Building a Fashion Accessories Marketplace from London: Kiyan Foroughi, CEO of Boticca (Part 1)

I continue to be interested in how the fashion industry is slowly and surely finding innovative ways to leverage the Internet. Kiyan Foroughi has created a marketplace for fashion accessories that is scaling nicely and helping new designers find a customer base.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Kiyan Foroughi: I’m French-Iranian. I was born in Paris. My parents were immigrants from Iran. I grew up a little bit all over the place. I grew up in France, but I also spent a big part of my childhood in Dubai. We went out there because my father was an architect and he had >>>

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241st Roundtable Recording On Dec. 12, 2014: With Ann Winblad, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

In case you missed it, you can listen to this roundtable here:

You can find the dates and register for upcoming roundtables here.

Book: Carnival In The Cloud.

Roundtable Recap: December 11 – Carnival In The Cloud With Ann Winblad, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners

During today’s roundtable, as part of the launch event for my book, Carnival In The Cloud, we had Ann Winblad, Co-founder of Hummer Winblad, as our guest. Ann is one of the most successful women VCs in our industry, and as I mentioned in my introduction, I have never heard her whining about bias against women.

One of the most encouraging things she discussed today is how her firm is sourcing interesting ventures from all over the world, not just Silicon Valley. Mulesoft, one of their hot portfolio companies, had its CEO based in Malta, originally!
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238th Roundtable Recording On November 13, 2014: With J.T. O’Donnell, Careerealism

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

You can find the dates and register for upcoming roundtables here.

Book: Bootstrapping With A Paycheck.

Roundtable Recap: November 13 – Bootstrapping With A Paycheck with J.T. O’Donnell, Careerealism Media & CareerHMO

During today’s roundtable, we had an excellent discussion with J.T. O’Donnell, a top 20 LinkedIn Influencer, and CEO of Careerealism Media and CareerHMO.

I invited J.T. to brainstorm with us on what she is seeing from the career coaching perspective. Our observations about this gigantic trend of people starting companies while holding onto their full-time jobs, is from the entrepreneurship perspective. People come to us once they have decided they want to be entrepreneurs.

J.T. is in the middle of the decision-making process as people are trying to decide how to play their careers and when to become entrepreneurs.
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Women Entrepreneurs: VC Rejection Does NOT Equal Sexism

I am stating the obvious – or at least what should be obvious – that rejection by a venture capitalist does not automatically equate to sexism. However, of late, the media has started sensationalizing a lot of stories of VC rejection and transposing them as stories of sexism.

These are two different issues, and the cause-effect relationships of the two are ambiguous at best.

In some of these stories, the VCs have exhibited rather stupid behavior, no doubt. However, did they reject the deals because the entrepreneurs were women? I don’t think so. Let’s examine in a bit more detail.
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Mompreneurs Love To Sell Baby Products

Excerpt from my new book, From eCommerce To Web 3.0.

The e-commerce model of business allows women entrepreneurs to have greater flexibility in their lives. That is probably why we see several mompreneurs launching home-based businesses, and some of them scale to much bigger outfits. Of particular significance are mompreneurs selling baby products online. Here are three inspiring stories of mompreneurs who used their love for babies, clothes, shopping, and sharing to create successful ecommerce ventures.

Women Love To Share

Smocked Auctions sells children’s smocks and other clothing through comment-selling on Facebook. It was started by two friends and mompreneurs, Amy Laws and Nicole Brewer. They met in 2008 while trying to get back in shape after having their first children. They had a lot in common – their sons were of the same age and they soon had little girls. They became great friends and it was in the summer of 2010 while attending a sample sale in Dallas that the idea of doing business together was born.
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Women Entrepreneurs: Are We Whining Too Much?

I wonder!

In my recent post, Women ARE Raising Venture Capital, I said, there is no bias among Silicon Valley VCs against women.

I got an earful on that one.

What? There are hardly any female VCs. So few female CEOs. So few blah blah blah.

Right. Yes. I know. But it is what it is. How is whining going to help us change any of those factors?

I countered with: >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 1)

There aren’t that many venture-funded fashion e-commerce companies out there. The main reason is that the venture capital business is dominated by men, and typically, women happen to be more in tune with fashion. Ilana Stern is building a very interesting fashion company focused on bridesmaid dresses as the starting point.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised and in what kind of circumstances?

Ilana Stern: I’m originally from Los Angeles. I was very close with my family. My dad is actually an entrepreneur of sorts. I was inspired by his hard work and passion for what he does. When I was 18, I left LA and went to the University of Pennsylvania for undergraduate studies. >>>

Nasty Gal Doing Nastily Well

Chances are you have not heard of Nasty Gal. Well, you should learn about them. They are doing nastily well!

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