1 in 4 startups are led by women and as the investors gender gap continues to grow, those who fund female entrepreneurs see greater returns.
It’s no secret that female entrepreneurs have a harder time finding access to funding. However, investors might want to pay a little more attention to female entrepreneurs and here’s why.
Female Entrepreneurs can do more with less
In most cases, women looking to start their own businesses are able to do these two things very effectively: be more efficient and productive with less time and needing less money or funding to start to grow their business. This is pretty much common knowledge, but research backs this up.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, in 2015 female entrepreneurs needed only half as much money to start their business as their male counterparts. While the typical woman invested $10,000 to get their business off the ground, male entrepreneurs invested $20,000.
Why is this?
Women tend to start their businesses later in life. Research suggests that women between the ages of 35-44 are more likely to launch a business, whereas men usually tend to start between 22-34. Again, you might be wondering where the relevance in this information lies, but I’m getting to that.
During their earlier years, the average women makes the choice to stay home and raise families in their 20s and 30s. Sure, they may have trained or gone to school for a particular career prior to raising their family but at this stage, they’re ready to dive back into the workforce. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to “do more with less” now does it?
Yes, it does.
Do “it” all mentality
Women in this age group still have children at home. More often than not – sorry dads out there – mom is still the primary caregiver. We embrace this role and work everything around it. These are the women that have less time overall, but who still have fierce determination to start and grow a business.
Despite all of the progress we’ve made as a society in terms of gender equality, we still expect women to do it all: be the primary caregiver, manage the household, be successful in their career or business and do it all with poise and grace. We still have far more responsibility in the home and the stats say it all; 85 per cent of women report spending time on household activities at home, only 67 per cent of men can say the same. This is stressful and more than a little frustrating (believe me, I know) but because of this pressure, we are able to step up to the plate and become masters of managing our time and money.