Episode 18 - She-Factoring the Tech Startup World with Thursday Bram

Thursday is the cofounder of Urgency, Inc., an online marketing agency focused on technical clients. She’s been blogging for over 10 years and has written for a variety of publications. She is a true renaissance woman whose interests include diversity in tech, the use of punctuation, crypto currencies, analytics impact on content strategy, gifs, and open source business models. She is a cofounder of PDX Shelter, a Portland based nonprofit startup, and an organizer at PyLadies PDX. She comes on the show today to talk to Charlie about the issues women face in the tech industry and other things related to tech and business.

 

Key Takeaways:

1:59 – Thursday grew up in a family of entrepreneurs.

4:00 – Urgency, Inc. was launched at the beginning of this year.

8:01 – A lot of tech companies want to be seen as progressive and modern, but most of those companies are founded by white, straight men who are usually from a middle class to upper class background and don’t think about any experience other than their own.

11:48 – One key starting point in looking at startup companies is looking at how they hire.

15:12 – The number of women who are getting CS degrees is increasing dramatically, but the problem is more a question of keeping women in tech.

16:16 – Investors are less likely to work with women founders, especially women who have families.

21:45 – Being aware of the social issues taking place in companies is the first step to making change.

27:05 – GamerGate started as a posting by a guy who was upset with his ex-girlfriend who was a game developer, and he accused her of sleeping with game journalists to get better reviews and eventually turned into attacks on several women.

32:15 – The same tropes that Anita Sarkeesian has identified in video games are also very visible in other forms of media. It’s a very prevalent thought pattern.

35:40 – PyLadies is a Python user group which for just women.

37:10 – PDX Shelter is a project that uses technology to address homeless problems.

46:08 – Even though all of these problems in the tech business world may seem huge, just taking one step and doing one thing is on the way to solving them.

 

Mentioned In This Episode:

Urgency, Inc.

Go Daddy

Entrepreneur Magazine

PDX Shelter

PyLadies PDX

Kathy Sierra

GamerGate

Anita Sarkeesian

Startup Weekend

Matthew Fountain

Firebase

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