Innovation That Matters

Wise Words from female founders in tech

Features

On International Women's Day, we present entrepreneurial advice from outstanding female founders.

Women working in tech have seen their fair share of publicized, unequal treatment, starting with the gender pay gap and ending with a lack of promotions and workplace harassment — Ellen Pao, former Reddit CEO and Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s CEO are only two examples of female Silicon Valley bosses who have been discriminated for their actions because of their gender.

But we are seeing small steps towards improvement, beginning with tech startups themselves. An example is Springwise-featured InHerSight, a crowdsourced website that lets employees contribute anonymous reviews of their company’s treatment of female staff, rating elements such as “wellness initiatives” and “management opportunities for women.”

Another is a women-only peer-to-peer mentoring community for professional females in tech. Women hold only 11 percent of executive positions in tech, and Glassbreakers is trying to change that.

This International Women’s Day we want to celebrate the female founders we have featured on Springwise, and showcase the innovations that exist today because of these empowering women entrepreneurs.

Sahar Hashemi

Sahar is the co-founder of a hugely successful chain Coffee Republic, as well as her own venture Skinny Candy. She developed Coffee Republic into a major high street brand with a GBP 30 million turnover, and in 2005 established Skinny Candy to fill a gap in the British confectionary market making low-sugar, low-fat sweets an chocolates.

Read the interview here »

Julia Salasky

Julia is an ex-UN lawyer who founded CrowdJustice. The website is a platform for crowdfunding social justice cases, such as state pension inequality for women, low-paid migrant workers, biodiversity loss in Suffolk, and more.

Read the interview here »

Sahar Hashemi

Sahar is the co-founder of a hugely successful chain Coffee Republic, as well as her own venture Skinny Candy. She developed Coffee Republic into a major high street brand with a GBP 30 million turnover, and in 2005 established Skinny Candy to fill a gap in the British confectionary market making low-sugar, low-fat sweets an chocolates.

Read the interview here »

Maz Cohen

Maz founded her own business, Wisher, after working in advertising, marketing and strategy with global companies such as BBH, Oglivy and Sony. The gift-giving app combines the model of wedding registries with the convenience of e-commerce and the share-ability of social media. “There’s so much opportunity right now if you are female entrepreneur,” she tells us, “I really want to champion more women around the world in startups.”

Read the interview here »

Julia Salasky

Julia is an ex-UN lawyer who founded CrowdJustice. The website is a platform for crowdfunding social justice cases, such as state pension inequality for women, low-paid migrant workers, biodiversity loss in Suffolk, and more.

Read the interview here »

Sahar Hashemi

Sahar is the co-founder of a hugely successful chain Coffee Republic, as well as her own venture Skinny Candy. She developed Coffee Republic into a major high street brand with a GBP 30 million turnover, and in 2005 established Skinny Candy to fill a gap in the British confectionary market making low-sugar, low-fat sweets an chocolates.

Read the interview here »

Lydia Daniller

Lydia is the co-founder of OMGYES, a platform that features touchable sex ed videos, and is breaking the taboo of female pleasure. “There’s been a lack of honest and straightforward conversation and education about [women’s pleasure],” she tells us, “VCs don’t fund projects about it, app stores ban anything remotely explicit.”

Read the interview here »

Maz Cohen

Maz founded her own business, Wisher, after working in advertising, marketing and strategy with global companies such as BBH, Oglivy and Sony. The gift-giving app combines the model of wedding registries with the convenience of e-commerce and the share-ability of social media. “There’s so much opportunity right now if you are female entrepreneur,” she tells us, “I really want to champion more women around the world in startups.”

Read the interview here »

Julia Salasky

Julia is an ex-UN lawyer who founded CrowdJustice. The website is a platform for crowdfunding social justice cases, such as state pension inequality for women, low-paid migrant workers, biodiversity loss in Suffolk, and more.

Read the interview here »

Sahar Hashemi

Sahar is the co-founder of a hugely successful chain Coffee Republic, as well as her own venture Skinny Candy. She developed Coffee Republic into a major high street brand with a GBP 30 million turnover, and in 2005 established Skinny Candy to fill a gap in the British confectionary market making low-sugar, low-fat sweets an chocolates.

Read the interview here »

Hannah Dow

Hannah Dow is a co-founder of Rudder, an app that birthed out of the need to combat a common occurrence experienced by young women — walking alone at night. “I always tried to avoid walking home alone…and I wanted a product that accounted for that,” Hannah tells us. The navigation app collects street lamp data, and shows users the most brightly lit route home.

Read the interview here »

Lydia Daniller

Lydia is the co-founder of OMGYES, a platform that features touchable sex ed videos, and is breaking the taboo of female pleasure. “There’s been a lack of honest and straightforward conversation and education about [women’s pleasure],” she tells us, “VCs don’t fund projects about it, app stores ban anything remotely explicit.”

Read the interview here »

Maz Cohen

Maz founded her own business, Wisher, after working in advertising, marketing and strategy with global companies such as BBH, Oglivy and Sony. The gift-giving app combines the model of wedding registries with the convenience of e-commerce and the share-ability of social media. “There’s so much opportunity right now if you are female entrepreneur,” she tells us, “I really want to champion more women around the world in startups.”

Read the interview here »

Julia Salasky

Julia is an ex-UN lawyer who founded CrowdJustice. The website is a platform for crowdfunding social justice cases, such as state pension inequality for women, low-paid migrant workers, biodiversity loss in Suffolk, and more.

Read the interview here »

Sahar Hashemi

Sahar is the co-founder of a hugely successful chain Coffee Republic, as well as her own venture Skinny Candy. She developed Coffee Republic into a major high street brand with a GBP 30 million turnover, and in 2005 established Skinny Candy to fill a gap in the British confectionary market making low-sugar, low-fat sweets an chocolates.

Read the interview here »