Interviews
Either
the entrepreneurs are getting younger or I am just getting older. Truth
is the key to Curisma is having a smart, focused, trend
spotter, gadget geek at the head of this company. I first met Fatma at an
event that matched entrepreneurs with angel investors. The concept of the
company piqued my interest and I went home and played around with the
site. You can get a little addicted discovering new products.
Rhonda Abrams is widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities on growing companies and entrepreneurship, and writes the most widely distributed column on small business, appearing weekly in USAToday.
She’s the author of over 15 books on entrepreneurship, including the best-selling business plan guide in America: Successful Business Plan: Secrets & Strategies. She is in great demand as a public speaker. She has been named as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley and one of the top Small Business Influencers.
Her company, PlanningShop, is the leading publisher of content on entrepreneurship and small business, used in over 700 business schools, including the top 22 of 25 entrepreneurship programs in the US. PlanningShop books are based on years of real-world experience, sharing advice from successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, investors, lenders, and seasoned business experts.
It’s been a great 12 months for Lisa Falzone. Last year she
raised $3.7 million in her series "A" funding round; then last month at the Macworld
– iWorld event, her company Revel
Systems was officially announced as the winner of the Best iPad Business App of the Year Award.
New
contributor Laura Greb interviews Amy Abrams, co-founder In Good Company, a foundation for women entrepreneurs, and co-author of “The Big Enough Company", a book which encourages entrepreneurs to create companies to suit their own individual needs, rather than assuming a "bigger is better" approach.
Amy is also founder of Artist & Fleas, which creates weekly markets in Brooklyn where emerging artists, indie designers, vintage collectors, and handmade crafters can set up shop, meet others and get in touch directly with their customers while being a part of a weekly, dynamic community happening.
Female Internet Hero Andiara Petterle is an experienced entrepreneur in the Brazilian digital market.
Currently Digital Strategy and New Business Director at Grupo RBS and previously CEO Bolsa de Mulher, the largest online women's communications group in Brazil.
Andiara
has MA and BA degrees in Social Communications from PUC-Rio, was a
guest researcher at Brown University, studied Interactive Media
Development at the University of British Columbia, and participated in
the Women's Leadership Program at Harvard Business School. She is
co-author of the book "Poderosas Consumidoras: o que quer e pensa a nova
mulher brasileira".
We spoke to Andiarra about how to target women through digital media; the most common piece of advice she gives to start-ups; and how her journey in tech started on her 15th birthday.
Nellie Akalp is a passionate entrepreneur, small business
advocate and mother of four.
As CEO of CorpNet.com, an online legal document filing service, Nellie helps small US business owners form an LLC or incorporate a business to start their ventures off the right way.
Nellie has been in the industry since 1997 and throughout her career has created over 100,000 business formations. Nellie and her husband (who is also her business partner) founded MyCorporation.com, which they sold to Intuit in 2005. They started CorpNet.com in 2009.
You can find Nellie on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
We spoke to Nellie about why she's passionate about helping entrepreneurs; about why small business owners should form a business structure; and why as CEO she still loves answering the phone.
In the words of Fast Company, Nora
Abousteit is a "rare leader who can pull together technology,
publishing, and fashion, and inspire people".
Nora recently founded Kollabora.com, a social marketplace for craft and hobby supplies with multiple maker communities. Kollabora will launch in the first quarter of 2012 with fashion forward DIY projects in jewelry, knitting, and sewing.
With a love for interaction and innovative technology, before starting Kollabora, Nora reinvented an old sewing magazine into the DIY fashion community BurdaStyle.com, with over 700,000 members; now an icon in the sewing community.
Nora began her career at German power-publisher Hubert Burda Media and is part of the founding team of the DLD (Digital Life Design) conference.
Silvia de Tommaso is the President of A ITAARTE, a stone, interior décor and jewellery company in São Paolo.
Virginia Poly
is the founder and President of Poly Placements, one of Canada’s
fastest-growing recruitment solutions companies.
Poly Placements has earned a lot of recognition in the past couple of years –the PROFIT HOT50, PROFIT W100, Branham300, the RBC Canadian Woman Entrepreneur Deloitte Startup Award 2010, and, most recently, one of the Toronto Star’s ‘10 To Watch in 2011’.
Before starting Poly in 2006, Virginia spent more than 10 years as a top-producing sales professional and trainer in IT, getting to know a wide variety of organizations from the inside out.
Virginia launched Poly Placements with a simple mandate: The ROI of Happiness. Happy clients and happy candidates means reduced time-to-hire, reduced recruiting costs, reduced turnover – and, ultimately, a better bottom line.
In late 2009 Linda Cheung was about
to leave Morgan Stanley to start her own business. At the time she had less
than a dozen connections in LinkedIn and had never used Facebook or Twitter.
Today, she's CEO of CubeSocial, a software development company all about winning
business through social media, recently selected as a “Top 20 Start-up” of 2011
by entrepreneur magazine Startups.
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