Fondatrix

I’ve just created a Facebook group for women startup founders and management. Just a few weeks ago, I started talking to The Next Women in London about doing some blogging and interviews for them. To do that, I need access to women entrepreneurs. So I took the plunge and created Fondatrix.

It’s something I’ve been thinking of doing for a while now. You see, I’ve been on the web/tech/startup circuit for a couple years here in Paris, and the girlpreneurs are just not visible enough IMHO. And I have a very good idea about why that is…

I told a geek guy I know that I was thinking of working with The Next Women, so he went to the site to see what it was about. He read a quote from an interview with a fondatrice (the feminine form of “founder” in French), who was talking about her startup, which has to do with beauty products. He laughed. Read another one about shopping. He laughed. Another one about renting designer handbags. He fucking laughed.

And that’s the problem. Women entrepreneurs and their ideas are sometimes brushed off with disdain by people with junk. So we need to support each other. Like Girl Power 3.0, like CyberElles, like Girlz in Web, like Paris Girl Geeks, like The Next Women, like Women 2.0… Any others you’d like to tell me about?

Why the name Fondatrix? The suffix -trix is a Latin feminine form, and where the French -trice came from. In English, there’s pretty much only one word we associate with that ending… And trix suggests tricks; Web girls are clever girls… Then there is Astérix, the diminutive Gallic hero who symbolizes French strength and determination. All the Gauls’ names end in -ix. Of course, the female characters are all either harpies or bimbos, as far as I can tell. Of course. I used one of them (above) for the Facebook group. For now.

So if you’re a woman in a startup, come join me in Fondatrix. Nobody will laugh at you.

(Closed this group in May, 2010 before I unliked Facebook.)