Women's Startup Lab Unveils New Programs for Women Tech Leaders

MENLO PARK, CA–(Marketwired – Feb 24, 2014) – Women’s Startup Lab, a new accelerator model for women tech founders, today announced an updated series of programs designed for startups to grow their businesses. The company has opened registration for their third Founder’s Circle accelerator program, added new speakers to their Innovation Lab network, and launched The Club, an early stage founders’ social and entrepreneurship club, open to the public, which includes all WSLab speakers and lunch workshops.

Founded by tech entrepreneur Ari Horie in January 2013, Women’s Startup Lab accelerates startup growth for women founders through coaching, peer-to-peer collaboration, and innovation labs geared to offer impact on their businesses and foster stronger founders’ competency and leadership skills.

“Women’s Startup Lab allows women founders to work and learn in an environment that leverages their collaborative and interpersonal skills,” Horie said. “This power network of women and supporters yields real business results for tech founders, bringing in some of the best advisors, coaches and entrepreneurs in the Valley who understand how to build and run successful technology startups. After all, it takes a ‘Valley’ to raise a founder.”

With 18 program graduates in its first year and its second Founder’s Circle cohort already underway, Women’s Startup Lab has seen founders go on to Y Combinator, win pitching awards, establish partnerships with Fortune 500 companies and collaboratively raise over $4M in angel funding.

Notable Silicon Valley influencers who have been contributed to the network of Women’s Startup Lab include:

• Fran Maier, Co-founder, Match.com
• Phil Schlein, Partner, U.S. Venture Partners
• Denise Brosseau Co-founder, Watermark
• Wendy Lea, CEO, Get Satisfaction
• Heidi Roizen, Venture Capitalist

Monique Giggy, founder of Swing-by-Swing Golf, the multi-platform media company for 2.5 golfers, attended the first Founder’s Circle accelerator program in Fall 2013. Noting the impact of the Founder’s Circle, Giggy said, “The program was an invaluable experience for its support in maximizing a founder’s efficiency and business model, as well as gleaning insight from Silicon Valley experts who influenced the success of my company.” 

About the Women’s Startup Lab programs:

The Founder’s Circle is the three month long cornerstone program where founders are placed into groups based on experience level (early stage or serial entrepreneur) and have access to tech startup legends that provide coaching and curriculum that builds business and personal skills. Members of the Founder’s Circle are typically between 30-50 years old and full-time founders who have launched their products or services.

The Innovation Labs are for tech startup development and are separate from the accelerator program. The three hour sessions are intensive and interactive learning labs that allow founders to learn the right subjects at the right stage of their business. 

The Club is an early stage founders’ social and entrepreneurship development club, open to the public that includes speaker events, workshops and community of female founders.

To apply for the upcoming Founder’s Circle or buy passes to the Innovation Labs or The Club, visit www.womenstartuplab.com 

About Women’s Startup Lab
Women’s Startup Lab is a mission driven, tech launch pad for women led startups, offering an accelerator that impacts business growth through coaching, peer-to-peer collaboration, and training through Innovation Labs that build successful early companies and foster stronger personal and leadership skills. WSLab focuses on two key areas, business growth and understanding cultural and genders differences as complementary leadership competencies, learning to adapt and adopt, and build healthy innovative environment to encourage and retain talented women entrepreneurs for maximum impact and sustainability. Here we will create an incubator for long-lasting success.