A week ago, on International Women\u2019s Day<\/a>, Inspiring Fifty<\/a> announced the list of the fifty most inspiring women in European tech for this year. It is not the first such ranking. We have already the Forbes\u2019 Power Women<\/a> list (published each year), ELLE\u2019s Women in tech<\/a>, Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology announced by the National Diversity Council<\/a>, Most Powerful Women by Fortune<\/a>, Most Inspiring Women in the Internet<\/a>, and many more\u2026 The leaders\u2019 names? Here you have the top 5: Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), Susan Wojcicki (CEO of YouTube), Ginni Rometty (CEO of IBM), Meg Whitman (CEO of Hewlett-Packard), and Marissa Mayer (ex CEO of Yahoo)<\/strong>. But the list of women-geeks to follow is longer<\/a>\u2026 Let\u2019s take Weili Dai<\/strong> for example. There are very few women in the technology industry who have reached her level of success.<\/p>\n Dai, the president and co-founder of chipmaker Marvell Technology Group, immigrated to the US from China in 1979 when she was 17. After earning a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, she worked at several research facilities, including Bell Labs in New Jersey. In 1995, she and her husband, Sehat Sutardja, founded Marvell, where he is now the chairman and CEO.<\/p>\n In a special note to CNN she underlined: \u201cWhen I co-founded Marvell in 1995, I was the first woman founder of a chip company. Yes, I am a geek. Now 17 years later, I am still the only woman to break that barrier in America. While women make up more than half the world's population and workforce, less than 29% of \u00bbdecision-making\u00ab positions are held by women globally. Even in progressive Silicon Valley, women still occupy a fraction of the C-level offices and board seats.<\/p>\n All around me there are signs of change: I can count today, as friends and colleagues, a growing roster of women leaders in a wide variety of technology sectors. In her opinion, in the tech sector, it's a two way street: Women bring unique attributes and strengths to the technology world, and technology is a critical catalyst to the advancement of women in the general economy.<\/p>\n And she is right. Today women don\u2019t talk about the \u201cinner circle\u201d or an \u201cold boys\u2019 club\u201d. They just do their job.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not sure if it was ever some kind of an issue for me,\u201d says Joanna Drabent, CEO of Prowly.com<\/a><\/strong>. \u201cI am just doing my job and have never thought about it as something unusual. Actually, I think that we must stop thinking about it this way and start treating it as something completely ordinary. What is the issue? For me, none, since a woman can do anything she wants to for a living.\u201d Personally she thinks that emphasizing the fact that she works in tech, that she is a woman and this is something that she is additionally proud of, is artificial.<\/p>\n For Drabent, it is simple: \u201cProwly is my first startup, so I need to learn new things every day. We all as a team need to learn extremely fast - otherwise we will grow slowly. I think that the hardest part of running a tech startup is this never-ending race against time\u201d.<\/p>\n Smita Mishra, Founder at Fandoro<\/a> (previously PoolWallet)<\/strong>:<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cMentors could be specialists or generalists.\u201d \u2013 Smita says. \u201cThey could help you gain insight into multiple aspects of your product or service that you offer \u2013 aspects like finding a good hire, connecting with the right problem solver, and finding VCs and investors. Or they could be problem solvers themselves \u2013 subject matter experts who help you understand in depth how things work in that domain, or they could even be investors.\u201d<\/p>\n Does she somehow select them? \u201cSometimes, I want a particular mentor to spend time on my project but they don\u2019t feel excited enough, or I have not been able to sufficiently convince them about the value in my startup and I don\u2019t get to be mentored by them. And sometimes I am generally talking about my challenges within a group and one of the many potential mentors around me stays after the party and continues to work with me on my challenges. They are interested in knowing how I am doing in that direction. They automatically become my mentor. Given a choice, it would work for you if you have a mentor who is super popular and a name in the market. But you may not always be as lucky and sometimes even when you try, you may not end up getting their attention. Try to work with those who are interested in what you are doing and offer you insights. They are precious\u201d \u2013 she advises.