BOOK SUMMARY 390
Geek Girl Rising
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Summary written by: Sharon McGann
"If you truly want to become an entrepreneur,
you have to do it with a sense of conviction, of passion, but most importantly,
you [have to] want to solve the problem."
- Geek Girl Rising, page 42
The American statistics on women in tech are depressing,
so I can only imagine the percentages of women in Tech in Australia, and other
Western countries are even worse. But the real value for budding entrepreneurs,
or anyone who wants to encourage female tech entrepreneurs, is the personal
stories in this fascinating book.
What’s different is that many of the stories in Geek
Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech are about failure,
as well as success, and perhaps this is where women have an edge—we are more
used to confiding our successes and our fears to our friends—so the book comes
across as both inspiring and realistic about what is required to succeed.
The Golden Egg
Are you in the pain or pleasure business?
"Ask yourself: Are you starting this business
because you’re in the pain business that is solving consumer problems? Or are
you in the pleasure business because you want to be part of [a ‘hot
startup’]?"- Geek Girl Rising, page 64
Many of the women in the book share stories and examples
of coming up with ideas to solve pressing problems that they or their friends
were facing, but then being worried about others’ opinions of the worthiness of
their ventures. This seemed especially true of start-ups that are addressing
women’s issues.
The front cover gives it away—too many people are
building tech start-ups—but, as many of the stories admit, there’s still a long
way to go from a start-up with potential to a business generating an ongoing
repeatable income stream.
There’s also a cautionary tale for start-up
founders—“don’t drink the ‘start-up Kool Aid’. One founder explained that she
had a really important mission to make mental health services more affordable
online. But she was seduced into spending her first round of funding on the
trappings she thought were required to be a successful start-up—the trendy
office, the new branding, the beautiful website, the overseas freelance
team—until she found that the beautiful website didn’t have functionality and
she had paid for expensive garbage code.
Gem #1
Nobody is as good as they are now when they first started
"You can’t give up on your goal because it didn’t
work out the first time."- Geek Girl Rising, page 105
There are many important messages here for girls and
women, and men as well. Just because you aren’t good at something initially,
doesn’t mean you can’t like it. And just because you don’t understand something
quickly, doesn’t mean you will never get it. I especially liked the story of
Microsoft engineer Dona Sarkar, who failed her first computer science class but
repeated it and found that she had learned a lot the second time round. As she
saw it, her male colleagues had three to five years of practice in high school,
which she missed out on, so she was realistic about the time it would take for
her to learn the basic lessons. As a bonus, she now has a much better grasp on
the frustration of normal users, who don’t understand the power or limitations
of their computer system.
The reality is that most start-ups fail, so part of the
message of the book is to normalize failure by “failing forward”—encouraging us
all to recognise that innovation is inherently about trial and error but
success comes from taking some learning and insights that informs your next
effort.
However, some of the research indicates that there may be
a difference in how many women are raised to strive for perfection (an
unrealistic first goal) rather than to strive to get better over time. As one
engineer said, “I wish more women knew that you don’t have to be the best
engineer, or even an engineer, to start or work with a [tech] company.” We can
start with “good enough” and then get better.
Gem #2
Are you prepared to use your networks?
"Men are six times more likely to ask their personal
network of family and friends for money and nearly three times more likely to
ask their business acquaintances for capital."- Geek Girl Rising, page 43
As someone who’s always kept business and personal lives
separate, this one was an eye opener. While the stories that explained
the importance of really connecting and building a community, so that you
understand your customers, really resonated, I hadn’t thought to involve them
in the success of the venture.
Others reinforced that no matter where you are on the
learning curve, there is always something you’ve learned that you could teach
to others—for example, by writing a blog or creating a video clip. And if you
are doing it because you understand and want to connect with your community, as
Michelle Phan, CEO of a digital beauty lifestyle empire, has done, then you get
free feedback all the time about what your community (not audience, because
that implies passively waiting) wants and needs.
There’s also advice on how to deal with sexist or
uninformed prospective investors, when you do start asking people to invest in
your idea. Kathryn Minshew, CEO of the Muse advises young women to learn
the “stare and steer” technique. This involves a dead stare, with a straight
face, for one second longer than necessary at the person, then learning to
steer the conversation to another topic. This technique avoids the risk of an
older male reacting badly to being told off by a young woman, and it sends an
authoritative message that you can’t be pushed around.
The overall message of this book is that just about
anyone can participate in the tech revolution. It’s a rallying call to
all of us who see problems in the world that we care about. One key thing that
really resonated is to encourage all of us to shift from consumers to creators,
and we can start as early or as late as we like.
The message is that promoting diversity in the tech world
(and in all areas of society) is not charity, it’s a smart bet. Girls can learn
that it is OK to be a princess and to build their own online castles too. All
it requires is a meaningful problem, time, and persistence, and a bit of
encouragement from your family and friends.
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