Female Founders’ Playbook


Book Description

How do female entrepreneurs overcome hurdles, redress power imbalances and create a business with coveted unicorn status? High-growth enterprises on a rocket ship growth trajectory and tech unicorns with a value of more than £1billion have the potential to transform the economy. But building a unicorn is not an easy task. And it's even more difficult for female-led enterprises than it is for male-led start-ups. Female Founders' Playbook brings together the experiences of the leading women entrepreneurs and VC investors. These successful businesswomen share their thoughts on every aspect of launching a high-growth business, from coming up with a unicorn-worthy idea, through to building a multi-talented team to winning investment. Their tales of success and failure are drawn together by commentary and insightful analysis by award-winning technology founder and architect of Starling Bank, Anne Boden, creating an easy-to-follow guide for any female leader. Rather than talking about who might be the next Bezos, Gates or Jobs, Female Founders' Playbook tells the true stories of those women who are guaranteed to inspire and help the next generation of female entrepreneurs.




Female Entrepreneur's Playbook


Book Description

More women than ever are starting businesses -- yet so few are sharing how they do it. Why? Because being a successful female entrepreneur is hard work and comes with a unique set of challenges that many don't share.If you want to know what happens behind the scenes of a growing business, then this is your guide. If you want to create wealth, opportunities, and freedom in your business when we've got you covered. Whatever is holding you back from having the business of your dreams -- whether it's lack of experience, not knowing where to begin, money issues, or not understanding how to turn your purpose into profit -- this book shows you how other women have walked the path, faced challenges, and built a business that thrives.The Female Entrepreneur's Playbook will change how you think about your business as 20+ successful entrepreneurs reveal their secrets to building a business that complements and enhances their lifestyle. Inside, you'll learn:Why your hero's journey is an essential part of your brand and story.What to do if you need to generate revenue fast.How to avoid the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make. Why failure often leads to success.What self-care routines help maintain physical, emotional, & mental health.Each chapter is written by a different female entrepreneur who gives candid and advice-fueled answers to empower women to lean into their zone of genius and create a business they love.GET READY TO BE INSPIRED, GROW YOUR BUSINESS, & CHANGE LIVES.The ExpertsCamille Campins-Adams, Tamra Cornwell Andress, Lindsey Ardmore, Kimberly Beer, Tina Booker, Brianna Coon, Aranzasú De La O, Sarah Failla, Ashley Helene, Lani Dickinson, Emmy Hernandez, Elizabeth Le Coney Hambleton, Sarah Jolley Lawyer, Christy Mayfield, Amanda Monnier, Jill Kinworthy Phillips, Cris Rodriguez, Patty McFarland Rogers, Micaela Royer, Patricia Wooster, Cindy Zuelsdorf




The Fundraising Strategy Playbook


Book Description

How do you raise startup capital to bring your vision to life? The Fundraising Strategy Playbook teaches you how to deliver a compelling pitch, generate investor demand, negotiate your terms, and determine your founder/funder fit. You’ll learn how to build your funding stack and get creative with how you source capital to achieve different milestones in your company’s journey. Written by a founder for founders, this book empowers entrepreneurs to know their options and take charge of their company’s financial future whether it’s by supercharging early revenue generation, sourcing non-dilutive financing (equity free money!), or raising venture capital. Packed with insights from entrepreneurs with $600M+ exits, legendary VCs (Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Techstars, 500 Startups, and more), and innovation enthusiasts like Jason Feifer (Entrepreneur Magazine), this book is filled with answers to the questions you wish you could ask the most accomplished entrepreneurial minds. This is the smart entrepreneur’s playbook on how to intelligently raise capital for the long haul success of a startup. The contents of this book include: • Part 1) Fundraising Fundamentals (sources of capital, venture capital fundraising process, and more) • Part 2) Elements + Design Principles of a Pitch Deck • Part 3) The Art of Persuasive Pitching • Part 4) Fundraising Strategy (how to plan a raise, types of investments, designing your funding stack, evaluating founder/funder fit, and more) • Part 5) Fundraising Strategy for Female Founders • Part 6) Fundraising Strategy for International Companies




What Men Don't Tell Women About Business


Book Description

Discover the deep, dark secrets of the Alpha businessman As a woman, you know you're every bit as effective and capable as a man is in the arena of business-but that doesn't mean there aren't things you need to know about men and business. In this invaluable guide for the modern businesswoman, former Alpha Male Christopher Flett reveals everything you need to know to understand, communicate, and compete with men in business. To some extent, business is still a man's world; here's how to play the game by their rules-and win: * Know what the average Alpha Male is thinking * Learn 10 things you need to know about men in business * Force men to take you seriously * Stop self-sabotage with male colleagues * Get all the credit you deserve * Be more confident and effective * Learn to take charge and lead * Never make excuses for failures * Keep secrets-it's vital * Never bring personal issues to the office * Gain credibility and trust with Alphas * Never look for affirmation openly * Effectively deal with condescending or disrespectful men * Understand why being "nice" gets you nowhere




