Speaking of the business
Jun. 9th, 2006 12:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
progAndys and I went to a presentation last night about seeking angel funds. It was at MIT's Kresge Auditorim, and there was a 90-minute networking session scheduled in front of it. This was supposed to be in a big tent set up outside, but heavy rain moved it into the lobby, which therefore ended up packed with hundreds of people for the duration.
Ironically this made it kind of hard to start any conversations. Not counting meeting up with our friend J, I had only three: greeting a fellow I had met at last week's startup clinic, talking to some random friendly guy who was just there because he liked to talk to entrepreneurs, and then again with another guy trying to launch a company around a single board game. Well, you can imagine what my reaction to that was. Gave him a meaty follow-up pitch via email this morning... might follow up some more with a call later if I don't hear back.
Call it a practice run for Origins.
The presentation was pretty good, even a little entertaining. Had some lively moments. No major insights, but a enough take-aways to fill the backs of three of my new business cards (coz I neglected to bring a notebook).
Then the four of us retired to the Cambridge Common for beer and meat and nurdy chatter. Came home and went bed before 1, so exhausted was I.
At some point before all of this I managed to call slacker guy, and left voice mail.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daerr correctly sez I gotta try earlier in the day. I hate it so much though... bleah.
You may have noticed that in my networking stories so far I have spoken only to men. It's happened to come out that way, even though there are always women at these events (though they always make up significantly less than half the crowd). I was just now thinking about how I felt an odd instant of repulsion every time I saw a lady entrepreneur walk past yesterday, just long enough for me to let her go. Why was this?
My first insight is that I instinctively wanted to avoid feeling like I was hitting on anyone! Even now that I'm thinking it through I have to admit it seems a little skeevy: sidling up, drink in hand, to one of these women, and while looming down with a big grin (for I am most likely gonna be several inches taller) saying "So tell me what you do, over there in, uh," at which point I overtly eye her chest in order to read the name and company off her tag.
I know it's foolish, though its heart be in the right place. I will attend my next networking session with this new bit of self-knowledge, and see what might happen differently. Surely I can find a way to act that creeps out neither party.
(It probably doesn't help that the presentation's panelists, men and women both, really liked to compare the entrepreneur/capital relationship to dating and marriage.)
Got up around 8am today (a feat I'll have to repeat tomorrow, except moreso) and spent the morning writing various businessy email and the afternoon and evening working on our store. This is the bit that will sell the inventory of partners' games that we have, all the Fluxx decks and such. Collected some good advice from friend and fellow entrepreneur Mr. Jivjiv and set up a merchant account with PayPal because it's very easy to do so. They accept lots of payment types, and their basic service has no setup, cancellation, or recurring fees. The commissions they extract from purchases is moderately high, but I think it's still a great place to start, and we can switch to something better when we find it.
It's not online yet... will be going up alongside all the other new webstuff I've been doodling with over the last couple of weeks as soon as someone else manages some bugfixes. (I've been saying that one a lot, haven't I. I'll press the issue over the weekend and will see what happens.)
Tomorrow meeting at the office at 8 and moving on to a local VC outfit to meet with VC guy. I'd be asleep now but I'm waiting fordaerr to stop putting out other people's fires at his job so he can help me fix the damn projection spreadsheet that I messed up last month argh.
The presentation on Wednesday made me even more skeptical about the utility of this meeting, since I'm fairly positive that we don't want to come near any VC money and all the strings usually attached to it, just as I'm sure that we're asking far too little for any VC to think we're worth their time. But our asking figure was right there in the summary I mailed him. Assuming that he actually read it, maybe he has something else in mind? Well, we'll see very soon. Wish us the best!
Ironically this made it kind of hard to start any conversations. Not counting meeting up with our friend J, I had only three: greeting a fellow I had met at last week's startup clinic, talking to some random friendly guy who was just there because he liked to talk to entrepreneurs, and then again with another guy trying to launch a company around a single board game. Well, you can imagine what my reaction to that was. Gave him a meaty follow-up pitch via email this morning... might follow up some more with a call later if I don't hear back.
Call it a practice run for Origins.
The presentation was pretty good, even a little entertaining. Had some lively moments. No major insights, but a enough take-aways to fill the backs of three of my new business cards (coz I neglected to bring a notebook).
