Really? I'm not so sure. Perhaps it is just hard to hear about the women that are bootstrapping tech companies. Companies that are being bootstrapped typically are pre-traction, and have not received the buzz in the tech media that comes with raising a funding round.
- for the last several years women are lunching companies at twice the rate of men http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870468860457512...
- only 8% of founders in startups that get VC funding are women -- http://www.blackweb20.com/2010/08/10/women-only-8-of-interne...
At all.
VC is almost purely a tech/bio/med thing. Most small businesses - which is what startups are, by the way - take loans. That's how it usually works.
That's why I asked everyone I knew - and asked them to ask everyone they knew. I have my feet planted very high on the hierarchy of "famous devs" in more than one circle, so my reach is greater than the average joe. In addition to browsing every women entrepreneur's directory I could find. Including http://startupprincess.com. No joy.
Nary a female product bootstrapper around. Except the lady who's part of the team at Mite.
It's not that hard to find women heading up traditional web 2.0 properties, like social networks and social media tools (that don't charge).
Good luck Marilyn!
Let me give you a little piece of advice-- unstealth yourself!
When we shipped Freckle, we had $1500 in monthly billing at the end of the first round of 30-day trials, because we put up a little teaser page just like this (for our 2nd SaaS product): http://charmde.sk/.
We had about 400 names on it, from tweeting and talking about it, and a pretty decent conversion rate on that. That headstart was worth at least $18k that year (and probably more, since our main factor for growth is word of mouth). We now have 320 names on the Charm list and that's a much narrower audience, so I think our actual rate of emails vs audience is even better.
Typically speaking, "stealth mode" doesn't do a lick of good for paying products. Most people are too stubborn to make a paying product to begin with, much less copy one that isn't out yet. On the other hand, people love the opportunity to put their name in for a new product that will help them -- and if you don't capture their email, they'll just forget about it.
Your speaker list looks great. And if you are only looking for women coders, who have built successful product companies, that have never taken VC then I agree they are hard to find! But keep in mind that there are not many startup teams that raise VC where there is a founding female coder either.