Christine

A Wealth of Woman-Founded Startups, from a Twitter Shout-out

I haven't been a heavy user of the Twitter shout-out before, but I had such great response and feedback yesterday that I wanted to share. Before chatting with a reporter this morning about woman-founded startups, I thought it would be worthwhile to ask the Twitter community if there were any such companies that they thought were interesting.

The responses (and generous retweets!) were terrific, so I wanted to share them here - many folks wanted to see the list. And isn't it flattering to know when people characterize your hard work as interesting? Apologies in advance for cut-and-paste rather than an organized list, but I couldn't resist. The links all worked and it was a nice way to credit everyone.

Many thanks to all that suggested ideas and/or retweeted:

1. 
   heathr20x200, neighborgoods chick-started start ups
2. 
   RossAdina Levin is my co-founder [Socialtext]
3. 
   bpm140Micki Krimmel's Neighborgoods and Cyan Banister's nudie thing.
4. 
   
   0 more result since you started searching. Refresh to see them.
   
   tismoi@christine Check out @astianyc; contact Springboard Enterprises; @collectivee; @astiasf - they should all have info on women led cos!22 minutes ago from web
5. 
   gregoryleroy@christine RT: "woman-founded startups" Very cool. Thanks for posting that!
   
6. 
   StructuralInt@christine It's my own startup, so I'm biased: http://structuralintegrator... I write software for engineers to share data between apps.
7. 
   MaryTreselerRT @ericries: RT @christine putting tgthr a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply w/ any that U think R interesting!
8. 
   brantcooper@christine I'm working w/ San Diego-based social commerce startup headed by women. Contact me if you'd like details.
9. 
   Eric_ModCloth@christine ModCloth!
10. 
    crcarletonRT @ataussig: @christine Boston Power is one that comes to mind in energy. ME: Christine, let me know if you need info on Boston-Power?
11. 
    annimaniac@christine Wordnik and Modcloth are two amazing female-founded startups
12. 
    geekstack@christine Don't know of any women-founded startups but I'd love a copy of the list to feature in the GeekStack game
13. 
    michaelanschel@christine Check out @NicaGuide a woman owned startup based in MN that does guided eco tours to Nicaragua www.tourstonicaragua.com
14. 
    tara_kelly@christine women-founded startups -> that's me. Tara Kelly, Passpack.com online password manager. Based in Italy (coming to SF next month)
15. 
    marcuthay@christine Take a look at @annavikky she is fight poverty with @2aidorg
16. 
    WonderEventsRT @christine putting together list of women-founded startups for someone-please reply with any that you think are interesting!
17. 
    apsinkus@christine 3 women-founded Boston companies I follow: Communispace (@CommunispaceCEO), RunMyErrand (@labusque), Daily Grommet (@julespieri)
18. 
    apsinkusRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
19. 
    williampietriRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
20. 
    bkalex@ericries @christine I'd say @jessicamah has a great thing going with indinero! Check them out :)
21. 
    Kaltura@sethkenvin Thanks, Seth! Michal definitely rocks. @christine Let us know if you'd like to connect with Michal directly. http://bit.ly/L8Eys
22. 
    ideasprojectRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups for someone...pls reply with any you think are interesting!
23. 
    GreenbizStartupMe, though - for now- we're still preping 2start RT @ericries @christine putting together a list of women-founded #startups. pls reply!
24. 
    ventilla@christine Ohai by Susan Wu, Whatever Niniane Wang is working on, and Parrotview by Elizabeth Yin. Look forward to the list.
25. 
    ericriesRT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
26. 
    hatchmyhouse@christine http://bit.ly/dudqu :)
27. 
    thinkmaya@christine My startup Memetales, was founded by me. We are in closed beta
28. 
    merigruber@women2 For @christine Here's a few Aspera Software, Mobissimo,: Kachingle, Integrated Archive Systems, Blurb, Offerpal Media
29. 
    shaheroseOH: when they say you can't, you just do it! Msft pearls of wisdom event with @Christine @women2 + more http://yfrog.com/abjakj
30. 
    anarsimpson@christine Samasource.org CEO is one that should be on your list @leila_c
31. 
    Vosmek#Astia clients respond to @christine who is putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups.
32. 
    Vosmek@christine I have such a long list... but let's start with SimOps http://www.wildpockets.com/about 20 hours ago from TweetDeck
33. 
    herstartup@christine in response 2 your rqst. my company www.HerStartup.com . pleased to meet you.
34. 
    herstartupRT @women2 @christine putting 2gether a short/diverse list of women-founded startups. plz reply w/any u think are interesting!
35. 
    women2RT @christine putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups... please reply with any that you think are interesting!
36. 
    jbposell@christine MyShape
       
