[wccrawford]

Why even bring the 'female' bit into it? It means nothing, unless you think it's a handicap... And then it is, but only because you think it is.

As for finding a co-founder... You expect to do that without giving up equity? What would be in it for them? I'm not surprised you haven't found anyone.

[vinhboy]

Why are people on HN so anal about how people identify themselves? If I introduce myself as "single beer-loving founder", why is that even an issue? If I view myself and wishes to identify myself in a certain way why can't we just accept that? Besides, this is a personal blog, can't people say what they want on their own blog? The worst part is now there is a whole section of this thread dedicated to this pointless conversation.

[patio11]

I think people have the perception at the Female part is being invoked to excuse the Non-Developer part.

Without specific reference to this post, have we ever read:

I'm a male developer, and I want to do a startup. I can handle all the coding - I'm such an underappreciated genius - but I need some of that stuff. You know, that marketing stuff. With the pretty words and stuff. I would do it myself, but it's just all I have all sorts of manly responsibilities. I mean, hello, wife and kids? Like I'd ever have time for marketing stuff. It can't be too hard, though.

I went to a networking party to find a marketing stuff person. All twenty something girls, pff, it figures. Well, they probably have time for learning that marketing stuff since they don't have anything more important to do. I talked to a couple of them, but it just didn't click. Besides, give away half my company to a marketer? Are you crazy?! It's just some words strung together in a particular order.

I hired a marketing stuff firm. I was always more cut out for asking for stuff than for doing stuff. It takes so long and their stuff doesn't look like the stuff I would write if I could write stuff! And every time their incompetence requires a redo, they charge more money!

It's no wonder there aren't more men doing stuff. I feel so unwelcome.

[BerislavLopac]

Have you been following me around? ;)

[araneae]

Because it's always female. Never beer-loving, or Asian, or bipolar. The whole industry is caught up in this obsession over the lack of women in tech, and I'm so incredibly sick of it.

[Nox]

I'm a girl, back in school to study comp sci, and I actually agree with you.

If I get hired, I want to know it's because my tech-fu is the best. I don't ever want it to be because I hit the right combo of nice rack and not totally incompetent.

I think there's a fundamental problem which is resulting in a lack of women in tech, but the useful discussion isn't about women in tech, it's about how we incorporate tech and business into the education system. By the time we're hiring or finding a partner, gender should be a non-issue. The fact that less women than men are going into the most interesting, lucrative and potentially challenging facet of society is an interesting conundrum though.

For what it's worth, I'm a beer-loving, bipolar, ADHD human with ladyparts and mathematically pleasing proportions. :P

[benmccann]

It's a fine way to identify one's self. But it's not a terribly relevant title. The article has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she is female.

[citricsquid]

I read that as she's unwilling to give equity to "...someone I met at an event for 2 days..." not that she's unwilling to give any out. If she's unwilling to give any out then I agree.

[bhoung]

Cheap shot... but I guess that means she's ruling out people that she would click with. Or she has already decided she doesn't want to work or click with anyone.

[hackinthebochs]

Her intro is listing her notable traits that are rather uncommon in the field of web entrepreneurship. Female being probably the biggest one. This is no different than any other 'hook' people use to gain attention. It's only worth noting the fact that she noted her gender because everyone is so sensitive about the subject.

[shubber]

I think that, frankly, it probably is a handicap whether she thinks it is or not. There are going to be folks who write off the female single founder where they wouldn't a male single founder. It's worth recognizing that there is a barrier, and the fact that we don't see it is the single biggest reason that it isn't going anywhere.

On the other hand, I agree with you that the dominating factor is the single non-technical founder problem. I'm unclear about how this really differentiates from wannabe clients who have a fabulous idea for a start up: "and will you please build the whole thing for 1% of net?"

[marquis]

Well, considering how much attention her post has generated that fact that she is a female well may be to her benefit. Her entire story could be valuable for her when pursuing funding, as it's fairly unique.

