While the battle of sexes has dropped quite a bit in recent years, that doesn’t mean that women have it any easier when trying to start up their own business.

In fact, many women believe there is more pressure on them when beginning a business  - pressure to be taken seriously, to make the right calls, and in some cases to realize a lifelong dream.

Many of those dreams have been realized, as recent reports indicate that more than a quarter of a million women nationwide own and lead businesses with annual revenue exceeding $1 million. In fact, a large number of these companies are multimillion-dollar enterprises.

Challenges that Come with the Territory

With the prosperity also come challenges, perceived or not. So what are some of the challenges awaiting a wife, a mother, a daughter, a single woman etc., when wanting to start their own business?

Among them are:

Being taken seriously – This is one that gets under the skin of many women, noting that they should be treated no differently than their male counterparts. While that stereotype likely still exists, it is one that can be changed when a woman shows the world that she is equal to or even better at running her own small business than a man. Don’t doubt yourself or live within stereotypes, break from them!

She’s too emotional – Women have no doubt heard this one over and over again. She’s going to let her emotions cloud her judgment and therefore make mistakes. The fact that women tend to be more emotional should actually work in their favor. While men at times make hasty decisions, a woman tends to think things through more clearly, weighing the positives and the negatives. Having some emotion regarding your business is certainly not a bad thing when used correctly.

She can’t handle all her responsibilities – For many women, having their own small business also comes with the responsibility of raising children, sometimes in a one parent environment. The perception from some is that she cannot handle the balancing act between kids and running a business. In fact, many women do just fine being both a mother and a small business owner. Yes, the work hours can be tremendous, but many women eagerly await such a challenge and meet it head on.

Pretty but uneducated – This is probably the most upsetting comment that a small business woman will hear. If you stop and think about it, many women run their family households when it comes to money, the necessary organizational plans and more. Just because she has a pretty face doesn’t mean there isn’t a great education and savvy business sense to go along with it.

She was not raised to be the leader – From an early age on, many women are taught or perceive that men are the leaders, following their lead in the process. While this is the case in some instances, we know all too well that this idea is wrong. As more and more women climb their way up the corporate ladder to head major companies, more and more women seeking to open their own small business need to follow the idea.

Worry will set in – While women oftentimes get the label (deserved or not) of worrying too much, there are countless female small business owners who prove better heads of business than men. Having a little worry in them can actually be a benefit, in that it means the woman is looking at all options and covering all her bases. If someone is a little worried about something, one thing it shows is that they care.

Whether having a small business has been a lifelong dream or a recent wish, women should plow forward the same way men do.

At the end of the day, there are many small business women who can attest to having success following through on their career dreams.

Women will become, in the next few months, the majority of the American workforce, passing the 50% threshold, according to The Economist‘s Dec. 30, 2009 issue. Here are a few items from the article highlighting this accomplishment, and pointing out the challenges.

High points:
Women run many of the world’s great companies, e.g. PepsiCo in the United States and Areva in France.
There is a demand for female brains. Woman are a majority of professional workers in the U.S.
Women make up the majority of university graduates; by 2011 there will be 2.6 million more female than male university students in America.

Challenges:
Only 2% of the bosses of America’s largest companies are women.
Women continue to be paid significantly less than men, on average. In America, childless women earn almost as much as men, but mothers earn significantly less.
The U.S. is the only rich country that refuses to provide mothers with paid maternity leave.

Read the entire Women and Work: We did it! article. Two additional articles in that issue look more closely at Female Power: Women in the Workplace and Womenomics: Feminist Management Theories.

It has always seemed strange to me that business, which otherwise is obsessed with efficiency, would voluntarily, and with forethought, deliberately undervalue and underutilize as much as one-half of one of its resources. With a new majority hopefully the paradigm will continue to shift to equality.

“Women’s economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times,” says The Economist. “Societies that try to resist this trend will pay a heavy price in the form of wasted talent and frustrated citizens.”

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

Here’s a really interesting, and still timely, startup pitch competition for the half of the world that’s eligible. The Women 2.0 Startup Competition happens this coming spring. You still have until early April to get the business plan done, and a couple of weeks past that for the 7″x7″ summary on a napkin and the two-minute video. The contest is open to any startup that has at least one woman on the management team, from anywhere in the world.

To get you interested, here’s what the site says about last year’s winner:

Team Koollage won the 2008 Women 2.0 Business Plan Competition, scoring a private meeting with Esther Dyson and business services worth over $15,0000. Team Gaiagy walked away with the People’s Choice Award, as voted by the audience with their cell phones. TechCrunch covered Pitch 2008 here.

Podcasts of all panels, speakers and competition finalists are available here.

I really like the way this one is organized, particularly what you need to submit an entry:

1. A business plan summary. It’s based on a small set of questions, fits almost onto a single page and is a reasonable summary, in my opinion. Particularly since it’s used by judges to weed through the entrants.
2. Submit your business idea on a paper napkin no larger than 7×7 inches. Your name and contact info must be on the napkin so we can match it with your online application. Napkins will be exhibited to the public at Pitch Night.
3. A two-minute video pitch.

That, to my mind, is a good-looking combination of media to get a business idea across.

The process leads up to a pitch night on May 7 in the Silicon Valley. Winners get a meeting with Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, plus a collection of startup-friendly services. Seems like a cool competition to me. I’m glad to be posting about this early enough to give you a chance to actually get your act together in time to enter.

Here’s an interesting upturn even during a downturn. Amid all the bad news on investment banking, Goldman Sachs has a special program to train women in entrepreneurship in developing markets. The World Bank has a $100 million program for commercial credit to women.

This was in a Dec. 26 report in The New York Times: Businesses See Opportunities in Empowering Women. Here’s a quote:

Many corporate programs employ microloans, grants or gifts to promote business education. Goldman decided to take a different approach after its research showed that per-capita income in Brazil, China, India, Russia and other emerging markets could rise by as much as 14 percent if women had better management and entrepreneurial skills.

“It’s not only philanthropy they’re after,” said Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women. Goldman “had the idea that investment in women means a return on the gross national product of the country, and on household income.”

The Goldman Sachs initiative is called “10,000 Women.” The story also mentions an AT&T donation to create a foundation for training women from developing nations.

A few days ago the Wall Street Journal published an article about the results from a survey at a Microsoft Small Business event called Vision to Venture conference. The survey at this event found that 61% of women who own small businesses do no online marketing and 40% do not have a website. I read the results and naturally I was disappointed. Why is it that women continue to fall behind? But then as I thought about it, and investigated the source, I can say I don’t think these stats are representative of all women-owned businesses. Think about it:

1. Microsoft could have an agenda releasing this survey.
2. We don’t know where this survey was taken. Perhaps it was at a seminar or event all about how to take your business online. If that is the case you would expect most people attending to not yet have their business online.
3. We don’t know whether Microsoft enticed women to fill out the survey by offering any special prizes or rewards. What if the prize was a chance to win Web design time to get your business a website? If you already have a website you might not bother filling out the survey.
4. You get the picture – I can go on and on with different reasons to potentially doubt the survey.

So what’s my point? I think it is really important for everyone to understand that there are professional survey writers who know how to position a survey to get the results they want. Think about how politicians come out with survey results that always support them and their issues to a tee. I am going to say that I don’t believe that there is such a discrepancy between men and women in business when it comes to being online. I think that being online depends more on which generation you belong to than what gender you are.

-Sabrina Parsons, aka Mommy CEO
www.paloalto.com
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