Vivek Wadhwa certainly sparked a compelling debate during the diversity panel where he said Silicon Alley is not a meritocracy and he said something along the lines of Silicon Valley having a gender problem. It was refreshing to hear Vivek, and his panelists Adria Richards, Freada Kapor Klein and Danilo Campos discuss their firsthand personal battles with overcoming gender and race inequality in the Valley startup world.

Danilo did not sugar coat anything, by stating his work your butt off attitude regardless of your credentials. Not only did speakers discuss umbrella themes such as gender and race but also the need to see beyond an Ivy League education. In an earlier fireside chat led by Jason, Social + Capital Partnership’s founder Chamath Palihapitiya illustrated the significance of our actions rather than our resumes, “its not about a degree that makes you smart and valuable its about how you can do cool and interesting useful things.” The diversity panel and the fireside chat with Chamath confirmed society’s needs to see beyond education and reputation. Overlooking gender, academic background and race will not happen over night because as Freda pointed out “as human beings our brains are wired to be bias.” For me, the Launch conference not only exposed attendees to dynamic disrupter startups found in demo pit/the stage but also ignited tremendous debate. The first step to rid ourselves of biases starts with addressing the problem that exists! As a member of the startup world, I not only witness people changing our behavior through new adoptions of technology but also new practices of thought!

Maybe this launch conference isn’t just a place to launch a company but a new wave of thinking….overcoming biases, understanding Silicon valley is not a meritocracy ….and changing our views and definitions of successes

]As I think about the balancing Zelkvoa and Uproot its turns out they are incredibly beneficial to each other and its not a zero sum game.  Uproot has made me a better investor and Zelkova is helping Uproot to innovate and think differently.

Uproot is a customer of several Zelkova portfolio companies.  We are using Ambassador, HelpScout, Lettuce, Customer.io, RJ Metrics and Reachli to name a few. Being able to actually use the products has made my feedback more valuable. I’m in the trenches as a small business owner, no longer am I just a Monday morning quarterback when I’m giving product feedback and advice.

Zelkova has helped Uproot by providing access to incredible technology and talent.  Every day I have the luxury of meeting great entrepreneurs with great ideas many of which are looking to help businesses.  Uproot is leveraging this and will hopefully prove to help accomplish our goal of creating an innovative company in the wine space.

As we launch Uproot in the coming weeks we are looking to push the envelope as far as possible feel free to send me any thoughts or suggestions.

Pagewoo is platform for the mobile ad industry. Advertisers can highly target their ad campaigns through algorithms designed to deliver demographic targeting as well as choose where to advertise their ads.

GonnaBe is a social life concierge, which combines social, geo and the future. The company’s goal is to be more than a tool but a resource that assumes the role of a “hooked up best friend” for users.

The Style Club makes celebrity style affordable and accessible for teens who love to share their favorite fashion finds on the web. Each month, a celebrity designer will create a capsule collection sold only through the Style club. Users can also buy items from each other’s closets displayed on the site.

Enplug is an interactive advertising platform enabling the world of advertising to be a social experience. The platform includes social media, analytics and traction engagement all in real time.

MyRight allows users to learn their rights as well as seek legal information prior to hiring a lawyer. The platform’s goal is to create interactive legal content.

Smilu is a gaming platform, where all gamers can play all their games in one place despite a myriad of devices. Through Smilu, gamers will be able “to compete everywhere.”

Wheremydogsat is a social platform for people who love dogs and have dogs. Owners can coordinate with each other to find dog friendly places as well as other necessities for their pups.

Overhead.fm connects businesses with a legal way to play music without any special hardware. In addition, the site has the capability to recommend certain music depending on the brand.

Hoonto helps employees make more data driven decisions and manage all different SaaS platforms on one dashboard. It’s a “business intelligence tool,” that enables users to create widgets refreshed in real time.

Flinja is a marketplace where college students/alumni can receive help in procuring and securing jobs. Users must have an edu email to access the site creating an exclusive environment.

