<div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5449758b69beddb40f264097-1131-848/carley-roney-xo-group-1.jpg?maxX=600" border="0" alt="carley roney xo group" width="600">Stephen Lovekin / Getty ImagesCarley Roney, cofounder of XO Group.</img></div></div>At this week's LearnVest LIVE 2014 in New York City, LearnVest founder and CEO <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/advice-for-startups-from-learnvests-alexa-von-tobel-2014-9">Alexa Von Tobel</a> asked a panel of successful women how they deal with money. 
<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-knot-david-liu-carley-roney-married-founders-interview-2013-2">Carley Roney</a>, cofounder of publicly traded lifestage media company XO Group, which runs popular websites like The Knot and The Nest, was on the panel and offered some great insights.
"If you had to think of a money trick that's worked for each of you, what's the biggest thing that's helped you be successful personally?" Von Tobel asked the panel. "If you had to give your child one piece of advice, what would it be?"
Roney's answer was simple: "It's actually saving automatically. That simple thing: You do not and will not remember any of it, so setting up things and having automatic deductions."
When Roney talks about automatic deductions, she means designating portions of your paycheck to go directly into savings, whether that's an <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-emergency-savings-do-you-need-2014-8">emergency fund</a> or a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/retirement-planning-myths-2014-9">retirement account</a>. Many personal finance experts champion this tactic, which limits temptation and lessens the possibility of human error.
"I'll tell you guys, I'm the biggest fan of 'out of sight is out of mind,'" Von Tobel responded. "Your paycheck hits, and that next day should be an automatic deduction of as many hundreds of dollars as you can spare. I will tell you: If it is not there, you will not spend it. If it is there, you'll spend it."
Setting up automatic deductions is as simple as making a quick phone call to your bank, or in many cases, logging on to your bank's website and designating a monthly money transfer. Von Tobel, who is also a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/difference-between-financial-advisor-and-certified-financial-planner-2014-7">certified financial planner</a>, clearly believes this small change could make a big difference: "We could change the whole country if everybody did that."

XO Group Founder Carley Roney Shares Her Favorite Money Trick

<div class="image-container float_right click-to-enlarge" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><a title_source="XO Group" title_caption="Carley Roney and David Liu" class="zoomin" href="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/511c095f69bedd7e04000016-960/carley-roney-and-david-liu-2.jpeg"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-knot-david-liu-carley-roney-married-founders-interview-2013-2"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/511c095f69bedd7e04000016-996-747/carley-roney-and-david-liu-2.jpeg?maxX=400" border="0" alt="Carley Roney and David Liu" width="400" /></a></a></div>XO Group<keyword id="1767053" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Carley-Roney">Carley Roney</keyword> and <keyword id="1080475" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="David-Liu">David Liu</keyword></div>Carley <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-knot-david-liu-carley-roney-married-founders-interview-2013-2">Roney and David Liu</a> have been married for 20 years and in business together for 18.
They co-founded XO Group, formerly known as <keyword id="1767052" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Knot">The Knot</keyword>, in 1996. It's now a publicly traded company. Liu says 80% of women who are planning a wedding join the site.
Although the pair have been successful as cofounders, they give other aspiring entrepreneur couples the following advice: 
"Don't try this at home."
Is it really that tough to go into business with someone you love, even if your startup doesn't fail?
Liu and Roney say it is. 
"Cofounding a company with a spouse is really hard," Liu explains. "The rate of failure for startups is so high that you kind of attach your <keyword id="6355896" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="60" keywordseo="Marriage">marriage</keyword> to a business that has unpredictable outcomes.
"As a married couple in business together you will experience highs that most couples will never experience. When you close a big deal or IPO with your spouse it's extraordinary. But some of the lows can be unbelievably dark. Deeper and darker than other couples will likely experience. Marriage is tough as it is. To add the unpredictability of a business is really hard. You have to really make sure you're ready for the ups and downs."
That said, being married to your cofounder can be more than just a financial benefit if all goes well. Roney says she thinks it's a competitive advantage—if you can pull it off. 
"We're big supporters of married couples with startups and have personally invested in them," she says. "We know they're doing business more hours of the day than anyone else. When they're brushing their teeth and pillow talk—it's all strategy." And, according to Roney and Liu, it's better to work with a fellow entrepreneur than to just be married to one.
