Where are the female entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurship, no matter who you are, is not an easy feat. However, it seems to be even harder for women to find their footing in this space. 

Women own just “17% of Canadian small and medium-sized businesses,” according to the Government of Canada Opens in a new window.. Meanwhile, 64.3% of men have majority ownership of small businesses in Canada, notes Women Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub Opens in a new window..

That’s quite a gap, and these stats don’t consider the intersection of other factors, such as race or age.

So, why is there such a disparity between female and male entrepreneurs and how does that impact the crucial financial planning needed to get a business off the ground?

As a Black female entrepreneur, she understands the journey from multiple perspectives and stresses the importance of having a support system around you. As such, through public speaking and social media, Eboni has been working hard to build a community of BIPOC female professionals at all stages of their careers who can lean on each other for support and mentorship.

In fact, Eboni shares that “throughout my career, I’ve received mentorship in many forms, such as books, leaders, podcasts and, of course, my parents. This informal form of mentorship truly molded me into the entrepreneur that I am today by sharpening my skillsets, forcing me to evolve with the markets, and my consistently keeping me motivated throughout the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.”

In her experience and from working with clients, Eboni explains that the journey that BIPOC businesswomen navigate can differ for a number of reasons.

• Market bias: “We struggle with market bias when attempting to penetrate certain industries. As a result, BIPOC women often have to work much harder to establish relationships, identify suppliers, and establish social proof to succeed in their businesses. For product-based businesses in particular, this often adds a premium to the cost of supplies and services, which resultantly forces BIPOC women to reduce their margins or enter the market at rates much higher than their competitors.”
• Cultural expectations: “In the case of second-generation (immigrant) BIPOC women, there is also a struggle with cultural expectations driven by our need to support our family financially, mentally, and, in some cases, physically, which delays our ability to find the time or additional cash flow to run our businesses. This, in turn, may lead to increased cases of burnout, delayed launches, or the inability to run our businesses as enterprises, instead maintaining a ‘side hustle’ mentality and work effort.”
• Business and community: “One of my favourite differentiations, and the most underrated, if I might add, is the interwoven nature of business and community for BIPOC women, where we often see the community rallying behind her. In this scenario, we oftentimes see BIPOC women leveraging their business as a driving force to support and uplift the community.”

Regardless of the nuances in the journey, Eboni champions the BIPOC women around her to follow their dreams. She often reminds the BIPOC women around her that “there will be 100 reasons why we feel that we can’t start a business or that it’s not the right time, but there are 101 reasons why you should, including achieving your goals, opening additional cash flow, creating a legacy that you can leave behind, supporting your community, and being the reminder for other young BIPOC girls that they can do it too!”

In addition, Melissa highlights how important mentorship has been throughout her career. “I have had great mentors I looked upon to broaden my expertise and knowledge in many related business fields. I have also mentored individuals who take interest in building a business plan and seeing it through to implementation. I feel it’s important to build your professional network you can depend on to support the business success.”

Melissa and Eboni share a few tips that they’ve learned throughout their careers to help female entrepreneurs excel.

• Create a business plan for your goals: Melissa stresses that you need “determine where you want to be in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and so on. This will help you to establish short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. Review the business plan regularly to ensure you stay on track.”
• Start a regular investment plan: Being an entrepreneur can come with uncertain financial times. Therefore, Melissa explains, “having an investment plan is important in order to stay committed to putting money away in case something should happen. This will put you in a strong financial position in the future by establishing a secondary source of repayment if something should happen. You are investing in your business and yourself.”
• Always remember to pay yourself: Eboni explains that “most entrepreneurs forget to pay themselves at the end of the month, instead placing 100% of their profits back into their business. Nevertheless, for the same reasons we may not work for free, you will want to ensure that at least 10% of your profits are going towards paying yourself for the work and time that you’ve put in. In addition to paying yourself and re-allocating a portion of your revenue into your business expenses or overhead, you also want to allocate a percentage towards building an emergency fund to prepare for any unexpected expenses.”
• Understand your break-even number: Eboni highlights that it’s crucial to understand “your break-even number, which is the amount of money you'd need to make in a month to cover your business-related costs. For example, if it costs $1,000 to run your business, you’d need to make $1,000 to break even, and anything above that is surplus. Once you have an understanding of this number, you can then gain insights into how you should price your products and services, and the amount of volume you’d need to break even and track trends or fluctuations in business revenue.”