Why Female Entrepreneurs are More Successful
Welcome to part ten of Your Moment of Ambition a 20-part series brought to you by KoMedia Inc, and written by staff writer Kylie Adair. This series dives into the daily realities for women entrepreneurs and can land in your inbox every Tuesday at 9 am via our newsletter.
William Crowder has a few key questions for his fellow investors:
“Who would you rather have running a company? Would you rather have someone who feels like this is something they can just do and it comes natural and they’re not really pushing very hard? Or would you like to work with someone who’s got a drive and a passion to succeed that is somewhat unmatched, relative to some of the other people in the space?”
To be clear, the ones who have the unmatched passion and drive are women.
And William would know — he’s leads the Catalyst Fund, a division of Comcast Ventures that funds minority and women-led ventures. The Fund’s motto is, “In a sea of sameness, we value different.”
So William knows that when we invest in women, amazing things happen.
“The women that I’ve invested in have been incredibly impressive,” he says. “They know their spaces cold, inside and out, there’s no question. I have a couple that I feel like no matter who they’re meeting with, they are the smartest person in the room.”
And William’s experiences are backed by the numbers. Not only are women-owned businesses increasing in number, they’re increasing in size and strength, too.
A 2013 study called Women in Technology: Evolving, Ready to Save the Worldfound that women-led startups achieve on average a 35 percent higher return on investment than male-owned companies. And when they’re venture-backed, they bring in 12 percent more revenue than their male counterparts.
And in March 2015, another confirmation: a study of 1,000 Fortune companies found that women-led companies perform three times better than those run by men — equity returns 226 percent better, to be exact.
So what is it that makes women more likely to succeed in this way?
William says it has a lot to do with the fact that to even become a leader and carve out a space in the business world for themselves, women often have to put in more work than their male counterparts just to level the playing field.
“I think that whenever people are put in a position where they feel like they have something else to prove, or they’ve had to work so hard just to get whatever it is that they have to begin with, then they’re far less likely to just let it all ride and go away,” he says.
A survey by the Pew Research Centre might just prove that point. It found that the number one reason people thought that women were being held back from top executive jobs is that they’re held to higher standards than men are.
So it could be that by the time women get to that top job or are ready to start their business, they’re already accustomed to working harder than everyone else. It’s an unfortunate reality — and one that we need to work toward changing — but one that, for better or worse, makes women a force to be reckoned with in the business world.
We also know that part of the reason is likely because women are socialized to be better tuned into the inner workings of the people around them, including their employees and their clients, making them more effective leaders.
Two Harvard researchers found in 2012 that “at every level, more women were rated by their peers, their bosses, their direct reports, and their other associates as better overall leaders than their male counterparts — and the higher the level, the wider that gap grows.”
And not only are we more tuned in emotionally, women are statistically more likely to work collaboratively and consider others’ ideas in decision making environments.
In a 2010 survey of 50 female corporate board members, there was an overwhelming consensus that the whole culture of an organization changes when more women have meaningful roles.
One of the study’s respondents was on a board that went from having two to four women directors said there was a noticeable culture shift after adding more women to the mix: “The men are learning to be more inclusive, asking whether anyone has comments, and so on.”
Another had this to say: “People talk differently now that there are more women… it’s much more conversational and less hierarchical and, as a result, all the directors get better information.”
Collaboration matters because any good leader knows that in order to get the best results, monetary and otherwise, every talent pool needs to be tapped. No one person has all the answers, and women know this — that’s why they, statistically, get better results when they’re in charge of a company.
So whether we’re making strides in changing corporate culture, or we’re having to work twice as hard as men to just to prove our capability, the reality is that businesses led by women are more likely to succeed.
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