The Diversity Playbook


Book Description

Hephzi Pemberton's first nonfiction, business book The Diversity Playbook provides an empowering and uplifting experience. It contains proven expertise, factual examples and practical tools to transform your business and leadership approach with inclusion and innovation as a central shared goal and priority. Hephzi founded Equality Group in 2018, as an inclusion and diversity specialist business focused on helping financial and technology companies, to diversify their teams and create more inclusive cultures, to manifest a brighter, kinder and bolder future for all. Her book demonstrates with clarity, relevant case studies and the latest research, as well as an applicable exercise in each chapter, to show how leaders and firms who embrace and embed inclusion and diversity into their business will benefit. They will be the businesses that innovate and adapt more rapidly. They will have a workplace culture that the latest talent seeks out and stays with. They will reach a wider set of customers and clients who feel valued and understood. They know that to achieve these benefits and many others besides, leaders and businesses now and in the future will have to take inclusion and diversity seriously. Her cutting-edge, poignant, ten chapters feature how the time has arrived for inclusion, right now and exactly how to: - apply inclusive leadership skills; - ensure that communication is key and data matters; - enhance business values with purposeful action and positive return; - celebrate success using incentive and accountability applications; - debias systems and ensure inclusive hiring; - achieve parity across reviews, retention and promotion; - build inclusive foundations and positive policies; and - humanise work making sure that social sustainability is achieved for all. She reveals, with a compelling and expert presence and urgency, how emerging events have demonstrated that new leaders are needed more than ever before in our brave new post- Covid world. Leaders with a growth mindset who will shape the way businesses evolve and remain competitive, or flatline and fade into extinction, using Lehman Brothers as a relevant opening example. She shows that - how you lead is as important as who is leading - citing representative, inclusive leadership as the only way forward. Balance and bias are addressed, as well as the competency traits of the culture makers who are our world's future. Hephzi discusses the value sets required to show the way, using communication and data as the keys to unlock the ability to voice your truth and truly connect with your audience. Using colourful and engaging illustrations and graphs, her book shows exactly how to: activate accountability; make inclusive policies visible; turbo charge your taskforce; incorporate valuable incentives and rewards; as well achieve balanced scorecards and celebrate successes. Her highly-relevant book illustrates the latest hiring and team building pathways to ensure inclusion and diversity parity and debiased systems for all. Each chapter ends with clearly presented Reflect and Act calls to actions, which can be applied to make a difference and conscious contribution in the world, as soon as each chapter has been completed. As a whole, the book provides an easy to read, interactive playbook, revealing how to optimise business for inclusion and diversity. How to equalise, amplify and innovate within a global context and ensure authentic productivity, performance and profit, leading to true social sustainability for all humanity.




The Startup Playbook


Book Description

Get the real guidance you need to create and build your first startup company from founders who have been there many times before. The first run printing of The Startup Playbook SOLD OUT! So, we revised, expanded, and improved this second edition, including a new foreword by Brad Feld, author of Venture Deals. We still give our personal, how-to guide for building your startup from the ground up. You'll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we've learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We're sharing our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you. We make no bones about our bias. We're on your side, the founder's side. While venture capitalists, investors, and accelerators/incubators can add great value in the startup ecosystem, this book isn't about their points of view. We'll tell you where our interests as founders diverge from those on the other side of the table—investors, bankers, advisors, board members, and others—and what to do when that happens. The Startup Playbook is not a recipe, it's not a template, it's not a list of tasks to do. It's our insider's guide to starting a company and running it successfully in those critical early months. Between us, we've started over a dozen high-tech software companies and raised over $500 million in investment capital. We've acquired over thirty-five companies, had three of our startups go public, sold six of them, and we made billions of dollars for shareholders. We've also invested in over eighty startups, advised and mentored over two hundred companies and actively worked with venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and accelerators to help launch many other new startups. We've had plenty of failures, too. And we've probably learned more from those than from the successes. We share those lessons as well. The Startup Playbook is full of our advice, guidance, do's, and don'ts from our years of experience as founders many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve. "This book is extraordinarily fresh and exciting. In an accessible, straight talk fashion, this book is a manual, and an inspiration. The Startup Playbook is smart and avoids the 'I am so smart' over-writing endemic to the genre. Read this as it is presented. You'll be doing yourself a tremendous favor." —Amazon Reviewer




