Key Points
- The pandemic has led to a global reset, with a positive side effect of more women starting new businesses.
- Recent data from print orders and industry experts show a surge in women-led start-ups during the pandemic.
- Three trends suggest that post-pandemic women-led start-ups will be purpose-led, larger than expected, and making great progress on entrepreneurship around gender and race.
Amid all the tragedies of the pandemic, there has been one positive side effect: a global reset.
A “pandemic pause” is giving the world the opportunity to reflect and recalibrate on such causes as diversity and the environment. We saw clear skies during lockdowns, and are asking how to make those permanent. #BLM is everywhere. And women are starting three quarters of new businesses, at least according to some early indicators I’ve identified.
Why does this matter? Because the start-ups of today are the giant companies of the future. There have been multiple obstacles to female-founded companies over time — lack of funding and systemic sexism, among them — and the pipeline problem has been a particular impediment.
Not all start-ups turn into unicorns, or private companies worth more than US$1 billion. But if men start up twice as many companies as women, which has historically been the case, even in 2019/2020, then all else being equal, there will be twice as many male-founded unicorns as female-founded ones. Therefore, a post-pandemic surge in women-led start-ups is a leading indicator of the future.
How do we know that women are starting so many businesses? Normally, stats on entrepreneurship take a year or two to be gathered by national statistics agencies. But I found an interesting early data point: printing demand. Even in 2020, print is not dead, and as people start new businesses they still need new logos, brochures, and business cards.
… (Content shortened for brevity)
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Author : Editorial Staff
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