As mentioned in the prologue, our purpose in writing this book is to inspire wannabe entrepreneurs of all ages and life stages to take the entrepreneurial leap. Particularly women but also men â both those who have never given a thought to being an entrepreneur and those that have but have been held back by real or imagined barriers.
Itâs not a âpaint by numbersâ how-to handbook. There is no model path. But, as you will see, there are plenty of commonalities shared by successful female entrepreneurs. As Stephanie Wray, founder of Cresswell Associates, put it: âWe are all making it up as we goâ. We are sure that the disclosures, stories, successes, missteps and frustrations shared by our fifty-two female entrepreneurs will inspire others to have a go. Early on, we learnt that very few new enterprises are instant hits. Mostly itâs a labour of love and commitment over time when few are rooting for you except yourself and close family and advisors.
In Chapter One we cover:
- Setting the scene.
- The state of female entrepreneurship today.
- What do the research and data tell us?
- What does global best practice tell us?
- What is the solution?
- How this book came about â introducing Eileen and Sydney and Rachel.
SETTING THE SCENE
Before we look at how well female entrepreneurs are doing today, letâs look briefly at the meaning of entrepreneurship (and social entrepreneurship) and other variants of it, such as intrapreneurship, self-employment and interim executive work.
ENTREPRENEUR
According to etymologist David Lerner the term entrepreneur is loaned from French. The French word entreprendre means âto undertakeâ with entre deriving from Latin and meaning âbetweenâ. Itâs also close to a Sanskrit word meaning âself motivationâ. Apt!
Entrepreneurs are defined as âpeople who set up and run their own business (or businesses) taking on financial risks in the hope of profitâ. They work with and between others. They are a go-between, a collaborator, a connector, a builder of ideas, dreams and, occasionally, of bubbles.
Research by Scoreâs âThe State of Women Entrepreneursâ helpfully groups entrepreneurs into six categories:
- Potential entrepreneurs: those who see opportunities in their environments and have the desire and capabilities to start businesses.
- Intentional entrepreneurs: those who intend to start a business in the next three years.
- Nascent entrepreneurs: those who have taken steps to start a new business but have not yet paid salaries or wages for more than three months.
- New entrepreneurs: those who are running new businesses that have been in operation for between three months and forty-two months.
- Established business owners: those who are running a mature business, in operation for more than forty-two months.
- Discontinued entrepreneurs: those who, for whatever reason, have exited from running their own business.1
INTRAPRENEUR
Being an entrepreneur is a different but related state to being an intrapreneur. An intrapreneur is employed by an organisation and is given space to act like an entrepreneur, perhaps to develop ideas for new products and services and new approaches for their organisations.
The organisation takes all of the risk and losses, as well as, in most cases, the financial gain. Intrapreneurs benefit from the experience, which may encourage them to become an entrepreneur themselves in the future with their new-found knowledge and confidence.
Many entrepreneurs begin this way, believing that there is much to be learnt from established organisations that have been founded by an entrepreneur. Many household names started as âacornsâ, such as Mars, Bechtel, Rowntree, Amazon, Facebook, Aldi, Dassault, JCB, Porsche, VW and many more.
SELF-EMPLOYED OR FREELANCER
Being self-employed or a freelancer is also a popular choice â with self-employed people needing to accept risk in a similar way to entrepreneurs, as well as to find a gap in a market that they can make a living from. Many, if not most, are content with their self-employed status and remain as a single-person entity, in contrast to entrepreneurs who work with and through others.
Like entrepreneurs, the self-employed are often willing to take more risk in the hope of creating more reward. However, none of our interviewees said they were setting up their own business just for the financial reward. As you will see in Chapter Two, there are many catalysts, triggers and life events that lead people to become entrepreneurs.
Self-employment may develop into entrepreneurship when an idea takes off and the individual decides to ride its coat tails.
INTERIM EXECUTIVE
Of increasing popularity is the interim executive role lasting weeks, months and sometimes longer. Itâs popular with people who have worked in the corporate world as they can take a fleeting look at what itâs like to be self-employed. Some choose to do this role long-term to give them flexibility. Others choose it because they enjoy the variety, the often higher reward and some contractual security.
IN SUMMARY
The significance of these categories is to encourage people to reflect on which type of work will play to their strengths, ambition, constraints and needs.
For example, one of our interviewees built a successful artisan business employing no others. She then hatched a plan to grow and developed a business plan to realise this aspiration. But when thinking through the plan, she realised that growth would mean her having to step into managerial shoes away from her loved artisanship. Spelling out the plan gave her valuable insight on what this would mean for her day to day and it wasnât attractive.
Wannabe entrepreneurs should spell out their aspirations before setting up their business â to help them see beyond the gleaming spires of their dreams down into the day-to-day detail on where they will be spending most of their time.
One final thought is the rise of the independent associate (essentially a self-employed freelancer). Many of the interviewees didnât employ people but instead used associates who valued their independence. The associate path limits the ever-increasing risks and burdens of employing people and provides flexibility for everyone. For example, one of our entrepreneurs, Melanie Chevalier, uses over 2,000 associates around the world, all choreographed from London.
THE STATE OF FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP TODAY
So now we have defined who female entrepreneurs are, letâs look at some of the recent research and data on female entrepreneurialism.
To put the research into context itâs worth referring to a recently published book by Caroline Criado Perez: Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Caroline opens the book with: âSeeing men as the human default is fundamental to the structure of human society. Itâs an old habit and it runs deepâ.
The work covers many examples of how the world is biased against women. For example, at a more trivial level:
- Conference organisers providing microphones with the assumption that the user will be wearing a suit jacket and trousers.
- Female employees shivering in offices set to a male temperature norm.
- Women struggling to reach a top shelf set at a male height norm.
- Childrenâs TV being dominated by male characters â with only 13% of childrenâs non-human TV characters being female, rising to only 32% of childrenâs human TV characters.
- Gender-neutral terms really meaning male, e.g., in Wikipedia, the âEngland national football teamâ page talks about the menâs national football team, whilst the womenâs page is called the âEngland womenâs national football teamâ.
And at a more life-threatening level:
- Car driver seats with safety measures that donât account for the average female torso.
- Clinical trials lacking gender disaggregation, leading to
