Tag: entrepreneurship

Shelley Zalis Creates A Networking Community For Professional Women With The Ipsos Lounge

Posted on by Stephanie Carino

When I saw Shelley Zalis speak at Advertising Week and found out she was the person responsible for The Ipsos Girls’ Lounge, I knew I needed to interview her. She has been able to take this idea to have a place for women to congregate and network at male-dominated conferences and events and built a community of encouraging women from it. It was an inspiring story that I wanted to share with Social Media Week. Here is what she had to say:

I first came across the Ipsos Girls’ Lounge at Advertising Week, but this idea has been around almost two years. Tell me why you think this idea has become so successful.

SZ: I had no idea that The Girls’ Lounge would become so important to me and to so many other women in our industry. It all started so spontaneously as a last minute sleepover with a few girlfriends that I knew were attending the Consumer Electronics Show in 2013. By the end of the week our little party of 5 had become a party of 155.

Today, more than 3,000 women have connected in The Ipsos Girls’ Lounge and it has become the go-to destination at some of the largest industry conferences in the advertising, marketing, media, research and technology spaces. There is power in conversation and we are seeing first-hand how really good ideas come about when women get together. Women come into the Lounge as ‘women in business’ and leave as supportive and generous ‘girls’ girls.’

Do you feel that the power of social media has helped you spread your message?

SZ: Absolutely! We just wrapped a national tour with our #ConfidenceIsBeautiful Bus and the response has been amazing! We were a featured activation at Oprah’s “The Life You Want Weekend” and at New York’s Advertising Week – where we brought an awesome 40 foot bus to women at these conferences and set up a social selfie station where they could express their unique ‘confidence signature.’ The #ConfidenceIsBeautiful message became a movement overnight and was shared on digital billboards across the country, including New York’s Times Square!

There are so many conferences in a year, how do you decide where the Girls’ Lounge will be most useful? 

SZ: We saw the power of connecting women in technology at CES, so we decided to connect women in marketing, media, research and advertising. Once I heard that the CTO needs to be best friends with the CMO, we decided to connect female executives in related industries. We now have CEOs, CMOs, CIOs, CTOs, COOs… and guess what? They’re all women! We created Girls’ Lounges in all the major conferences that these women attended so that over time they would develop relationships of trust and authenticity. Today, we are energizing self, soul and sisterhood. It’s becoming a corporate sorority!

What is on your wish list for things you’d like changed in corporate culture?

SZ: I believe it’s our responsibility as women in leadership to opt in to create the changes we want to see. We need to break the rules that never made sense for us as we were rising the ranks and create new rules that will allow people to have a better life at work. We need to change the corporate game from rules of rigidity to rules of generosity. We shouldn’t have to work to live, or live to work, work should be a dimension of life.

What’s the best story you can remember coming out of the Girls Lounge thus far? What show was this at?

SZ: There are so many that we capture in something that we call “the rose file.” We all inspire each other and it’s just a remarkable feeling when you actually leave The Girls’ Lounge and go into a conference and see women just wanting to be together with their pink streaks of hair and pink(y) swear rings. My most recent favorite was the pajama party we threw on our #ConfidenceIsBeautiful Bus at the ANA Masters of Marketing. Women marched through the hotel lobby in matching Girls’ Lounge pajamas to go hang out together on the bus. We did what girls do: laughed, cried, talked…and of course, ate lots of chocolate. It was unbridled fun, incomparable bonding and power deals were done.

What’s next on the horizon for you? Any new projects?

SZ: One of my favorite expressions is, ‘If we could have done it alone, we would have by now!’ Building this network of women who champion, support and mentor each other is critical. The more we advocate for each other and do good together, the better business and life will be for everyone. So, while the next ‘official’ stop for us is CES in January – conversations for other pop-up experiences and surprises are actively underway!

 You can read more about Ipsos Girls’ Lounge and Shelley here.

 

 

Stephanie Carino has spent over the past 10 years working in the city in the Fashion, Food and Event industries. She also currently writes event coverage and reviews for, Socially Superlative, a NYC-based event website, covering predominantly food, travel and entertainment stories. Connect with Stephanie on Twitter.

