Wednesday, March 03, 2010

On Twitter of course! Here are the people we think entrepreneurs must follow:

Venture Hacks: http://twitter.com/venturehacks
NYC Venture Capitalist Fred Wilson: http://twitter.com/fredwilson
Entrepreneur and Investor Chris Dixon: http://twitter.com/cdixon
HBS Prof Noam Wasserman: http://twitter.com/noamwass
HBS Prof Tom Eisenmann: http://twitter.com/teisenmann.blogspot.com/
Stanford Prof Tina Seelig: http://twitter.com/TSeelig

Almost all of them have blogs as well, but we like to go on Twitter and get a little celeb gossip mixed into our stream of professional advice too. We hope you find their insights helpful.

Monday, February 01, 2010

As co-founders of a site about young women’s health, we have a lot to choose from. But our favorite dirty word is…. networking.

Sometimes the N word gets a bad rap, but networking isn’t just about schmoozing and BS. When you meet someone important, figure out a sincere question with which you can follow up. If you’re wracking your brain for too long, don’t waste that person’s time.

But just as important to networking is the seemingly non-important people. Some of our best milestones have materialized because of friends our age.

We’ve kept in touch with a friend who worked at 85broads.com back when we were interns. She’s the one who told us about the New Media Women competition!

A close friend is a creative writer who put us in touch with her literary agent. ChickRx coming to Barnes & Noble and the Kindle soon! (Not really, but one day we’ll be able to say that.)

Lunch to Launch, an NYC networking group for female entrepreneurs, led us to an amazing web designer.

A friend from an undergraduate club invited us to speak at NY Social Media Week.

Starting a new venture can monopolize your attention. But don’t forget to keep in good touch with your friends and keep expanding your social circle. It’ll keep you happy and sane, and maybe even help advance your business.

Friday, January 22, 2010

As a follow up to our last post on advisors, we wanted to speak about the most valuable advisors we’ve found thus far. It wasn’t the entrepreneur with the ridiculously over-valued exit, the corporate rockstar, or the seasoned investor.  These types of people all have great advice, and advice that will become increasingly important as ChickRx turns into a revenue-generating business. But let’s be honest… we needed advisors whom we could ask the dumb questions. And for any first-time entrepreneur, there will be plenty.

We were lucky to have a few friends around our age who had successfully started their own companies or invested in startups through their jobs. For all our basic questions, they had been there and done that pretty recently. They provided not only informed opinions, but also time. The people with the fanciest positions aren’t going to sit on the phone for over an hour teaching you Startups 101. So our advice is to think about who knows their stuff and already likes you enough to lend some real help. And if you don’t already know someone like that, time to start networking (the topic of our next post!)

PS Huge thanks to Trip Adler of Scribd, Scott Harper of Charity Fusion, and Alex Rubalcava of Rubalcava Capital Management.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

As we’re getting ready to launch, one thing that’s been on our minds is our Board of Advisors. Through classes at HBS, events in NYC, and friends’ connections, we’ve been able to meet many highly accomplished individuals who would be great advisors to ChickRx. Many have been kind enough to offer advice over the phone, but at what point should we try to formalize the relationship? The entrepreneurs, angel investors, and corporate leaders with whom we’ve spoken are very busy individuals, and isn’t asking them for access to continuous advice a little presumptuous?

The standard advice we’ve gotten is to make someone a formal advisor after they show a real interest in you. So in other words, you shouldn’t even have to ask; they should be excited enough by what you’re doing to want to stay involved. And what about offering them equity? We’ve been advised to be careful about throwing around minimal equity stakes in exchange for continued advice. When an advisor is truly excited about your company, they’ll want to put their money where their mouth is. We’re sure there are appropriate exceptions, but this is the general approach we plan to follow.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

ChickRx, one of the winners of the New Media Women Entrepreneurs award, is gearing up to launch within the next two months. And they are quick to point out that winning the award has been instrumental in helping them prepare for a successful launch.

“Receiving this recognition enabled us to hire a fantastic web designer and
developer,” said Stacey Borden, co-founder and CEO of ChickRx. “We are working with Spiegel Design Group, based in Los Angeles, and glassfoundry, based in San Francisco. Eight-five per cent of the site’s coding has been completed and we are almost done with our homepage design.”

“Winning this award has also enabled us to build a first-rate team of young
female writers.”

ChickRx, one of the winners of the New Media Women Entrepreneurs award, is gearing up to launch within the next two months. And they are quick to point out that winning the award has been instrumental in helping them prepare for a successful launch.

