Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship is the process of pursuing innovative solutions to social problems. It provides unparalleled platforms at the regional and global level to highlight and advance leading models of sustainable social innovation. It identifies a select community of social entrepreneurs and engages it in shaping global, regional and industry agendas that improve the state of the world in close collaboration with the other stakeholders of the World Economic Forum.
Social entrepreneurship is about applying practical, innovative and sustainable approaches to benefit society in general, with an emphasis on those who are marginalized and poor. It is a term that captures a unique approach to economic and social problems, an approach that cuts across sectors and disciplines grounded in certain values and processes that are common to each social entrepreneur, independent of whether his/ her area of focus has been education, health, welfare reform, human rights, workers' rights, environment, economic development, agriculture, etc., or whether the organizations they set up are non-profit or for-profit entities. It is this approach that sets the social entrepreneur apart from the rest of the crowd of well-meaning people and organizations who dedicate their lives to social improvement.
About organizational models * Leveraged non-profit ventures
The entrepreneur sets up a non-profit organization to drive the adoption of an innovation that addresses a market or government failure. In doing so, the entrepreneur engages a cross section of society, including private and public organizations, to drive forward the innovation through a multiplier effect. Leveraged non-profit ventures continuously depend on outside philanthropic funding, but their longer term sustainability is often enhanced given that the partners have a vested interest in the continuation of the venture. * Hybrid non-profit ventures
The entrepreneur sets up a non-profit organization but the model includes some degree of cost-recovery through the sale of goods and services to a cross section of institutions, public and private, as well as to target population groups. Often, the entrepreneur sets up several legal entities to accommodate the earning of an income and the charitable expenditures in an optimal structure. To be able to sustain the transformation activities in full and address the needs of clients, who are often poor or marginalized from society, the entrepreneur must mobilize other sources of funding from the public and/or philanthropic sectors. Such funds can be in the form of grants or loans, and even quasi-equity. * Social business ventures
The entrepreneur sets up a for-profit entity or business to provide a social or ecological product or service. While profits are ideally generated, the main aim is not to maximize financial returns for shareholders but to grow the social venture and reach more people in need. Wealth accumulation is not a priority and profits are reinvested in the enterprise to fund expansion. The entrepreneur of a social business venture seeks investors who are interested in combining financial and social returns on their investments.

Social Entrepreneurs
Social entrepreneurs adopt a mission to create and sustain social value. They pursue opportunities to serve this mission while continuously adapting and learning. They draw upon appropriate thinking in both the business and nonprofit worlds and operate in all kinds of organizations: large and small; new and old; religious and secular; nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid. Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.
Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to move in different directions.
A social entrepreneur is a leader or pragmatic visionary who: * Achieves large scale, systemic and sustainable social change through a new invention, a different approach, a more rigorous application of known technologies or strategies, or a combination of these. * Focuses first and foremost on the social and/or ecological value creation and tries to optimize the financial value creation. * Innovates by finding a new product, a new service, or a new approach to a social problem. * Continuously refines and adapts approach in response to feedback. * Combines the characteristics represented by Richard Branson and Mother Teresa.
Social entrepreneurs share some come common traits including: * An unwavering belief in the innate capacity of all people to contribute meaningfully to economic and social development * A driving passion to make that happen. * A practical but innovative stance to a social problem, often using market principles and forces, coupled with dogged determination, that allows them to break away from constraints imposed by ideology or field of discipline, and pushes them to take risks that others wouldn't dare. * A zeal to measure and monitor their impact. Entrepreneurs have high standards, particularly in relation to their own organization’s efforts and in response to the communities with which they engage. Data, both quantitative and qualitative, are their key tools, guiding continuous feedback and improvement. * A healthy impatience. Social Entrepreneurs cannot sit back and wait for change to happen – they are the change drivers.
Social Enterprise
Definition of Social Enterprise * “Social enterprises are businesses whose primary purpose is the common good. They use the methods and disciplines of business and the power of the marketplace to advance their social, environmental and human justice agendas.” -Social Enterprise Alliance, USA * “A social enterprise is a business that trades for a social and/or environmental purpose. It will have a clear sense of its ‘social mission’: which means it will know what difference it is trying to make, who it aims to help, and how it plans to do it. It will bring in most or all of its income through selling goods or services. And it will also have clear rules about what it does with its profits, reinvesting these to further the ‘social mission.’”-Social Enterprise, UK * Social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being, rather than maximizing profits for external shareholders.
Despite the differences however, there are common themes across all definitions: they are businesses; they create community impacts and social values; and they limit or don’t have distribution of profits and assets to individual share holders. So rather than a defined thing, social enterprises are much more a means to achieve value, they are a verb, not a noun.
In Canada we see a prevalence for defining social enterprise as a business operated by a non-profit entity. As a business they have to have a product or service they sell to customers, they also have to have a defined social, cultural or environmental value. In the Canadian legal context, mission “related” businesses are allowed for non-profits and charities.
In its early days, social enterprise movement was identified mainly with non-profits that used business models and earned income strategies to pursue their mission, and may take the form of cooperative, mutual organization, a disregarded entity, a social business, or a charity organization. Social enterprise is characterized by open-membership and goals widely considered to be in the community or public interest. Today it also encompasses for-profits whose driving purpose is social. Mission a strategic question of what will best advance the social mission.
The social needs addressed by social enterprises are as diverse as human ingenuity.
Top 5 Missions of Social Enterprise * Workforce Development * Housing * Community and Economic Development * Education * Health

