

Astia: Knocking Down the Hurdles for Women-Led Startups - waderoush
http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2011/02/09/astia-knocking-down-the-hurdles-for-women-led-startups/

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bhousel
_"There’s also a lot of variety: you don’t see too many cleantech,
pharmaceuticals, or publishing companies coming out of Y Combinator."_

I think it's unfortunate they're playing the gender card while the real reason
for their success as an accelerator only merits an "also" in the interview.

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kgtm
"Those invited to join are asked to pay a $5,000 participation fee and to
donate a 1 percent equity stake."

Thanks, but, no, thanks.

~~~
mikeryan
I dunno I get what you're saying. But these stakes seem small. Consider YC
gives you only ~20k for a 6-7% stake. (This is, of course, pre the 150k
startup fund offer)

Both programs really offer access to tools to creating a successful business.
5k and 1% seems a very small price to pay for access to something that seems
like a very successful incubator program.

Let me put it this way, if 5k + 1% were the cost of joining YC I'd do that in
a heartbeat.

~~~
ajju
Regardless of the amount, I have a philosophical problem with an incubator
that compares itself to an angel fund / investor and then _charges a cash fee_
for participation. You can do one or the other, but not both.

The difference between YC and them is that first of all YC _gives_ you money
in exchange for an equity stake. Secondly, YC has proven itself many times
over now to the point where I am sure people would pay significantly more than
5k if they charged it. Had YC charged 5K in Summer of 2005 you'd have seen
them pooh-poohed, and rightly so.

Also, I think encouraging women to be entrepreneurs is noble, but the person
being interviewed is not helping by saying that YC is wrong for women because
"society doesn't support women moving for 3 months" yet. Argue for society's
limitations and sure enough, they are yours [1].

“Number one, most incubators require you to be on site, at least part of the
time, for several months,” she points out. “Vivek Wadhwa has done research to
show that the average entrepreneur is 35 and has 1.2 children. I don’t know
many adults with children that will relocate to an incubator with the Y
Combinator model. Society doesn’t support that yet, so that women can up and
move for three months.”

1\. With apologies to R.B.

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acangiano
> which is pretty much a den of 22-year-old guys who dropped out of Stanford
> with dreams of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Way to belittle the sweat, blood, and tears of countless founders.

> to combat the startup world’s structural and cultural biases against women

On the contrary I see a lot of incentives for women to get involved in
startups. Investors are pretty much begging to provide capital for female
startup founders. At least in the IT field.

Starting up is hard, regardless of gender. Astia deserves praise for their
success rate, not for their gender bias.

EDIT: Removed "fuck you" from the first line, as it was perceived as offensive
by some.

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ajju
Would you please try to keep the conversation here civil? The use of profanity
eclipses the merit in your argument.

~~~
tomjen3
No that use is perfectly warranted. One shouldn't be civil with evil, nor be
nice when pointing out wrongs.

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Rariel
As a female CEO of a start-up I kind of resent the tone the founder of this
org takes. Who is she to decide what is right for all women? That's like
saying all Asians _______ because Asians ______. It's not appropriate and I
found many of her generalizations about female founders/CEOS to be wrong. I
also cannot believe they expect people to pay. If their main thing is that
it's hard for us gals to get access to capital, why on earth would they charge
A 5K Fee?

All that aside, the tone in this thread proves many of her statements right.
The first three comments were all anti and were seemingly written by men. What
you three commenters fail to realize is that in criticizing the org you've
underscored the need for something similar to this to exist in the first
place. The start-up community/entrepreneurs/VCs are still boys clubs that are
very hard to enter. I have less of a problem because I am not afraid of
situations where I'm different than the majority, but many women do. There
needs to be either 1) a more welcoming atmosphere or 2) more women-focused
incubators.

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ayu
I really support what Astia seems to be trying to do, but like everyone has
said it looks like they aren't targeting women who are just getting into
entrepreneurship. Their website kind reminds me of enterprise software (big,
slow); I think my mom and Carol Bartz would buy into this program.

It's unfortunate because I really support trying to help women get into
startups. Just like the whole women in science movement it's probably a good
thing for humanity to get diversity in ideas. I wonder if applying to YC with
a company that tries to help women wouldn't be a bad idea?

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jasonkester
Why would there be any hurdles for a Woman-led startup? As a website user, how
would you even go about finding out if the site you're viewing is run by a
woman? How would you know you were supposed to discriminate against it?

You can run a successful tech business for _years_ and never speak to a human
being on the phone or in person. Gender, race, religion, disability,
appearance, and pretty much any other factor that can hold you back in this
unfair world simply don't apply to a business running behind a web facade.

