As recently as three years ago, only 17% of start-ups had a female founder, and almost 98% of all venture capital went to firms founded by men.

To flip these statistics and close Silicon Valley’s historic gender gap, here are some bold, insightful tips for making it as a female entrepreneur in the Valley:

1. Think Like a Market Leader to Become One. Visualize yourself as the market leader and then work backward to create a set of achievable steps that will help you build a multibillion dollar company. Don’t sell yourself short; think in billions.

2. Trust the Fate of Your Company to an A-Team. Hire only the best people, and then give them the autonomy to jointly make decisions and own the outcome of their choices. This increases their motivation to do well and create better products.

3. Build Elite, Cross-Functional Teams. Teams don’t have to be big to be effective. Creating small teams will drastically cut down meeting times and increase collaboration time between disciplines.

4. Play Games at Work (Yes, Really). Knowing your market is key to creating a business that succeeds. In the gaming industry, that means playing games with your team, as it allows discussion of how to make your product better while it facilitates bonding.

5. Pop the Silicon Valley Bubble. It’s imperative to create and study customer personas, especially in the bubble of Silicon Valley. Broadening your perspective with full immersion in the lives of your target customers will engender a more functional product.

6. Prioritize Action, But Measure Everything. You should always be moving as fast as possible to produce an MVP. However, you should also find the three metrics that matter most for business success and monitor them religiously. The data you collect will feed personalization algorithms.

– Kate Gorman

About the Author: Gorman, who led a team of 75 employees as the youngest director of product for American social game developer Zynga at only 25 years old, is now the founder, CEO and president of San Francisco, CA-based Fort Mason Games, fortmasongames.com. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in computer science from University of California, Berkeley.