Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing

Women rule the Internet and Tech press

Aileen Lee, partner at VC firm Kleiner Perkins, wrote a guest post for Techcrunch entitled "Why Women Rule The Internet" Aileen makes the point that women are the "majority of users of social networking sites and spend 30% more time on these sites than men". She continues, "according to Gilt Groupe, women are 70% of the customer base and they drive 74% of revenue.  And 77% of Groupon’s customers are female according to their site".

The killer quote is at the end "Women are the routers and amplifiers of the social web.  And they are the rocket fuel of ecommerce.  The ongoing debate about women in tech has been missing a key insight. If you figure out how to harness the power of female customers, you can rock the world." I encourage you to read the full post on Techcrunch.

Last week at SXSW (South By South West) was filled with parties and receptions every night. I had great conversations with Jessi Hempel (Fortune Magazine), Kara Swisher (Wall Street Journal), Caroline McCarthy (CNET), Maya Baratz (Wall Street Journal), Stacey Higginbotham (GigaOm), and Katie Boehret (Wall Street Journal). I also ran into Alexia Tsotsis (Techcrunch), Megan McCarthy (Techmeme), and others.

It didn't occur to me until the end of the night that I spent most of my time with female journalists. Hmmm...where are all the male journalists? I am sure the guys are around somewhere...but I didn't see them. Then I started thinking about other prominent female tech writers like Sarah Lacy, Mary Jo Foley, Jolie O'Dell, Ina Fried, Leena Rao, Xeni Jardin, Gina Trapani, and many more. I only have room for three pictures in this short post, and I'm sure you know who they are. More photos are on my Twitter stream.

Why are there so many great female tech writers? Because they are great communicators. In both directions. They express themselves well, and they listen carefully. We testosterone controlled males sometimes have trouble listening. That can be a problem if your job is learning about new things. It can also be a problem when thinking about how to build social services that are engaging.

The success of Zynga, Groupon, Gilt Groupe, Zappos, and many other shopping, social, gaming sites is due largely to women. Women have played a vital role in building Techcrunch too. It wouldn't exist without Mike Arrington, but it wouldn't be as good as it is without Heather Harde (CEO), Sarah Lacy, Leena Rao, and Alexia Tsotsis.

Women are also in leadership positions at the biggest tech companies. At Google we have Marissa Mayer, Stephanie Tilenius, Susan Wojcicki, Megan Smith, and many more. At Cisco, Padmasree Warrior is the CTO. Claudia Fan Munce is Managing Director of IBM Venture Capital Group. And, Intel Capital has lots of women making investments, including my good friends Lucy McQuilken and Christine Herron.

If you want to follow some awesome women on Twitter you can subscribe to my Top Women In Tech list. Get a daily feed of tech insights from women who are making it happen.

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Start-ups? We need more finish-ups

Over the past 3 weeks I have seen over 300 start-ups at Stanford Startup Labs, Launch Conference, DEMO, and SXSW. StartupAmerica is a great new program to encourage more entrepreneurship in America. There are startup incubators sprouting up everywhere, and venture capital is plentiful. Is the problem not enough startups, or not enough "finish-ups"?

Venture Capital firms invested $21.8 Billion in 3,277 companies in 2010. Angel Investors invested another $16B to $20B in 50,000 more early stage startups. Many other companies startup with no funding from VCs or Angels. In fact, there are over 500,000 new companies started EVERY year according the the US Small Business Administration (SBA).

Most startups don't finish. Thirty percent of new companies fail in the first year, and 50% fail within 5 years. Second time entrepreneurs have a higher success rate than first timers. Programs like Ycombinator, TechStars, Stanford Startup Labs, and other incubators greatly increase the chances of success. 

Failure is Experience - When I travel the world speaking to entrepreneurs I tell them that in America we don't use the word "failure", we call it experience. At Google we believe that  "achieving 60% of the impossible is better than 100% of the ordinary". We set impossible goals  and shoot for them because it creates a whole different mind set. Think about the trajectory required to hit a target at 1,000 feet versus a target at 100 feet. That difference in trajectory, and thinking, will create a much better result than aiming for 100 feet.  That is a fundemental difference in philosophy that drives us towards success. Failure is not viewed as shameful, and will not prevent you from achieving future success. 

Mentorship matters - Maybe Startup America should devote some of their program to mentorship programs and incubators that convert more start-ups to "finish-ups". Just increasing the success rate of existing startups by 10% would create millions of jobs and stimulate local economies. We should encourage experienced entrepreneurs to help new startups through programs like SCORE (Service Corp Of Retired Executives) and programs like Ycombinator and TechStars. We should celebrate and honor people who take the time to mentor startups and help them succeed.

Why isn't there the equivalent of The Oscars or Emmys for entreprenuers and mentors? The closest thing we have is The Crunchies. Great, but lets take it to the national stage, and even international stage and celebrate entrepreneurship everywhere. Aim high! Hey, Steve Case and Scott Case, are you in?

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Women dominate Tech press at SXSW

My first night at SXSW (South By South West) was filled with parties and receptions. Great conversations with Jessi Hempel (Fortune Magazine), Kara Swisher (Wall Street Journal), Caroline McCarthy (CNET), Maya Baratz (Wall Street Journal), Stacey Higginbotham (GigaOm), and Katie Boehret (Wall Street Journal). I also ran into Alexia Tsotsis (Techcrunch), Megan McCarthy (Techmeme), and others.

It didn't occur to me until the end of the night that I spent most of my time with female journalists. Hmmm...where are all the male journalists? I am sure the guys are around somewhere...but I didn't see them. Then I started thinking about other prominent female tech writers like Sarah Lacy, Mary Jo Foley, Jolie O'Dell, Ina Fried, Leena Rao, Xeni Jardin, Gina Trapani, and many more. I only have room for three pictures in this short post, and I'm sure you know who they are. More photos are on my Twitter stream.

Why are there so many great female tech writers? Because they are great communicators. In both directions. They express themselves well, and they listen carefully. We testosterone controlled males sometimes have trouble listening. That can be a problem if your job is learning about new things. 

One other thing I noticed, the night was very comfortable and fun because they weren't pitching me...and I wasn't pitching them. Most time at conferences is spent being pitched new ideas by startups, or me pitching them on the awesomeness of working with Google technologies. It was a relaxing respite to just talk with these people about tech trends, issues, and interesting topics.

I have no deep insights today, just an observation that women make great writers and conversationalists. And, women are dominating the scene at SXSW. I think that is great!

BTW, if you want to follow some awesome women on Twitter you can subscribe to my Top Women In Tech list. Get a daily feed of tech insights from women who are making it happen.

Mike Arrington, MG Siegler, Om Malik, Rafe Needleman, Ben Parr, Pete Cashmore, Marshall Kirkpatrick, Matt Marshall, Anthony Ha, Clint Boulton, Jon Brodkin, and others are great tech writers too. I just haven't seen them yet at SXSW.

Observation #2: SXSW is like Spring Break for older kids like me. Non stop parties with a conference on the side. It is a great way to catch up with your 1,000 closest friends and meet new people doing new things. Come join the fun.

Subscribe - To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe here, or to receive them via email go here and enter your email address in the box in the right column. You can also follow me on Twitter @dondodge