Articles

28 Mar

This recent study on the competitive advantage of startup teams concluded: “One’s own effort is not sufficient for venture activities, and, most often, it is necessary for founding team partners to provide important or complementary resources.” Sure there are companies out there that may have a founder who is more prominent than others, but that doesn’t mean they were operating in a vacuum.

Foundr Mag

Tanya Raukko
21 Mar

A few weeks ago I spoke at my alma mater, Whitman College, on a panel entitled “From Student to Startup.” After a series of questions, one student finally asked, “What is the most important skill you need to successfully start a company?” The three alumni looked at each other and finally we all said something that boiled down to “learn how to hustle.”

Both a verb and a noun, “hustle” implies that you’re constantly moving or pushing towards a goal, be it money, a job or a personal target. Though often reserved for American gangsta rappers and British TV shows, I think “hustle” is the proper term to describe the steps taken by entrepreneurs to get their ideas out into the world.

Forbes

Jenifer Maxwel
15 Mar

According to Sam Altman, president of Y Combinator, your ideal cofounder is James Bond. Altman doesn’t mean your startup should be filled with trigger happy philanderers who spend their free time getting wasted. A great cofounder is unflappable, tough, and knows what to do in every situation. He or she needs to act quickly and be decisive, creative, and ready for anything.

Thinkapps

Tanya Raukko
07 Mar

On the south side of Chicago in the 1950s, my grandfather Ben Weiss created a shoe store called Cinderella Shoes. He employed the most literal way of crafting a brand story by taking a well-known and beloved fairy tale and putting that story’s title right into his brand’s name. By taking the story of Cinderella and borrowing the emotional and intellectual equity for its own, the promises of quality (glass slippers) and fashion rightness (even princes admired them) were brought to the customers of Cinderella Shoes. The brand was building a connection to its customers that the competition down the street could not. Cinderella Shoes illustrates the first of the three pillars of brand building: STORYTELLING.

Entrepreneur

Jenifer Maxwel

Thank You

Thank you for supporting Built By She and for your interest in our beta community. We would be honored to help you in your endeavors and are energized by your commitment to advance your companies.

As we continue to grow ourselves, Built By She will be taking a short hiatus to assess the next steps in how to best cultivate and support our community. Rest assured, we will be back with a vengeance but need to briefly hit the ‘pause’ button on our growth to better understand how we can best serve you. That said, for the next few months we will not be producing content, holding events, or performing assessments.

Please stay tuned, as we will announce our plans for the relaunch in the near future. We look forward to coming back better equipped than ever to help develop your businesses! Thank you again for all of your support.