Sheila Marcelo's Blog

Keeping Employees Engaged During Tough Times

I just got back from an HBS Global Leadership Summit where I listened to some great speakers. I found myself thinking about what things we could be doing with our company and employees during these difficult times. Yes, you should plan on cutting back (See Sequoia’s presentation covered on TechCrunch) to be prudent. But what can you do to inspire “shared ownership” (I’m a big fan of Danny Meyer’s book Setting the Table) so that your employee’s continue to be involved during a crisis? Here’s one thing we asked at our company meeting today: What things are going well at Care.com and what things should we do differently given the economy?

What else could we be doing at our companies during these difficult times?

Cheers,

Sheila

Nick Beim's Other 'Endeavor'

As an entrepreneur myself, I certainly understand the endless challenges one encounters when trying to start his or her own business. But I can’t imagine how hard it must be for high-impact entrepreneurs—whose businesses have potential for enormous growth—to reach that potential in countries where technology, knowledge, and capital are limited. That’s why I wanted to tell you about Endeavor, a company served by one of Care.com’s own investors, Nick Beim of Matrix Partners. It’s a nonprofit organization that operates in eight developing countries, reaching out to local markets in these nations and giving their high—growth potential entrepreneurs the resources they need to succeed. Nick serves on Endeavor’s global board of directors, and his experience in international work—he previously served on a task force at the U.S. Agency for International Development—has clearly helped to make Endeavor the world-changing organization it is today. Read more about Nick Beim and Endeavor. The article highlights an Argentinean computer-systems security company that, thanks to Endeavor, has been growing by 100% a year for the last four years.

Please check out www.Endeavor.org to learn more about Endeavor, a great company that Nick, and many others, have already helped to make so successful.

Women and the Web

Last week, I was out in San Francisco interviewing with Charlene Li, a principal analyst with Forrester Research, about my newest endeavor: Care.com. Charlene is an expert on social computing (blogs, RSS, podcasting, and social networking), and is currently co-authoring a book with another Forrester analyst, Josh Bernoff, to be published sometime next year. She examines the ways in which new technology will affect how companies communicate with consumers, so you can imagine how excited I was to get her feedback on my new online service!

I met Charlene years ago when she was based in Forrester's Cambridge offices. A mutual friend introduced us, since we were both women in high tech, with kids, and we both went to the same B-school. It was nice to catch up with Charlene after all this time. She told me about a site called BlogHer and suggested that I go check it out. BlogHer.org is a website that brings together women bloggers from all across the Internet--and across a wide range of topics--to "pursue exposure, education, and community. I highly recommend this organization to any female Internet entrepreneur, and encourage you to attend their conference in Chicago, held at the end of July this year. I know I’ll definitely be there. So, thanks for the recommendation, Charlene!

Charlene also told me that I’m the 10^th female CEO she’s met in her career at Forrester. This gives me even more reason to ensure that Care.com is successful (a mission to help women find a life more balanced by providing them with simple, easy access to child care, elder care, pet care, tutoring and all sorts of other services to help solve their ever changing care needs) and to write this blog. I want to see more female entrepreneurs succeed, especially in the Web 2.0 space. Over the next few weeks I’ll be interviewing some incredible women whose success stories are an inspiration, so check back often!

Cheers,
Sheila