Filmmakers Nora Poggi and Insiyah Saeed profile young women entrepreneurs who are beating the odds in this enlightening documentary. Since the media tends to focus on men in technology, women have fewer role models to emulate and seek out as mentors. Stacey Ferreira of Scottsdale, AZ, started her first company at the age of 18 with her brother Scott, which attracted $1 million in seed money from Virgin founder Richard Branson. After the siblings sold the company, Stacey launched another, which led to a sideline in public speaking. Thuy Truong, 27, who began a frozen yogurt company in Vietnam when she was 23, co-founded an app with a Silicon Valley associate four years later. Stacey and Thuy make pitches here to solicit funding, which goes to show that it takes more than just a good idea to be successful--and the entrepreneur also has to know how to sell it. But when the funds don’t roll in, the two women lose colleagues who can’t afford to wait for a steady income that may never come, so Stacey goes back to college and Thuy returns to Vietnam. But their stories don’t end there, as both women find ways to make new starts. Poggi and Saeed also provide spotlight profiles of Brienne Ghafourifar and Sheena Allen, who founded or co-founded tech companies. If there is a subtext here it’s that most of these women partnered with a male friend or relative when getting started, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does underscore the fact that women still have a ways to go in the male-dominated tech field. Presented in both the full-length version and a 52-minute abridgement, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)
She Started It
(2017) 60 min. DVD: $99.95: public libraries; $395: colleges & universities. Grasshopper Film. PPR. Closed captioned. Volume 33, Issue 3
She Started It
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