Tech Boss Lady: How to Start-up, Disrupt, and Thrive as a Female Founder

by Adriana Gascoigne

Overview

The founder of Girls in Tech offers first-hand accounts of the realities of startup life, with the very best advice from top women entrepreneurs


You know startups are hard, but what is it like to fail, or have a falling out with your co-founder, or to go through hundreds of pitches in an effort get funded? In Tech Boss Lady, Adriana Gascoigne dives into the gritty, raw side of startups. She shares her own story - of defying Silicon Valley's boy's club and founding the largest organization for female entrepreneurs in the world - as well as candid true tales from more than 20 leading women in tech. The result: a no-nonsense guide for the entrepreneur, intrapreneur and Tech Boss Lady within each of us.

Gascoigne goes behind the scenes of some of Silicon Valley's hottest brands to discuss topics like failure, funding, growth hacking, and what it's like to be a first-time CEO. Rising entrepreneurs will find inspiration and actionable advice, and experienced tech employees will appreciate Gascoigne's refreshingly real take on Silicon Valley: the good, the bad, the ugly, and ultimately-the hopeful.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580058285
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	06/04/2019
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	648,324
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Adriana Gascoigne founded Girls in Tech, a global non-profit dedicated to empowering, educating, and mentoring women in the tech industry—in 2007. Today, she's a go-to expert and voice for change in the industry. She lives in San Francisco, CA. This is her first book.

Table of Contents

How to Use This Book xi

Introduction xv

Part 1 On Being a Tech Boss Lady

1 What It Takes 3

2 Being a Woman in Tech 19

3 Intrapreneurship 29

4 Business for Good 43

Part II On Start-up Essentials

5 On Stress 55

6 Partners 67

7 Advisors 81

8 Building Your Team (Thoughts on Hiring) 99

9 Innovation 117

10 Confidence 131

11 The Pitch 147

12 Leadership 165

13 Failure 175

Part III On Girls in Tech

14 What I Know Now 189

15 What's Next 197

Editorial Reviews

03/25/2019

Skimpy advice for founding a company arrives from Girls in Tech founder Gascoigne. Purporting to relate what’s really involved in starting a business, the book is aimed at first-time founders of any type, title notwithstanding; every business, Gascoigne points out, needs technology to scale, even if it’s selling a physical product. She uses her own story—of founding her foundation to help women in tech find and support each other—as a case study, along with those of high-powered women such as VC Heidi Roizen, former Basecamp COO Mercedes De Luca, and Gascoigne’s own mom, a former Mexicana Airlines employee who started her own successful travel agency. Topics addressed include “intrapreneurship” (entrepreneurship within organizations), managing stress, maintaining partnerships, hiring a team (she advises founders not to neglect finding a good HR person early on), and facing failure. More of a go-get-’em cheer than a compendium of usable advice, the book is undercut by Gascoigne’s desire to appeal to a young audience, leading to exhortations for business-founder hopefuls to “cut the manis and pedis” and warnings that, at pitches, one’s ideas are “suddenly public AF.” This slim offering is a natural graduation gift for entrepreneurial young women, but it delivers little. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"If you are starting or thinking of starting a company you MUST read this book. Gascoigne gives an honest, first-hand view of managing stress, raising money, and coping with failure. Along with wisdom from twenty-two women leaders in tech, you'll be well prepared to conquer the world!"—Charlene Li, NYTimes Bestselling Author and Founder of Altimeter, a Prophet company

"Adriana Gascoigne's very personal stories in her book Tech Boss Lady inspire the reader to be the authentic 'you' as an entrepreneur and leader in a very dominated male tech world. I could not put the book down as I often saw myself in these stories. Thank you Adriana for writing a book that inspires both women and men to be better!"—Monique J. Morrow, President The VETRI Foundation and President, Co Founder, The Humanized Internet

"Adriana shares her valuable learnings about the world of Silicon Valley startups with the next generation of founders. This book is a how-to guide for leaping into the world of tech entrepreneurship, with tips on how to navigate leadership, partnerships, fundraising, innovation, stress, failure, and more."—Jonathan Abrams, Managing Partner of Founders Den and Founder of Friendster

"Somehow Gascoigne manages to deliver a broad range of insights into how to launch and run a business as well as bringing out your inner badass, all in such a down-to-earth, powerful and highly entertaining way. Deeply inspirational and practical."—Danielle Feinberg, Pixar Animation Studios

"This is the story of us-the makers and hackers and dreamers who built Silicon Valley. It's a survival manual for the girls who lead, who challenge authority, who are made to feel 'less than' even while they are changing the world....I so love that Adriana wrote this, I so love her story, and I so love her voice. And, just like back in 2007 when we *needed* Adriana to start Girls in Tech, we also *needed* her to write this book. Because as women who lead, who invent, and who strive, we will only get by with a little help from our girlfriends."—Wendy M. Pfeiffer, CIO Nutanix

"A practical guide to the fast paced start up world from Silicon Valley to New York to 150 chapters across the globe! Adriana has lived the lows and highs of entrepreneurship and shares the little known but important things she learned. .... every aspiring entrepreneur, girl or boy, should read this book!"—Anu Shula, Serial Entrepreneur: Rubric, MyBuys, Tapjoy, RewardsPay, Botco.ai

"There have been countless times that I have looked around a room and realized that I was the only person who looked like me. Tech Boss Lady is a practical guide for anyone who has ever been in the same situation and felt intimidated or unsure of what to do next. The honest guidance is not only actionable but refreshing - I only wish I'd had a book like this when I started my career."—Rathi Murthy, Rathi Murthy, Chief Technology Officer, Gap Inc.

"Gascoigne's first book refreshes with its honesty-and tons of moral support and personal anecdotes."—Booklist

From the Publisher