When a group of female experts in product development gathers online, you might be surprised by the range of routes they took to reach their current roles. But what’s even more surprising is the similarity of realizations once they have professionally “arrived.” Across the board, they shared that it took plenty of motivation, bravery, learning, and networking.

A recent Clubhouse session offered an opportunity to hear many perspectives on ways to get in, thrive, and inspire others in product management. In front of an interested audience of circa 35 people, the session gave experts in this field a chance to…

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase ‘Venture Capital is broken’, but what’s behind that grim diagnosis, and what can be done to cure it? Recently, six thought leaders in venture capital came together on the Clubhouse app to talk about what might help.

So what’s actually going on here?

• The very industry seeking to fund the most innovative startups itself needs innovation.
• Venture Capitalists who look for new and early investment opportunities face either a pool of unstructured data or relatively little public data about those opportunities.
• Founders who fall outside the networks of established VC remain undiscovered.
• Those that are…

While catching up on an Instagram Live Session (my version of attending events in this new reality,) I chanced upon a conversation between GDW Global Digital Women founder, author, investor (and one of my online heroes,) Tijen Onaran, and a new-to-me woman behind the Instagram account schoenwild. Their discussion in German was fun to translate on the fly, but I decided to extract some of the messages here in English because what they had to say is especially important in light of recent news events. Namely, what we say to each other (online) matters.

What we say to each other…

I’m sure we can agree that 2020 was rough. Reflecting on a wild set of months behind us, I reached four understandings of what sustained my growth while keeping this year in check. I hope these takeaways are useful for you, too.

1. Listen to Experts. 🎤

Yes, of course, that applies primarily to scientists. But I’m also referring to people doing other important societal work and who share their observations transparently.

Probably like many of you this year, I dedicated significant time listening to podcasts, and when possible, reading books. Sometimes these came in a combo-pack: Like Arlan Hamilton’s Your First Million podcast and…

A recommendation heard frequently is that founders seeking funding should only talk with partners at a Venture Capital (VC) firm – you know, the ones who make the big decisions. Anna Khan is a General Partner at CRV but she will convince you otherwise. She makes a strong point about why the role of a venture analyst is so crucial.

Anna herself grew up in Pakistan, moved to the US and studied at Stanford University. She has worked in financial corporations, startups, and at various levels of the VC ‘food chain’. …

A silver lining of the pandemic’s isolating effect is a slow rebound in podcast consumption. Audio offers us unlimited opportunities to learn directly from experts. As an avid listener, I get inspired to translate key learnings in an accessible way — sharing takeaways about entrepreneurship, creative founders, and inclusive leadership. This time though, I tuned in for a chat specifically on social media and brand building.

Yes, you could also recap podcasts as a save-worthy thread of tweets, but writing my notes out in long-form effectively helps me to synthesize ideas into the best nuggets for you.

So if you’re…

If you find an opportunity to hear hard-earned wisdom from an insider of a news outlet, please take it. On August 10th, Sifted.eu’s Amy Lewin spoke with Fora x Buzzbar about trends in journalism as it relates to startups and VCs. She offered useful tips on diversifying VC and keeping on a journalist’s good side – important since reputation is gold in the age of social media.

Amy Lewin knows her material; as a reporter, she was employee number 1 of Sifted, a separate company but a Financial Times-backed news source offering in-depth startup ecosystem reporting. …

Imagine you’re at work, waiting in line, or in transit and you hear a sexist comment. You freeze for a moment. We’ve all been there. That instant when you can’t decide if you should speak up, do something, or bite your tongue.

You might think you need to evaluate how the comment was said or understand the context to determine your position. You might think you need to know a particular phrase to counter what you are hearing.

But what if you could reach into your pocket to access an app that prepared you for such moments, that guides you…