We’ve worked hard to ensure that women and other people typically under-represented at entrepreneurship conferences are very much a part of this event
By Sarah Milstein (Co-Host, The Lean Startup Conference)
What do startups need most these days? Great people to hire.
To help young companies find strong candidates, The Lean Startup Conference is hosting a Hiring Room, and we want to make sure women-led startups are represented.
The room will be a large, dedicated space during the closing reception (approximately 5:15pm – 6:30pm on December 3 at the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco), and it will be next to the room with the bar, in an area that everyone has to walk through to get to the drinks.
We’ll have about a dozen startups in the room, each with a small table and a sign so you’re easy to find. And we’ll announce it from the main stage a couple of times to our 700+ in-person attendees.
We realize most early-stage startups can’t afford or don’t yet know how to profitably sponsor conferences. We hope this alternative helps you get in front of people you’d want to meet, in a context that’s useful to you. The application form is short and the deadline to apply is November 13. We’ll let you know by November 19 whether you’re in; if you’re chosen, the fee for a table in the Hiring Room is $500.
Rather than do a big public call for applicants, we’re reaching out to Women 2.0 readers and the companies that Eric Ries advises, most of which are led by men. We’ve worked hard to ensure that women and other people typically under-represented at entrepreneurship conferences are very much a part of this event, as speakers, livestream hosts and attendees – and the Women 2.0 community has helped us meet that goal.
We hope you’ll participate in this aspect of the conference, too. Applying is easy – please do so today.
Women 2.0 readers: What advice do you have for hiring your first employees? Let us know in the comments.
About the guest blogger: Sarah Milstein is co-host of The Lean Startup Conference. From 2009 through 2011, she ran the Web 2.0 events for UBM TechWeb, in conjunction with O’Reilly Media, and co-chaired Web 2.0 Expo. Previously, she was on the senior editorial staff at O’Reilly, where she founded Tools of Change for Publishing and led development of the Missing Manuals, a best-selling series of computer books for non-geeks. Bonus fact: she was the 21st user of Twitter. Follow her on Twitter at @SarahM.
