Skimlinks is an online company that maximises the ability for publishers to earn revenue from their content. Skimlinks’ CEO Alicia Navarro is one of the few female tech entrepreneurs in the UK, a characteristic that she has found beneficial in catching attention and earning trust from clients.

When the recession led to extremely hard times for Alicia, she created skimbit.com in Australia, a website that acted as a decision marketing tool. Alicia, and Skimlinks co-founder Jon Stepniewski, were forced to reconsider their business strategy in order to launch into the European tech market and in 2008, they launched Skimlinks.com.

By removing the administration and technical complexities from the online publishing process, Alicia hoped to provide publishers with the revenue and recognition they deserved for their role. By adding a ‘Skimlink’ code to their online template, publishers of blogs, forums and applications, are able to monitor and monetise customer activity.

Alicia has a Bachelor in Information and Technology and achieved the University Medal for Computing Science at the University of Technology, Sydney. Before launching skimlinks.com, Alicia worked for over 10 years designing and launching internet and mobile-based applications in Australia and the UK. Companies included Vodafone, IBM and Optus.

Despite its relatively short existence, Skimlinks has managed to achieve a startling number of accolades. Alicia was named in Management Today’s ’35 Women Under 35’, which focused on entrepreneurial women who thrived despite the economic difficulties. Skimlinks was winner of the A4U Awards and reached the finals of the Startup Awards.

Skimlinks has already raised around $2 million. By securing clients before the launch, Skimlinks were fortunate enough to have backing before their idea had materialised. Now, their major investors include NESTA, The Accelerator Group and Sussex Place Adventures. Despite major competition from a merged US company who have backing from Google Ventures, Alicia is determined that her upcoming move to fiercely promote Skimlinks in Silicon Valley combined with their establishment in the UK, will soon make them the front runner in aiding publishing revenue.

Under the management of Alicia Navarro, Skimlinks is sure to rapidly expand and fill a niche market to provide online publishers with the income they deserve.

Written by Emma McWhinney

Women Entrepreneurs Reveal Their Secrets of Success

Young Female Entrepreneur, Gemma Stone, started her company Rock and Ruby after she took redundancy once the Granada, ITV merger occurred.

She had been working in an event management capacity at the time and felt that it was her time to make a mark in the industry.

Gemma founded her own event management firm, Rock and Ruby in 2004. The company has grown rapidly and has acquired large clients such as Tesco, The London Film Festival & The Miss Great Britain Final. It was the natural for her to start a company in the event management industry as that is what she has been doing since college.

Mrs Stone also has kept the company financially stable by not taking out an expensive bank loan. Instead it has been funded by herself and her partner. The majority coming through the redundancy payment she received.

So what was the greatest challenge when starting her business?

Well she says it was deciding on a name. “After four months of deliberation, research, arguments and meetings we decided the first name we ever wrote down was the one,” she says. “Of course there are challenges all the time but that’s what makes running your own company so satisfying.”

She admitted that it was very daunting to start with; the thought of going it alone is often a scary one for many first time entrepreneurs and is often the cause of why many people never go through with an idea.

Mum of two Gemma, knows the importance of achieving a balance between her work and her home life.

“I am probably part of the smallest statistic of entrepreneurs – under 30, female, mother of two, without a degree,” she says. “But I work hard, enjoy what I do and am motivated to be a loving and giving mother and a successful businesswoman. If there are barriers in my path then I say ‘bring it on!’”

It’s this attitude that gives confidence that the company will do well.

Soraya Darabi is the founder of social networking food site Foodspotting. The site lets you find and upload specific dishes as opposed to restaurants. Foodspotting allows you to take a picture of the dish you’re eating and upload it to the website as well as giving you a chance to find some interesting dishes when visiting someplace new.

Soraya seeks her success through social media as shown by her career to date.

Soraya founded Foodspotting less than a year ago (at the time of writing), in December 2009 and has seen rapid growth on the website. The site is one that can only get better, as the more people join the more enriched range of foods and locations will be available. Foodspotting is great for casual and passionate users and has a twitter style follow option as well as a points system.

Prior to Foodspotting a 23 year old Darabi found herself with a job at The NY Times where she implemented social media integration for The NY times including a presence on Facebook and Twitter. Her social media prowess led her to winning first prize at the INMA Awards for excellence in marketing.

This determined young entrepreneur is pushing the way forward for other young female entrepreneurs, “We need more young women starting companies” she says, and with over half a million followers on twitter there are plenty of people listening.

Soraya was given the accolade of 53rd place in the top 100 most creative people in business 2010 list. She is the social media queen and always seems to know where the social media trends are, why?

“I get information from my peers,” Darabi says simply.

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