Women Can Establish Purpose-Driven Companies? — Founder Club
Recently, I’ve been reading a report published by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, which tracks entrepreneurship across the world.
This particular report focused on female entrepreneurship. It included different aspects such as women's’ motivations and intentions, barriers, optimism towards opportunities, and their impacts entrepreneurship.
For the purpose of this post, I’m going to be focusing on their findings on female founders in Europe and North America, as these are the two regions that I have personally lived and founded companies in. Likewise, I can relate to the cultural and societal perspectives with a much better understanding.
Surprisingly, one of the findings was that the Total Entrepreneurship Average (TEA) for Women Entrepreneurs was much lower in high-income countries in North America and Europe, compared to those in Latin America or Sub-Saharan Africa.
Why is that?
In other words, they’re saying women in higher-income countries have the lowest participation rates in entrepreneurship.
Another interesting finding was the higher educated a woman is, especially true in Europe, the lower her participation in entrepreneurship was.
Even more surprisingly, our motivations as European and North American women are opportunity-driven rather than necessity-driven.
Well, that isn’t so surprising since it correlates with living in a high-income country. We don’t need to found companies out of necessity. We tend to evaluate whether or not there are opportunities presented to us for us to launch our ventures.
But what bothers me about these findings, as North American and European women, we are the most privileged, the most entitled, and the most “equalized”.
We have the most access to higher education, to family and friends who can support us, to opportunities around us.
We have the most access to female founder role models, whether via the media or people we know personally who have built their own companies.
So, why aren’t (North American & European) women founding more purpose-driven companies?
An interesting point presented by the report is when women start companies, it tends to be a solo-enterprise. Meaning, there is only one founder who has essentially created a job for herself.
This isn’t surprising as another report I read by the OECD, mentioned that women are far more likely to build companies based on their hobbies and interests, compared to men who build companies based on the opportunity to make money.
Is this a reason why female founders receive only 2% of venture capital funding?
Is it because women don’t tend to create companies that will benefit society (or serve a significantly large market segment)?
While solo-entrepreneurship does help women support ourselves and our families, it doesn’t produce employment at large for the wider community.
Why aren’t women employing more women from our neighborhoods and communities?
The most shocking conclusion I came to, is that somehow female entrepreneurship is more selfish?
How could that be?
I thought, as women, we’re “more empathic, more humble and more collaborative”?
Why are we only founding businesses that only benefit oneself?
The second part of this article will be published soon!
I hope that you found this post insightful!
If you’re interested to learn how I can help you address specific bottlenecks in your startup, I also offer 1:1 consulting.
During our session, you can ask me specific questions about your startup ideas, operations, financials, recruiting, marketing, sales, and/or professional development.
Originally published at https://privatlux.squarespace.com on November 24, 2019.
