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Summary: It's about time for a book like this...
Review: As a young female entrepreneur, I found Elizabeth Carlassare's book to be extremely insightful regarding the process by which many women today are founding and growing solid enterprises. While Carlassare profiles some of the most visionary and talented female entrepreneurs in the e-business world, this book by no means is limited to women, nor to people involved in technology, for that matter. "DotCom Divas" addresses universal themes surrounding how to build a successful business: the importance of building a stellar team, tenacity, courage, focus, and drive. The book also highlights the challenges that many entrepreneurs face, such as securing financial backing, and effectively marketing a product or service in a cost effective manner. The choices that many of Carlassare's subjects make regarding these issues are instructive. I would highly recommend "DotCom Divas" to anyone - male or female - with an entrepreneurial bent. If you've ever wondered what makes a business leader tick, or what the most important "lessons learned" are from veterans of the business/technology world, this is a great book for you.
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Summary: On The Fence
Review: Good book, but what bothered me most was that the author seemed to plug these business women and their companies more than show an unbiased perspective. Every business plan painted a rosy picture with little emphasis on competition and the pitfalls one has to face when dealing with this industry.As an e-entrepeneur of a growing business, I found the book a bit biased with little substance. No doubt, the fact that so many women achieved such great success is inspiring and that they were profiled is fabulous. But, the seriousness of the pitfalls weren't accurately described. A great example of this is the fact that a few of these dot coms no longer exist, and reading their business plans in the book, seemed like they had no worries in the world...a bit misleading. All in all, I recommend you buy the book, just don't take it too seriously and most importantly, don't let it intimidate you!
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Summary: I loved DotCom Divas.
Review: I loved DotCom Divas. I learned so much from it. It describes the lay of the land of Web businesses and spells out what it takes to build them. Not an entrepreneur myself, it really got me thinking entrepreneurially, which I enjoyed. The book also taught me a lot about life in this really unique time and place - business on the Internet at the turn of this century. Carlassare conveys the dreams, real life circumstances and challenges, ingenuity, creativity, and endurance of the entrepreneurs she profiles. I also really appreciated the diversity of the types of businesses, the entrepreneurs themselves, their funding approaches, and strategies she included. The best part of DotCom Divas is that it is about women. These days there are a large number of women in business and technology. Hats off to Carlassare for seeking out and circulating their stories.
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Summary: Inspiring, insightful - let's take it international!
Review: I read Elizabeth's insightful book in its entirety in one afternoon. I must say that her astute sense of observation, intuitive yet unbiased understanding of, both the feminine and the high-tech industry, as well as her crystal clear articulation, enabled her to truly capture the dreams and challenges experienced by 20 very diverse women Internet entrepreneurs whom she profiled between January and June 2000 (an especially volatile time for Internet stocks.) Moreover, she has succeeded in creating a most instructive book that captures the women's visions, their business models, the obstacles to secure funding and human resources; and documents their personal challenges while nurturing rapidly expanding Internet businesses in an ever changing e-business surrounding. True, all women presented had MBAs, connections to the industry/money yet, if you witnessed Vani Koshla or Felicia "LIVE" at a January 2001 event, hosted by ... , it was clear that their personal drive, quest, ambition, and gutsy-ness put them on the trajectory of success - not privilege. Elizabeth's book captured that > essence and left me feeling: "I can persevere, I can do it too!" :-)) What I didn't like: The DIVAS in the title - it makes women entrepreneurs sounds difficult and capricious - a title you won't find on any books written by men for male business men. Ohterwise a satisfied reader, Nicole Kidd
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Summary: Dot Com Disasters in a Dress.
Review: In future eons, when archeologists examine the ruins of early dot com society they will discover a culture of work plagued by a fatal flaw: the tendency to insist that work should imitate art and show business. Not so. As America has found out with the dot com holocaust, you can’t run a workplace like a single’s bar, just because everyone is single. Neither can you run a dot com like a prima donna just because you think you’re one, or worse, you’ve convinced dumb journalists that you are one. This is a tiresome book, about tiresome, (mostly) white, middleclass women with their MBAs and contrived dress sense, and utterly pointless. Anyone expecting to throw off the Volvo shackles of soccer mom tyranny and became a Jill Gates will be disappointed. There are no “visionary†insights peculiar to these women because of their gender. Many of their past operations failed, and already some of these dot com founders and are now dot com flounders. And a lot of them are just so, well, BORING. What is the point of this book? It’s a coffee table addition which can nestle somewhere between Sam Sifton’s book on Yettie Culture and the People Magazine Yearbook 2000. Avoid like the plague.
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Summary: DOTCOM DIVAS
Review: INFORMATIVE, BUT CENTERED TOO PRO WOMEN POWER.
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Summary: Utterly Vacuous
Review: Mommy, what's a dot com? This book is jaded nonsense. Avoid.
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Summary: Not just for women
Review: While the focus of the book is women, the lessons learned can benefit both men and women. Since most of the leaders in business profiled in the media are men, it is refreshing to read about accomplished women regardless of the outcome of their companies. It is especially nice that the women profiled have a diverse age range as well as HQ locations (two of the women live outside the US). The appendix has an outstanding list of relevant organizations and resources.
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Summary: Not just for women
Review: While the focus of the book is women, the lessons learned can benefit both men and women. Since most of the leaders in business profiled in the media are men, it is refreshing to read about accomplished women regardless of the outcome of their companies. It is especially nice that the women profiled have a diverse age range as well as HQ locations (two of the women live outside the US). The appendix has an outstanding list of relevant organizations and resources.
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Summary: It's About Time!
Review: With all of the books and articles about male CEOs, particularly in the tech and Internet industries, it is about time there is a well-researched book about female CEOs and founders of successful and growing tech/Net companies that breaks down their businesses and their advice. Even though the dot com explosion has affected two of the companies in the book, I think the rest of the women's ability to withstand the market shakeup is a testament to how women tend to start more conservative and more sound businesses. Although the market is still in flux, "Dotcom Divas" offers clear portraits of diverse businesswomen with varying styles and motivations that will undoubtedly lead them to continued success. Any aspiring businessperson - not just women - will glean some essential tips and ideas from reading this book.
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