Then the four of us retired to the Cambridge Common for beer and meat and nurdy chatter. Came home and went bed before 1, so exhausted was I.
At some point before all of this I managed to call slacker guy, and left voice mail.
daerr correctly sez I gotta try earlier in the day. I hate it so much though... bleah.You may have noticed that in my networking stories so far I have spoken only to men. It's happened to come out that way, even though there are always women at these events (though they always make up significantly less than half the crowd). I was just now thinking about how I felt an odd instant of repulsion every time I saw a lady entrepreneur walk past yesterday, just long enough for me to let her go. Why was this?
My first insight is that I instinctively wanted to avoid feeling like I was hitting on anyone! Even now that I'm thinking it through I have to admit it seems a little skeevy: sidling up, drink in hand, to one of these women, and while looming down with a big grin (for I am most likely gonna be several inches taller) saying "So tell me what you do, over there in, uh," at which point I overtly eye her chest in order to read the name and company off her tag.
I know it's foolish, though its heart be in the right place. I will attend my next networking session with this new bit of self-knowledge, and see what might happen differently. Surely I can find a way to act that creeps out neither party.
(It probably doesn't help that the presentation's panelists, men and women both, really liked to compare the entrepreneur/capital relationship to dating and marriage.)
Got up around 8am today (a feat I'll have to repeat tomorrow, except moreso) and spent the morning writing various businessy email and the afternoon and evening working on our store. This is the bit that will sell the inventory of partners' games that we have, all the Fluxx decks and such. Collected some good advice from friend and fellow entrepreneur Mr. Jivjiv and set up a merchant account with PayPal because it's very easy to do so. They accept lots of payment types, and their basic service has no setup, cancellation, or recurring fees. The commissions they extract from purchases is moderately high, but I think it's still a great place to start, and we can switch to something better when we find it.
It's not online yet... will be going up alongside all the other new webstuff I've been doodling with over the last couple of weeks as soon as someone else manages some bugfixes. (I've been saying that one a lot, haven't I. I'll press the issue over the weekend and will see what happens.)
Tomorrow meeting at the office at 8 and moving on to a local VC outfit to meet with VC guy. I'd be asleep now but I'm waiting for
daerr to stop putting out other people's fires at his job so he can help me fix the damn projection spreadsheet that I messed up last month argh.The presentation on Wednesday made me even more skeptical about the utility of this meeting, since I'm fairly positive that we don't want to come near any VC money and all the strings usually attached to it, just as I'm sure that we're asking far too little for any VC to think we're worth their time. But our asking figure was right there in the summary I mailed him. Assuming that he actually read it, maybe he has something else in mind? Well, we'll see very soon. Wish us the best!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
women in business.
Date: 2006-06-10 11:02 am (UTC)really they are just people. the reading the name tag thing is not
smarmy unless you Never make eye contact, then it's nasty.
well, the dating and marriage comparisons may have just fit conveniently
to characterize the relationship...
most women, myself included, if you approach in a business context with
a question of "what do you do" would NOT take this as a come on.
the most upsetting attitude ever working professionally in a sea of men
is that a good percentage of them act discountively or dismissively
towards my professional opinion on account of my sex (and every other
woman in IT or related field whom I have spoken to has exactly the same exp.). You can really see it in not only their body language but their language as well...
i think you're focusing too much on the fact that they are women and
not enough that they are business people, like you, whom you could network with.....call me odd, but i think it's a sign of lack of respect when some guy acts dismissively and i Know that would not be the case, that he would actually listen to my words, had my genitals been different.
but i don't think you're in that category....i think for some odd reason you're not seeing them first as business people.....then as women. i have no problem seperating the men i work with as consultants or peers and not as men strictly, because that would be weird....
Re: women in business.
Date: 2006-06-11 04:29 am (UTC)It has little to do with me being prejudiced about women in business - I like to think that I'm simply not that way at all - but a lot to do with me being shy enough already about talking to strangers. The fact that the potential conversation partner is female just makes it harder, because I am a dopey spaz.
So in that sense, you are actually right, I did see not a potential contact but a woman first, and thought "oo scary" without really stopping to examine that thought (at which point I would have concluded "dude wtf".