By Kseniya Sovenko

Lauren Curtis walks into a Belltown bar. She’s attending one of the many socialization events tailored for individuals involved with startups in the Seattle area. This particular one is called “Startup Drinks.”

Once inside, Curtis looks right and left. Suddenly, she realizes she’s one of only three or four women in a room full of 70 men.

Perhaps another recognizable female is lost to dim lighting or the crowd, but for a brief second, Curtis feels a little awkward. After the brief discomfort passes, however, she remembers she’s in her normal work environment.

Of every 100 established tech startups, only three are founded and led by women. The nation’s leading companies—Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon—employ a female workforce that averages at 15 percent for tech-specific jobs. Though it’s a leading tech capital, Seattle doesn’t fare any better when it comes to female participation in technology and entrepreneurship.

Curtis, a 30-year-old single mom living in Ballard, is one of the few women who defies those statistics. A web and user experience designer for mobile apps, she’s been in the tech industry for 10 years. In January, she co-founded Laud Social, a mobile app that provides tools for marketers and small business owners to start meaningful conversations with their customers on social media platforms.

“At least 90 percent of the people I see at startup events are men,” she said. “You feel like everyone is watching you when you come in as a woman, especially since my interest in fashion comes through my clothing choices.”

The idea for Laud Social originated from Curtis’ preceding startup, Seneca & Spruce, which established an e-commerce platform for independent fashion designers in the Northwest. Because she struggled to promote her startup in a world dominated by retail giants, Curtis wanted to build a tool that would allow anyone to market their small business on the go.

It was the city’s startup culture that gave her the final push to pursue her entrepreneurial ambitions, she said. Despite the gender disparity, she added, there is tremendous support for those pursuing their own startups.

“Coming from large corporations, where everybody is looking out for themselves, I’m actually surprised and impressed by the support from the startup scene here,” she said. “Everyone is looking out for each other.”

Based on her experience, low female participation in the tech industry can be attributed to the lack of encouragement young girls receive growing up. Stigma against risk-taking for women who have families presents another barrier, she suggested.

But, in gauging the unprecedented options available to her 9-year-old daughter for pursuing tech interests, including computer programming language classes at school and engineering toys for girls, Curtis has hope that women will soon dominate the field.

“We have to tell them they can do these things from an early age,” said Tom Kirkby, the other founder of Laud Social, who has been writing code since he was 14-years-old. “There’s absolutely no reason why a woman can’t do something as well, or better, than a man.”

Kirkby emphasized that without Curtis’ creativity, ingenuity and drive to persevere, their company could not exist in its current form.

When asked how many hours a day she dedicates to Laud Social, Curtis simply chuckled. When she’s not with her daughter, she dedicates all her time to the startup, usually 12-hours a day. For Curtis, pursuing a startup came hand-in-hand with ample opportunity for personal growth and new skill building.

“I’m not working 10 or 12 hours for someone else’s dreams to come true,” she said. “All of that time and energy goes to fulfilling my own.”