Female Founders, Here Are 3 Reasons 2021 Is Your Year To Start A Company

A couple of years in the past, Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary mentioned the women-led corporations in his funding portfolio had been out-performing men-led corporations.

As each a feminine entrepreneur, in addition to an angel investor who predominantly invests in women-led startups, I can inform you that one of many greatest causes girls determine to start out corporations just isn’t out of alternative, however necessity. Both they’ve distinctive publicity to an issue in society the place there is no such thing as a available resolution, or they did not have entry to the appropriate profession alternatives and turned to entrepreneurship to supply for themselves and their households.

Although girls nonetheless obtain disproportionately much less funding than males, I firmly imagine there has by no means been a greater time in historical past to change into a feminine entrepreneur. We nonetheless have a protracted technique to go, however alternatives are nonetheless considerable at present.

Here is why I like investing in feminine founders, and why 2021 is a terrific time to construct a enterprise:

I imagine one of many basic causes girls obtain much less funding than males is as a result of a lot of the funding world is run by men-meaning they solely put money into companies that remedy issues they perceive.

For instance, once we had been elevating cash for ThirdLove, we had dozens of conferences with male buyers who had a tough time understanding the issue we noticed out there. “Only a few girls look, and even wish to seem like a Victoria’s Secret mannequin,” and “Ladies truly do not wish to should go to a retailer to strive on a bra” we advised them. As a lady, this made excellent sense-but for lots of males, they struggled to see the world by that new lens. Some did although, they usually turned our buyers.

As a lady, you see the world in a different way simply due to who you might be and the experiences you have had up till this level. Which implies, in the event you assume you see an unmet want on this planet, or you might have private expertise with an issue and have created a compelling resolution, it’s best to belief your instinct and go for it.

Particularly once you’re constructing a female-oriented firm, 9 occasions out of ten, it is higher for a girl to be main, evangelizing, and advertising and marketing that firm.

For instance, Bumble (the courting app) simply went public. And Whitney Wolfe Herd, who’s the founder, turned the youngest girl to take an organization public. For context, out of 442 different corporations, solely her and three different girls took their corporations public in 2020.

Now, might a person have constructed Bumble? Properly, one did. It was known as Tinder, the place Whitney Wolfe Herd was an early govt earlier than leaving to start out Bumble. Why did she go away one of many fastest-growing, most profitable courting corporations in historical past to start out her personal? As a result of Tinder wasn’t serving girls in the way in which she believed was vital.

And now, she’s a billionaire.

We began ThirdLove in 2013.

Again then, there have been no female-oriented entrepreneurship communities, or co-working areas, or networks. The truth is, being a feminine entrepreneur ten years in the past was virtually unparalleled (and much more uncommon ten years earlier than that). However at present, and particularly by social media, there may be an abundance of sources for ladies seeking to begin their very own enterprise.

All of this has created an incredible quantity of momentum, ardour, and sure, cash on the market seeking to assist feminine founders. To be candid, in the event you’re a white male founder, you might have had sure advantages that feminine founders haven’t got but in society-which is why many of those packages are completely for ladies. And because of this, the facility of female-led communities is immense. Ladies wish to assist different girls.

So, if you’re a feminine founder, I encourage you to place your self on the market, meet different girls entrepreneurs, discover a supportive group, and get to work.