Social enterprise do not aim to offer any benefit to their investors, except where they believe that doing so will ultimately further their capacity to realize their social and environmental goals.
Social enterprise business models are equally diverse including: retail, service and manufacturing businesses; contracted providers of social and human services; community development and financing operations; food service and catering operations; art organization; and even technology enterprises.

Social enterprise: the “missing middle”
As a country and global community, we stand at a unique inflection point. It appears that the world’s problems are outstripping our ability to address them, but what may be more accurate is simply that traditional institutions are no longer sufficient.
Social enterprise is emerging as the “missing middle” sector between the traditional worlds of government, nonprofits and business. It addresses social concerns, more efficiently than government, which no longer has the mandate or resources to solve every social problem; more sustainably and creatively than the nonprofit sector, which faces declining funding streams and increased demands for innovation, proof of what works and collaboration; and more generously than business, which is mandated to place pre-eminence on shareholder returns, but is also realizing it can’t succeed in a decaying world.
As social needs continue to spike in light of shrinking government budgets, employment rolls, and social safety nets, social enterprise is emerging as a self-sustaining, market-based, business-like and highly effective method of meeting social needs.

Three factors which frame the business philosophy of a social enterprise: * The extent to which it engages in ethical review of the goods and services it produces, and its production processes; * The extent to which it defines its social purpose(s), and evidences its social impact; * The extent to which it democratises ownership, management and governance by passing control of its human, social and financial capital to its primary stakeholders (producers, employees, customers, service users).

A classic employment-focused social enterprise, for example, might serve at least four public aims: * Fiscal responsibility – it reduces the myriad costs of public supports for people facing barriers, sufficiency for those it employs. * Public safety – it makes the community in which it operates safer by disrupting cycles of poverty, crime, incarceration, chemical dependency, and homelessness. * Economic opportunity – it improves our pool of human capital and creates job in communities in need of economic renewal. * Social justice – it gives a chance to those most in need.
Yet, almost magically, social enterprises produce these benefits while reducing the draw on public and philanthropic funds. Their earned income streams supplant or replace grants and donations.
Social enterprises seek to serve the community’s interest (social, societal, environ­mental objectives) rather than profit maximization. They often have an inno­vative nature, through the goods or services they offer, and through the organization or pro­duc­tion methods they resort to. They often employ society’s most fragile members (socially excluded persons). They thus contribute to social cohesion, employment and the reduction of inequalities.

