Cynthia Breazeal has never considered herself a woman entrepreneur. An entrepreneur? Yes. A leader? Certainly. But gender really has never come into play as she expanded her company Jibo, the maker of the world’s first family robot.

    Still, today is Women’s Entrepreneur Day, a global movement to celebrate and support female founders and shed light on some of their challenges. So Fortune interviewed Breazeal, as well as Susan Coelius Keplinger, the co-founder of online ad platform Triggit, about their experiences building their respective companies from scratch. Both women are part of Fortune’s 2014 class of Most Promising Entrepreneurs.

    “The world would certainly be a better place if we had more women entrepreneurs,” said Breazeal. “Women are going to bring a different angle to startups. The stereotype is that it is all young geeky guys and that is not true. It is critical for women to become entrepreneurs because of their unique perspective.”

    Edited excerpts:

    Fortune: Give me a little background on your company.

    Susan Coelius Keplinger: We started the company in 2005, and we started doing similar things with ads that we are doing now. It didn’t make sense to us why an advertisement on Yahoo’s homepage would sell for hundreds of dollars, but an ad on a blog shown to the same person would be some for 40 cents. If it is really about the person and the audience, it shouldn’t matter what page that person it on. We are trying to build products and get access to an audience regardless of the site itself.

    Cynthia Breazeal: Jibo is building the world’s first family robot. It’s like R2D2 and an iPad had a baby. It’s the world’s first social robot. I founded the company in 2012 and now is the time to bring it to the world.

    How would you describe the stage that your company is at right now?

    SK: It’s the rise of native advertising [advertorials, essentially], but less so from a deceptive standpoint. We have fallen into this really cool space. It used to be that people thought online advertising would never work because it wasn’t good for the user experience. Now we are evolving toward an experience where advertising doesn’t stand in opposition with the content. If the ads are good, you’ll engage with them.

    CB: Now we are going from the prototype to the actual manufacturer. Making that switch is the main focus right now, as well as finishing the software and getting the hardware manufactured. We are also looking to develop our developer community. We are busy. It is a lot of engineering, but we are cranking through it all.

    What were some of your initial challenges raising your first round of funding?

    SK: As much as it wasn’t fun raising money in the middle of the recession, it is what enabled us to succeed. At the time there were not as many companies getting started. We raised $2 million in angel funds that helped us create and find a business. We used that as largely innovation money, so when we went to VCs for our first funding round we were ready to create a product and enter the market. It’s important to find people that want to invest in you and are willing to change our strategy a bunch and help you find a product that works. I think a lot of people write off that support. If you can find seed investors, angel investors who really believe you, there is not a better situation.

    辛西娅•布雷西亚从来不认为自己是女创业家。创业家？是的。领导者？当然。但她在带领公司Jibo蓬勃发展的时候，从来没有受到性别问题的影响。Jibo是世界第一款家用机器人的制造商。

    今天是女性创业日，作为一项全球性活动，“女性创业日”的目的是鼓励和支持女性创业者，了解她们遇到的挑战。因此，《财富》杂志（Fortune）采访了布雷西亚和在线广告平台Triggit的联合创始人克利乌斯•凯普林格，了解她们白手起家进行创业的经历。两人均被评为《财富》2014年“最有前途的创业家”（Most Promising Entrepreneurs）。

    布雷西亚说道：“如果有更多女性投身创业，我们的世界将变得更好。女性将从不同的角度来诠释创业。人们总是认为，进行创业的都是年轻的书呆子们，这是错误的。女性参与创业的关键就在于她们的独特视角。”

    以下是经过编辑的采访内容摘录：

    《财富》：简单介绍一下你的公司吧。

    苏珊•克利乌斯•凯普林格：我们在2005年成立了这家公司，最初的业务与现在类似，都与广告有关。当时我们不明白为什么雅虎（Yahoo）主页上的一则广告可以卖到数百美元，而出现在博客上的广告却只有40美分，即便可能是同样的人在看这些广告。如果说广告的关键是受众，那与受众浏览的页面又有什么关系？我们正努力开发一些产品，向受众展示广告，而不必考虑网站本身的差异。

    辛西娅•布雷西亚：Jibo正在生产全球第一款家用机器人。这款机器人是R2D2和iPad的结合体。这是全世界第一款社交机器人。我在2012年成立了这家公司，现在正在努力将它推向全世界。

    你如何描述公司目前所处的阶段？

    SK：目前公司处在原生广告[实质上是社论式广告]增长的阶段，但并非从欺骗性的角度。我们现在已经进入了这一很酷的阶段。以前人们认为在线广告不会成功，因为在线广告的用户体验较差。而现在我们正在开发一种全新的体验，使广告不会与内容冲突。只要是好广告，就一定能吸引受众。

    CB：现在我们正在从原型设计转向实际生产。这是我们目前的重中之重，其他工作还包括完成软件开发，进行硬件生产等。此外，我们计划培养自己的开发者社区。我们非常忙碌。有大量的工程设计工作要做，我们将全力以赴。

