Entrepreneurship is Manly Business, or Is It?

 
I work at a non-profit start-up. When people hear the first part of that statement they assume I work with all women. When they hear the last part they assume all men. I’m happy to share we’re a pretty diverse group over here at MassChallenge and not just when referring to gender. What is it about startups, venture capital, and entrepreneurship that maintains the gender gap? I’ve been wondering this for a while especially since I arrived in the startup scene back in October. I’ve certainly noticed some women, especially in communities like DartBoston, but across conferences and networking events and especially amongst investors the prevalence is that men are writing checks for men. And don’t get me wrong men are doing amazing things but I’d love to see more women in the mix and that’s why I was so excited to learn about LearnVest.
What is LearnVest? An article by Venture Beat highlights the women involved in this company and the niche it serves.
 
LearnVest is a financial planning and literacy site aimed at women which has recently raised $4.5 million in a first round led by Accel Capital. The deal is a bit of an interesting story — it pairs one of the very few female founders around with one of the very few female VCs around.
When founder and former head of business development at Drop.io  Alexa von Tobel debuted the site on-stage at TechCrunch50 last fall, she was grilled by a skeptical and mostly male panel of entrepreneurs and investors. They questioned why the web needed a female-focused take, when Mint and Yahoo Finance were readily available. But Von Tobel stood her ground on-stage, and it looks like the company may have found its match with Accel partner Theresia Gouw Ranzetta coming onto the company’s board. Ranzetta is an expert on niche-focused content properties and advertising networks, with seats on the boards of women-focused  Glam Media and real estate search engine Trulia. As audiences have become fragmented, Ranzetta has consistently bet that tightly-focused niche services will increasingly attract advertising dollars and sponsorships.

The New York Times highlights how Alexa came up with the idea:
Ms. von Tobel came up with the idea for LearnVest in 2006, during her senior year at Harvard. She speaks at an auctioneer’s pace and uses tidbits from Warren Buffett and neuropsychology to bolster her arguments. Yet in 2006, when she had a job offer from Morgan Stanley’s hedge fund, she realized there was something she was not confident about: managing her finances. “How is it possible I’m going to be a trader and I don’t even know how to open a credit card properly or my credit score?” she asked herself.
LearnVest has made significant traction with over 100,000 users including yours truly. 40% of users open up the daily newsletters proving once again that content is king. LearnVest has done an excellent job of focusing on planning rather than how to save money on say a pair of shoes. I use LearnVest as an additional tool with Mint.com rather than as an alternative.
Do you know of any other female entrepreneurs that have started interesting companies? What about female VCs? How do you find the male/female gap in the entrepreneurial communities that you are a part of?
By Salimah Nooruddin. Salimah is an Associate at MassChallenge.