Women Entrepreneurs
Women Entrepreneurs may be defined as the women or a group of women who initiate, organize and operate a business enterprise. Government of India has defined women entrepreneurs as an enterprise owned and controlled by a women having a minimum financial interest of 51% of the capital and giving at least 51% of employment generated in the enterprise to women. Like a male entrepreneurs a women entrepreneur has many functions. They should explore the prospects of starting new enterprise; undertake risks, introduction of new innovations, coordination administration and control of business and providing effective leadership in all aspects of business.
A woman entrepreneur is any women who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
Demographic Characteristics
Studies have shown that successful Women entrepreneurs start their businesses as a second or third profession. Because of their previous careers, women entrepreneurs enter the business world later on in life, around 40–60 years old. As women are now overtaking their male peers when it comes to education, having higher education degrees is one of significant characteristics that many successful female entrepreneurs have in common.
International Implications
A recent international study found that women from low to middle income countries (such as Russia and the Philippines) were more likely to enter early stage entrepreneurship when compared to those of higher income countries (such as Belgium, Sweden and Australia). A significant factor that may play a role in this disparity can be contributed to the fact that women from low income countries often seek an additional means of income to support themselves and their families. Overall, 40 to 50 per cent of all small businesses are owned by women in developing countries. Alternatively, this may also be due to the fact that, in western business practices, it is not seen as beneficial to exhibit feminine traits. While eastern businesses tend to follow methods based around mutual respect and understanding, western business expectations are for business leaders to be more ruthless, headstrong and less sensitive or respectful. "In the grab for power women use whatever means available to them, whereas a man would take a club to his opponents head a woman is more likely use other less forceful and more subversive measures. Let’s just own it we have different weapons in our arsenal."
Present challenges
Even though female entrepreneurship and the formation of women business networks is steadily rising, there are a number of challenges and obstacles that female entrepreneurs face. One major challenge that many women entrepreneurs may face is the traditional gender-roles society may still have on women. Entrepreneurship is still considered as a male-dominated field, and it may be difficult to surpass these conventional views. Other than dealing with the dominant stereotype, women entrepreneurs are facing several obstacles related to their businesses.
Obstacles specific to starting new firms
External Finance and Sex Discrimination
In general, women have lower personal financial assets than men. This means that for a given opportunity and equally capable individual, women must secure additional resources compared to men in order to exploit the opportunity because they control less capital. A question that has developed into its own sub-field in the women’s entrepreneurship literature is if women have a harder time getting finance than men for the same business opportunity.
A specific solution for solving women’s difficulties for obtaining financing has been microfinancing. Microfinance is a financial institution that has become exceptionally popular especially in developing economies.
Obstacles specific to managing a small firm
Studies on women entrepreneurs show that women have to cope with stereotypic attitudes towards women on a daily basis. Business relations as customers, suppliers, banks, etc. constantly remind the entrepreneur that she is different, sometimes in a positive way such as by praising her for being a successful entrepreneur even though being a woman. Employees tend to mix the perceptions of the manager with their images of female role models leading to mixed expectations on the woman manager to be a manager as well as a “mother”. The workload associated with being a small business manager is also not easily combined with taking care of children and a family. However, even if the revenues are somewhat smaller, women entrepreneurs feel more in control and happier with their situation than if they worked as an employee.
Obstacles specific to growing firms
A specific problem of women entrepreneurs seems to be their inability to achieve growth especially sales growth. Another previously addressed issue is finance and as stated previously, the entrepreneurial process is somewhat dependent on initial conditions. In other words, as women often have a difficult time to assemble external resources, they start less ambitious firms that can be financed to a greater degree by their own available resources. This also has consequences for the future growth of the firm. Basically, firms with more resources at start-up have a higher probability to grow than firms with fewer resources. By resources is meant here societal position, human resources and financial resources. This initial endowment in the firm is therefore of great importance for firm survival and especially for firm growth.
Despite that many women entrepreneurs face growth barriers, they are still able to achieve substantial firm growth. There are examples of that both in a number of developing economies (Ethiopia, Tanzania and Zambia) surveyed by the ILO, as well as in more developed economies such as the United States.
Encouragement of women entrepreneurs
In 1993, "Take Our Daughters To Work Day" was popularized to support career exploration for girls, later expanded to Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
Female-only taxi companies in India, the UAE and Brazil support working women.

