Interview two women entrepreneurs find out whether they believe the tasks of being an entrepreneur any different for them than for their male counterparts. What are the disadvantage & advantage of female entrepreneur? Are these different substantial or minor?
When you are debating with someone, it is easy to pull out one anecdote or fact that furthers just one point of view. TechCrunch posts about women have done that of late. A recent article claimed that women don’t want to run startups and that they would rather have children instead.
If you consider TechCrunch, this viewpoint makes some sense. They are focused on Silicon Valley, where young white men start most of the companies and traits like aggression and arrogance are positively rewarded. These companies need to grow rapidly in order to stay ahead of the trend. In the world of entrepreneurship, there will be some women who would rather have children than run lifestyle business. Startups require ridiculous amounts of work, and most are doomed to failure. That being said – many men feel exactly the same way. They don’t want the stress either. Many women have had children while running startups and many others have also chosen to not have children.
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In recent research done into startup companies, there were some very interesting findings. It was found that the average age of a successful tech company founder is 39. Founders of these companies tend to be married and generally have two or more children. They tend to start these companies because they are tired of working for someone else and want to make their own money with which to retire. They use their work experience to their advantage. The biggest hindrance to people taking this leap is a fear of failure.
The question we ask is: What is the difference between male and female founders? The findings were very surprising. There were almost no differences between male and female founders. Both males and females wanted to increase their wealth, capitalize on great ideas, were attracted to the startup culture, had wanted to own their own company for years, and were tired of working for someone else. One key difference, however – business partners gave women slightly more money than men. The ages of male and female founders were on average the same too. Also, both male and female founders started their companies with similar numbers of kids. The only difference was that men were more likely to be married.
There is an imbalance coming in on the tech side though. In 1985, 37% of computer science students were female. Today it is 19%. It is thought that this comes from the fact that many girls aren’t encouraged by their parents to pursue math and science in school and study them further. Just one percent of high-tech startups have a woman as a CEO, and there are next to no women as chief technology officers.
When speaking to big players in the tech game, it came out that many of them said that their success depends on hiring the best people for the job. These companies knew they were missing out on good talent because of the stereotype that women don’t make good tech people.
One of the ways around this is to interview at least one woman for each open position in the company. This doesn’t mean they should hire people who aren’t the best for the position, but it ensures that they get to see a broad range of candidates. In the experience of these companies, when those hiring had the chance to meet female job seekers, they were more likely to hire females. To level it further, all companies should also consider having at least one woman on the hiring team.
These are just small ways we can change things. All that’s necessary is to break down these dangerous stereotypes. Discriminating against people is always wrong, no matter what criteria we use. If we all work together we can solve a problem that we all know to exist.
If you are a woman thinking about starting a business, it is important to know that you have a lot of advantages in doing so. If you are a guy, well, it’s time to get back in touch with your feminine side.
Disadvantages Being a Woman Entrepreneur:
We have a tendency to
Think multi-tasking is normal and pride ourselves at being good at it.
Have an “I’ll do-it-myself attitude”.
Not even consider hiring a team of helpers like housekeepers, personal assistants, accountants, virtual assistants and business coaches until it’s absolutely necessary.
Have a problem receiving. So we either charge less than our male competitors or forget to put ourselves on the payroll.
Focus almost completely on the day-to-day tasks and are reluctant to set goals or make business plans.
Want our work to be perfect more than we want it to be profitable.
Not really know what our business dreams are.
Believe the act of self-care to recharge ourselves is selfish.
Delay success by focusing more on “why” we are not doing something rather than pushing through the fear and just doing it.
All we have to do to overcome these disadvantages is change our beliefs.
Financial Barrier
One of the most significant barriers to female entrepreneurship is the capital financing barrier. When starting a business, entrepreneurs need to line up capital to get the business “off of the ground.” According to Mai Nguyen, female entrepreneurs often get their initial funding from family loans, savings, credit cards and home equity loans. However, women can obtain capital from government startup programs, self-funding and venture capitalists, among other sources. When women have promising business ideas, it is less difficult for them to obtain startup capital. Therefore, having solid business plans with persuasive product or service ideas helps reduce the finance barrier for women.
Lack of Networks
Female entrepreneurs are more likely to encounter difficulty because they are less likely to be associated with networks of people who can help them launch and sustain businesses. “Networks” include people who provide mentorship, referrals, help and valuable information to entrepreneurs. Men tend to dominate the highest levels of corporate leadership. Therefore, there are fewer women available to provide valuable advice to female entrepreneurs. Women also face “customer/supplier” discrimination, which occurs when customers or suppliers discriminate against women-owned firms. In response, women business leaders can create their own networks to cultivate the success of female entrepreneurs. However, these networks should include men who can also be helpful to fund-raising, business strategy or other critical areas.
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Family Considerations
In the United States, women are more likely to shoulder a greater share of child-rearing duties. Children may demand their mothers’ undivided attention, which can be a challenge for female entrepreneurs to deal with. Building and running a new business requires a great deal of time, which may conflict with one’s family obligations. Women in this situation must balance their family life with their duties as entrepreneurs. For example, parents can communicate about the need to devote some time during the day solely on business, while other times can be devoted to family matters.
Confidence
Although both men and women can face issues of self-doubt, or lack confidence to compete in the business market, men do not suffer from the same degree of “prejudgment” as do women entrepreneurs. For example, male business leaders may not believe that their female counterparts can compete or innovate to the degree that men can. The basis of these views are stereotypes about women. Having female mentors and confidants can help instill self confidence in your abilities as a female entrepreneur.