Yunha Kim, Founder of Locket: Why I Quit My Job To Launch A Startup

Posted on by Stephanie Carino

When you initially meet Yunha Kim, you wouldn’t automatically assume that she is the mastermind behind Locket, the super successful lock screen app for Android, but that’s before she begins to speak with an intelligence and passion that you would expect from the head of a company. I’m not the only/first/last person to take notice. When companies like TechCrunch and VentureBeat are writing about your company and when Tyra Banks expresses interest in investing in your idea, people are bound to jump on the band wagon. During my visit to San Francisco, I got a chance to speak to Yunha about her journey from Investment Banker to Founder and CEO of  her very own startup. Find out below what exactly it takes to get an idea from concept to realization.

1) You started your career as an Investment Banker and with your switch from iPhone to Android user, you quickly found the calling for this company. Can you tell me a little bit about your first couple of months of the company?

YK: I can barely remember the first couple months of the company. It was just so crazy.

In the first month, I was running around pitching our idea for investment. After getting funded by Great Oaks VC, I was then running around pitching to advertisers and I did that for a half year. Then I started pitching again for another round of funding.

When we had no money or product, I was getting somewhere around four hours of sleep every night. I was living with five other guys out of a two-bedroom apartment with three dogs and a hamster where we worked and lived. We were also getting by with hot dogs and ramen noodles.

Sometimes, I wondered, ‘What did I sign up for?’ but I think I was really happy, getting things off the ground, creating something out of nothing.

2) This idea actually came from our culture’s tendency of constantly checking our phones. Can you give us a little more insight into that?

YK: While pulling long but boring hours in investment banking (prior to Locket), I wasn’t able to do anything fun on my monitor, so I was checking my phone a few hundred times per day. That’s when I realized I keep on checking my phone every single day, bringing it to the restroom, everywhere I go. Every single one of those moments I was unlocking my lock screen which was a picture of a daisy which came as a default lock screen with my Galaxy S3.

One day, I was looking at it wondering why anyone wasn’t doing anything with the most valuable real estate in advertising. If people check their phone 150 times per day, with 71 million Android users, that’s 10.7 billion glances on the lock screen every day in the US that we have not been able to monetize. It occurred to me that this will be the next big thing in mobile advertising.

3) What do you feel are some of the benefits of Locket?

YK: Locket brings content you care about to your lock screen based on your interest, swiping habits and time of the day. It’s a quick passive way to learn about what’s going on around you, in your world. I am too busy to check out all my apps on my phone, but with Locket, I am consistently updated. I was able to learn about a fire in Soma which is only a few blocks away from our office through my lock screen, then I looked outside my window and I saw that fire.

4) How do you find a life work balance with being in such a busy and quickly expanding company? What does your typical day look like?  

YK: When you are in a startup, it’s really difficult to balance your work and life (if you even have a life). It’s like when you have a baby (your startup), and the baby cries, you can’t really say you are off your work hours and let it cry. So, it will feel like you are on call 24/7.

5) I know focus on the company has changed, can you tell me a little about that?

YK: Recently, we have stopped our paid-per-swipe-ad service. We are now focusing on contextual content on your lock screen. Based on an user’s interest, swiping habits and time of the day, we serve content that people care about in a visually delightful way on the Android lock screen, and as the apps is consistently used, the content becomes more relevant

For more on Yunha and Locket, please visit: http://getlocket.com/.

Stephanie Carino has spent over the past 10 years working in the city in the Fashion, Food and Event industries. She currently works in the PR Department at leading Technology and Business Book Publisher, Apress.  On the side, she also writes event coverage and reviews for, Socially Superlative, a NYC-based event website, covering predominantly food, travel and entertainment stories. Connect with Stephanie on Twitter.

 

The Power of The Idea: Steve Case & Entrepreneurship at SMW NYC

Posted on by Nicky Yates

When you think of philanthropy and entrepreneurship, Steve Case is one of the first people that come to mind. Steve is a visionary, seeing the potential in things. Starting with co-founding AOL in 1985, Steve has a legacy of helping build things up. AOL under Steve’s leadership became the world’s largest Internet company and helped establish the Internet.

Now, he uses that experience to help other companies thrive. Steve just launched Revolution, a $200M venture fund focused on innovation outside of Silicon Valley. He has backed more than thirty companies, including LivingSocial, Zipcar, and AddThis.