Problems of Women Entrepreneurs
Women faced many problems to get ahead their life in business. A few problems can be detailed as; 1. The greatest deterrent to women entrepreneurs is that they are women. A kind of patriarchal – male dominant social order is the building block to them in their way towards business success. Male members think it a big risk financing the ventures run by women. 2. The financial institutions are skeptical about the entrepreneurial abilities of women. The bankers consider women loonies as higher risk than men loonies. The bankers put unrealistic and unreasonable securities to get loan to women entrepreneurs. According to a report by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), “despite evidence that women’s loan repayment rates are higher than men’s, women still face more difficulties in obtaining credit,” often due to discriminatory attitudes of banks and informal lending groups (UNIDO, 1995b). 3. Entrepreneurs usually require financial assistance of some kind to launch their ventures – be it a formal bank loan or money from a savings account. Women in developing nations have little access to funds, due to the fact that they are concentrated in poor rural communities with few opportunities to borrow money (Starcher, 1996; UNIDO, 1995a). The women entrepreneurs are suffering from inadequate financial resources and working capital. The women entrepreneurs lack access to external funds due to their inability to provide tangible security. Very few women have the tangible property in hand. 4. Women’s family obligations also bar them from becoming successful entrepreneurs in both developed and developing nations. “Having primary responsibility for children, home and older dependent family members, few women can devote all their time and energies to their business” (Starcher, 1996, p. .The financial institutions discourage women entrepreneurs on the belief that they can at any time leave their business and become housewives again. The result is that they are forced to rely on their own savings, and loan from relatives and family friends. 5. Indian women give more emphasis to family ties and relationships. Married women have to make a fine balance between business and home. More over the business success is depends on the support the family members extended to women in the business process and management. The interest of the family members is a determinant factor in the realization of women folk business aspirations. 6. Another argument is that women entrepreneurs have low-level management skills. They have to depend on office staffs and intermediaries, to get things done, especially, the marketing and sales side of business. Here there is more probability for business fallacies like the intermediaries take major part of the surplus or profit. Marketing means mobility and confidence in dealing with the external world, both of which women have been discouraged from developing by social conditioning. Even when they are otherwise in control of an enterprise, they often depend on males of the family in this area. 7. The male – female competition is another factor, which develop hurdles to women entrepreneurs in the business management process. Despite the fact that women entrepreneurs are good in keeping their service prompt and delivery in time, due to lack of organisational skills compared to male entrepreneurs women have to face constraints from competition. The confidence to travel across day and night and even different regions and states are less found in women compared to male entrepreneurs. This shows the low level freedom of expression and freedom of mobility of the women entrepreneurs. 8. Knowledge of alternative source of raw materials availability and high negotiation skills are the basic requirement to run a business. Getting the raw materials from different souse with discount prices is the factor that determines the profit margin. Lack of knowledge of availability of the raw materials and low-level negotiation and bargaining skills are the factors, which affect women entrepreneur’s business adventures. 9. Knowledge of latest technological changes, know how, and education level of the person are significant factor that affect business. The literacy rate of women in India is found at low level compared to male population. Many women in developing nations lack the education needed to spur successful entrepreneurship. They are ignorant of new technologies or unskilled in their use, and often unable to do research and gain the necessary training (UNIDO, 1995b, p.1). Although great advances are being made in technology, many women’s illiteracy, strucutural difficulties, and lack of access to technical training prevent the technology from being beneficial or even available to females (“Women Entrepreneurs in Poorest Countries,” 2001). According to The Economist, this lack of knowledge and the continuing treatment of women as second-class citizens keeps them in a pervasive cycle of poverty (“The Female Poverty Trap,” 2001). The studies indicates that uneducated women donot have the knowledge of measurement and basic accounting. 10. Low-level risk taking attitude is another factor affecting women folk decision to get into business. Low-level education provides low-level self-confidence and self-reliance to the women folk to engage in business, which is continuous risk taking and strategic cession making profession. Investing money, maintaining the operations and ploughing back money for surplus generation requires high risk taking attitude, courage and confidence. Though the risk tolerance ability of the women folk in day-to-day life is high compared to male members, while in business it is found opposite to that. 11. Achievement motivation of the women folk found less compared to male members. The low level of education and confidence leads to low level achievement and advancement motivation among women folk to engage in business operations and running a business concern. 12. Finally high production cost of some business operations adversely affects the development of women entrepreneurs. The installation of new machineries during expansion of the productive capacity and like similar factors dissuades the women entrepreneurs from venturing into new areas.