Innovators, life shakers and inventors must not only constantly question but must also strive and prepare for criticism. During the conference, general manager of Chaotic Moon Labs, Whurley, said, “If you don’t hear no a lot, your idea sucks.” While you should be prepared to face critics during the innovation process, be careful not to judge your own idea too harshly. According to Lead NASA Engineer Adam Stessler, “in the beginning if its truly stretching the state of the art it will look crazy. You can’t bear criticism in the beginning of the process.” While those looking into your projects should unleash their negative questioning, be careful not to do it to yourself!!!! Ideas can be crazy! The lesson here is challenging behavioral norms can often lead to success. When one steps outside the box and discovers new solutions to current problems, people will often judge harshly. Paradoxically, don’t be discouraged if your idea appears to be too simple, because sometimes the best inventions are just that. Ideas do not have to be complicated but they should be followed with critical questioning (by others)! As part of society, it’s our job to look to the future. LORE founder Joseph Cohen said, “the future belongs to the curious.” And “curiosity gives birth to boldness and gets us to try.” If you possess high hopes for the future then please apply your questioning to good use. With the advances in technology, there are tremendous opportunities in making today a better place for tomorrow. Adam Stessler quoted Intel CTO, Justin Rattner, “science and technology have progressed to the point where what we build is only constrained by the limits of our own imagination.”

After 2 years immersed in the entrepreneur startup tech world, I am proud to say the number of female founded companies and female members of startup teams has grown exponentially. The growing number of women in Silicon Alley is partially due to the presence of companies like Women In Mobile (WIM) and Golden Seeds, which both support female entrepreneurs. WIM is a tech startup incubator intended for companies founded by at least one woman. WIM encourages female businesses fiscally as well as provides them with a curriculum similar to organizations like TechStars. WIM also illustrates the broad spectrum of female-headed companies extending beyond beauty and fashion. Like WIM, Golden Seeds’ investment criteria focus solely on companies founded by women. Golden Seeds is comprised of angel investors who rally behind women in hopes their investments will result in a successful portfolio of female companies.

A few weeks ago, WIM and Levo Labs hosted Plum Alley’s launch party, an exclusive e-commerce site where female founded companies are promoted and showcased. All the companies featured on Plum Alley are provided with custom graphics and logos, which are archived in the company site. As networks supporting women continue to develop, I truly believe more women will have the confidence to transform their ideas into fully functioning businesses due a boost from companies like Plum alley as well as the expanding female ecosystem in the startup world.

In previous blogs I discuss the drier cycle most women face in their fundraising cycle due to the sea of male investors, which will hopefully decrease with the uprising of the companies listed above. Part of Plum Alley’s mission is for “successful female entrepreneurs (to) have the economic power to invest in new female founded companies”…which results in “a greater pool of investment funds” hopefully ending the drier cycle!!!

As women, we have to support one another and eliminate as many barriers as possible!!! Lets put more females on the cover of Forbes! Who knows maybe one day, one of my readers will make front page of a glossy business magazine!! Historian and educator, Samuel Eiot Morison, once said, “Dream dreams, then write them. Aye, but live them first.” Build those companies, and then have TechCrunch write about them!!!!

To my readers, a quick disclaimer: not all female entrepreneurs are involved with fashion startups. Companies founded by women consist of a myriad of different concepts, many, which are far from fashion centered!  Female CEO’s are not all stylish, in fact, many, seamlessly fit the geeky techie mold!

When fashion focused companies start the funding process, they not only have to pitch their decks but also have to translate their concept to an audience usually far from their targeted demographic (note: the majority of tech startup investors are men).

While some men ponder why fashion can be intriguing to women, I struggle to grasp the rules and obsession men have with the NFL! Despite my effervesced to appreciate the excitement of tackles, fumble and sacs, I remain utterly perplexed why men devour this sport. On the other hand perhaps I am not making an effort to understand the rules. Don’t you think the average male investor scratches his head attempting to see the importance of a virtual closet? Of course he does, this is why the drier cycle exists for many female founded companies in stereotypically feminine spaces!  If women strive to see the importance of male-geared subjects like football perchance men in Silicon Alley should attempt to understand women & fashion?

In a recent NY Times article titled Techies Break a Fashion Taboo, Claire Miller hit the nail on the head, “Silicon Valley has long been known for semiconductors and social networks, not stilettos.” Chief Executive of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer claims, “designing software and products isn’t all that different from the design of clothes.” Perhaps if the geeky world of startups saw parallels/an intersection between the world of fashion design and technology product design, fashionistas would have more clout in the startup world.

Fashion technology is on the rise and can provide huge opportunities for investor success! Harvard MBA women such as the CEO’s of Gilt and Rent the Runway have confirmed users desire for fashion online. Speaking of runway, I believe female fashion companies face challenges taking off not because of unsound ideas but due to investors lack of understanding/knowledge of the intended their user experience! Successful female entrepreneurs need to angel invest and help their fellow females rise to the top!

