Beyond the Bucks

A new study by Babson's Center for Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership and Bank of America Private Bank uncovers gender-based impediments experienced by women entrepreneurs, outside of venture funding.

More women are starting businesses today than ever before. In fact, the number of women-owned businesses grew 58% between 2007 and 2018 - nearly five times faster than the national average¹ - and the trend continues. Additionally, in 2018 the women-owned businesses that had over $1 million in revenue increased revenues 46% over the past 11 years in comparison to 12% growth for all U.S. businesses. These growth rates are reasons to celebrate the many new women-led businesses that exist today. However, impediments to scaling businesses still remain.

To better understand those obstacles, a research project was launched by Babson’s Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) and Bank of America Private Bank. Ultimately, findings revealed that women who have built successful companies had to navigate significant gender-based obstacles. In doing so, these women created alternate paths to success for themselves, and for other determined female entrepreneurs.

Three key themes emerged relating to the challenges women entrepreneurs faced when growing their businesses:

1. Market misperceptions – Women entrepreneurs’ competency and market knowledge is routinely disregarded, including market opportunities they identify.
2. Network exclusion – Women entrepreneurs often experience limited, gender-based, access to established social and business networks, creating less access to knowledgeable mentors and capital expansion.
3. Managing expansion while underfunded – Barriers to startup and growth capital create new, ongoing challenges, including constraints on funding for recruitment, access to new markets, and overall expansion.

Through interviews, Beyond the Bucks lead author and Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, Lakshmi Balachandra, also uncovered novel strategies that these entrepreneurs developed and utilized in order to be successful. Click the links below to read the report and learn more about them.

_{[1] The 2018 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report: Summary of Key Trends, American Express, 2019}