women and Entrepreneurship

I have had an entrepreneurial spirit for a long time - it is why Project Management as a career path appealed to me - running a project as a PM is like having your own business. You are responsible for the success or failure of the project; you are the negotiator, the face of the project, so to speak - and you get to flex a bunch of different tasks and skills to manage the workforce (who mainly do not report to you, so you have to really be a great people-person) and to report on the projects to upper management. So when I first started working as a consultant, these pieces of my personality and skill set really helped me manage myself as an entrepreneur.

I loved reading these articles about women and entrepreneurship. According to the Inc.com article by Kimberly Weisul, women have always opened more businesses than men but there has now been an uptick in women of color branching out and opening up their own businesses. There is a tie in to the shaky economy and that some women may have been laid off and now are looking for more control - and there is nothing like the control of running your own business. That being said, it can also be something over which you have the least control of your life - you are responsible and in control, but success is really dependent on your clients. It does include reference that Millennials and Gen X'ers (note: I am Gen X) are more likely to want to be entrepreneurs and that this increase in women of color women becoming entrepreneurs might be in part due to the immigrant background  of seeing their families start with nothing and work for themselves.

The Forbes article by Peggy Drexler has a great statistic, "There are more female entrepreneurs than ever before - the estimated 7.8 million women-owned businesses in the U.S. represent a more than 20% increase since 2002. " The article then talks about the differences of confidence between men and women. There is a tendency for women to underestimate ourselves - to assume we cannot try something new or branch out. Our experiences in Corporate America might underline these feelings but we can re-program ourselves to be confident, to try new things and to maybe branch out and run our own businesses and add to that 7.8 million number.

What do you think  about the articles? Why do you think there has been such an increase in female entrepreneurs, particularly women of color? What do you think about women and confidence? Are you a confident women and if so how do you maintain your confidence?

 

Inc.com Women Business Soaring Thanks to This Group
Forbes You're Competent Now Get Confident