Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?
Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases - solving this problem is bigger than supporting women, it’s about supporting the national economy.
May 09, 2022
Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash
Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard
Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.
The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.
Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.
In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.
It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.
Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?
With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.
Using tech to level the playing field
There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.
A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.
With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.
When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.
By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.
Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.
One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.
Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.
But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.
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How am I doing as a parent?
Evaluating yourself is hard. It's even harder when attempting to assess your parenting because there's no set guide and nothing to count, measure, or quantify.
March 22, 2022
Some time ago, I met my lovely friend for a drink, straight off the train from London. She told me about a very intense performance review she had at work recently, which, although scary, was incredibly useful; it gave her a general sense of how she was doing and areas to work on.
And it struck me we don't get this feedback as parents. Am I doing a good job? I have no idea.
I'm not expecting a formal meeting to discuss my parenting expertise (who would even run that meeting? The health visitor? My partner?) but the only sense I ever get of how I'm doing as a mum is from my internal perspective. And I veer wildly from thinking I'm doing alright to admonishing myself for being a terrible mother.
Usually, I feel that way when I've made a mistake or when one (or both) of my kids behave exceptionally bad in public. Nothing makes you question your parenting skills more than having to physically remove a screaming toddler from a busy soft play or losing your temper doing homework with your five-year-old.
I tried asking my children for feedback, but I was left disappointed if I expected them to say anything productive or profound. Truthfully I was hoping they'd say something adorable about me being a great mum and that just being myself was everything they needed, but I didn't get that. I asked – "what makes a good parent?" Frank, who is five years old, said, "giving their kids sweets and letting them do whatever they want all the time."
Ever the opportunist. And when I asked Bill, who is three years old, "what makes a good mama?" he said – "fierce, good at hunting, and a really loud roar." And then I remembered I was supposed to be pretending to be a lion with him. We never circled back to it. And if I'm honest with myself, my roar is mediocre at best, and my hunting skills are also lacking.
Evaluating yourself is hard. It's even harder when attempting to assess your parenting because there's no set guide and nothing to count, measure, or quantify.
There's no clear way to tell if you're making the right decisions or doing a good job. I've always been bad at taking criticism, and nothing is more personal and more likely to sting than pointing out your failings as a mum. And there are no targets to hit essentially, except one end goal – simply molding them into half-decent adults.
So let's review. Am I patient enough? Fun? Do I spend enough time playing with them? Is it bad that I need a break from them sometimes, or that I occasionally hide really well during a game of hide and seek so I can have a minute to myself? Are they safe, are they happy, are they healthy? What do I do well? What can I do better?
Shall we measure our success as mums by how tidy our house is, how well behaved our kids are, or whether they're wearing matching socks and mittens or not? We're all just stumbling around in the dark, aren't we? A bit of soul searching can be helpful, but ultimately, getting through to bedtime most days is an achievement.
I've given myself two mini targets – less shouting (deep breaths, guys), and to put my phone away a bit more.
Parenting can be boring, and it's tempting to scroll through Twitter or tackle today's wordle, but if I put my phone out of reach for a while, I find myself picking up on things I would have missed, and I'm more present. I'll keep assessing myself and trundling along as best I can, and maybe I'll get some proper feedback from my tiny little bosses one day.
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