    进行第一轮融资时遇到了哪些挑战？

    SK：虽然在经济衰退的形势下进行融资并不轻松，但这却是我们成功的关键。当时创业公司没有现在那么多。我们从天使基金那里获得了200万美元，这笔资金帮助我们创建了一家公司。我们将那笔投资大部分用作创新资金，所以，在首轮风投融资时，我们已经开发出一款产品，并准备将其推向市场。重要的是找到想要给你投资，并且愿意改变我们的策略并协助找到一款有效产品的人。找到愿意相信你的种子投资者，没有比这更美好的事情了。

    CB: The first round was a seed round. I was actually approached by a partner within a VC firm, and the partner felt that there was an opportunity around a new product category of robots in the home. We started talking because of my expertise in robotics, and I was at a point in my carer where I was interested in commercializing the work that I had done academically [Breazeal is an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT]. Things move really fast pace in the entrepreneur world and time is money. You are having to make the best decisions you can with incomplete information.

    What are some of the biggest myths about being a ‘woman entrepreneur’?

    SK: There are plenty of stories, and I have been in plenty of situations when I was younger, where male investors wanted to sleep with me and they didn’t want to do business with me. Yes, there are some bad eggs out there that are men, but there are some women who are equally as snotty. Sexism exists, especially if you are young and good looking, but those are not the type of people you want to be around anyway. I don’t know how to make an asexual society. We are in a time right now when a huge set of swell is coming. There are a bunch of waves that are terrible that you don’t want to ride, but there are also a bunch of awesome waves that seem crazy – but you be great if you got on top of them. If you go to raise money and you find a guy that is an ass, move on. You have to remember that even if you have a good idea, people could still say no 100 times.

    CB: I think I am lucky because I am trying to do something that has never been done before, so the focus is on that and not me and my gender. My credibility is not in question here. So the focus is on where it needs to be which is what we are trying to do. I have always been on the forefront of innovation, so the attention has always been on the robots I built rather than on me. I think being an entrepreneur is hard no matter what gender you are.

    What advice do you have for female entrepreneurs just starting out?

    SK: Learning how to be comfortable with risk and failure is really important. If you are not comfortable with failure, it can really be so scary. If you know that those small failures are Okay, then suddenly it does not become so scary. You want to be calculated about the risks that you take.

    CB: The thing that fascinated me about women, is that women just make it work. We juggle a crazy amount of things and we make it work. So much of launching your own startup is dealing with all the things that come at your from all these angles and you have to make it work. Women already do that every day. I don’t think women should be intimated by it, I think they should think they are at an advantage.

    CB：第一轮是种子投资。当时有一家风险投资公司的合伙人找到我，他认为一款新型家用机器人产品中蕴含着商机。因为我拥有机器人科学的专业知识，并且我当时也很有兴趣将学术上的成果商业化[布雷西亚是麻省理工学院（MIT）媒体艺术与科学副教授]，因此我们开始交谈。在创业领域，形势瞬息万变，时间就是金钱。你必须在信息不全面的情况下，做出最好的决定。

    作为“女性创业家”，你遇到的最大的误解是什么？

    SK：我遭遇过的误解有很多。在我年轻的时候，经常遇到有些男性投资者只想跟我上床，而不是跟我做生意。没错，有些男人非常无耻，但也有一些女性令人厌恶。对女性的性别歧视确实存在，尤其是对年轻貌美的女性，但你肯定不想围着这类人转悠。我不知道如何实现一个无性别歧视的社会。如今，我们就像站在一波汹涌袭来的巨浪前面一样。有些海浪令人望而生畏，你不想卷入其中，而有一些海浪看起来很可怕，但如果你能乘风破浪站在浪尖，那将是很棒的感觉。如果你在融资的时候遇到一个卑鄙小人，这时你应该放下这件事，继续前进。你必须要记住，即便你有很好的想法，还是会不断遭到拒绝。

    CB：我很幸运，因为我在做的事情之前从未有人做过，因此人们更加关注这一点，而不是我本人或我的性别。我的信誉毋庸置疑。于是人们将注意力放到了应该关注的地方——我们在做的事情。我一直都在创新的最前沿，所以我开发的机器人比我本身更引人关注。我认为，创业是一个艰难的过程，这与性别无关。

    你对刚刚起步的女性创业者有什么建议？

    SK：学会坦然面对风险和失败非常重要。如果你不能坦然面对失败，你只会对它心怀恐惧。如果你知道这些小失败没什么大不了，突然之间你会发现失败变得不再可怕。你需要提前认真考虑自己要承担的风险。

    CB：身为女性，让我自豪的是，我们总是能让事情正常运行起来。我们要尽力应付各种各样的事情，而且最终总能将其解决。而创业很大程度上就是处理从不同方面交到你手里的事务，并且你必须将这些事情妥善解决。其实，女性每天都在这样做。我认为女性不应对此感到害怕，而是应该将其作为自己的优势。（财富中文网）

    翻译：刘进龙/汪皓