Sorry guys, I had to get you to listen too.
Check this out:
- Less than 2% of the applications that I’ve received for Techstars have even a single female founder.
- I’d estimate that less than 5% of the 100 or so companies I’ve covered so far on this blog have any female founders.
- Why does the public safety company that I founded (ZOLL Data Systems) have just a handful of women in the software engineering group of 50 or so people and none in the IT group?
We’re fortunate to have the National Center for Women & Information Technology right here in our back yard. I’m glad they’re asking interesting questions like “Why do women receive less than five percent of the funding to start IT firms?” and “Why do they lag behind men in moving their ideas out of the university and into the marketplace?” It’s always puzzled me why more women aren’t founding hi-tech companies.
I was interested to read NCWIT’s first in a series of four articles on this topic which discusses gender differences in firm size, growth, and persistence of IT companies. It hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps women simply have differing intentions from men, perhaps in many cases being more likely to bootstrap, grow slowly, and not seek total world domination in quite the same fashion as men seem to do.
I’m quite interested the final two of the four articles to be released in the coming weeks, which are titled “Gender differences in access to capital for starting a business” and “Psychological factors related to IT entrepreneurship.” I’ll be watching NCWIT’s site for the next three articles over the course of the next three weeks.
David,
I wanted to comment on this entry (being a female applicant to TechStars), but I found it too long to post as a comment. If anyone in interested in my $0.02, please visit http://www.HeatherOnTech.com. It’s nice to know that someone outside of the NCWIT has noticed this trend!
David,
Hmm .. I’ve never been interested in getting the girl.
I appreciate your bringing up this unfortunate reality. The sad truth is, we’ve had 2 female applicants over a 2 year period (versus ~100 men). Neither were qualified. Major bummer!
This is not about diversity for the sake of diversity, rather diversity for the sake of business. How can you possibly sell to a demography that’s un-represented in your development or management team?
And, if we dig deeper, let’s look at minorities. My co-founder is female and African-American and at almost all Colorado-based events, she’s the “fly in the buttermilk” — her words.
This is not about race, color, or political prejudices, rather about diversity of thought, experience and raw talent to deliver customer and shareholder value.
So, if you happen to be female, a minoriy, disabled, and not from Minnesota (sorry, we’ve reached our quota) and most importantly — talented — we’re hiring. Contact careers@solidw.com
David, I applaud your driving this agenda. It’s good for our world!
Sue
David,
I am a member of NCWIT Entreprenerial Alliance and and thrilled as well that the word is getting out.
However, I don’t think you can judge the state of women that want to start an technology company by the applications you get from women. First of all, relocating to Colorado over the summer is tough, especially if someone has yet to leave their ‘day’ job. I know you say it is optional, but you have to dig a bit to find that on the website.
If you are interested in women that are starting Tech companies, check out the ACTiVATE course at http://www.umbc.edu/activate. You can learn about our success there. If you’re ever in the Baltimore area, I would love to have you come speak with our participants – maybe we can share notes!
And if you need some more women to profile, let me know and I’ll send some to you!