<\/p>\n When I asked about a founder story that really shows the qualities of an amazing founder that aren\u2019t talked about all the time<\/strong>, Eliza Kruczkowska, ex CEO of Startup Poland<\/strong>, pointed to Elon Musk and his book Inventing the Future. \u201cIt brought up one key question: do you have to be a bit reckless to be good? Musk was reckless in two areas: in the risks he took and the way that he manages his companies.\u201d \u2013 she explains. I think that\u2026<\/p>\n Her best advice for entrepreneurs? Focus, focus, focus: \u201cWe have too many distractions around us and I see that some people are wasting time attending a 50th conference in a row instead of finishing their product. And always \u00bbstay hungry, stay foolish\u00ab as Jobs famously said.\u201d<\/p>\n This is how Jessica Livingston<\/strong>, one of the most well-connected women in tech today, answered this question during her LIVE chat on ProductHunt.com. Among tech enthusiasts, she needs no introduction, but to briefly sum up her career: she is a founding partner at Y Combinator, the Harvard of seed accelerators<\/strong>, which since its inception in 2005 has funded over 800 startups valued at over $60 billion.<\/p>\n Beata Young, COO at Hanza Trade<\/strong>, an active figure in the Polish startup scene and a local coordinator for the women in technology group Geek Girls Carrots, points out:\u00a0\u201cFirst and foremost, it has struck me that most entrepreneurs talk about luck and how important it was in their ventures. At the same time, they all, to some degree or another, \u00bbmake their own luck\u00ab through persistence. However, a relevant factor is that luck tends to be most prevalent when you have bought the most lottery tickets, \u00ac therefore those who in Edison\u00ac style \u201chustle while they wait\u201d are enormously \u00bblucky!\u00ab\u201d<\/p>\n For Mishra, the most surprising are the entrepreneurs\u2019 grit, faith in their abilities, and belief in their dreams, idea, and work:<\/p>\n She admires their vision too and puts Elon Musk and Steve Jobs as great examples. \u201cEven if there doesn\u2019t exist a product like this and we don\u2019t know if the customer even needs it. They could look beyond many, and had a clear vision. They knew how they could build the product and then generate the need\u201d \u2013 she argues. Julie Meyer, Founder at EntrepreneurCountry Global and author of Welcome to EntrepreneurCountry book<\/strong>, admits that great founders \u201care humble, but confident; workaholics, but have time for people; no work-life balance, but very happy\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThought leadership and a lot of confidence in the team\u201d \u2013 answers Drabent. \u201cA startup as an organization should be based on trust. Instead of micromanaging you need to inspire people to learn new things and give them a sense of self-development. Grow your people to grow your business. Thanks to that attitude I know that today we are a multi-talented team - offering not just software, but also new processes to support communication activities of companies and brands.\u201d<\/p>\n Eliza Kruczkowska, CEO of Startup Poland<\/strong>, confesses that entrepreneurship teaches you a number of things about life in general. \u201cStories of instant success are rare. Therefore I would say a \u201cmust-have\u201d would be persistence.\u201d She quotes Paul Graham, a co-founder of Y Combinator, a startup accelerator in California who once said: \u201cI've been surprised again and again by just how much more important persistence is than raw intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAmbition, flexibility, and lateral thinking all help while managing execution. Having created a plan, in turn, is vital to make the leap from having a dream to running a potentially viable startup.\u201d \u2013 Young adds. Her experience with Mission ToRun and other fora is that female founders in particular have a tendency to torment themselves with niggling worries such as \u201cam I good enough?\u201d or \u201cis this the right time to start?\u201d<\/p>\n As the great pioneering computer scientist, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, said: \u201cA ship in port is safe. That\u2019s not what ships are built for. If you\u2019ve got a good idea, and you know it\u2019s going to work, go ahead and do it.\u201d \u2013 she reminds.