Entrepreneurship is different for women, says Prof Maura McAdam of DCU Business School. “Women entrepreneurs’ journeys are very different, not because they’re less capable or ambitious, but more to do with the structural design of the ecosystem and social norms.”
As an expert in female entrepreneurship, McAdam has been analysing the data for two decades and has interviewed more than 300 female founders across the globe.
“Women may typically feel that they need permission to start, build and/or grow entrepreneurial ventures due to a combination of societal expectations, stereotypes, cultural norms and personal experiences,” she says.
International research in this area has identified numerous barriers to female entrepreneurship throughout a women’s life. As girls, they lack clear career pathways and role models and are made to feel they don’t belong.
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Many girls in Ireland miss out on lucrative careers in science, technology, engineering, and maths (Stem) thanks to legacy issues and a lack of investment, Gillian Keating, an adjunct professor in the College of Business and Law at University College Cork (UCC), told the iWish conference for secondary school girls last week.
Keating, a cofounder of iWish, said Ireland risks excluding many young women from the industries of the future. The group’s latest annual survey found access to Stem subjects at second-level education remains unequal. Just 5 per cent of girls from single-sex schools reported access to construction studies, 6 per cent to engineering and 20 per cent to technology.
“When it comes to female entrepreneurship, we need to look at the root causes. There’s too much of a tendency to look at the symptoms,” says McAdam. The root causes are social, cultural and structural: lack of role models, educational and career pathway barriers, and childcare responsibilities resting mainly with women.
There are different ways to be an entrepreneur and we should not rely solely on the ‘tech-bro’ stereotype of success.
“Women don’t need to be fixed; we need to fix the whole system,” McAdam says.
Funding and network barriers
As entrepreneurs, alongside high barriers to entry, women experience great difficulty in finding the money to launch and grow a business. When companies with women founders or cofounders seek out venture capital funding, they receive around just 10 per cent of all investment capital globally.
In Ireland, the number of female-led companies funded, and the amounts raised, in the State have not budged by much since 2017, with just 48 women-led start-ups raising €145 million in 2023, according to TechIreland.
The average funding in 2023 was €1.2 million – the same as in 2017.
Despite that, financial data and research firm Pitchbook ranks Ireland second in Europe by deal count on a per capita basis for investment in women-led start-ups.
In a bid to increase women’s economic participation, over the last decade Enterprise Ireland and the Government have targeted women-led businesses with a variety of programmes and funding streams specifically designed for them, but significant gaps remain.
Start-up hub Dogpatch Labs’ Lorraine Curham says: “The female founders building tech companies in Ireland are talented, well educated and highly ambitious. The gap is not capability, but access. Our data and pilot programmes over the past three years consistently show that women founders are far less likely to have access to the networks that unlock early capital and growth opportunities.”
Female entrepreneurs need to own it. Grab the microphone; don’t be afraid to say, ‘I’m an entrepreneur.’ Claim that space for yourself as a legitimate one that’s part of your identity
— Prof Maura McAdam
Curham created Fierce, a female founder network, to address that gap. “We are the connectivity layer between women founders in tech and investors, talent and capital. In November of last year, Fierce ran a 24-hour global sprint in London with 21 early-stage female founders from Ireland, where they were introduced to more than 25 investors.
“Two weeks later, one of those companies, Linda AI, closed a €2.6 million pre-seed round led by 6 Degrees Capital. It’s one of the largest pre-seed rounds raised by an Irish female-founded tech company.”
Linda AI helps dental practices capture missed calls and reduce no-shows to ensure better cash flow and patient satisfaction.
Build success
“Women need to stop trying to fit into places that were not designed for them and to question the advice they’re being given,” says McAdam.
The cultural conversation around entrepreneurship has long been shaped by a male-dominated narrative, reinforcing traditional ideas of what it means to be an entrepreneur. Those assumptions are outdated, says McAdam, whose research has found that women entrepreneurs are also disrupters and risk takers.
Although McAdam’s findings were widely published in academic journals over the last two decades, she wanted wider reach and greater impact. “Academia and business often fail to mix and I wanted to translate my research into something practical that women can use,” she says.
[ What’s really holding women back at work?Opens in new window ]
Her forthcoming book, Permission Granted, transforms her evidence-based insights into eight calls to action that help women start, build and grow thriving businesses.
One of the most useful sections asks women to be intentional about what they’re trying to achieve. “Women need to think about how they personally define success and not let others define it for them,” she says. “Don’t rely on someone else’s definition, or the ecosystem’s or even your mentor’s definition. Be quite clear yourself on that but appreciate that it will change as you and the business evolve, so keep checking in on it.”
For many men, success is selling the business for millions within a few years and seeing their name in the media. A yacht or luxury car may also be on the checklist.
Women may want these things too, but often they start businesses to solve a problem or out of frustration that something they want or need is not available. The financial pay-offs may come later, and more quietly, as they tend to build businesses in a more deliberate way.
That means one size does not fit all, says McAdam.
“What’s your financial compass for navigating the funding landscape? Despite the talk and the TV shows, the venture capital route is not right for every business. Be thoughtful when determining the best funding model.
“Women bootstrap their funding more than men, often out of a desire to create a legacy, wanting more control, and so they can be more creative,” says McAdam.
“Get in touch with your passion and purpose. What lights you up? Add in your values. They’re hard to name but they’re so important. Combined, those are your North Star. It’s so good for setting boundaries and really helps you determine what does and doesn’t fit in to your plan.”
In McAdam’s blueprint for success, wallflowers need not apply.
“Female entrepreneurs need to own it. Grab the microphone; don’t be afraid to say, ‘I’m an entrepreneur.’ Claim that space for yourself as a legitimate one that’s part of your identity,” she says.
In her research on the entrepreneurial gender divide, McAdam says: “Workplaces tend to thrive where there is a natural balance between human connection, empathy, emotional intelligence and professional goals. Indeed, it is important to reflect upon what might be lost when there is not enough room for feminine energy and leadership to emerge and why supporting a broader range of entrepreneurial identities and energies in the workplace is required.”
Margaret E Ward is chief executive of Clear Eye, a leadership consultancy. margaret@cleareye.ie