Push-Pull factors and Women in business
Women in business are a recent phenomenon. By and large they had confide themselves to petty business and tiny cottage industries. Women entrepreneurs engaged in business due to push and pull factors. Which encourage women to have an independent occupation and stands on their legs. A sense towards independent decision-making on their life and career is the motivational factor behind this urge. Saddled with household chores and domestic responsibilities women want to get independence under the influence of these factors the women entrepreneurs choose a profession as a challenge and as an urge to do something new. Such situation is described as pull factors. While in push factors women engaged in business activities due to family compulsion and the responsibility is thrust upon them.
Till the turn of the century, man has enjoyed a dominant position. But change in position technological innovation and modern way of thinking can reduce the disparity between man and women, and bring about equality and equity between them, the need of the hour in women empowerment both through provision of employment and enterprise creation. Typologically, the former leader to endogenous empowerment and the latter give rise to exogenous empowerment.
Women entrepreneurs have been making a significant impact in all segments of the economy in Canada, Great Britain, Germany Australia and US. The areas chosen by women are retail trade, restaurants, hotels, education, cultural, cleaning insurance and manufacturing.
It is the group of women or single women running an enterprise or company in order to earn profit. Now days because of women empowerment women are stepping-stone into the industries and are taking the place of men. Now a day’s women’s are running several businesses like beauty parlors, switching shops, boutiques, etc.
Women entrepreneurs may be defined as a woman or a group of women who initiate, organize and run a business enterprise. In terms of Schunpeterian concept of innovative entrepreneurs, women who innovate, initiate or adopt a business activity are called business entrepreneur.
They have made their marks in business because of the following reasons: * They want to improve their mettle in innovation and competitive jobs. * They want the change to control the balance between their families and responsibility and their business levels. * They want new challenges and opportunities for self fulfillment.

Roles of women as an Entrepreneur:
1) Imaginative: It refers to the imaginative approach or original ideas with competitive market. Well-planned approach is needed to examine the existing situation and to identify the entrepreneurial opportunities. It further implies that women entrepreneurs have association with knowledgeable people and contracting the right organization offering support and services.
2) Attribute to work hard: Enterprising women have further ability to work hard. The imaginative ideas have to come to a fair play. Hard work is needed to build up an enterprise..
3) Persistence: Women entrepreneurs must have an intention to fulfill their dreams. They have to make a dream transferred into an idea enterprise; Studies show that successful women work hard.
4) Ability and desire to take risk the desire refers to the willingness to take risk and ability to the proficiency in planning making forecast estimates and calculations.
5) Profit earning capacity: she should have a capacity to get maximum return out of invested capital.
A Woman entrepreneur has also to perform all the functions involved in establishing an enterprise. These include idea generation, and screening, determination of objectives, project preparation, product analysis, determination of forms of business organization, completion of formal activities, raising funds, procuring men machine materials and operations of business.

Fredrick Harbiscon has enumerated the following five functions of a women entrepreneurs: * Exploration of the prospects of starting a new business enterprise. * Undertaking a risk and handling of economic uncertainties involved in business. * Introduction of innovations, imitations of innovations. * Co ordination, administration and control. * Supervision and leadership.

In nutshell, women entrepreneur are those women who think of a business enterprise, initiate it organize and combine the factors of production, operate the enterprise, undertake risk and handle economic uncertainties involved in running a business enterprise.
With education and training, the women have gained confidence to do all work, which was the prerogative of man and do it excellently, rather better than men. Over the years, the educated women have become ambitious, acquired experience and basic skills of competency and self-assurance.

Leadership Qualities
Some of the outstanding qualities of women entrepreneurs are as follows:
- Accept challenges
- Ambitious
- Drive
- Enthusiastic
- Hard work
- Patience
- Industrious
- Motivator
- Skillful
- Unquenchable optimism.
- Adventurous
- Conscious
- Educated
- Determination to excel
- Keenness to learn and imbibe new ideas
- Experienced
- Intelligent
- Perseverance
- Studious

Psychosocial Barriers
Although some women entrepreneurs have excelled in their enterprise, the fear of success haunts women in general. Some psycho-social factors impeding the growth of woman entrepreneurship are as follows:
1. Poor self-image of women
2. Inadequate motivation
3. Discriminating treatment
4. Faulty socialization
5. Role conflict
6. Cultural values
7. Lack of courage and self-confidence
8. Inadequate encouragement
9. Lack of social acceptance
10. Unjust social-economic and cultural system
11. Lack of freedom of expression
12. Afraid of failures and criticism
13. Susceptible to negative attitudes
14. Non-persistent attitude
15. Low dignity of labor
16. Lacking in leadership qualities, Le., planning, organizing, controlling, coordinating and directing