"If your spouse isn't actually working with you, I think there's a greater chance you wind up in divorce because of the lack of understanding of the intensity," Liu says. "The passion for the business steals the attention and time."
"I'd hate to just be married to an entrepreneur," Roney says. "I'd rather be married and working with an entrepreneur."

Cofounders Married For 20 Years Advise Other Couples: 'Don't Try This At Home'

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/511ba999ecad04f73a000026-1167-875/carley-roney-and-david-liu.jpeg?maxX=400" border="0" alt="Carley Roney and David Liu" width="400" /></div><keyword id="1768872" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="XO-Group">XO Group</keyword><keyword id="1767053" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Carley-Roney">Carley Roney</keyword> and <keyword id="1080475" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="David-Liu">David Liu</keyword> co-founded XO Group, formerly known as <keyword id="1767052" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="The-Knot">The Knot</keyword>. Their marriage has survived two IPOs and extreme highs and lows.</div>When Carley Roney and David Liu met, they were undergraduates at New York University. But it took eight years for them to fall in love.
"While we didn't spend much time talking to each other, we probably saw each other every weekend for a year," Liu said of the art-school program he and Roney were both enrolled in. 
"Yah, and we spent two weeks together in the Soviet Union [through NYU] in which we exchanged exactly one word," Roney chimed in.
Years later, the two ran into each other at a party. Suddenly, it struck Roney: "David's kind of cute!" 
After that the pair were inseparable. Within seven months, in July 1993, Roney and Liu were married. It happened so quickly, Roney says her mother was convinced she was pregnant (she wasn't).
By 1995, they had started their first business venture together, making CD-Roms for brands like the Smithsonian. 
The next business they founded was <a href="http://www.theknot.com">The Knot</a>, in 1996.
The Knot, now known as XO Group, is a publicly traded company with a number of lifestyle brands in its portfolio, including <a href="http://www.thenest.com/">The Nest</a> for new homeowners and <a href="http://www.thebump.com/">The Bump</a> for new mothers. Liu says 80% of women planning a wedding join The Knot. 
It hasn't been easy growing a publicly-traded business together. In fact, Liu and Roney give the following advice to other couples who want to co-found a company: "Don't try this at home."
Business Insider spent an hour chatting with Liu and Roney about their 18 years in business together, and how they created a lasting wedding brand from scratch.
Here's the lightly edited tell-all:
Business Insider: Your wedding didn't go as planned—it was on a rooftop in July without air conditioning on the hottest day in 10 years. How did you end up running a wedding business, when you didn't know much about <keyword id="6367159" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Weddings">weddings</keyword> to begin with?
Liu: We did something terrible in our past lives, I think.
Roney: You do whatever you do when you're in the hot seat. You call everyone you know to call everyone they know to find anyone in the industry. I did everything from calling my high school best friend's fiance's dad because he ran a veil company. I remember thinking "Oh my gosh, what are we getting into here?"
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:250px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/511bcb7069beddfa6e000001-400-300/quote1-4.jpg" border="0" alt="the knot quote" width="250" /></div>Business Insider</div>
We just went about educating ourselves and learning everything about weddings. I read 20 back issues of every bridal magazine I could find.
Liu: This was 16 years ago [The Knot launched in 1996]. It was a different time. The qualities we've held as high importance to be successful are curiosity and the desire to learn. Our approach was, "It's an exciting opportunity, we see these magazines as enormous, advertising-filled products and there's clearly demand." 
There's a level of naivete that I think makes entrepreneurs successful. When you know too much you know enough not to start the business.
How did you establish roles both at home and in the company?
Roney: There were four of us who founded the company. I handled the consumer team. David had the entrepreneurial background and knew about technology. Another was into promotions and sales and the other came from an advertising agency. All of us went to film school together. We ran in our own directions and it worked.
Liu: We worked long 16-hour days, seven days a week. It wasn't until we got venture-capital financing that we needed a CEO. They said I was the person.
How did you manage three children and a startup?
<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:250px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/511bccae69beddd16e00001b-400-266/quote2-9.jpg" border="0" alt="the knot quote" width="250" /></div>Business Insider</div>Roney: We had our first baby at potentially the worst time ever—about 15 minutes after getting our first venture-capital financing.
So the heat turned on just about the time the baby popped out and it was a really, really challenging time. I took a two-and-a-half-week maternity leave and then brought the baby into the office. 