[Declaration]

She's not promising her devs 1% of equity for building the whole thing. She's hiring a dev team to build her project, and paying them work-for-hire.

The net of the article is that there's a lot of challenges building a tech startup when you're not a dev...that's valid.

[derefr]

Presumably because you'd probably skip right past the link if it was just titled "I am a Sole Founder with no Dev Experience… Yeah, it’s a Tough Road."

[weavejester]

I actually found the "no dev experience" part to be the most interesting part.

[ludicast]

Me too. I can't understand having a startup but not being a developer.

Being dependent on others for your core functionality must suck.

[Declaration]

She's in marketing...

Interesting how so many of the comments are about whether or not "female" belongs in the post.

So now she's in marketing, and smart.

[atomical]

"So now she's in marketing, and smart."

Only if the people who are talking about it are potential customers and users. No discussion on that yet!

[Declaration]

good point :-)

[Mz]

Her "day job" is "being a mom of twins and a wife". I doubt any man doing a startup can say something similar. She doesn't really talk much about how that impacts her work but there is substantial evidence that raising kids and running the household routinely interfere with female career ambitions but usually don't interfere with male career ambitions. So perhaps it is relevant (to her challenges with trying to do a startup), even if she hasn't made it clear why.

Just a thought.

[grovulent]

'"being a mom of twins and a wife. I doubt any man doing a startup can say something similar.'

A bit hard given that men by definition can't be mothers and wives...

Seriously though - there is certainly a sense where adding the 'female' into the description of the reality actually does get extra information across. The fact is that life balance is often more important to women and they do still tend to get lumped with the majority of the housey chores in a relationship. Plus women have a much smaller window of opportunity to 'have it all' with biological clocks exhausting very quickly.

I do wonder if women might be better suited to start-up life in their forties. a lot of women of middle age and beyond seem to have an eerie kind of clear-headedness about things - whereas men really start to go to seed and have mid-life crises and all that. That's precisely the sort of time where men benefit the most from engaging in strong family acttivities..

[Mz]

A bit hard given that men by definition can't be mothers and wives...

They can still be parents and spouses, even if a different (gender-specific) term is used. However, men rarely do the full-time father thing and, from what I have seen around me, even when they are unemployed and financially dependent on their wife, they don't typically take over the housework and cooking to the point of doing it 40 to 60 hours per week like women. (The last statistics I saw: full-time homemakers do 60 hours of housework a week, women with full-time paid jobs still do 40 hours of housework per week. Men have tried to take up the slack and are doing 10% more than they used to, which amounts to 10 minutes a day or 1 hour and 10 minutes per week.)

I'm a woman in my 40's. I've read that hormonal changes make men and women more like the other gender past a certain age. My sons are grown, I have no specific plans to have more kids, and my career goals are being given a much higher priority than trying to "find a man" post-divorce. So I can't say I would particularly disagree with your thought (in your last paragraph).

[untamedmedley]

Raising children can be tough, but 60 hours of housework per week? In my house there's maybe 1-2 hours of cooking for dinner everyday and maybe 5 hours of cleanup on Saturday morning (this includes cleaning bathrooms, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, etc.). Laundry takes 10 minutes to separate, then the machines pretty much do the rest of the job. Laundry gets done once a week for a family of four here for another 2-3 hours.

Maxing all those values, that's what, 22 hours? Where are the other 38 coming from?

ETA: I'm not being facetious here, I genuinely want to know what those hours are being spent on. When you have very young children, sure, but by 6/7 kids in my family are expected to start being self-sufficient (in the ways they can, such as picking up their toys, brushing their own teeth). By the time you hit 10, you've been doing some serious work around the house. I also got my first job at 14...

[kenjackson]

Depends on the age of the child. With an infant you're changing 7 diapers per day, feeding 6 times per day. Also you forgot making breakfast (7 days/week), lunch on the weekends (although many husbands take a bag lunch, so the wife makes that too) and 7 days/week for the kids. Dishes (and if you have kids you probably know that a lot of stuff needs to be handwashed).

