for women helping women?

During a recent interview with a reporter from the New York Times I was asked, “Is there a movement for women helping women?”

I think she was surprised by my answer – “No! But there should be.”

OK, I did modify the answer - but only by a bit. It is my observation that there is a current flurry of tweets and blogs and even proper new stories (like the one she intends to do) about the dearth of women entrepreneurs and shouldn’t we all be doing something to solve it. I will even concede that it has gotten to the point that folks like Brian O’Malley at Battery Ventures are reaching out to me to tell me that the last “3 of my last 4 investments have been founded by women!” (exclamation point by Brian). Clearly there is something shifting. The new new thing seems to be having a woman in your portfolio! (exclamation point added by me.)

However, my caution is that this feels less like a movement and more like a bubble. My thoughts, that I shared with the reporter, were that this movement needed three things that it currently lacks to give it the foundation that it needs. I take these learnings from TiE – which in its short 13 years has taken Indian entrepreneurs and investors from the margins to the center stage.

• We need a philanthropic investment. It is my observation that successful women need to be the ones to really get this agenda properly funded. Organizations like Astia, FWE&E, Women 2.0, Anita Borg – we all struggle on a string to create real impact for women. That needs to change! At TiE, the Charter members wrote (and still write) meaningful checks to fund the network. They knew that no one else was going to do it for them.
• We need investment from women in women. Once again, taking a page from TiE, women investors need to step up – and stop fearing that investing in a woman makes them an activist investor. Men don’t feel the same when they bring a man in to the portfolio. And at TiE it was part of the agenda – to get wealthy Indians to invest in Indian entrepreneurs. Thanks to groups like Golden Seeds and Phenomenelle Angels, and individuals like Janet Hanson at 85 Broads and Cindy Padnos at Illuminate Ventures, there is a bit of this happening. But we need to make it the expected activity.
• We need a committed, actively involved network to ignite this movement. We need this movement to have voice and dare to challenge the status quo. TiE did it 13 years ago, and we at Astia can do it today.

Stay tuned for more about how I think we can achieve these together. For now, enjoy our update and many upcoming happenings.

Gender, Technology and Entrepreneurship

The following is a guest post by Jennifer Hill, Chair, Astia NYC Advisory Board

In late July, I joined an esteemed group of students, professors, entrepreneurs, technologists, lawyers and media voices from the New York City and Boston technology communities for a day of provocative thought and discussion, courtesy of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. The day’s events were hosted by the eloquent Vivek Wadhwa, Senior Research Associate with the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and an executive-in-residence/adjunct professor at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University. Mr. Wadhwa’s opening presentation, “Entrepreneurship: where are all the women and minorities?” focused on the dearth of women and minorities in high-growth entrepreneurship (i.e. characterized by Silicon Valley-like success), the rise of the Indian community within Silicon Valley and the importance of early science, math and technology-focused education. (For an inspiring view on how even small amounts of entrepreneurial mentorship, education and path-building can positively impact young women, please visit the Roshni Academy.)

The statistics Mr. Wadhwa presented on minority participation in the Silicon Valley workforce were staggering: African-Americans account for only 1.4%; Hispanic-Americas: 4.7%. Yet within the time period of 1995-2010 Southeast Asians rose to account for nearly 15.5% of tech companies founded within Silicon Valley. The reason? They funded themselves. Mr. Wadhwa’s central thesis is similar to that which many communities have quietly advocated and practiced for generations: support your own. Look to your own communities - those more likely to understand your moral/cultural/ethnic values - as the first port of call for capital investment. Use your personal and local networks as a launchpad. Indeed, angel investor groups such as Golden Seeds already institute this belief by means of its practice of investing capital into predominantly women-led companies.

Yet perhaps more interesting than the topic of different gender and minority communities underwriting forays into entrepreneurship was the roundtable discussion in the afternoon led by Mr. Wadhwa and Professor Oliver R. Goodenough, a professor of law at Berkman and the Vermont Law School. Chief among the topics, which ranged from investment, mentorship and the entrepreneur’s perspective of capital raising, was the issue of “gender and entrepreneurship” versus “female entrepreneurship”. Does substituting a neutral term for a feminine one change the tone of the discussion? Does it enable both sexes to view the notion of entrepreneurship as a natural path instead of a separate, distinct, and sometimes stigmatized undertaking? (Responses to this last point were perhaps more comfortably discussed within an academic setting.)

The notion of “female entrepreneurship” seemed to unleash a set of gender-associated “caricaturistics”?!, such as differing risk tolerances, false senses of fear in not attaining perfection – which affected entry into entrepreneurship, use of organic versus outside capital resources, time and speed of company growth rates, concern over declaring themselves as experts without a track record, the notion of sharing - the prevalence of feeling more comfortable launching a company with a co-founder, and entitlements to success. The roundtable audience included both genders and a span of generations. The term “gender” versus “feminine” somehow caused the conversation to seem more meritorious instead of polarizing.

Out of the conversation about “why” came the wellspring of ideas of “what next”. Four key themes emerged:

(1) Mentors. Mentors. Mentors. Find them early in your career as possible. Change them along the way as you evolve. Identify role models; the media can help wit this as new ones are emerging at faster rates.

(2) Teach innovation, computer science skills and the power of entrepreneurship earlier in school – especially to young girls.

(3) Keep lists of talented women across generations, industries, and professions as recommendations for panels, speaking engagements, and the like.

(4) Ask women to step up to the plate and start a company. The White House Project encourages people to invite women to run for political office. Why not apply the same vision to entrepreneurship? Ask a talented woman you know whether she has considered starting a company? Keep asking. Within every one of us is the opportunity to launch something outstanding.

Astia is doing its part to accelerate companies within the vein of these recommendations, especially in the area of mentors, or – as Astia refers to them – “Advisors.” Companies selected to join the Astia community are introduced to four key advisors to accelerate their companies faster. Aside from providing engaged advice and guidance in a variety of areas from financing, law, technology, marketing, CEO leadership development and the like, they also open up their personal networks to the benefit of the companies. For more information about Astia’s advisor program or to learn about becoming an advisor, please check out the Astia website. Serving as an Astia advisor is an outstanding way to quickly make a positive impact with an entrepreneur and her high-growth company.

If you have not explored Astia’s website, then I encourage you to do so. Get to know the outstanding community of entrepreneurs, investors, advisors, technologists, marketing experts, strategists, lawyers, business development professionals and more across a variety of industries. Astia is a growing ecosystem of global professionals who are now and will become the leaders of tomorrow.

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Jennifer Hill is an attorney. She serves as Chair of the Astia Board of Advisors in New York City as well as on the Board of Directors at AOL Small Business.

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