How to Develop Women Entrepreneurs? * Right efforts on from all areas are required in the development of women entrepreneurs and their greater participation in the entrepreneurial activities. Following efforts can be taken into account for effective development of women entrepreneurs. * Consider women as specific target group for all developmental programs. * Better educational facilities and schemes should be extended to women folk from government part. * Adequate training program on management skills to be provided to women community. * Encourage women’s participation in decision-making. * Vocational training to be extended to women community that enables them to understand the production process and production management. * Skill development to be done in women’s polytechnics and industrial training institutes. Skills are put to work in training-cum-production workshops. * Training on professional competence and leadership skill to be extended to women entrepreneurs. * Training and counseling on a large scale of existing women entrepreneurs to remove psychological causes like lack of self-confidence and fear of success. * Counseling through the aid of committed NGOs, psychologists, managerial experts and technical personnel should be provided to existing and emerging women entrepreneurs. * Continuous monitoring and improvement of training programs. * Activities in which women are trained should focus on their marketability and profitability. * Making provision of marketing and sales assistance from government part. * To encourage more passive women entrepreneurs the Women training program should be organized that taught to recognize her own psychological needs and express them. * State finance corporations and financing institutions should permit by statute to extend purely trade related finance to women entrepreneurs. * Women’s development corporations have to gain access to open-ended financing. * The financial institutions should provide more working capital assistance both for small scale venture and large scale ventures. * Making provision of micro credit system and enterprise credit system to the women entrepreneurs at local level. * Repeated gender sensitisation programs should be held to train financiers to treat women with dignity and respect as persons in their own right. * Infrastructure, in the form of industrial plots and sheds, to set up industries is to be provided by state run agencies. * Industrial estates could also provide marketing outlets for the display and sale of products made by women. * A Women Entrepreneurs’ Guidance Cell set up to handle the various problems of women entrepreneurs all over the state. * District Industries Centres and Single Window Agencies should make use of assisting women in their trade and business guidance. * Programs for encouraging entrepreneurship among women are to be extended at local level. * Training in entrepreneurial attitudes should start at the high school level through well-designed courses, which build confidence through behavioral games. * More governmental schemes to motivate women entrepreneurs to engage in small scale and large-scale business ventures. * Involvement of Non Governmental Organizations in women entrepreneurial training programs and counseling.
Some of the 11 reasons women entrepreneurs will crack glass in 2014 are common to all women and others are unique to entrepreneurs.
1. Women have the right stuff
Women make better leaders than men, according to research conducted by Zenger Folkman. “They build better teams; they’re more liked and respected as managers; they tend to be able to combine intuitive and logical thinking more seamlessly; they’re more aware of the implications of their own and others’ actions; and they think more accurately about the resources needed to accomplish a given outcome,” said Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman in Forbes. Women on the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) 50 Fastest Growing Women-Owned/Led Companies in North America know that you have to nurture your staff in order to sustain rapid growth. That growth doesn’t happen without employees who are willing and able to deliver excellent products and great customer service. “Two of the traits where women outscored men to the highest degree — taking initiative and driving for results — have long been thought of as particularly male strengths,” Zenger and Folkman continued. Twenty-first-century leadership skills, such as cooperation, communication, and sharing are more commonly associated with women, according to John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio.
2. The proof is in the pudding
Two research reports find that women deliver better company performance. Venture-backed companies that include females as senior executives are more likely to succeed than companies with only men in charge, according to Women at the Wheel: Do Female Executives Drive Start-Up Success? VC firms that invest in women-led businesses performed better than all men-led businesses, according to the SBA Office of Advocacy.
Two research reports find that women are better money managers. Women-led private technology companies are more capital-efficient, achieving 35% higher return on investment, and, when venture-backed, bringing in 12% higher revenue than male-owned tech companies, according to Women in Technology: Evolving, Ready to Save the World, research conducted by the Kauffman Foundation.
The high-tech companies women build are more capital-efficient than the norm. The average venture-backed company run by a woman had achieved comparable early-year revenues, using an average of one-third less committed capital, according to research conducted by Illuminate Ventures.
3. Diversity improves performance and increases innovation