Given that, I’m always excited when we get to use one of our B2B companies and we recently were able to implement RJ Metrics.  RJ Metrics is a hosted business intelligence platform that allows companies to better manage, analyze and report data / metrics. What impressed me most about RJ Metrics is the ease of setup (I’m not a coder/database guy or anything else of the like and got my stuff up and running in about an hour), the ongoing creation process (RJ Metrics allows you to easily create deep, complex and powerful charts with no tech knowledge) and lastly the UI is perfect for what RJ Metrics in intended for.  By providing RJ Metrics with some basic data about each of our investments (company, $ invested, market value, location, etc) we are able to quickly understand key data points about our portfolio.

If you are looking for a great tool to manage and report data across your organization take a look at RJ Metrics.

Don’t just take my word for it… here are some posts from Jason at Fab about how they are using it.

- Behind the Scenes: How Fab Raised $40 Million with a lot of Data and Not Much Pain

- Betashop Joins RJ Metrics

One more thing… in the coming week’s ill be announcing a new project i’m working on that is allowing us to use 10+ of our portfolio companies.

First off, be on time, on and on time I mean come 5 minutes early to the meeting.  Next we typically will let you get setup in our conference alone, I just think its less awkward to give you some time to get your self ready and situated without other people in there (yes we have working wifi).  From they’re its critical you have materials that are used to guide the discussion.  Typically these materials include a presentation that is best displayed on projector.  At some point during the presentation hop over to some type of demo if possible.

Now for what should be in the presentation, here is what we would like to see:

• Team Overview
• The Concept / Product
• The Market
• The Competition
• Current Business Status
• The Ask
• Use of Funds / Objective / Targets
• Current Funding Status

Pet Peeve’s During a Pitch Meeting

1. Being Late – yes we are in midtown and traffic sucks, account for it
2. Expecting me to watch a presentation on your computer or your ipad, when we could just put it up on the screen and be more comfortable
3. Entrepreneur Not Leading the meeting… take charge
4. Going significantly over on time, typically figure 45 minutes
5. Coming in if you are sick…  reschedule we will respect it more

Remember the point of the first meeting its to engage us enough that we want to sit down and talk further, if you are expecting to walk out with a check you are going to be let down.

The 15 companies are as follows:

Tripl creates the first ever travel graph by consuming all the geo tags in your social networks. Based on your friends’ geo tags stories about their travels as well as users connection to specific places is a created.

www.tripl.com

IndieWalls brings together venues’ walls and artists work, creating rotating exhibitions. The art displays not only help artists sell their work but also attract visitors to hotels, restaurants and other spaces where Indiewalls are displayed.

www.indiewalls.com

Cargo Networks is the first beauty subscription service to target the unique needs of specialty markets such as African Americans, Hispanics, Indians and fashion conscious men. After filling out a grooming profile, users receive a box of travel size products, which they can purchase directly from Cargo Network.

www.carbonetworkscorp.com

Bazaart is an ipad app, which reinvents fashion catalogs for the digital era. Bazaart takes the beauty of fashion catalogs and combines it with people’s interest for the iPad. It is a personal fashion catalog where users can shop directly on their created pages.

www.bazaart.me

Weesh helps couples that desire to break their routines by learning about fun new activities from other couples. It is an event discovery platform in a social network community for couples.

www.getweesh.com

Cubiez is a marketplace of apps for PC’s. Users can choose aps from the market place and with one click they are added neatly to your computer minimizing the amount of open windows on desktops.

www.cubiez.com

KidNimble is the first social search engine that aids parents in the discovery of programs for their kids. Parents can manage, organize and process their children’s activities as well as find feedback on specific programs.

www.kidnimble.com

Saborstudio is a gaming platform, which focuses on location, revolutionizing mobile games. Saborstudio’s technology allows them to make beautiful, engaging games, quickly and cost effectively.

www.saborstudio.com

Winston is an advanced personal assistant app. The speech-enabled personal assistant summarizes the content users have selected, which it dictates in a story telling manner along with your schedule and local weather . Users can also personalize their own channels, which recap social activities of specific people in their social networks.

www.winstonnetwork.com

TopShelf is fashion intelligence, which analyzes consumers shopping behavior and sends them personalized looksbooks created by stylists. If users wish to have more than weekly lookbooks, they can purchase a premium subscription model, which helps busy women save time shopping!

www.topshelfclothes.com

Teamalaya encourages employees to play games and engage with others on their interactive platform. The company promises that members of the workforce who use this will become more motivated!

