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Women in Boulder startups, where are you?
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Grace Boyle (left) and Tara Anderson of Lijit.
It would appear that less than about 10% of the Boulder startup community is female. After the women’s group, Boulder Women Engaging Technology slowly disbanded last year, there’s been a real lack of women-centred mentoring and networking available in Boulder. Somewhat ironically, in a town so focused on being a hub of startup and technology, women coming to the town need to really strike out and search to find other women interested in startups and tech. Thankfully, with a successful Colorado Front Range Girl Geek Dinner earlier this year, as well as the work of the National Center for Women and Information Technology based in Boulder, a new flame is being lit, making networking for women who work in technology a realization in our community.
I spoke with the self described ‘badass girls’ of Lijit, Grace Boyle and Tara Anderson, and found that while there are challenges being female in our startup community, the benefits are gender-neutral.
Grace Boyle has lived in Boulder for less than a year, and boasts Lijit as her first startup experience. Working in business development for the popular blog-based search company, Grace deals with myriad people on a daily basis. From bloggers of all types through to high level corporations and developers, she’s a key member of the Lijit team.
Tara Anderson is a six-year resident of Boulder who fell into the startup lifestyle as a result of being disenchanted with a regular corporate job. Originally hired as an ‘evangelist’ at Lijit, Tara has moved her way into the Marketing Manager position with the company. “I feel like that’s a great thing about working in a startup. You can move to different roles, create different hats - have your voice heard and your abilities used,” she says.
Both these women describe the culture of working at Lijit as being focused on everyone having personalities that resonate with each other. “I can attribute my intelligence and background,” says Grace, “but really it’s about our personalities and how we can connect in the company that makes us all successful.” Further proof of the importance of this resonance is the unusual speed of hiring – both Tara and Grace were appointed within a day of being interviewed by Lijit.
The importance of personality is one which is integral to the product of Lijit. Dealing with bloggers who tend to be passionate about their subject areas demands a certain type of passionate personality in itself. Lijit’s search tool enables users to search blogs and social media of people they trust and respect for information they need, and it offers content producers the ability to track detailed search stats. Add to that its ability to incorporate monetization, and you can see that educating the community about the product calls on a certain set of characteristics.
“I think you need to have a really strong personality to work in a startup if you’re a woman,” said Grace. “There really are so few women represented that to network with other women in tech you have to really search them out. I’ve never felt unaccepted as a woman in tech, but I do wish there were more of us. It’s a really distinctive thing, to be working in a startup, and I think lots of men take the networking with other men in startups for granted.”
“The great thing about being a part of a startup in Boulder is the network, the supportive community of women, even though it’s quite small. It’s the ability to call anyone, people you’ve never met before, and say ‘hey, can I take you out for coffee?’ and nine times out of 10 they’ll be really excited to say yes,” said Tara.
“We recently did a social media workshop with the Denver branch of Ladies Who Launch,” says Grace. “That group is made up of women in business who get together in a formal way and feel supported. It’s a sort of support that is different to the type you get from family and friends. We’re lucky to have four women working in the same area at Lijit, but it would be great to have an organized network of women beyond our own company too.”
Tara agrees, “There are companies who have just one woman working there, in all sorts of different roles with their focus on lots of different industries. It would be great to have somewhere we can all connect and exchange ideas, ask questions, just air things that maybe don’t fit in a male environment.” Grace added, “Plus it would be great to have access to women mentors, people who have been there, that you could ask questions of, who have already done some of the things you’re seeking to do.”
We then tried to identify all the female entrepreneurs in Boulder and found it difficult thinking of names. We decided that while they exist, they’re simply not visible. “Women just don’t claim the spotlight enough,” says Tara. “They’re here, they’re working hard, but while men will more readily jump up for things, women don’t tend to here – and maybe it’s because they don’t feel empowered enough with a female network to get involved.”
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