Girls In Tech is proud to present our Founders Forum — a panel discussion with four truly amazing startup founders who will be sharing their entrepreneurial journeys.

We will be joined by:

Peter Fishman – Co-Founder of Mozart Data

Georgene Huang – Founder/CEO of Fairygodboss

Tom Petit – Co-Founder of Landis

Amanda Zuckerman – Founder/CEO of Dormify

Get to know more about our panelists below and read their thoughts on what’s helped to make them successful and what other founders can do to better achieve their goals. You can also sign up for the event here.

Peter Fishman

Peter Fishman is the CEO and co-founder of Mozart Data. He has over a decade of running data and data-adjacent teams at startups in a variety of industries, including gaming, social, HR/benefits, real estate, and cannabis. When he realized that he was building the same types of modern data stacks at each company, he teamed up with a close friend to start Mozart Data in 2020 and make it easy for anyone to gather data, automate reporting, and generate insights. He also co-founded Bacon Hot Sauce in 2010, which sold hundreds of thousands of bottles of hot sauce.

Georgene Huang

“My advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs is to go for it! Do your research, test out your idea with family or friends (or generous volunteers), and at the end of the day if you’re confident in your business or idea then don’t wait for the perfect moment to start, start now. You don’t have to drop out of school or direct all of your focus to it right away, but start building your business and test your ideas throughout the journey. And with that, be open to constant innovation. I’ve learned that my job changes every year or so (if not more than that). What I had to do in order to be successful last year is not the same thing I need to do to be successful this year, and so forth. In order to succeed over the long run, you really have to be ready to adapt very rapidly to every new situation and challenge you come across.”

Georgene Huang is obsessed with helping women achieve their career goals. She’s the CEO and Co-founder of Fairygodboss, the largest career community for women. Fairygodboss provides millions of women with community advice, connections, jobs, events and exclusive company intel from other women. Previously she ran the enterprise business at Dow Jones and was a Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures. She is a graduate of Cornell and Stanford Universities.

Tom Petit

“My one piece of advice to other founders is this: don’t be afraid of failing. Instead, try to fail as much and as often as possible. This is something I learned the hard way. In my education and my previous jobs, my success was measured by the absence of mistakes. I carried this over in entrepreneurship: towards the beginning of our journey, I avoided taking risks. I wouldn’t ask for what the company needed because I feared rejection. I wouldn’t release products early enough because I thought they might not be ready. Although I’m still learning to take on more risk, I’m getting more comfortable with failure and rejection, and out of those risky initiatives has come a lot of successes.”

Tom Petit is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of homeownership platform Landis (www.landis.com). Through coaching and technology, Landis empowers renters to overcome barriers to a mortgage and to purchase their dream home. Tom is thrilled to be building a company that helps people ensure their financial future, together with his friend and co-founder Cyril Berdugo.

Tom is originally from Belgium and trained as a mathematician at Cambridge, where he developed his interest in leveraging data and technology to improve people’s lives. His first job was as a school teacher in Kazakhstan. More conventionally, he also held positions at the intersection of data science and strategy at Airbnb, HelloFresh and Cairneagle. True to his home country, Tom is a huge fan of chocolate.

Amanda Zuckerman

Amanda Zuckerman wasn’t an ordinary college student. After facing the challenges of trying to shop for her own college dorm room decor prior to her freshman year, Amanda sought out to change the experience. While double majoring in Graphic Design and Marketing at Washington University in St. Louis, she rallied her friends to create Dormify, which at the time was a dorm-focused blog and brand ambassador community. What Amanda didn’t realize was this was just the beginning of the story.

Post-college, Amanda took the feedback from her peers via her blog and her personal experience and with the help of her entrepreneurial mother, Karen Zuckerman, evolved Dormify into what it is today, a highly successful, direct-to-consumer, one-stop-shop for home decor for college students and teens.

Amanda was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018 and since officially launching in 2013, the mother-daughter duo have successfully turned their idea into a bonafide, GenZ focused lifestyle brand with a cult following.

You can hear more from our panelists on Thursday, November 4 at 4:00 P.M. ET. Sign up here!