We had a really tight staff who didn't care that there was a baby wandering around in the back. If I had a meeting or David had a conference call we'd give the baby to the intern who'd get strapped into a baby Bjorn. 
You learn very quickly how to balance it all. You work in the middle of the night when the kids are asleep and you eat a lot of take out.
I get asked to be on panels about work-life balance. There's no such thing. When you have kids, it's work-life imbalance. At first you panic and think you're doing everything poorly. Then you learn you can be incredibly efficient. Having kids has made us better managers and more understanding.
In The Wall Street Journal, you said investors don't like married couples and you had to hide the fact that you were married. Is that true?
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:250px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/511bd04969bedd1d7a000002-400-266/quote0.jpg" border="0" alt="the knot quote" width="250" /></div>Business Insider</div>Liu: Carley didn't take my name. I don't think we were actively hiding it but it wasn't evident. When we were doing rounds of financing, one investor mentioned that the job of a venture capitalist is to manage risk. So they may like an idea and an opportunity and the entrepreneurs, but when you invest in a married couple, you invest in an element of risk that is uncontrollable.
That's not to say you can't get outside financing, but it is something, I think, that gives investors pause.
We brought our marriage up to our VCs right before we closed on the deal. Our VC [had invested in three other couple-founded startups] and invested anyhow. I asked after what happened to those three couples. They said one was a huge success and two of them were complete failures that wound up in divorces. 
Is it difficult to be married to a fellow entrepreneur?
Liu: Particularly in the startup phase, you are spending most of your life with the people at work, and your work becomes your family.
<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:250px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/511bcd8969bedd487400000a-400-266/quote4-4.jpg" border="0" alt="the knot quote" width="250" /></div>Business Insider</div>If your spouse isn't actually working with you, I think there's a greater chance you wind up in divorce because of the lack of understanding of the intensity. The passion for the business steals the attention and time.
Our other two partners had significant others during that time ... unfortunately their relationships did not survive.
Roney: I'd hate to just be married to an entrepreneur. I'd rather be married and working with an entrepreneur.
Your advice to other couples is: "Don't try this at home." Why?
Liu: Cofounding a company with a spouse is really hard. The rate of failure for startups is so high that you kind of attach your marriage to a business that has unpredictable outcomes.
As a married couple in business together you will experience highs that most couples will never experience. When you close a big deal or IPO with your spouse it's extraordinary. But some of the lows can be unbelievably dark. Deeper and darker than other couples will likely experience.
Marriage is tough as it is. To add the unpredictability of a business is really hard. You have to really make sure you're ready for the ups and downs.
Roney: That said, we're big supporters of married couples with startups and have personally invested in them. We actually think it's a competitive advantage because we know they're doing business more hours of the day than anyone else. When you're brushing your teeth and pillow talk is all strategy.
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:250px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/511bce12ecad04c37f000000-400-266/quote5-4.jpg" border="0" alt="the knot quote" width="250" /></div>Business Insider</div>
Let's talk about this business you've spent 16 years building. How big is XO Group, as The Knot is now called?
Liu: We now have 650 employees. 80% of women planning a wedding sign up to be our members ... there is definite carry-over of membership across our brands—The Nest, The Bump, etc.—just not in the order you would think.
Roney: We have 17 city guides for weddings that come out twice a year and a national Knot magazine that comes out four times a year. The Bump has a magazine that comes out twice per year. 
Liu: Our publishing is up 18%, which shocks even us.
And the site launched on AOL?
Liu: We were seed-financed by the venture arm for AOL. iVillage [also] came out of that. We launched on AOL in September 1996, and we didn't have a website until July 1997. There were no pictures on the Web and there was no advertising or ad servers online. It was the early days in the wild, wild West. 
Roney: AOL had a platform, and they needed people to create "apps" to stay on the platform, kind of like Facebook now.... AOL liked our content category. They invested in us and an astrology group. 
I kid you not, we were the first company to have advertising on our platform because we didn't really have another idea to make enough money for the business to survive. 2 million brides were not going to spend enough time on our section to make money. One of our first advertisers was Nicole Miller.
You survived the bubble burst, but barely. What was it like to be listed on an exchange, then delisted, then listed again? And how did you bounce back?
Liu: We went public December 2, 1999. I think we were one of the last consumer media companies to get out before the bubble burst. Our stock price doubled over the first day of trading then it descended over the next few years.
