Success in Tech Isn’t More Money, It’s More Women
I was twelve when my dad told me that as a woman of colour, I’ll have to work twice as hard as my non-WOC peers. The startup ecosystem is no exception, but in a field where your ability to innovate and reinvent the wheel is a make or break, being different is your greatest advantage. And what’s more innovative for startups than breaking the norm and getting more women involved in tech?
Here are four reasons why the startup ecosystem needs more #girlboss women.
[1] Women see different problems as founders
‘Identity’ is a mix of factors made up of your gender, race, and religion amongst others. Each facet of your identity places you uniquely to see the world in a different light. As an entrepreneur who spends a lot of time solving problems, the problems you see are heavily influenced by this identity, as they can give you a new perspective over your market or competitors.
This is especially true for women who are able to address issues and open up new markets which they have a unique insight into — after all, women make up roughly half of the world’s population. Despite this, most products in the tech or startup world don’t always consider a gendered approach. However, many startups run by women are increasingly tapping into female-focused products with huge market potential.
Examples of this are the up and coming startups under the banner of ‘Femtech’. Carrot Fertility is an app that informs women about the egg and embryo freezing process. Similarly, Flo Health has created an app for menstrual cycle management that uses AI to predict cycles.
Both startups have aimed to solve problems in areas that are unique to women. Given this, tech businesses with female founders and teams, who are out to service female needs, have the opportunity to be highly lucrative.
My dream as a twelve year old, to build a wardrobe that could curate your outfit each day based on the weather, wasn’t such a crazy idea after all!
An article published by Forbes earlier this year highlights 50 women-led startups that are rapidly changing the tech industry. I highly recommend giving this article a read for insight into the future of women in tech.
[2] Women have statistically higher EQ and can change the way your startup operates
A 2016 study into the emotional intelligence of female and male leaders concluded that on average, females outperformed males in all 12 EQ competencies within a sample size of 55,000 professionals. By having a high aptitude for empathy, women are able to better understand their customers and their unique pain points — ultimately curating better products, user interfaces, services and end-to-end experiences and benefits.
Startups themselves are obsessed with the best user and customer experiences. The success of companies such as Amazon and Uber can be attributed to their being so in tune with the needs of their customers.
For a startup, understanding your target demographic is key and for any company, keeping morale high is also an important factor to consider. Women often excel in positions such as community and operations managers because they are able to understand their team members well and help create a stronger workplace culture. In both aspects, a stronger female presence can only be a plus.
It doesn’t surprise me that when I look back, all the leadership teams that I had been a part of since early primary were split evenly, if not with more females. When you forget the politics and external factors that hold women back, we’re actually pretty amazing at what we do.
[3] Female-led startups create more revenue
Female-led startups receive significantly less funding than startups founded by males. A study conducted by the Boston Consulting Group into the performance of early-stage startups observed that:
Female-founded startups receive approximately one million dollars less in funding, despite producing almost two times as much revenue for every dollar invested.
Within BCG’s sample of startups, female founders or co-founders were able to generate 78 cents for every dollar invested, while male founded startups generated only 31 cents. Female-led startups also produced 10% more in cumulative revenue over a five-year period. This goes to show that women aren’t just worth every penny, but have the ability to make back the dosh too! BCG’s findings concluded that this difference occurs due to three main reasons:
- Pitches by female founders receive more pushback and criticism
- Male founders are more likely to be overly optimistic with growth and revenue projections
- Male investors understand little about the product offerings in predominantly female markets.
Although the success of female startup founders in creating revenue can be traced back to these three systemic issues, one thing is glaringly obvious — these problems are no match for the tenacity and drive of these founders.
Which gets me thinking… how much revenue could I have made by now if I got my dad to invest in my high tech wardrobe? As a twelve year old whose knowledge of tech extended only to a Nintendo DSi, probably not much!
[4] Simply put, a more diverse startup has wider appeal
One of the reasons BCG finds less funding for female founders is that male investors simply don’t understand female markets. Similarly, startups that are made up of significantly male leadership lose the valuable insights that females are able to bring, whether that be in product strategy or backend development. It’s important that a startup is able to represent its customers ( as diverse as they come) and address their pain points by having a similarly diverse team.
So how can we solve the lack of women in tech? Simple — actively hiring more women! Many entrepreneurs see an important snowball effect in employing more women. In general, the more women who begin to see the startup ecosystem as a viable career path, the more women will follow suit. It’s difficult to be what you can’t see, and an entire generation of young women like myself will benefit greatly from seeing ambitious female founders and executives succeeding in the startup space.
So I’ll be taking my dad’s advice and working twice as hard, but if the success of other incredible women in this space is anything to go by, I’m sure I can yield twice the results too.
This piece was written by Textbook Ventures — we organise startup events, write newsletters and cater exciting activities for student entrepreneurs across NSW (sign up to our weekly newsletter and check out our Facebook to stay in the loop!)
