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Tech Boss Lady:
How to Start-Up, Disrupt & Thrive as a Female Founder
by Adriana Gascoigne
c.2019, Seal Press
$28.00 / $36.50 Canada
219 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
One foot in front of the other.
That’s how you get anywhere: whether it’s a toe-sliding
shuffle or a one-two-three-waltz, the only way forward is
step by step. Slow-walk it if you must, but you have to keep
going and in Tech Boss Lady by Adriana Gascoigne,
you’ll find helpful business shoe-prints to follow.
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From the time she was a child, Adriana Gascoigne knew that
she didn’t want a 9-to-5 job as an adult. Both her parents
were entrepreneurs who did whatever it took to keep the
family afloat, and Gascoigne spent after-schools and
weekends pitching in. For her, self-employment was natural;
even so, Gascoigne found herself working in a boys-network
Silicon Valley office after college.
Before #MeToo was a thing, she was harassed for being a
woman.
Undaunted, Gascoigne persevered until she spotted a problem
and created a solution, finally becoming the entrepreneur
she always knew she was. In this book, she offers advice for
“founders” of the tech sort – which, as she says, is
everyone now, because almost all “business today relies on
technology to scale.”
The first point she stresses is that every entrepreneur,
“and I mean every single one,” has “absolutely no
fear,” which is “quickly followed by acute urgency to propel
forward.” If that doesn’t describe you, says Gascoigne, then
“hit the bench and sit this one out.”
Stay focused on your goals because hard work “will only get
you so far…” Be willing to give other women a hand-up; in
fact, start doing so as early as possible by giving your
daughters or nieces STEM toys. Know how to hire, be a
leader, and foster a sense of intrapreneurship in your
business. Find a great mentor and be willing to ask for help
if you need it but exercise caution when you think you might
need a partner. Don’t let failure freak you out. And
finally, watch yourself for signs of stress or burnout. You
might need an extra jolt of confidence to get back on track.
You’ve got this.
As business books go, Tech Boss Lady isn’t bad. It’s
not great, either – mostly because, if you’re an
entrepreneur, you already know what’s inside it.
Indeed, there’s a lot of same in this book. Like many
current authors, Gascoigne focuses more on tech start-ups
and relies a lot on personal examples, despite an avowal to
avoid doing so. Neither can you avoid rah-rah words about
goals and hiring, both which are seen in just about every
entrepreneurial book from the last three decades.
And yet, Adriana Gascoigne’s style is surely appealing.
She’s smart and bold, and ideas are presented just freshly
enough to capture the attention of young businesswomen who
maybe haven’t seen this information a dozen times. They
might benefit from it, and from Gascoigne’s no-nonsense,
straightforward, steel-fisted warmth, the most.
This book can surely be read by anyone with entrepreneurial
spirit but it’s really not for men, or for women over 40.
For younger women with business-sense, though, Tech Boss
Lady can be a great first step.
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