<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:250px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/511bdc1becad04661a00000e-400-266/quote00.jpg" border="0" alt="the knot quote" width="250" /></div>Business Insider</div>The requirements for being listed on NASDAQ are, if you trade below $1 for 90 days, you get booted. And we hit a low price of $0.26. You still remain a public company, you just trade in the pink sheets. We were delisted in 2001, just before the World Trade Center collapsed. Those were some of the darkest moments. 
We never tried any tactics to manipulate the stock price. We always saw our revenue was growing and we were reducing our losses. By 2003 we became cash-flow positive. The hard part is getting attention from the equity market because once you're trading in the pink sheets, most hedge funds are no longer allowed to buy you. So you need the volume to get relisted.
It's not necessarily another IPO, but to get relisted you need to trade above $5 for 180 days. To get that kind of volume support, I spent a year with my CFO and investor-relations person going to investor conferences with doctors and lawyers and individual investors who might buy the stock. As people started seeing how profitable we were, we started trading above $5 and we got relisted in 2005. We made the decision to switch to the NYSE one year ago when we changed the name to XO Group.
How is XO Group doing now?
Liu: Now we have very high margins. Our gross margins are north of 80%. Operating margins are significantly less because we're investing in building the business. In the past year and a half we bought back $90 million of our own stock. We have no debt and still have $70 million in cash. 
We have five different revenue streams. Local advertising (listing subscriptions; being paid by local vendors). That is our largest revenue stream. Then we have national advertising (Macy's, jewelry companies, etc). Then a registry business (comparison shopping meets an affiliate network). We get a commission on registry referrals. We have e-commerce (personalized napkins, glasses, etc.). Then we have our publishing business and the advertising that runs in our magazines. There are no membership fees for users.
How is social media changing your business? Is Pinterest a big competitor? Is it a struggle to stay relevant?
Roney: The more inspiration people are finding, the better. A healthy ecosystem is probably better for our business. 
We were always built on social. We never came in to be the authority on weddings. We came in to be the connector between people. Our brand was built on word of mouth marketing. We created a world in which couples felt they were taking ownership and helping build this brand with us. Like a secret society and we were girls who were a couple of steps ahead of them, crowdsourcing advice from experts.
For example, on Valentine's Day we're launching a social initiative called <a href="http://wedding.theknot.com/dream-wedding-contest.aspx?MsdVisit=1">The Knot Dream Wedding.</a> The Knot Dream Wedding is the first ever live-streamed and crowd-sourced wedding. Beginning in January, America voted on everything from a couple to win the wedding of their dreams, to the theme of the wedding, tuxedos, etc. The couple is being flown to Bryant Park.
<div class="image-container float_left" style="width:250px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/511bcf4b6bb3f7916f000014-400-266/quote7-1.jpg" border="0" alt="the knot quote" width="250" /></div>Business Insider</div>Liu: When you already have such a large market share, you're forced to be comfortable with the fact that there are other products people are going to rely on. We know that when that bride walks into that magazine store, she's going to walk out with all five publications.
We were never going to be the authority in the category, but we were going to be a place where you could talk to other women in the same mindset.
Final question: What is it like being the most prepared family in the world? You probably have more knowledge about marriage, homes and family-life than anyone else.
Liu: Well this is all knowledge we wish we had ten years ago! The day we drove home from the hospital with our daughter, our friend asked: "Do you have any diapers at home?"
We literally had to pull over to a 24-hour CVS to buy newborn diapers. 
Roney: We're learning from our mistakes and helping everyone else not make them.

8 Years To Fall In Love And 18 Years Of Startup Madness: The Knot's Married Founders Tell All

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:400px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5093d05e6bb3f7470a00000d-620-465/wedding-19.jpg?maxX=400&amp;maxY=300" border="0" alt="wedding, couple " width="400" height="300" /></div><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/cameronnordholm/4992713168/">Flickr / Cameron Nordholm</a></div>Couples spent an average of <a href="http://blog.theknot.com/2013/03/07/average-wedding-cost-2013/" target="_blank">$28,500 to tie the knot</a> in 2012, according to a Wedding Channel/<keyword id="1758980" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="TheKnot">TheKnot</keyword>.com report.
That's just a couple thousand dollars shy of what the average homebuyer spends on a downpayment today ($31,000 by <a href="http://www.trulia.com/home_prices/" target="_blank">Trulia's estimate</a>). 
And we're not even including the honeymoon. 
