She feels frustrated, anguished and, at the same time, has a burning desire to free herself, to manage her time and to have the resources to live as she wants. She feels this way because she got tired of going to the office every day from 8 to 5, of having to pretend to be productive by staying up late at her workplace and begging to have her salary increase by 10% to 20%.
Do you identify with her reality? “She” represents the set of emotions, thoughts and goals of millions of women in the world.
However, against this internal impulse, there is a force that restrains entrepreneurship.
One support for this affirmation is the special Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report, according to which the majority of women in innovation-driven economies do not feel capable of doing so.
The same report for the year 2017/2018 revealed that Latin America and the Caribbean have the highest rates of women entrepreneurs (16.7%), followed by North America (12.8%).
In terms of gender parity, the leader continues to be Latin America with 17 women engaged in early entrepreneurship for every 20 male entrepreneurs.
The lowest region for female participation is Europe (6.1%).
And why are there so many brakes when starting a business of their own? Most limitations are emotional, for example, fear of failure.
How to face this obstacle? The most important thing is that you become aware that your fears and desires are the same as all women in the world.
Yes, of all. So, take it lightly, you’re not alone and you’re not the only one.
The important thing is to start, because only by planting the seed you will be able to see the tree bear fruit.
As inspiration is a powerful nutrient to launch, I leave you some stories of successful entrepreneurs women.
5 Examples of successful entrepreneurs women
1. Sue Bryce
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25 years making women look and feel beautiful through photography. She has become the most acclaimed personal portrait teacher in the world.
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When she became independent, she did not do it precisely based on a desire to start her business, it arose from the need.
After 13 years of working to master her art, she continued as an employee and had reached the limit of earnings that she could have worked as a contracted employee.
Then she decided to go for more and without limits.
- This is her position in front of all the obstacles she faces:
“My desire to build, create and learn, overcomes my fear.
Every challenge I face now becomes an incredible experience to know my true power”.
- Read an interview about her story.
2. Sophia Amoruso
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Founder and CEO of Nasty Gal, the billionaire empire eCommerce of women’s clothing that started with a used clothing store on eBay.
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If you want to know her case, the “Girl Boss” series based on her story is available on Netflix.
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The three rules of Sophia’s life:
“Don’t give up, don’t take anything personally, and don’t accept a no for an answer”.
3. Daniela Lorca Núñez
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Founder and CEO of Babytuto.com, the first Chilean eCommerce with a presence in Aliexpress –the Chinese eCommerce owned by the Alibaba group-. Offers products, experiences and information to first-time parents. The platform that today receives more than two million monthly visits.
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She is an Endeavor Entrepreneur – recognition given to entrepreneurs with the potential to generate a global impact-.
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Daniela told the Girls in Tech Chile journalist about the undertaking:
“As an advice, from my experience to the women who want to start, I would tell them that is very important to start small.
If you don’t get a significant amount of money to be able to leave and you have to start borrowing to do something big from the beginning, I don’t advise it.
I think it’s important to start small and that the company be profitable from day one”.
4. Rachel Brathen
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The most famous yogini on Instagram. 2.1M followers, Rachel’s story is inspiring. Born in Sweden, she is a mom, best-selling New York Times author, serial entrepreneur and international yoga teacher in Aruba. If you want to know how it started, - listen to this chapter of her podcast –it’s in English-.
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Has an online yoga school/community.
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About her life lessons:
“All the most important things I have learned come from extremely difficult times. Of course, I was not aware of that while going through bad times. It’s always difficult to see the purpose when we are in the deepest and darkest corner of pain. But it’s there. Be assured that there is a reason why we are here, even when the biggest obstacles appear”
5. Tata Harper
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Tata Harper is Colombian, mother of three and creator of the 100% natural and organic cosmetic store www.tataharperskincare.com, popular in the United States. From her farm in Vermont, she makes her products.
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The idea of her business arose in the middle of the research that Tata began when her stepfather was diagnosed with skin cancer.
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About being a business mom:
“I have three kids, a business and sometimes it can be hard to have time for my needs, but if I don’t, I end up feeling tired and stressed. Give space to what nourishes you, makes you a better mom”
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What has changed in the labor market for women? Trends that explain it.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2017, 51% of the new businesses opened in the world in 2016 were founded by women. What tendencies have driven the independent women’s movement?
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More “home office - work from home”
According to TICBeat, stadĂstics show that a quarter of entrepreneurs believe that more than 75% of their staff will be working remotely in 2020.
Which gender is more likely to motivate this type of work? The feminine. A study conducted by remote.co found that companies with considerable remote workforce tend to have a greater number of female executives.
