The Blurb CEO shows gender makes no difference when it comes to business.

The minute I meet Eileen Gittins, the CEO of Blurb, I liked her. She's warm, direct and funny. She's one of those women who you know would give you a straight answer if you asked her a direct question. I want to know more about her story. How did she get from being ‘an artist at heart’ to one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in San Francisco generating $45million in revenue in 2009 and shipping 1.2 million books to more than 60 countries?

And how did she manage to get VC funding of over $1million when just 5.7 per cent out of a total of more than $20 billion of VC funding in North America goes to companies with female bosses? What is about Eileen that makes her just successful?

I ask Eileen about how she started the business. She talks about the ‘kitchen cabinets’ she held, where she would group her friends and share her ideas. The more people she told about her business, the more she became confident in her ideas. This openness and exchange of ideas is something she says is fundamental to Blurb today.

The thing that most struck me is when I ask her about whether it was a struggle getting funding she looks perplexed. Its almost as if it never entered her mind that her gender would be an issue despite the facts showing how difficult women can find it. She laugh and tells me;

‘VC’s don’t care if you are a horse, as long as they can make money from you.’

Eileen is not intimidated in a room of men ‘thinking they know best.’ She knows she knows best. She says she learned two valuable lessons in getting VC funding: the first was be crystal clear about what you do - you can’t expect anyone to invest in you if they don’t understand what you do. The second lesson was to have a big vision.  Blurb’s vision is to democratise publishing and give everyone in the world a voice- far more impressive than trying to ‘encourage people to self-publish.’ This is already becoming a reality with Blurb for Good, which allows philanthropists and nonprofits to create and use books as a mean to generate awareness for social causes.

I can’t help feeling that there is an even bigger lesson to learn from Eileen, one we don’t speak about in our interview. A lesson every woman should adhere to: the art of being fearless. Not caring about or even noticing we are pitching our business to men or women. Not caring if we get rejected. Not needing to be reassured at every level. Culturally women, are still taught to be ‘obedient’ and the word ‘ambition’ is still used in a derogatory way when associated with women. Eileen turns these outdated notions upside down.

Ask forgiveness not permission.  The most useful lesson to each and every female entrepreneur.