Additionally there is bathing the child. Once they get teeth and hair, brushing their hair, and brushing their teeth twice per day.

Also grocery shopping. Clothes shopping. Random nicknack shopping. Going anywhere out of the house takes an extra 10 minutes on top of how long it normally takes, with the car seats and grocery carts.

When children get older, 2-5, you don't have the diapers, but you have potty training, which takes forever (and sometimes results in 3 baths per day). Also the bedtime routine (which can be an hour per day for nap and nighttime).

Then there's random stuff like dentist visits for the child. Doctor's visits for the child.

And then there's just teaching the child. Teach the child how to eat for themself. How to pick up their toys, taking them to the park or on playdates.

And this assumes you have a pretty troublefree kid. Add relatively common complicators like a kid who is collicky or has food allergies (which often means a span of a few months with a lot of trips to the hospital) or has GURD and there's more time there.

I don't know how many more hours this stuff. I suspect it is highly variable. And if you have four kids, it's probably a lot different than one. But if someone told me they were working 60 hours per week taking care of a household with kids age 0 to 6, I'd believe them.

Once children go to school fulltime, things change quite a bit. But I think most people are referring to the period of time when they have to take care of the kids.

BTW, I had my first job at 10. Paperboy.

[Mz]

Raising children can be tough, but 60 hours of housework per week?

That statistic comes from the book "More Work for Mother" which is the history of "labor saving" devices and their impact on housework (short version: labor saving devices have generally led to increased expectations for quality, not actual reduction in hours spent on housework). IIRC, 60 hours per week has been a stable figure for roughly 300 years so it probably hasn't changed much since I read the book.

I don't doubt that there are exceptions. I've certainly rearranged my life to eliminate as much housework as possible.

[grovulent]

Sorry - the first part of my comment was me being silly...

Yeah - I'm a 34 year old male. I figure I have about ten years or so left before I have this unconquerable urge to shamelessly hit on 20 year olds and generally make a complete embarrassment out of myself - unless I can establish a family to ground me.

But yep - I think women really hit their stride once they satisfy the family urge and should not feel so pressured to achieve in their 20s and 30s... I think they often make a mistake in thinking that they have to cram in career and family before they get old an infertile... and actually hurt themselves and their families by trying. If they had more faith that they can make awesome contributions once the kids have matured somewhat I think they overall could have much fuller lives.

Interestingly - and I hope this doesn't sound off - but I actually struggle to relate to many young women. I honestly believe the breeding instinct is just rapacious and overwhelming (and it kinda has to be - cause there is a time limit on it). And really is just horrid to deal with if you're a young inexperienced male. Older women, on the other hand, are just awesome to talk to.

It's just strange that god (or evolution or whatever) would have it that just as the women are coming, the men are going. Pun very much intended. Makes me think about that Benjamin Button story. So much truer to real life that you think on a first read/viewing...

[citricsquid]

but what does that have to do with her gender? That was her choice (Well I assume a decision between her and her partner?) and it happens with Men too.

[icey]

Maybe the article got changed, but the article I read says this:

my “day job” [...] is a co-owner of a marketing project management business

[Mz]

Yes, it got changed.

[MaysonL]

Read the article:

"at the same time working my “day job” which is a co-owner of a marketing project management business."

In addition to the day job and the startup, she's a mother of twins and wife.

[keiferski]

Maybe "mother" would have been a better term to use?

[Nox]

Speaking as somebody with a Masters in digital anthropology and almost 5 years non-technical experience with startups, who is also a comp sci student now to round out my qualifications, gender does sometimes matter when it really shouldn't.

That said, I don't think focusing on it as a definitive characteristic is helpful at all. I bought codegoddess.com thinking I could make some awesome online hub for female coders, and then realized a chromosomal marker isn't a very good distinguishing feature.