www.teamalaya.com

Dejamor sends monthly care packages to couples that want to enhance their love lives. Two packages are sent to users, one for her eyes only and one for his.

www.dejamor.com

WineMe revolutionizes the wine discovery experience for consumers and enables them to purchase recommended wines locally. Based on purchase history and a taste graph, WineMe tell users what to they would like, acting as a personal sommelier.

www.winemenow.com

Branch.ly looks at people in your social networks and organizes them into lists based on requests and interests of users. Branch.ly strives to answer the question of “do you know anyone who does this…”

www.branch.ly

Vantageous turns 3 phones into a 3-camera studio. Vantageous enables multi-angle videography to be easy and affordable! In other words, anyone with 3 smart devices can create professional looking videos.

www.vantageousvideo.com

In the concluding remarks, DreamIt founder quoted Wayne Gretsky who said you “miss 100% of the shots you never take.” All the entrepreneurs who comprise the 15 companies are taking shots, congrats to them and all those who made today’s demo day possible!

Investors, press as well as other members of the tech scene eagerly listened to the 13 companies pitch their brainchildren in the hopes to secure fundraising. The CEO’s ranged from college graduates, serial entrepreneurs, college dropouts, international entrepreneurs as well as one Brazilian who sported a 3-year-old beard! As a female, I am excited to share 5 out of the 13 CEO’s were indeed women!

Spearheading Techstars NYC, David Tisch, seamlessly led the demo day with opening and closing remarks focused on the growth and evolution of the NYC tech scene. To date, Techstars NYC has funded 36 companies and has created a deeply entrenched network of passionate entrepreneurs and mentors. Through active participation and mentorship, many Techstar alumni have remained deeply intertwined with the incubator.

During a brief intermission, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh shared the ingredients he deems necessary for the creation of great companies. The fundamental parts of the success equation according to Hsieh are great corporate culture and a higher purpose beyond profitability. Following Hsieh, Tisch confirmed the importance of corporate culture sharing Techstars’ core focus to foster and construct a foundation based upon community and culture.

Here is a quick preview of each of the 13 companies:

Smallknot is a platform, which allows people to support their neighborhood by investing locally. Through Smallknot, users can fund and connect with the small businesses they engage with on a daily basis.

Wander aggregates all your memories, aspirations and travel experiences in one easy to use platform. Wander believes they have revolutionized to how people discuss locations through an additional layer of nostalgia and detailed suggestions.

Moveline has created a different way to move leveraging facetime and other mobile app features. Users can use technology to inventory the goods they wish to pack and move as well as find the right movers in a more seamless fashion.

Rewind.me enables users to manage their digital history through an online platform. Rewind.me serves to make large date personal and make personal data powerful.

Bondsy is a single platform for sharing and bartering. It its not only a marketplace but also a serendipitous place where users can use their social graph to buy, sell and trade an array of different items.

Marquee reorganizes how content is currently delivered on the web. Marquee strives to create a friction-less platform, where the need for developers is absent and users can create beautiful and profitable content.

Classtivity serves as a one stop-shop location for users to find recreational as well as fitness classes available in their neighborhood. Classtivity also enables class providers to market directly to their target audience!

10Sheet re-invents bookkeeping by removing companies reliance on humans to complete their books. 10Sheet prides itself as the first digital bookkeeper by automating 95% of the work previously done by human bookkeepers.

Pickie publishes a personalized magazine updated daily based on products mentioned by friends, as well as other preferred influencers. Pickie stresses how social proof greatly influences consumers purchasing decisions but also is currently fragmented and unstructured in today’s market.

Lua is a communication and project management service platform for mobile workforces. Lua strives to replace walkie talkies as well solve problems with coordination and file distribution.

Karma is the world’s first software focused mobile provider, which lacks subscriptions, monthly fees as well as no surprise fees. Users can bring their own bandwidth, which is not tied to a device or a network.

Poptip is socially integrated real time feedback allowing brands/companies to connect with the audiences they wish to target. It is the first native social feedback, where users can have their voice heard!

C1 has created a new way to view video content through an immersive experience. Through C1’s technology, video is no longer a passive experience but an evolution from still images.

In the fall, Techstars NYC held their 2^nd demo day where Bloomberg petitioned and shared his contagious support for NYC to be a startup hub. This spring’s demo day confirms Bloomberg was right, NYC is on to become a head on competitor to Silicon Valley!