“You can be entrepreneurial even if you don’t want to be in business. You can be a social entrepreneur focused on the not-for-profit sector. You can be an agriculture entrepreneur if you want to change how people think about farming. You can be a policy entrepreneur if you want to go into government. The idea of an entrepreneur is really thinking out of the box and taking risks and stepping up to major challenges.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yi4ipsWNLc

Steve is passionate about fostering a sense of entrepreneurship and philanthropy. He lends his time to helping promote entrepreneurs in the US, being an active chair member for UP Global, an organization created by Startup Weekend and the Startup America Partnership, as well as the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. In 1997, he founded The Case Foundation, investing in hundreds of organizations, initiatives and partnerships with a focus on leveraging the Internet and entrepreneurial approaches to strengthen the social sector.

And now he’s bringing that experience and his insights to SMW NYC. Join Steve and us this February. Get your pass now.

Building an East Coast Tech Center: What’s in Store for NYC’s Future?

Posted on by Victoria Harman


Last week’s panel, “New York City’s Tech Future“, got everyone thinking about how far New York City has come and how much farther we need to go. There was a lot of discussion about how New York City differs from Silicon Valley. In New York the innovation is at smaller venues and companies, we haven’t quite gotten our big Google or Facebook yet. However, Jonathan Bowles, Executive Director of the Center for an Urban Future, noted, “we’re seeing that a lot of corporations are reaching out to these smaller companies for acquisition and services”. Alan Patricof, Managing Director of Greycroft Partners, also noted that the model of fundraising is different in NYC. He noted that few firms do B-Round ($5-$15MM) here and there is a lot of seed capital around, a lot of VCs have cashed out and become angels. Additionally, Patricof noted, “A-Round requires going to an organized firm like Greycroft and there aren’t a lot of firms like these in NYC.” Nevertheless, Bowles noted that 486 start-ups got VC or angel funding last year and of those, 15 had raised $50MM+.

There are also several issues related to the recruitment of talent in NYC. Bowles pointed out – liveability and quality of life are key issues. He suggested that, in order to attract more talent in engineering and entrepreneurship, the next mayor will have to focus on creating more middle-income affordable housing, as most tech/start-up employees aren’t making six figures.

Students are another big issue. A few of the panelists suggested that there is a tendency for recent grads to start their companies near where they went to school, especially because of the focus on intellectual property on campuses, how students can and will take risks, and the advantageous recruiting opportunities that proximity presents.  This focused the conversation on the new Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. Anne Li, the Managing Director, EVP at NYCEDC, argued the case for NYC to focus on tech. Li said, “NYC is underweight in the number of engineers we produce…there are not that many industries we can diversify ourselves into but tech is one”. She also noted that similar projects in other countries have been funded by the government. However, our city’s government doesn’t have those kinds of funds to give. So, the focus has really been on the universities. That’s where the partnership with Israel’s Technion came to play on this campus proposal. Israel has demonstrated itself as a country that has a strong grasp on how to commercialize research. Additionally, several other city universities have started to further develop their tech programs. NYU has started a Center for Urban Science & Progress in Brooklyn and Columbia University is expanding its engineering school. Li estimates that the three projects combined will double the number of engineers (PhDs) in 20 years. She also suggested that work is being done at the high school level as well. Li says, “great coders learn how to code in high school not college”, so there’s a computer science high school in the works.

The discussion of what students want to do after they graduate also came into play. Patricof suggested that most students in NYC want to start their own company when perhaps instead they should be “looking to join a big company to bring entrepreneurial spirit or join an existing start-up”. He noted that there are a lot of companies that are imitating one another these days:  “You should start a company if you have a passion and you’ve learned a lot about it and you have a plan, not hunt for ideas or copy what someone else has done and say ‘I’m gonna do it better'”. Scott Anderson, Partner & Chief Strategy Officer at Control Group, backed him up by saying that his company looks for more skilled workers and sees great value in new recruits who have failed before. Patricof furthered the argument of the value of having worked at a failed start-up: “They don’t assign people different roles so you learn everything…you watch and learn from an unsophisticated leader and then you’re ready to do a start-up because you’ve seen the pitfalls and not spent your own money.”

So, the overall feeling was that New York City can become a more attractive destination for engineers and entrepreneurs by building more academic resources for students and by making the city a better and more affordable place to live for experienced talent. Recent graduates will need to start shifting the attention toward joining existing start-ups rather than creating imitative start-ups of their own. There will also need to be the economic support and incentive to allow them to do this – through improved fundraising avenues for  start-ups, affordable housing options, etc.

Victoria Harman (@vc1harman) is a social media content & strategy specialist and entrepreneur based in New York City.