“Receiving this recognition enabled us to hire a fantastic web designer and developer,” said Stacey Borden, co-founder and CEO of ChickRx. “We are working with Spiegel Design Group, based in Los Angeles, and glassfoundry, based in San Francisco. Eight-five per cent of the site’s coding has been completed and we are almost done with our homepage design.”

Harvard MBA student Stacey Borden and partner Meghan Muntean will lead a team of women in launching an “edgy, approachable, engaging” online health resource uniquely targeted to women, ages 18 to 27. Borden is the former campus relations director of 85 Broads, a national professional women’s group.

Since receiving this award, ChickRx has also recruited more specialists to serve as content providers, bringing the total to 20 such experts.  New writers include an internist with a neurology specialty, two sex therapists, a dermatologist, a skin specialist, and a fitness trainer. Borden says the team has been developing content before the site launch, and currently have about 100 Q&As ready to go.

Borden also credits the New Media Women Entrepreneur Award with enabling her and Muntean to build a first-rate team of young female writers.

“Our six writers are relatable, real, and totally funny,” she says. “They’ve had the same confusing, annoying health issues as our target readers and are excited to put their fun, sassy spin on these topics. Our writers bring experience from The New York Times, Prevention magazine, Groundlings, and Second City.”

ChickRX has also recruited six interns from Harvard College, who will help edit expert content and spearhead the site’s campus marketing. They are currently developing a campus representative program which will help the Web site grow its readership at the country’s largest and most influential colleges.

“We plan to start recruiting campus reps in early January and have already come up with some great contests and prizes for them,” says Borden.

For her part, Borden is finishing her last year at the Harvard Business School, after which she will pursue ChickRx full time. In her last semester at HBS she’ll be working one-on-one with Professor Benjamin Edelman, a leading authority on online revenue models. Through this semester-long project, Borden will work on the best ways for ChickRx to make money and benefit from Professor Edelman’s feedback and expertise.

ChickRx is currently developing its business plan and plans to enter the HBS Business Plan Contest this coming April. Borden and Muntean will use the feedback they receive from judges to refine their plan. Then they will attempt to raise funding from angel investors.

“We could not be more excited to launch ChickRx soon and build a relatable, trusted brand that young women will rely on for years to come,” says Borden. “Our success to date and future potential would not be possible without J-Lab and the New Media Women award. We are extremely grateful for their support.”

Friday, October 16, 2009

We have some simple advice that we learned the hard way: as you’re building out your team, don’t underestimate personal references.

In taking ChickRx from idea to reality, we’ve had to find lots of professionals to help us execute. These include web programmers, Web designers, lawyers, accountants, insurance agents, etc. As we found
different professionals in each category, we took our time to speak with them, ask critical questions, see their portfolios and/or client lists, and carefully select the best people for the job.

Despite this care and attention, the partnerships were not always a good fit. Our original Web developer had a talented team with a great looking portfolio, but ultimately was slow and not able to capture the
hip, feminine aesthetic our brand needs. We wasted a lot of time and energy trying to make it work with the wrong person (sounds like something we’ve said before!). When some close friends recommended a
different designer and a different programmer, we ultimately made the switch. Our progress since has been much swifter and we feel like we are in great hands. Rather than micro-managing the Web development
process, we are able to trust the vision and abilities of our team and give feedback as necessary.

So when you’re looking at professionals to work with, choose wisely. And know the value of a friend’s reference.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

When we met four years ago, we were both 21-year-old interns at 85 Broads, a global professional women’s network. That summer was life-changing for both of us. The inspirational founder of 85 Broads and our mentor, Janet Hanson, taught us to think about things differently. While most of our peers were learning the ins and outs of PowerPoint and Excel, we were getting a taste of the bigger picture. Janet spoke about the importance of owning and creating, of having a platform, and of partnership. We’d like to talk about the last one.

The most successful people Janet knew all understood the power of partnership. We invest in ourselves by working hard to go to a good college, by extracting all we can out of our educations, and by rising to (rather than avoiding) professional challenges. But it shouldn’t stop there. When you invest in a partner and cultivate a powerful team from a young age the possibilities are limitless.

We knew after working together that summer that we wanted to be business partners someday. We had professional disagreements all the time, but respected each other’s talents and opinions more than anyone’s. Our creative tensions have been the greatest gift for ChickRx and our future endeavours together. Working alone, neither of us would have experienced the intellectual and creative challenges that have led to our best ideas and outcomes.

By working together, we are doing more than creating a strong team with complementary skill sets. We’re building a foundation for a lifetime of joint endeavours, each making the bet that my partner is someone whose success I truly believe in.