"In 2011, budgets increased for the first time since the economic downturn, and this past year, in 2012, we saw that wedding budgets are continuing to rise even more and to an all-time high since 2008," said Carley Roney, cofounder of The Knot.
It's not the bridal gown that had couples tipping their budgets either. Brides dropped just $1,200 on their <keyword id="15674" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Wedding-dress">wedding dress</keyword> last year, only about $100 more than the year prior.
They spent twice that much on the reception band alone. 
Blame the venue. Couples spent $800 more on the location of their ceremony last year than in 2011, which ate up nearly half their entire budget at $13,000. The only expense that came close was the engagement ring, which cost more than $5,400 on average.
Manhattan is still by far the priciest city for newlyweds, where they spent more than $77,000 on tying the knot –– a major leap from 2011's $65,000 price tag. That's more than five times as much as couples in chilly Alaska, where <keyword id="6367159" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Weddings">weddings</keyword> averaged $15,000. 
Here are a few other interesting tidbits from the report: 
<ul>
<li>Average Marrying Age: Bride, 29; Groom, 31</li>
<li>Average Number of Guests: 139</li>
<li>Average Number of Bridesmaids: 4 to 5</li>
<li>Average Number of Groomsmen: 4 to 5</li>
<li>Most Popular Month to Get Engaged: December (16%)</li>
<li>Average Length of Engagement: 14 months</li>
<li>Most Popular Month to Get Married: June (17%)</li>
<li>Popular Wedding Colors: Blue (33%), Purple (26%), Green (23%), Metallics (23%)</li>
<li>Percentage of Destination Weddings: 24%</li>
</ul>

Here's What It Really Costs To Get Married In The US

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5776d9f04321f1c72f8b51f6-2400/winners.jpg" alt="Winners" data-mce-source="ADG Photography/Amanda Gentile" data-mce-caption="Winners of the Project Entrepreneur Venture Competition, from left to right: Cake founder Suelin Chen; Full Harvest founder Christine Moseley; Rent the Runway cofounder Jenny Fleiss; Rent the Runway cofounder and CEO Jennifer Hyman; and Komae cofounder Amy Husted and Audrey Wallace." />ADG Photography/Amanda GentileWinners of the Project Entrepreneur Venture Competition, from left to right: Cake founder Suelin Chen, Full Harvest founder Christine Moseley, Rent the Runway cofounder Jenny Fleiss, Rent the Runway cofounder and CEO Jennifer Hyman, and Komae cofounders Amy Husted and Audrey Wallace.</div></div></div>Until September 2014, Suelin Chen had spent her career in the sciences, attending MIT, working as a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital, and working at Harvard.So when she left the world of science and engineering to found her own startup, she didn't think she'd face any pushback. She'd had years of experience, training from one of the best universities in the world and an idea that she was 100% confident would succeed. But she immediately found that the startup world was not as welcoming as she was expecting. "There was always huge gender imbalance in my graduate program, but it's so much worse in tech," Chen told Business Insider. "There are so many biases that I've encountered and there's so few role models for us. I have some great networks in Boston, and I have a lot of great entrepreneur friends, but most of them are men."Chen began seeking out groups for female founders, which is when she heard about <a href="http://projectentrepreneur.org/" target="_blank">Project Entrepreneur</a>, an accelerator for early-stage companies created by Rent the Runway founders Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss in partnership with UBS. She applied and her company, <a href="https://www.joincake.com/welcome/" target="_blank">Cake</a>, was one of three companies chosen to participate in the program.<h2>'They still don't take me seriously'</h2>Chen describes Cake as a platform for sharing end-of-life preferences. Upon signing up, users answer a series of questions from health care preferences to insurance issues to the music they want at their funeral, with the answers populating a profile that can be viewed by family members. If you're wondering about the name of the company, Chen said it's named Cake because planning the end of your life should be like a piece of cake, rather than stressful and confusing.As Chen worked to get Cake up and running, she asked for advice from friends in the startup world who have gone through some of the same things, like fundraising and creating a business plan. But what worked for her male entrepreneur friends wasn't working for her. When she tried their tactics, she faced skepticism and a lack of respect. "I have a Ph.D. from MIT. I was the director of the Lab at Harvard. It doesn't matter. They still don't take me seriously," Chen said. "No matter my credentials, no matter all the data that we've gathered about my company. We have partnerships with huge health care companies and are working with one of the largest insurers in the U.S. and it's still not enough. I've been told I'm too nice, I'm too feminine."