揭露关于女性创业的误解

    辛西娅•布雷西亚从来不认为自己是女创业家。创业家？是的。领导者？当然。但她在带领公司Jibo蓬勃发展的时候，从来没有受到性别问题的影响。Jibo是世界第一款家用机器人的制造商。

    今天是女性创业日，作为一项全球性活动，“女性创业日”的目的是鼓励和支持女性创业者，了解她们遇到的挑战。因此，《财富》杂志（Fortune）采访了布雷西亚和在线广告平台Triggit的联合创始人克利乌斯•凯普林格，了解她们白手起家进行创业的经历。两人均被评为《财富》2014年“最有前途的创业家”（Most Promising Entrepreneurs）。

    布雷西亚说道：“如果有更多女性投身创业，我们的世界将变得更好。女性将从不同的角度来诠释创业。人们总是认为，进行创业的都是年轻的书呆子们，这是错误的。女性参与创业的关键就在于她们的独特视角。”

    以下是经过编辑的采访内容摘录：

    《财富》：简单介绍一下你的公司吧。

    苏珊•克利乌斯•凯普林格：我们在2005年成立了这家公司，最初的业务与现在类似，都与广告有关。当时我们不明白为什么雅虎（Yahoo）主页上的一则广告可以卖到数百美元，而出现在博客上的广告却只有40美分，即便可能是同样的人在看这些广告。如果说广告的关键是受众，那与受众浏览的页面又有什么关系？我们正努力开发一些产品，向受众展示广告，而不必考虑网站本身的差异。

    辛西娅•布雷西亚：Jibo正在生产全球第一款家用机器人。这款机器人是R2D2和iPad的结合体。这是全世界第一款社交机器人。我在2012年成立了这家公司，现在正在努力将它推向全世界。

    你如何描述公司目前所处的阶段？

    SK：目前公司处在原生广告[实质上是社论式广告]增长的阶段，但并非从欺骗性的角度。我们现在已经进入了这一很酷的阶段。以前人们认为在线广告不会成功，因为在线广告的用户体验较差。而现在我们正在开发一种全新的体验，使广告不会与内容冲突。只要是好广告，就一定能吸引受众。

    CB：现在我们正在从原型设计转向实际生产。这是我们目前的重中之重，其他工作还包括完成软件开发，进行硬件生产等。此外，我们计划培养自己的开发者社区。我们非常忙碌。有大量的工程设计工作要做，我们将全力以赴。

    进行第一轮融资时遇到了哪些挑战？

    SK：虽然在经济衰退的形势下进行融资并不轻松，但这却是我们成功的关键。当时创业公司没有现在那么多。我们从天使基金那里获得了200万美元，这笔资金帮助我们创建了一家公司。我们将那笔投资大部分用作创新资金，所以，在首轮风投融资时，我们已经开发出一款产品，并准备将其推向市场。重要的是找到想要给你投资，并且愿意改变我们的策略并协助找到一款有效产品的人。找到愿意相信你的种子投资者，没有比这更美好的事情了。

    Cynthia Breazeal has never considered herself a woman entrepreneur. An entrepreneur? Yes. A leader? Certainly. But gender really has never come into play as she expanded her company Jibo, the maker of the world’s first family robot.

    Still, today is Women’s Entrepreneur Day, a global movement to celebrate and support female founders and shed light on some of their challenges. So Fortune interviewed Breazeal, as well as Susan Coelius Keplinger, the co-founder of online ad platform Triggit, about their experiences building their respective companies from scratch. Both women are part of Fortune’s 2014 class of Most Promising Entrepreneurs.

    “The world would certainly be a better place if we had more women entrepreneurs,” said Breazeal. “Women are going to bring a different angle to startups. The stereotype is that it is all young geeky guys and that is not true. It is critical for women to become entrepreneurs because of their unique perspective.”

    Edited excerpts:

    Fortune: Give me a little background on your company.

    Susan Coelius Keplinger: We started the company in 2005, and we started doing similar things with ads that we are doing now. It didn’t make sense to us why an advertisement on Yahoo’s homepage would sell for hundreds of dollars, but an ad on a blog shown to the same person would be some for 40 cents. If it is really about the person and the audience, it shouldn’t matter what page that person it on. We are trying to build products and get access to an audience regardless of the site itself.

    Cynthia Breazeal: Jibo is building the world’s first family robot. It’s like R2D2 and an iPad had a baby. It’s the world’s first social robot. I founded the company in 2012 and now is the time to bring it to the world.

    How would you describe the stage that your company is at right now?

    SK: It’s the rise of native advertising [advertorials, essentially], but less so from a deceptive standpoint. We have fallen into this really cool space. It used to be that people thought online advertising would never work because it wasn’t good for the user experience. Now we are evolving toward an experience where advertising doesn’t stand in opposition with the content. If the ads are good, you’ll engage with them.

    CB: Now we are going from the prototype to the actual manufacturer. Making that switch is the main focus right now, as well as finishing the software and getting the hardware manufactured. We are also looking to develop our developer community. We are busy. It is a lot of engineering, but we are cranking through it all.

    What were some of your initial challenges raising your first round of funding?

    SK: As much as it wasn’t fun raising money in the middle of the recession, it is what enabled us to succeed. At the time there were not as many companies getting started. We raised $2 million in angel funds that helped us create and find a business. We used that as largely innovation money, so when we went to VCs for our first funding round we were ready to create a product and enter the market. It’s important to find people that want to invest in you and are willing to change our strategy a bunch and help you find a product that works. I think a lot of people write off that support. If you can find seed investors, angel investors who really believe you, there is not a better situation.