Twenty years from now, this column won’t be possible; gender differences in entrepreneurship, I predict, will be negligible. After all, as the Chinese saying goes, women hold up half the sky, so there is no reason why they should not start half the companies. But now, in 2023, we are still facing significant differences in the conditions faced by women entrepreneurs, and it is worth reflecting on why that is and suggesting different ways for women to pursue entrepreneurial activity.
On the face of it, entrepreneurial activity by gender is reasonably balanced; in 2021, female entrepreneurs made up 43 percent of all international entrepreneurs. Even more relevant, led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the GCC region has been witnessing a change in recent years as countries are pushing ahead with gender neutrality measures as part of their national strategy to achieve sustainable growth for society.
This is a straight business sense, as, according to the 2022 GCC Women Entrepreneurship Report, the GCC could add as much as $812bn to its GDP in the next three years by achieving holistic gender parity in the region. In the UAE, many government initiatives, such as the Dubai Business Women Council, the Abu Dhabi Businesswomen Council, and NAMA Women Advancement Establishment, Dubai Women Establishment), support women entrepreneurs. In KSA, by the middle of 2022, women accounted for 45 percent of startups, which was twice the level in 2017, according to a report issued by Saudi’s General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (Monsha’at).
There are many different ways to become an entrepreneur – it’s not all about starting companies from scratch in your spare bedroom. You can, as I did, buy an existing business. You can take a stake in other people’s startups to own a percentage of the organisation. You could offer your skills and experience in exchange for equity – one shareholder I know in a startup, who had no capital to invest, earned his equity by buying it with his bonus every year.
You could acquire a franchise, which can be a good way to start working for yourself while taking advantage of a larger company’s resources and brand equity. You can invest (or raise money from) a crowdfunding website. My son started his hospitality business through crowdfunding in the community he wished to serve, exchanging free meals for investment.
Maybe you don’t need to take any risk at all. Women often find their calling as an ‘intrapreneur’ inside a large organisation, which is how I would categorise myself today. An entrepreneur, after all, can be anyone who represents an entrepreneurial mindset, and these individuals can be part of organisations, governments, etc., and flourish by providing different perspectives to the work culture. Academics call this ‘intrapreneurship’, and it is vital that all organisations have these people.
Large companies often have internal competitions to discover and support innovation to stop it from being stifled under the weight of the governance needed at scale. Organisations need to home in on their hiring process and seek people who embody entrepreneurial qualities and yet who can thrive as an employee rather than a shareholder.
The truth is that most of the advice I would give to any entrepreneur is the same whatever their gender. One, look after the cash (if you starve the business of cash because you are taking too much money out, it will end in tears). Two, give it 110 percent (if you’re doing this in your spare time, it’s probably not going to work). Three, hire well; if that doesn’t work out, don’t hang around before you part company because (as one of my business heroes once told me) the first cut is the cheapest.
But to women, I would say this specifically. You need to be taken seriously, and sometimes that’s not as easy as it looks. In 2004 when I was trying to buy my company, I needed to raise £1.8 million. I had done forecasts showing that I could grow the company in the first year by 20 percent – no one believed me. (I grew it by 50 percent in the first year, as it turned out). It took a lot of shoe leather visiting multiple banks, and I had to rope in one of my greatest girlfriends, who is an accountant, to do the modelling with me.
Together we visited lots of people, mostly unsuccessfully – what changed the dialogue was when I started accessorising differently! I started taking more sombre and serious handbags with me, and then finally, in desperation carrying a copy of the Financial Times under my arm or having it poking out of my handbag. Academic research shows that 85 percent of communication is nonverbal – by carrying a serious handbag and a serious newspaper I was communicating that I was serious about my business.
I wouldn’t have had to do that if I’d been a man. Another example is Character.com., a UK children’s clothing business started by a woman who originally called it ‘Rags for Rascals’. It was only when she changed the name that she found it easier to secure suppliers. So, what I would say to women is – think about how you are perceived – who makes the introduction for you, what are the slide decks you put in front of them, what name do you call your company, how do you enter the room.
We just have to try that extra bit harder to be taken seriously, which is a shame, because, as I said, women hold up half the sky and are just as good as entrepreneurs as men.’Large companies often have internal competitions to discover and support innovation to stop it from being stifled under the weight of the governance needed at scale. Organisations need to home in on their hiring process and seek people who embody entrepreneurial qualities and yet who can thrive as an employee rather than a shareholder.
The truth is that most of the advice I would give to any entrepreneur is the same whatever their gender. One, look after the cash (if you starve the business of cash because you are taking too much money out, it will end in tears). Two, give it 110 percent (if you’re doing this in your spare time, it’s probably not going to work). Three, hire well; if that doesn’t work out, don’t hang around before you part company because (as one of my business heroes once told me) the first cut is the cheapest.
But to women, I would say this specifically. You need to be taken seriously, and sometimes that’s not as easy as it looks. In 2004 when I was trying to buy my company, I needed to raise £1.8 million. I had done forecasts showing that I could grow the company in the first year by 20 percent – no one believed me. (I grew it by 50 percent in the first year, as it turned out). It took a lot of shoe leather visiting multiple banks, and I had to rope in one of my greatest girlfriends, who is an accountant, to do the modelling with me.
Together we visited lots of people, mostly unsuccessfully – what changed the dialogue was when I started accessorising differently! I started taking more sombre and serious handbags with me, and then finally, in desperation carrying a copy of the Financial Times under my arm or having it poking out of my handbag. Academic research shows that 85 percent of communication is nonverbal – by carrying a serious handbag and a serious newspaper I was communicating that I was serious about my business. I wouldn’t have had to do that if I’d been a man.
Another example is Character.com., a UK children’s clothing business started by a woman who originally called it ‘Rags for Rascals’. It was only when she changed the name that she found it easier to secure suppliers. So, what I would say to women is – think about how you are perceived – who makes the introduction for you, what are the slide decks you put in front of them, what name do you call your company, how do you enter the room.
We just have to try that extra bit harder to be taken seriously, which is a shame, because, as I said, women hold up half the sky and are just as good as entrepreneurs as men.