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Good behavior was discouraged at last night's "Women Who Startup" panel and discussion, presented by Startup Denver as a part of Denver Startup Week. After socializing over drinks at Gather, Galvanize's cafe, the crowd of women and men moved into the Atrium for a panel discussion moderated by Nicole Gravagna, managing director of 10.10.10 and co-author of Venture Capital for Dummies.

Panelists (pictured above, from left to right) included Ashley Kingsley, Director of Digital Marketing at Closely; Sue Heilbronner, Chief Catalyst at Boulder Ideas; Sarai Snyder, founder of CycloFemme and Girl Bike Love; and Whitney Trujillo, CEO & Founder of The Mother List and the Enlist Moms Network.

Gravagna opened by saying she didn’t want this to be the kind of panel discussion in which everyone was polite and well-behaved, sitting quietly on their hands. While things didn’t exactly get rowdy, they did get real. Several audience members participated by asking challenging and intriguing questions, and the panelists shared their stories openly with authenticity and humor.

Some valuable words of wisdom from the discussion:

We all get exactly what we want. This is Heilbronner’s core belief. “Look at what you have,” she said. “That is the thing to which you are totally committed.” She added that if you manifest the things you want and they don’t show up, then you are not fully committed to them.

Money is just money. Kingsley said women need to let go of any fear or hesitation to ask for money. “Go after money, and ask for more than you think you’ll need,” she said. “Women complicate everything. It’s just money!” 

Trujillo added that "the best way to get what you want is to ask for it." (By the way, that seemingly simple piece of advice applies not just to money, but to all kinds of support, advice and help.)

Failure is just the next step in getting what you want. “Failure is an extremely important part of the process,” Trujillo said. A self-described “startup junkie,” she’s been involved in a number of startups and has seen her share of success and failure. “Sometimes just when you’re throwing in the towel, that moment of clarity happens. What you’re learning in those moments is the most valuable.”

“In cycling, if you’re not wrecking it means you’re not going fast enough and challenging yourself enough,” Snyder said. “I feel like I fail every single day in one way or another.” She said she has learned to welcome failure, because that’s when she becomes most creative.

You are your own North Star. In Boulder, where Heilbronner lives, she said that when you’re walking down the street it can feel like “everyone around you is worth $100 million and everything they touch turns to gold.” The reality is far from that perception, and you can't really know what’s going on with everyone else. But what matters is whether you are living with integrity in alignment with your life’s purpose, she said. “Everything else is someone else’s story of how your life should be.”

Let go. “We’re not all supposed to do everything,” said Kingsley. “Control is an illusion. You’re not really in control anyway.”

How do you give up that (perceived) control, delegate and ask for help when you’re accustomed to doing it all yourself? Snyder said that often it’s not so much asking for help, but rather sharing your goals and ambitions and finding people who want to join you. “Empower people to help move the mission forward,” she said.

Always have a mentor--and a mentee. Everybody should have at least one mentor, Gravagna said, and your mentor should be someone who is way more experienced and successful than you are. Although eventually mentors and mentees often become peers, at the beginning your mentor should not even be close to being your peer. “If you’re not shaking when you introduce yourself, they’re not high up enough,” she said.

Sometimes mentors will actually find you, Snyder said. “If you’re doing interesting things, people will come to you.”

Walk through open doors. The last question of the night came from a young entrepreneur in the audience: What’s one thing you wish you’d known when you were first starting out? All of the panelists gave thoughtful responses, many of which are included above. Gravagna had the final word, and her concise answer requires no further explanation: “Walk through open doors.”