Startup Bootcamp 2011 Announced

I get the sense you were really looking for star power, judging by the speaker list. I do think you should be careful how Startup Bootcamp deals with this fact as an organization, though. There's a difference between "virtually all founders are male" and "virtually all famous, well-recognized founders are male."

From MIT alone, I can point you to recent YC company Venuetastic, and their two female MIT founders (Helen Belogolova and Christine Yen). I can't imagine they'd both be busy. Also, the CEO and Founder of the startup I work for, Smarterer, is female. We're right here in Boston and were recently funded by Google Ventures. There are more examples for sure, but you get the idea.

I understand that there are tradeoffs to be made between getting the hottest and most famous speakers, and getting a variety of perspectives. Kresge has 1,200 seats, and you want - need, even - to fill all of them. That said, the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley does have a habit of amplifying the male voice over the female voice. To acknowledge that fact, and perhaps be proactive in trying to compensate for it (did you try Jessica Mah, for instance?), would do a better job of satisfying those who are giving you said flack.

I don't think the compliment "quite clever" undermines anyone. I was trying to be clear that my comment wasn't about finding someone better than Culver, but someone with a more successful product. I don't think anyone would argue that Convore are anywhere near as successful as Airbnb, Foursquare or even Kayak. I'm sure there's a lot to be learned from the failure of Pownce, but the rest of the field certainly seems to be a draw because of their apparent success.