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5776da444321f1c62f8b5203-652/suelinchen.jpg" alt="SuelinChen" data-mce-source="Suelin Chen" />Suelin ChenCake founder Suelin Chen.</div></div></div>That has changed after Project Entrepreneur, she said. The six-week program - which involved three female-founded startups working out of at Rent the Runway's headquarters to build their businesses - wrapped up on June 30. Chen said the best part of the program was not only meeting other women going through the same things she was, but also finding mentors in Hyman and Fleiss who could give her specific solutions to her problems, provide her with feedback she could use and help her build confidence. <h2>Giving concrete advice, not platitudes</h2>Being able to provide specific, meaningful feedback was one of the reasons Rent the Runway wanted to start an accelerator, Hyman said. "Everyone in the world of entrepreneurship gives you these high-level pieces of feedback and advice that actually don't translate into helping you answer a question like, 'How do I get my employees health care? What if I don't know how to do graphic design? How do I design my first brand?'" Hyman said. "Those are the things that are the real roadblocks for you at the beginning."As Hyman and Fleiss were working to launch Rent the Runway, they were lucky enough to meet with heads of some big, successful startups like Netflix, Spotify and eBay. While they were offered great advice, Hyman said they rarely received the practical tips they really needed. That early experience is what made them realize they wanted to help others get their start, and to do that sooner rather than later. "A lot of things had to go right for us to get to where we are today," Hyman said. "We decided that we wanted to start actively paying it forward right now while we still remembered all of the struggles of the early days. The other approach would be, wait 10 or 15 years, wait until Rent the Runway is a much, much bigger business, and then go out and start helping founders. But you're kind of disconnected at the point from the everyday questions of how do you scale and how do you get traffic to the site."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5776db774321f102278b589f-2400/judges.jpg" alt="Judges" data-mce-source="ADG Photography/Amanda Gentile" data-mce-caption="Project Entrepreneur's judges, from left to right: Rebecca Minkoff, co-founder and creative director of Rebecca Minkoff; Anu Duggal, founding partner at F Cubed; Rent the Runway cofounder Jenny Fleiss; Rent the Runway cofounder and CEO Jennifer Hyman; The Know cofounder Carley Roney; Janine Shelffo, co-head of TMT at UBS Investment Bank; Katherine L. Oliver, principal at Bloomberg Associates and BBG Ventures President and Founder Susan Lyne." />ADG Photography/Amanda GentileProject Entrepreneur's judges, from left to right: Rebecca Minkoff, co-founder and creative director of Rebecca Minkoff; Anu Duggal, founding partner at F Cubed; Rent the Runway cofounder Jenny Fleiss; Rent the Runway cofounder and CEO Jennifer Hyman; The Know cofounder Carley Roney; Janine Shelffo, co-head of TMT at UBS Investment Bank; Katherine L. Oliver, principal at Bloomberg Associates and BBG Ventures President and Founder Susan Lyne.</div></div></div>Three companies in the accelerator are vastly different. Besides Cake, the judges chose <a href="http://fullharvest.co/" target="_blank">Full Harvest,</a> which connects farms to food companies in order to sell imperfect or surplus fruit and vegetables, and <a href="http://www.mykomae.com/" target="_blank">Komae</a>, which allows friends and family to exchange babysitting through points in an app. All three companies had already made some progress before joining the accelerator, and Hyman said they only accepted companies who could show they had a real and viable business model. Project Entrepreneur isn't looking to launch companies from nothing, and it also doesn't want to launch more companies along the same lines as Rent the Runway."My generation of female entrepreneurs has been isolated to consumer-facing businesses," Hyman said. "Some of the most successful female entrepreneurs like Katrina Lake or Julia Hartz or Payal Kadakia, we're kind of in a similar space. So it was really important to us to break out of that and show that there's diversity in gender and in background and interest."And according to Hyman, this first round of Project Entrepreneur is just the beginning. She plans to ask her fellow female founders to participate and hopes to do an accelerator round every summer going forward. Said Hyman: "I hope that we'll incubate double, if not triple, the companies in our office next year." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/smartphone-addiction-brain-science-2016-6">There's a scientific reason we're addicted to checking our phones</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="8xdGNvMjE6dwGnz6ucI9uXnFMMqNocLw" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', '8xdGNvMjE6dwGnz6ucI9uXnFMMqNocLw',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

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