Of the 128 mostly or completely remote companies surveyed, 19 percent had female managers and 28 percent had either female managers, founders or presidents. And 72 percent of the women leaders and executives surveyed were working parents.
An interesting finding of the same publication is that women who work from home are productive because they are measured by the results of their work and not by other factors that tend to put pressure on the daily life of large companies such as personal image, the level of popularity and the perception of productivity linked to the time they spend in their jobs.
And it’s in large companies, precisely, where there is more gender inequality in leadership positions.
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Startup Movement
The innumerable problems that exist in the world and the impulse of people to solve them, the unemployment rates, the bureaucracy in large companies, the motivation to generate higher incomes, and the access to technology becoming more and more democratized, have boosted the Growing movement of startups.
By definition, they are temporary organizations –that is, they aspire to become a company or be acquired by one -in search of a repeatable and scalable business model.
Why has this type of model encouraged more people to take risks? Beyond the concept, the startup movement entails a mentality and a change in the way of executing business.
The approach behind this new paradigm is: try the idea as quickly and economically as possible. Thus, the capacity for constant movement and experimentation, accompanied by the resilience to adapt to the necessary changes dictated by the findings of the tests, are the way of operating in Startup.
And this mode implies a change in speed when opening a business, facilitating initiating a startup in a matter of hours. It suffices to raise some hypotheses about the problem, the solution, the client and the channels to reach it. Then, validate them.
If you want to learn more about this way of developing technology based businesses, you should read the book The Lean Startup Method.
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More support and financing networks for women
According to the World Bank, for women entrepreneurs, the encouragement of their community is a vital motivation to start a business, and their networks of support and contacts are critical to its success.
So is financing. According to the same organization, although more and more women own small and medium enterprises, 70% don’t receive adequate financial services to meet their needs.
Here is a list of some support networks and financing programs for women:
- Financing Initiative for Women Entrepreneurs (We-Fi)
- Girls in Tech- Women, technology and entrepreneurship.
- Women Entrepreneurs AP - Created with the objective of promoting the economic empowerment of women in the countries that make up the Pacific Alliance.
- Women of the Pacific - An International expert organization in the field of equity and gender for women entrepreneurship.
- The S Factory - Chilean government program open to women from any country. They look for technology-based companies.
- We Connect - Global network that connects women business owners with high-level clients.
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Influencer Marketing
Access to communication technologies and the strong will to create our own things -the fruit of the 4th industrial revolution-, has led to a boom of content producers who are building communities based on specific interests.
And this trend has forced brands to change the way they relate to their customers. From investing in TV, radio and press commercials, companies have moved to focus their budget on marketing and online advertising.
The “Influencer Marketing” is one of the growing bets, which is that people with considerable numbers of followers in social networks and power to influence them - for example on Instagram many brands require at least 10 thousand followers - promote products and services related to the tastes shared by the community.
According to an eMarketer publication, between 2016 and 2017 the number of influencer post on Instagram doubled to 1.5 million publications in the world.
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Freelance work
According to EY.com, 2 of 5 organizations plan to increase their number of temporary workers in the next two years.
What are the most requested freelance jobs?
- IT and programming
- Design and Multimedia
- Translation and Contents
- Marketing and sales
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Undertake Online: Create your virtual store
The Internet has provided us with an ocean of possibilities to add value to the world and win for that. In addition to the trends mentioned above - the startup movement, remote work, opportunities for freelancers and the Influencer Marketing-, setting up an online store is one of the most attractive bets.
This is confirmed by a study published by the consultancy ElogĂa, where it’s assured that emerging economies will become the next mega-markets in terms of electronic commerce due to the growing adoption of the internet in the middle class.
How to start introducing yourself to the world of eCommerce? Learn how to set up an online store and start at no cost to validate your business idea by taking advantage of platforms such as Jumpseller that allows you to do a free 14-day trial without having to enter your credit card information.
Women have innate talents that facilitate the path of entrepreneurship
Have people ever recognized in yourself the ability to do multiple tasks in parallel? This is one of the characteristics that is most admired in women and without a doubt, is one of the biggest challenges when undertaking. It’s also remarkable the courage to take risks, the holistic view of things and the power to focus on the long term.
Maybe you thought: -There are many more qualities to recognize!- For this, I encourage you to tell us in this post your vision about the reasons and opportunities to undertake.
Finally, the invitation I give you is: Get inspired, know your own value and go out into the world to share it! Dare to start your own way, persist without limits and collect the fruits of working in freedom.
