I made the print edition of the D&C last Sunday, something that surprised me no end given the run of significantly more print-worthy blog posts online, and specifically the run of online contributions by newly added women bloggers. That's not to say that excellent RocNext posts by women are a new thing, just that the string of four or five in a row is a reminder of how involved in entrepreneurship women are, how exciting that is, and how important it is to trumpet that fact that entrepreneurs come in all sexes (and for that matter all colors, all nationalities, and all ages).

I say none of the above about women in order to be appealing; rather, it's a jumping-off point for my recent epiphany that women may be cutting-edge examples of the "lean startups" concept that's pervasive now. As I've written before about "leanness," this is a fairly recent idea that startups succeed only when: 1) they recognize that all their theories about what should sell don't mean anything when they actually hit the market, so that 2) success for a startup requires a) developing minimum viable product as quickly as possible and b) testing that product in the market in order to c) redesign (pivot) the product and the company to what does actually have appeal in the market.

And what is it about women that suits them particularly well to this approach? The answer is that women tend to exhibit the basic abilities critical to lean entrepreneurs. They tend to be less arrogant, they tend to listen, they tend to be a trifle more cooperative -- all the things you must have if you want to actually interact with potential customers, rather than with the walls of your basement, veal-fattening pen or other form of isolation center.

Call this a manifestation of the Athena Principal, which most generally is the assertion that women have a huge amount to contribute to the world because of some talents that associate more with women than the opposite sex. Admittedly the Athena I recall from Greek history wasn't all that touchy-feely -- this is after all the girl that emerged in full armor from her father's head, which to me isn't an example of pink-ribbon-and-bows femininity.

But that's the point after all: women are as multi-faceted as men, and if these are traits that women tend to be better at, then we should teach those skills to the other 50%. Because entrepreneurship isn't for any particular group; it's for anyone, and it's for everyone.

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