~~~
simonw
Just one example: investors are more likely to invest in people who are
similar to them. Most investors are men.

~~~
dgabriel
Here's a recent example: [http://geekfeminism.org/2010/11/29/white-male-tech-
startups-...](http://geekfeminism.org/2010/11/29/white-male-tech-startups-get-
funding-for-being-white-male/)

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Alex3917
"In addition, the weekly guest lectures and networking dinners that are a
hallmark of programs like Y Combinator aren't as meaningful for women, Vosmek
says. 'Women are very different. We won't prioritize a networking event on our
calendar, but we will prioritize something that provides business value,' she
says."

So her basic argument is that Y Combinator should be providing the services
that women find fun, rather than the services that make entrepreneurs
successful?

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simonw
I'm not sure how you got "services that women find fun" out of "we will
prioritize something that provides business value".

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Travis
It's also a little naive to blanket all networking events with not providing
business value. The statement is a false dichotomy. It also appears to reveal
a bias that things not directly related to the business or product do not
provide value.

~~~
Alex3917
According the article, the main service they are providing to these women is
their rolodex, because that's what these women need the most. And yet only a
few paragraphs later she is arguing that there need to be more programs that
don't emphasize networking, because women don't find that part enjoyable. In
other words, seed programs should be based around what women find enjoyable,
rather than what entrepreneurs need to be successful.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about the other day:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2169167>

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tomjen3
> to combat the startup world’s structural and cultural biases against women

You decide to create an incubator to _descriminate against men_. Try creating
a nonprofit to descriminate against women and see how well that goes.

In the future, we should properly add xconomy dot com to the spam filter, if
this is the drivel they produce.

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ajju
The irony is, I think they are hurting women by arguing that just because YC
requires moving to the valley, it is wrong for women. Obviously moving is a
burden on anyone who has a family and I am one of those people. It is likely,
given that women often take a more active role in families, that it is harder
for women. Yet, by saying that it is "wrong for (all) women" you are only re-
inforcing societal stereotypes. I see the marketing value it provides for
Astia, and the P.R. value in comparing yourself to Y.C., but I fail to see how
it helps women.

~~~
Rariel
Agreed. It's hard for everybody with a family.

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simonw
I'm surprised this only has 12 points, it's one of the most interesting
entrepreneurship stories I've seen on Hacker News in quite a while.

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rhizome
I think their idea of a "startup" is different than mine. I'm not aware of
cleantech or pharma companies being started by a couple of people in a bedroom
or across the internet, and though new companies have to be started somehow,
it strikes me as hyperbole to compare Astia and YC.

~~~
mikeryan
I think your idea of a startup is very narrow. Tesla Motors was a startup.
Talk to most VC's and you'll find they invest a ton of money into these types
of companies.

BTW most cleantech or pharma companies start as two engineering or science PHD
students in lab somewhere, and these days those labs can be on different sides
of the world.

~~~
rhizome
Kind of, but I think we actually agree. "Startup" may just be too vague a word
to use for all of these kinds of companies, but I do think it's hyperbole to
equate capital-intensive startups, like pharm or auto, with bootstrap
operations that make videos easier to email or whatever.