The Parental Leave Playbook


Book Description

Support your growing family without losing professional ground—a proven approach The Parental Leave Playbook helps parents take control of their leave and make the most of what's considered a career timeout, but is actually a vital "time-in" for your life. If you're an expecting or new parent concerned about how your leave and return plans will affect your visibility, candidacy for promotion, work relationships, and performance (not to mention your identity and home life), this book will guide you into the smoothest transition possible. Most importantly, this book will help you as you grow and strengthen yourself and your family while remaining a professional. In The Parental Leave Playbook, you'll learn Dr. Amy Beacom's innovative R.E.T.A.I.N. framework and the three-phase, ten-touchpoint model, to coach yourself through the leave process. Beacom identifies the critical points before, during, and after leave where parents and managers must work together, and explains how parents can facilitate success by finessing the way they approach their manager and colleagues. These models are supported by case studies from the author's work in the field with leading organizations like Microsoft, and supplemented by resources such as the evidence-based Parental Leave Transition Assessment (PLTA) sample report, leave action plan templates, reflection prompts, and development exercises to enhance self-awareness and skills. You'll learn how to: Communicate your parental leave plans effectively and at the right time Set expectations with managers and colleagues to ensure a smooth transition Learn how to maintain visibility, avoid being replaced, and continue your upward career trajectory during your parental leave and beyond Grow and strengthen your family without sacrificing your professional gains All working parents-to-be can benefit from the ideas and proven tools in this direct and practical book.







Million Dollar Women


Book Description

The “useful and inspiring” (Diane von Furstenberg) guide for female entrepreneurs who want to take their businesses into the big leagues. “Do you have an ambitious vision for your business, but aren’t sure what to do next? Successful entrepreneur Julia Pimsleur provides an invaluable guide for any woman who wants to make a big jump” (Gretchen Rubin, author of Better Than Before and The Happiness Project). Over the past twenty years, women in the US have started nearly twice as many businesses as men, but only three percent of all women business owners ever make revenues of one million dollars or more. Most are stuck running kitchen-table businesses, just getting by, or in many cases, running out of cash. Julia Pimsleur aims to change that with Million Dollar Women, which will show you how to take your business to that million-dollar mark and beyond. Million Dollar Women introduces you to Pimsleur and seven other women who have raised capital, developed powerful networks, and built multimillion-dollar companies from scratch. It teaches you the concepts and the vocabulary you need to secure funding and scale up. It explains how to make the right connections, when to delegate, and when to seek coaching and support. Drawing on her own experience of becoming a CEO, Pimsleur also provides help for overcoming the hurdles you have to clear to leap to that next level. “With thought-provoking interviews of women entrepreneurs and other business experts and important exercises at the end, this resourceful book is rich in ideas and valuable insight” (Booklist).




Girls Who Run the World: 31 CEOs Who Mean Business


Book Description

The perfect graduation gift for future entrepreneurs! Part biography, part business how-to, and fully empowering, this book shows that you're never too young to dream BIG! With colorful portraits, fun interviews and DIY tips, Girls Who Run the World features the success stories of 31 leading ladies today of companies like Rent the Runway, PopSugar, and Soul Cycle. Girls run biotech companies. Girls run online fashion sites. Girls run environmental enterprises. They are creative. They are inventive. They mean business. Girls run the world. This collection gives girls of all ages the tools they need to follow their passions, turn ideas into reality and break barriers in the business world. INCLUDES: Jenn Hyman, Rent the Runway Sara Blakely, Spanx Emma Mcilroy, Wildfang Katrina Lake, Stitch Fix Natasha Case, Coolhaus Diane Campbell, The Candy Store Kara Goldin, Hint Water Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe Rachel Haurwitz, Caribou Bioscience Nina Tandon, EpiBone Jessica Matthews, Uncharted Power Jane Chen, Embrace Emily Núñez Cavness, Sword & Plough Hannah Lavon, Pals Leslie Blodgett, Bare Escentuals/Bare Minerals Katia Beauchamp, Birchbox Emily Weiss, Glossier Christina Stembel, Farmgirl Flowers Mariam Naficy, Minted Maci Peterson, On Second Thought Stephanie Lampkin, Blendoor Sarah Leary, Nextdoor Amber Venz, RewardStyle Lisa Sugar, Pop Sugar Beatriz Acevedo, MiTu network Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler, Soul Cycle Suzy Batiz, Poo-Pourri Tina Sharkey, Brandless Jesse Genet, Lumi Tracy Young, Plan Grid