Advantages Being a Woman Entrepreneur:
While female entrepreneurs only represent a small portion of the overall number of businesses in the country right now, make no mistake that percentage will continue to climb. The research shows that the growth of female owned businesses is growing at twice the rate of male owned ones. The more women take the leap and open their business, the more others will follow in line. And because of these advantages, among others, they should have a pretty good chance of succeeding. Below are advantages.
Social Networking:
Women are natural networkers. They love to talk, mingle, and rub elbows. This is the very reason why husbands rarely ever manage the social calendar. In today’s business environment, mastering social media is mandatory, and the ladies absolutely have a leg up!
Intuition:
They call it “women’s intuition” for a reason. Women in general can size up another person much faster than her male counterpart. In today’s ultra-fast paced business environment, you need the ability to quickly identify the allies and the enemies. Regardless if you are a male or female, you need to trust your gut.
Pain Tolerance:
Women definitely have an advantage in this area. This is irrelevant. But while children are born, women can handle a lot more than men can. It is not just physical pain, it is emotional too. In business world, there are a lot of painful moments during work.
Multi-tasking:
Women are known for juggling many tasks at the same time and still being able to produce excellent results. Conversely, the guys are masters at focusing on one thing. Still, the advantage in today’s distracting environment goes to women.
Patience:
Women inherently seem to have more patience. And in today’s business environment, patience is key. Aggressive business strategies are not paying off like they once did. Slow and steady wins the race in this category.
Listening:
A friend of mine went to buy a new bed at a small bedding store owned by a husband and wife team. The female owner approaches my friend and asked all kinds of questions about why they needed a new bed, if they could fix their old bed, what else they were considering, etc. She asked questions and listened closely. She clearly showed that she cared about helping to meet their needs. My friend was moments away from buying any bed that she recommended. But just then, the frustrated husband on the sales team ran up and said “let me handle this.” Then he just tried to hard close the sale. He was pushy, telling them what he recommended and what they had to have. Guess what? The sale was lost the second he began speaking! They walked out. I am sure he blamed her, but it was him. The key is to ask questions and really listen. Quite frankly, any great sales person knows this, man or woman, it just seems that the ladies are naturally better at doing it.
Common Factors
Gender Discrimination
Women entrepreneurs need to understand that it has always been and still is a man’s business world and that the male of the species is not going to make it easier for females to get a foothold. Interestingly enough, studies show that men may be the dominant force in society not because they want to, but that their sympathy for the suffering endured by their mothers as they struggle to nurture and raise the brood brings out the male’s protective instincts and this ultimately translates into men dominating and subjugating women.
Mothers need to coach their offspring to understand that the true value that the mother brings to the brood is much more than just nurturing the brood. They also need to understand that nurturing the family without the direct help and support of the male counterpart is as complex an achievement as starting and successfully running a small company in the business world.
Women entrepreneurs need to push that concept even further along and fight to be taken seriously by their male counterparts. They need to be more assertive and also to be prepared to deal with explosive situations which women tend to want to avoid unlike their male counterparts. They need to understand that when explosive situations are managed correctly, the results are no different than managing the set of explosions that comprise a good fireworks display.
Balancing Work and Family
Women entrepreneurs need to balance the mix of work and family. This is nothing more than proper time management. Society has deemed that because the woman spends 9 months gestating the fetus and then because she also lactates, she is expected to provide nurture and care for the brood while the father can take a hike and hunt or farm for food which she still has to prepare so that the brood can have sustenance. I hate to say it, and some of my male counterparts and my “born again Christian” friends will get on my case, but if God had been a woman, she would have balanced the responsibility for nurturing and caring for the brood across both male and female by making him lactate and suffer the same emotional and hormonal changes that accompany the close bonding between a suckling infant and a lactating parent. Then and only then would the male admit to how truly powerful it is to be a mother and at the same time aspire to perform tasks outside the nest.
The woman entrepreneur needs to make the male understand and accept the joint responsibility for everyday care of the brood. . She needs to strike a balance between caring for the family and working outside the nest.
Self Confidence
Women entrepreneurs need to believe in themselves and have confidence in the viability of the business ideas they bring to the table. They need to understand that it is not the idea that is great, but rather the execution of the business model behind the idea that leads to success and bring value to the business proposition. Women plan and execute as well as men and because they have less to prove themselves in a “Jockless Culture” they tend to be more productive more quickly.
Our male dominated culture is driven by our captivation with sports and combat and since most sports were invented to satisfy the yearnings of the males in society we have a tendency to believe that only males can be the quarterbacks or the gladiators. Women entrepreneurs need to make the men understand that if they give the women the weapons and step out of the way, they’ll see combat that they never thought possible.
Network Building
Lastly, women entrepreneurs need to spend time paving the way for the next generation of female entrepreneurs. Their male counterparts have been able until now to build their networks and “good old boys” clubs with no competition from the females. The woman entrepreneur needs to understand that she’ll continue to get minimal if any help from her male counterpart. She need to grab for the next rung on the ladder and pull herself up while leaving a map that her younger counterparts can easily follow. Today the woman entrepreneur is still a pioneer and she needs to come to grips with this.
Conclusion
Women entrepreneurs bring a different set of perspectives into decision making in the 21st century. They are an underutilized talent pool in an increasingly talent-constrained business environment and it is time they go after what they should have had from the very beginning.
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