    
37. 
    manukumar@christine In re: women founded startups, 2 more for your list: @wildpockets @backboard
38. 
    ataussig@christine Boston Power is one that comes to mind in energy.
39. 
    aptuscollab@christine @batchblue by @pmohara, @mriggen. Epivax by Annie de Groot.
40. 
    shaherose@christine i do! happy to help. when do you need this? we are working on one for @women2 anyway!
41. 
    alexismichelle@christine ---> RT @toddcronin: @alexismichelle I believe foodzie has a female founder
42. 
    sethkenvin@christine Kaltura (Michal Tsur 25% of a pretty egalitarian founding team & she's especially impressive)
43. 
    alexismichelleRT @christine: putting together a short/diverse list of women-founded startups for someone...please reply w/ny that u think are interesting!
44. 
    LoganFrederick@christine Check out Elizabeth Lessner from Columbus Ohio. Might not count as "startup" with four/five restaurants, but great entrepreneur
45. 
    launchboxdig@christine KeenGuides (http://www.keenguides.com) has two female founders.
46. 
    kevinmarks@christine @oneforty by @pistachio, @sixapart by @dollarshort, @dabble by @maryhodder, @neighborgoods by @mickipedia, @hunch by @caterina
47. 
    agoldfisher@christine women founded startups of interest: Moxsie.com and Mobissimo Travel. If I give it some thot, I can come up w/ more
48. 
    zachcoelius@christine susan co-founded Triggit with me.
49. 
    joshpaul@christine Revolution Foods (http://revfoods.com/)
50. 
    AvramC@christine ZipCar, Robin Chase, a very important company that could eventually be a big part of the US transportation infrastructure
51. 
    mikesimonsenRT @christine: putting together a list of women-founded startups...please reply with any you think are interesting! [want to see the list]

Quick & Dirty How-To: Employee Stock Option Allocations

A great question came up recently in discussion with one of First Round's CEOs: how much equity should I allocate for hiring my next round of employees? For a company that has raised a first institutional round of capital, this question is important not only when making competitive job offers, but also when calculating what size option pool the company will need before raising the next round of capital.

Stock option comparables are hard to come by, so I thought I should post what I dug up for our CEO. Here's the best quick and dirty breakdown that I was able to find, courtesy of Venture Hacks - the ranges are from two years ago, but they still seem about right given what I see in the range of cap tables hitting my desk.

"To allocate the option pool from the hiring plan, use these current ranges for option grants in Silicon Valley:

Title Range (%)

• CEO 5 - 10
• COO 2 - 5
• VP 1 - 2
• Independent Board Member 1
• Director 0.4 - 1.25
• Lead Engineer 0.5 - 1
• 5+ years experience Engineer 0.33 - 0.66
• Manager or Junior Engineer 0.2 - 0.33

"These are rough ranges – not bell curves – for new hires once a company has raised its Series A. Option grants go down as the company gets closer to its Series B, starts making money, and otherwise reduces risk.

"The top end of these ranges are for proven elite contributors. Most option grants are near the bottom of the ranges. Many factors affect option allocations including the quality of the existing team, the size of the opportunity, and the experience of the new hire."

If you'd like to get more precise information on total compensation (both cash and equity, by specific title), you can get very robust data from the Radford technical job survey. Survey data is free in exchange for participating in the survey, so you can't beat the cost if you're on a tight budget. If I remember correctly from my own founder days, their 'small company' compensation ranges were appropriate for 25+ employees but a little off-market for a seed company. So if you get hold of a Radford survey, you may want to swing some comp from the cash to the equity side if your startup is still seed-stage.

If anyone else has good comparables to share, please do post them in the comments.