Organizations that are the most inclusive of women in top management achieve 35% higher return on equity (ROE) and 34% better total return to shareholders versus their peers – and research shows gender diversity to be particularly valuable where innovation is key, according to research conducted by Illuminate Ventures. It’s not just better performance that diversity delivers. It’s more innovation that better meets the needs of women. It’s not just about girly things like fashion, makeup, and cooking, it’s technology. Women have become the power-users of technologies, such as the internet, mobile, and social media. Women also approach problem-solving differently than men. They approach it in a holistic and systematic way, according to Larry Keeley, author of Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs. He analyzed three decades of innovations, who made them, and how they did it. Women are not looking for simple answers. They create comprehensive solutions, he continued.
4. Untapped spending power
Women shouldn’t rush out and buy products made by women just because we’re the same sex. However, women understand other women. That insight gives us an edge in developing products that better meet our needs. With 80% of consumer spending controlled by women, and women having considerable influence on spending categories that are considered the domain of men, such as autos and electronics, that is a whole lot of purchasing power for products and services developed by women.
5. Women use the power of their portfolios
While the percent of women angel investors is still small — 22% — it jumped 50% from 2011 to 2012, according to the Center for Venture Research. Angel investors are accredited wealthy individuals. “The women angel-networks themselves are getting the word out about the importance of women participating in the investment process and are doing a great job at welcoming new women into the investing community,” said Susan Duffy, executive director of the Center for Women’s Leadership, Babson College. Organizations, such as 37 Angels and Pipeline Fellowship are training wealthy women to be angel investors. For those of you who are toying with the idea of becoming an angel investor, here are nine questions to ask yourself before you start. Women and wealth trends bode well for more women investing in women-led business. Women control more than half of the investment wealth in the U.S., according to Mary Quist-Newins author of Women and Money: Matters of Trust.
6. Men are bullish on women
It’s not just Warren Buffett who is bullish on women. Vivek Wadhwa , academic, writer, and entrepreneur is a vocal critic of the underfunding of women-led companies by Silicon Valley and a supporter of women-led businesses. He is crowd-creating and funding a book about women’s global participation in the innovation economy. Male angel investors, such as Adam Quinton, recognize that the failure of the angel market in general to invest in promising women-led companies provides greater opportunity for him. Interestingly, men like D’Antonio, Folkman, Gerzema, Keeley, and Zenger weren’t seeking to do research to support the effectiveness of women as leaders and innovators. It’s just where the analysis of their data took them.
7. Women are building a vibrant and layered ecosystem
There are tons of networking groups to choose from. Some are general in focus and have been around for a long time, such as the National Association of Women Business Owners. Others, such as Women 2.0, are focused on specific types of women, such as those starting technology companies. One of the newest to the scene is digitalundivided, which is focused on women of color working in the digital space.
8. Women are shedding their cloak of invisibility
The Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women are proactively seeking visibility, according to a study by Weber Shandwick. It is not just these women who recognize the importance of public speaking and awards as essential to telling their company’s story. Women entrepreneurs, such as Liz Elting of TransPerfect, Janine Popick of VerticalResponse, and Nina Vaca of Pinnacle also used awards and honors to build the credibility and reputation of their companies.
9. Women are starting to blow out their networks
Women are beginning to get the importance of networking: The bigger and more diverse your network the more likely your business is to break revenue barriers. Using social networks isn’t just one of my favorite ways to build your network. With money drying up for small businesses during the financial crisis, Dara Albright of Crowdnetic, knew innovation was needed and she wanted to be a part of it. She used LinkedIn to meet people who would eventually become the movers and shakers in the crowdfinance industry. She launched NowStreet, which is a media and event company specializing in crowdfinance. The company was bought last year by Crowdnetic. A new class of networkers is emerging and they are called “super connectors.”
10. Women never stop learning
Every entrepreneur I know has built a successful business on the many varieties of learning available. Admitting that you don’t know everything — and never will — is key to growth. Interestingly, self development is one of those areas in which women outshine men, according to Zenger Folkman’s research. Women share, and some women who have built $10 million plus businesses shared their secrets. You can learn a lot from trailblazers. Women listen, read business books and publications, and attend professional development training, etc. We are also learning to seek outside counsel from mentors, sponsors and advisors, and participate in peer advisory groups.
11. Some women use failure as a launching pad to success
Women tend to be perfectionists. Speaking about failure goes against our grain. But, the truth is, no one will succeed all the time. We learn more from our failures than our successes. Kudos to Sallie Krawcheck for publicly talking about being fired from two big jobs. Even better, she didn’t hide afterwards. She picked herself up, dusted herself off, and bought 85 Broads – a networking organization for women who want to advance their careers.