Women Entrepreneurs are put through the wringer during the fundraising

Award-winning transformational success coach, Savitha Nanjappa, hosts this business
podcast series to help budding entrepreneurs launch their brands. Armed with 17 years of
corporate experience, Savitha launched her coaching platform, Success With Savitha, and
then created a podcast after the same.

The show specifically features women from all walks of life who swap success stories, inspiration and strategies to tackle work, personal life and more. Through her podcast, Savitha shares stories and experiences of women in the business world who have gone through the hustle and are real inspirations for the upcoming entrepreneur.

In a discussion with Thought Habitat, Savitha talks about gender parity in entrepreneurship, challenges budding women entrepreneurs face and a lot more.

Edited Excerpts:

While we discuss gender parity in organizations, what is gender parity in entrepreneurship?

Gender parity in entrepreneurship is equally important, we need more female entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists so we can build businesses that are by women for women. Because we do not have enough representation, women founders face massive challenges even getting considered.

As a society we are still deeply rooted in patriarchy, women founders are really put through the wringer during the fundraising phases which in turn lead to women thinking twice about pitching themselves.

So it’s imperative that the work continues to encourage more female founders and startups as well as female investors to take up space. India has less than 20% women entrepreneurs, which is really low.

What are the challenges that budding women entrepreneurs face?

Getting and raising funding, getting in front of investors, the networks and connections required to get in front of investors, getting opportunities to pitch and then getting an investment are all major challenges today.

Also support for women who want to start a business, even a small business, is challenging as often they don’t get support at home, they are discouraged (because it’s too hard, or don’t get the initial capital to start), which in turn impacts confidence.

Then there are challenges on having the right learning programs, cohorts and accelerators to help them learn, grow their skill sets. Having said that, there are now a lot of organizations working to improve this in the past couple of years.

What are the arenas that women are showing more interest in?

In the product space – I see Fashion, beauty, Lifestyle, Food, jewellery, Design, AI. In the service space, it’s again design, digital marketing, beauty, Coaching and Consulting, wealth management, Content Creators.

Of all, who is a real inspiration for you?

Nykaa Founder – Falguni Nayyar and Whitney Wolfe Herd – the Founder of the Bumble App. Of course, there are so many more inspirational women out there.

Do we get to see more Women Entrepreneurs emerging in 2022?

Yes, more and more of the younger generation are attracted to building their own business and wanting to be their own boss. Being a girl boss is the dream of a lot of young women today.