The New Girls Network: Building A Bigger Pie For High-Growth Women-Led Companies

By Joshua Henderson (Director of Programming, Springboard Enterprises)

There are incredible things happening in the startup world for women entrepreneurs.

Media platforms like Women 2.0, The Daily Muse, EZebis and The Next Women are showcasing the talents and expertise of women founders and entrepreneurs.

Investment firms like BELLE Capital, Golden Seeds, Phenomenelle Angels, KC Women's Capital Connection, Illuminate Ventures, Texas Women Ventures and the Women's Venture Fund are finding success by focusing their financial capital on women leaders. And the Pipeline Fellowship's angel training program is there to help make sure there is a steady flow of more women investors.

Accelerator programs like Founder Labs, Women Innovate Mobile, RampCorp, Springboard Enterprises (full disclosure: I run programs at Springboard) and Astia have built an effective pipeline for catalyzing high-growth businesses led by women.

Conferences like PITCH, the We Own It Summit and the Women Entrepreneurs Festival are an open platform for bringing people together for discussion and networking.

Awards like the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards, the Springboard Winners' Circle Awards and of course the Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning Women seek to recognize the accomplishments of entrepreneurial women.

And then there are CEO groups and membership networks like 85 Broads, Ladies Who Launch, DWEN, Women In Bio, Startup Chicks, Sharp Skirts and the SheEOs who are providing local support groups of smart, talented women who have "been there, run that" as pitch legend Sam Horn always says.

There's an entire world of resources available to women in tech, women founders and women executives that is beginning to coalesce around even greater opportunities:

• At a local level, the Women's Entrepreneurial Council is a Boston-area collaboration spearheaded by Golden Seeds to convene and define the rich resources available to women founders in the region.
• At a national level, Startup America Women is an initiative to rally around women-led high growth startups with over 40 affiliate partners who are making sure we don't read yet another article about how there are no women in tech. If you have a startup and haven't signed up, click here.

To be honest, this is all just a handful of the great work that's being done. There are countless other media platforms, investment firms, accelerator programs, conferences, awards and CEO groups that, while they aren't focused on women, are doing great things and promoting the women that are involved. I hope we see more of that.

There's a great opportunity for us to build an even bigger pie for women entrepreneurs by continuing to collaborate together on a local and national level to build a funnel for women entrepreneurs from idea to startup to company to exit, whether it's through a program focused on women or one that's not.

We want to play our part by running our community-driven post-accelerator "forum program" that's laser-focused on surrounding investment-ready, women-led companies with targeted resources, connections and business opportunities and then offering our alumnae entrepreneurs lifetime access to great resources and relationships.

That said, two heads are better than one and three heads are better than two. Let's work together to build a bigger pie.

What role will you play in the funnel and how can we help?

About the guest blogger: Joshua Henderson is Director of Programming at Springboard Enterprises, and irrationally committed (hat tip to Seth Godin) to supporting, promoting, coaching and connecting high-growth, women-led businesses. Joshua runs forum programs and manages the relationships between the entrepreneurs, investors, coaches, external partners and corporate connections in the Springboard community. Follow him on Twitter at @SpringboardEnt.

Photo credit: Mike Licht on Flickr.

 

Follow Women 2.0 on Twitter: www.twitter.com/women2

Comments

[BackPorchSoap]

09:51 AM on 03/03/2012

I don't get the photo choice for this article...

[camillegaines]

12:13 PM on 02/29/2012

Great read; Love being part of the RampCorp program!

[Eden Godsoe]

08:44 PM on 02/28/2012

Great post and appreciate you collecting up all the organizations and investors who focus on female entrepreneurs. Women are making progress in the world of start-ups though we still have a long way to go. Sometimes its nice to see recent examples of successful female entrepreneurs, especially those that have raised funding and built teams. To that end, thought you would appreciate this list that focuses on tech companies:

Female-Founded Tech Companies That Have Received Funding
http://www.skinnyscoop.com/list/honestlynow/which-female-founded-tech-companies-have-received-funding

[camillegaines]

12:28 PM on 02/29/2012

Thanks for the link Eden, It's very inspiring!

[Eden Godsoe]

03:43 PM on 02/29/2012

My pleasure. And do add any that I missed. I know there are way more women who have successfully raised VC funding for their start-ups...just difficult to track down.

[Doris Appelbaum]

07:25 PM on 02/28/2012

I launched a woman-owned business in 1975. It is not that simple, Joshua. I hope today's women will continue the "climb" till we are equal to (actually "better than") men.

[chiazor arah]

01:27 PM on 02/28/2012

Great article, I have been searching for a list just like this! I have found there are many programs and networks for tech start ups by women. Are there any in other industries that you know of? Like say The Food Industry and start ups in that area? I would love if you could point me in any direction.