Who’s Starting companies Now?

Women starting small businesses at torrid pace

SJ Mercury News 16 May 14 & Assoc Press NYC, enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz

Fast Starts. If you go to work for a newer business, there’s a better chance you’ll be working for a woman. Women are starting companies at a torrid pace. Between 1997 & 2014, the number of women-owned businesses in the U.S. rose by 68 % – twice the growth rate for men and nearly 1 & 1/2 the rate for all companies, according to an American Express analysis figures. Today, they are starting an estimated 1,288 companies each day, up from 602 in 2011-12, American Express says.

More Awareness. “Women are becoming more aware of the opportunities for entrepreneurship in their lives. It’s becoming more of an option for a career move than it ever has been in the past,” says Susan Duffy, executive director of the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership at Babson College. The number of new businesses started by women & men has increased in part because of the difficult job market since the 2008 recession. But the numbers of women business owners will keep rising as interest in entrepreneurship grows and younger women look to famous women as their role models, Duffy says.

A Who’s Who. Some of those inspirations: Oprah Winfrey, clothing designers Tory Burch & Diane Von Furstenberg (both in Saks, Nordy’s, etc) + Weili Dai, co-founder of chip maker Marvell. The current head of the Small Business Administration (SBA), Maria Contreras-Sweet, & her predecessor, Karen Mills, have both been business owners.

Role Models. “More women are seeing their chance to be heroes in the business world. They’re saying, this is fabulous, I want to be like her,” Duffy says. Their role models also include less prominent successful women in business. One of Summer Scarbrough’s inspirations has been her mother, Elizabeth, a former executive with a medical devices company. The Scarbroughs own VinniBag, a seller of Travel bags for wine & other bottles. “I knew from a very young age that she was one of the only women in her company at that level,” says Scarbrough.

Not unusual anymore. Being a woman business owner is no longer as novel or unusual as it was decades ago. “I know a lot of women who are starting things as well,” Scarbrough says. The growing number of resources for women business owners, including the SBA-sponsored Women’s Business Centers & Women’s Business Organizations are also encouraging women to start companies, according to Duffy. But women owners aren’t carbon copies of men. They tend to be more optimistic than their male counter-parts, according to a survey released this week by Bank of America.

Small Biz Survey. 70% of the women owners surveyed expect their revenue to rise over the next year, compared to 66 % of men. 56% of women plan to hire in the next year, compared to 50 % of men. And 68 % of women plan to expand their companies; 63 % of men have such plans. The survey also found women owners may face different challenges than men. 29% said they feel they have less access to money than men, & 32 % said they have less access to new business opportunities.

What kind of Biz? A woman entrepreneur is most likely to start a company that provides educational services, administrative or waste management services or is involved in the arts, entertainment or recreation, the AmEx survey said. And nearly 1 in 3 women-owned companies, is owned by a minority. The number of businesses owned by minority women has climbed to 2.9 million this year from just under 930,000 in 1997, a 215 % increase. During that time, the number of companies owned by minority men has more than doubled [100%] to nearly 3.7 million from 1.7 million.

Comments: What do you think? What advice would you offer women?