Lessons from Female Founders

The community of female founders is relatively small, with women making up just 17% of startup founders today. To ensure the growth and success of this community, it is critically important to come together to learn from each other and support one another through the unique challenges that face women entrepreneurs. With this goal in mind, last week Google Launchpadheld its first ever women’s conference, the Launchpad Female Founder’s Summit, in San Francisco.

The event brought together an inspiring group of women, each in varying stages of their entrepreneurial journeys. The Women of Silicon Valley team was there to capture and share their stories, challenges, and motivations. Here are a few of the founders that we met:

“Starting a company is hard. Being a woman in tech is hard. Building a successful business is hard. However, what I’ve come to realize, is that almost everyone shares the same issues and challenges. The solutions may be different from startup to startup, but the pains are similar. Therefore, it is extremely helpful to come together with other women founders to share, teach, learn and inspire each other. Once you gain the understanding that other people are also facing the challenge that you are trying to overcome, it makes the fear a little smaller, and that builds the strength to keep going.”

~ Nitzan Cohen Arazi, Co-founder of Jolt.us

“When I created my first company, I was the only female founder of a web development agency I could find. I’ve since started a second company. As an immigrant, I am living the dream. I was told I couldn’t, but I did. You don’t have to be overly intelligent or technical, you just have to be willing to learn and quick to start. When women put their mind to something, they can achieve it.”

~ Anastasia Wegbreit, CEO of Integrations.io