<\/p>\n This is a quote I recently found on Twitter. Do women really network differently than men? For me it depends on pragmatism, but there are experts who think there is a major difference. \u201cMen don\u2019t actually network the way women define networking,\u201d says Gail Blanke, a life coach and author of Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life<\/strong>. They do what she calls \u201ca straight shot.\u201d<\/p>\n I asked my conversationalists about it too. Julie Meyer<\/strong> doesn\u2019t have doubts: \u201cI network like hell\u201d \u2013 she laughs. \u201cI am not sure I agree that this aspect has anything to do with men and women. I agree I used to think it\u2019s a woman thing earlier. However, now I see an equal number of men\/women mistaking friend relations for networking. When we meet someone, a lot of us follow all the steps that are anatomically identical to networking. But when you strip the conversation, one can easily say that inside, the soul of networking was missing. And sometimes, when we lack the true zeal of an entrepreneur, we are likely to have a networking conversation both in terms of anatomy and soul, but we don\u2019t follow up with actions, which is a missed opportunity\u201d \u2013 Mishra<\/strong> comments.<\/p>\n Beata Young<\/strong> believes there are many great initiatives. For example Geek Girls Carrots<\/a>, Women in Tech, or Lesbians who Tech<\/a>. \u201cEach is doing great work encouraging the sisterhood to release their inner nerd and be creative in code, just as women are so creative in other walks of life. Nevertheless, women are still under\u00acrepresented so there is more work to be done by the existing initiatives and likely some new ones too. At the same time, it was great to see Carly Fiorina, a self-made woman in tech running for president this year in the USA. Her primary campaign was the sort of high level activity which helps prove that digital women are reaching the mainstream! Elsewhere, isn\u2019t it great to see the likes of Joanna Stern as Personal Technology Columnist at the Wall Street Journal? Even in traditionally male dominated tech media, we\u2019re seeing women in high profile positions. That\u2019s the legacy of Grace Hopper and a lot of good old fashioned hard working talent!\u201d<\/p>\n Innovations in technology and communications have already enabled women to balance their careers with families, allowing greater flexibility in the workplace. Like Dai has already noticed: \u201cIn developing countries, female entrepreneurs are empowered by breakthroughs like mobile connectivity and e-commerce websites. This connected lifestyle has not only enabled women to learn but has also created a more enlightened global society better exposed to the idea of women in non-traditional roles.\u201d<\/p>\nA woman in tech: personal experience<\/h2>\n
\nBut I believe we can do better.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"posty_kobiety-04](\"https:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/app\/uploads\/2016\/03\/15\/posty_kobiety-04-m-1024x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWhat is the hardest part about it?<\/h2>\n
Mentors - why they are so important and how to select them?<\/h2>\n
![\"posty_kobiety-05\"](\"https:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/app\/uploads\/2016\/03\/15\/posty_kobiety-05-1024x1024.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"posty_kobiety-03\"](\"https:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/app\/uploads\/2016\/03\/15\/posty_kobiety-03-1024x1024.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat three things have surprised you the most about great founders who build great companies?<\/h2>\n
![\"posty_kobiety-06\"](\"http:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/posty_kobiety-06-1-1-1024x1024.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"posty_kobiety-07\"](\"http:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/posty_kobiety-07-1024x1024.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"posty_kobiety-02](\"http:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/posty_kobiety-02-m-1024x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"panie_w_kole-01\"](\"http:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/panie_w_kole-01-1.png\")
<\/p>\nWhat are the \u201cmust-haves\u201d for successful founders and what non-essential things we should let go of?<\/h2>\n
![\"posty_kobiety-01](\"http:\/\/prowly.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/posty_kobiety-01-m-1-1024x1024.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMen network, women build friendships<\/h2>\n
Do you think there's greater recognition today that there needs to be more women involved in tech, compared with when you started your career?<\/h2>\n
Different roles, different perspective<\/h2>\n