Women and Entrepreneurship: Thinking About Starting A Business? You Have An Edge!

Women and Entrepreneurship: Thinking About Starting A Business? You Have An Edge!

I have always believed that women are more smarter when it come to entrepreneurship, starting and managing a business. As far back as the 1990's I used to run my own business - Metro Linen Service -(a leading provider of linen, and table cloths to caterers and restaurant owners). The majority of my clients were women. I was very impressed with their business acumen and savvy. I will always interacted with them and their comments were very insightful and full of common sense.

Women in business and entrepreneurship bring a positive traits into the market place.

1. Women posses an intuitive ability ( a knowing if you will), ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason - a sixth sense that is common with women - it helps in decision making -

2. They possess  good communication and negotiation skills

3. In the household that women run, they function as the CEO and manage all the vital functions of the family enterprise. Now how society can relegate them to the background when as a group they raise the family is beyond my comprehension.

I remember my own mother in Ghana as a business owner: Although my mother was uneducated and illiterate, but she was able to run her own business - buying and selling merchandise. She knew how to budget and make a profit. She made enough money to send me to the US for further studies and my younger brother to study law at the University of Ghana. She was also able to buy a house for one of my sisters.

Here are some statistics pertaining to women-owned businesses and women entrepreneurs in the US.

Between 1997 and 2002, women-owned businesses were growing twice as fast as other businesses.  (Center for Women's Business Research, 2009)

 In that same five year time period, the number of businesses owned by minority women increased faster than those owned by non-minority women. (Women-Owned Businesses in the 21st Century, 2010)

During the 2008 economic downturn, 5% of "high potential women" and 4% of "high potential men" left their jobs to start their own businesses. (Catalyst, 2009)

In 2007, 7.8 million companies were owned by women -- that's nearly 30% of all non-farm, privately held businesses. These women-owned businesses employed 7.6 million people and generated $1.2 trillion in sales. (Women-Owned Businesses in the 21st Century, 2010)

In 2008, 10.1 million companies were owned by women employing 13 million people and generating $2.9 trillion in sales. (Center for Women's Business Research, 2009)

 Female small business owners will create 5 to 5.5 million new jobs in the United States by 2018. (Projection from The Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute, 2009)

One in five firms with revenues of $1 million or more are owned by women. (Center for Women's Business Research, 2009)

Since women-owned businesses are usually smaller, they generate a small percentage of US sales and employment. In 2010, women owned 30% of privately-held businesses, but these businesses accounted for only 11% of sales and 13% of employment. (Women-Owned Businesses in the 21st Century, 2010)

In 2009, 11% of companies backed by VC funding either had or used to have female CEOS or female founders. (Wall Street Journal, 2010)

Women entrepreneurs usually start with less capital than men, and are less likely to take on debt. Women are more likely to say that they need financing to start their business. (Women-Owned Businesses in the 21st Century

I believe that women entrepreneurs have an edge in the current economic environment.