Always Building, From the Garage to Her Company
Ms. Ellsworth, 45, is a self-taught computer hacker and chip designer who recently started a new augmented reality gaming company, Tilt Five, based in San Jose, Calif. She is emblematic of a generation of Silicon Valley hobbyists who were passionate about computers and only later turned their passions into commercial enterprises. She originally gained visibility as an independent computer chip designer living in a rural ramshackle farmhouse in Yamhill, Ore.
Ms. Ellsworth was able to squeeze the entire circuitry of a decades-old Commodore 64 home computer onto a single advanced silicon chip, which she then tucked neatly into a joystick that was connected by a cable to a TV set. Called the Commodore C64 Direct-to-TV, her device was able to run 30 video games, mostly sports, racing and puzzle games from the early 1980s, all without the hassle of changing game cartridges.
In 2013, she created castAR, a start-up based in Palo Alto, Calif., to design an augmented reality company that planned to design a system to support desktop 3-D gaming. Ultimately, the company raised more than $1 million in a Kickstarter campaign, then gave the money back when it was unable to raise a second round of financing. With other castAR employees, Ms. Ellsworth acquired the original technology from investors and has used it to start Tilt Five, which has raised $1.3 million in Kickstarter funding.
What obstacles have you faced in your field?
There are lots of obstacles in Silicon Valley, especially for a female entrepreneur. The money that female entrepreneurs can raise is dismal compared to men. It’s like 2 percent. It rewards the kind of male bravado where you go in and get a fist bump and get a bunch of money. That’s how it feels. There’s been some really disheartening surveys recently. They followed 300 women and 300 men, and then they determined, what questions do venture capitalists ask men versus women and men get asked, “tell me all about the upside,” while women are asked, “tell me how you’re going to defend yourself from the marauders.” And so that’s been a bit of a challenge for me.
I try to be fearless when it comes to technology, and I try to adopt it as fast as possible.