Its easy when you are caught up in the passion of focus of a startup or business idea to put your life on pause. It is a mistake and I have made this mistake for the last 10 years in a couple of businesses. I am a workaholic and with no family at home anymore, nothing holds me back from throwing myself into my passion fulltime. But this is a mistake because all of life cannot be found in just one half of life.
United States
Funding Support for Women
Recently at the end of a long trek attempting to pitch for funding, I discovered an organization that supports funding & mentors women, Astia. I am only sorry that it was so late in my journey that I discovered them. In UK & Ireland, I found there was an old boys club when I was sourcing funding. I also found the UK to be a nation of what I termed ‘shop keepers’, having come from a background of manufacturing & trading tangible goods, they are risk averse to technology (more intangible) investments. In Silicon Valley they like to fund locals so it is more like a ‘young boys club’.
Are Women Smarter than Men?
There have been a few posts on the net this week about women entrepreneurs prompted from a New York Times article ‘Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley’ (Why So Few Women in Silicon Valley) by Claire Cain Miller which spoke about a woman Candace Fleming who failed to raise investment in Silicon Valley for her company Crimson Hexagon. Another post tried for a more positive take on women in technology ‘Stop talking, start coding’ by Hilary Mason.