Dear Spinster,
How do you define entrepreneurship? Does it include the local business owners, the freelancers finally forming their own brand, the self-proclaimed founders, or the newly certified coaching experts?
I’m asking because I want to know who you are here to help. Whose team are you on for the long haul? Are you here to help us all? Or only the Forbes winning, TedTalk giving, Fast Company magazine features, female founders?
Asking because the free resources aren’t enough. The seller workshops on Etsy, the NYC business webinars, and local finance guides don’t provide the support we need. We need a person who gets it, in our corner, on our side, backing us up, and helping us make it big. Is Spinster that person?
Sincerely,
The Other Founder
Dear Other Founder,
You’ve hit such a vital conversation around what counts as a ‘founder.’ Is a small business owner a founder? If you aren’t looking to raise venture capital, are you still a founder? If you have an online store, are you a founder? If you aren’t Forbes 30 under 30 or never anticipate making it on the cover of Inc., are you still a founder?
It wasn’t so long ago, that women couldn’t start companies by themselves. As late as 1974, women weren’t allowed to take out a loan without a man co-signing for it. This prevented many women from gaining access to the capital they needed to fund their own businesses, making traditional 9-5 jobs the default career trajectory. But since that decade, the number of women owning businesses around the country has grown by 3,000%. Now, 1,821 women start new businesses every day. I truly believe that the growth of women moving away from the traditional workforce and into the startup space comes from the desire to become the founders of their own careers.
Do you see what’s happening here, Other Founder? An entire economy is building around women’s work. An economy that is valued at 1.8 trillion dollars and an economy that isn’t defined by just one group of founders. It’s defined by the TedTalk giving, Forbes 30 under 30, Silicon Valley rat racers, AND the Mommybloggers, the Etsy sellers, and the small business owners. It’s all of us. All of us are contributing to this economy. And all of us need certain essential foundational systems that must be built into our business in order to see them successfully grow.
That’s where Spinster comes in. There are basic elements of a business that can’t be outsourced, can’t be bypassed, and must be implemented into a business structure - no matter what the size or scale of the business - in order to be successful. Those areas of business include marketing, sales, and financials/fundraising. Every company must have a marketing plan in order to reach their target customer. Every business must have a sales plan in order to convert their ideal customers. Every business must understand their financials in order to maintain runway, scale, and grow.
In the same vein, every woman who has left her full-time job (with benefits) to venture down the often lonely path of entrepreneurship needs a community that has her back. She needs consultants who not only have cutting-edge skills and proven track records of supporting female founders (for over a decade in the space) but who understand how to support all the mental and emotional highs and lows of the journey.
Spinster is providing all of this. Through our wide array of consulting services at accessible pricepoints - and our consultant’s training in bringing an intersectional, empowering approach to our work - we’ve helped over 60 female founders from all walks of life - and all walks of business - make it to the next stage. Now that we’re gearing up our community services to launch in 2020, we’ll finally have a place to bring women together to support one another as our businesses grow.
But my guess, Other Founder, is that you’ve written this question about who counts - and who doesn’t count - because you’ve been told, that for whatever reason, implicitly or explicitly - the type of company you’re building, or your business goals, or your idea - isn’t enough. My guess is that you’ve been told that you’re not 30 under 30, so you have no chance. My guess is that you haven’t given a TedTalk, and I assume, you’re not planning on giving one any time soon. And that maybe, you feel you’re not the type of founder to get featured on Forbes or Inc., for whatever reason. And it wouldn’t surprise me if that kind of commentary came from other men - and women - in the startup space, because I’ve witnessed that kind of commentary myself.
Yes, Other Founder, I’ve heard the conversations about what counts as ‘real risk’ and ‘real entrepreneurship’ - leaving a full-time job, investing thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of your own dollars, moving across (or even out of) the country in order to make it works. I’ve done all of those things, mind you. So I understand what these founders are saying when it comes to risk. And hats off to those founders who have done these scary and brave things. The corporate world can make you feel petrified to believe in yourself more than in their 401k plan. Investing large sums of personal wealth - whether inherited or earned - is an incredibly risky move. Leaving the comforts of everything you know - your support system, your team, your advisors - to live in a new space for three months (or indefinitely) in hopes of making a dream come true, is just crazy.
But some women entrepreneurs don’t have tens of thousands of dollars to invest in their own companies. They have families and student loans, they have rent and they have healthcare. And they don’t have parents or boyfriends or husbands who can pay for those things. They have aging parents or are single household earners or are in relationships where financial abuse prevails over their ability to invest in their own dreams. Some women entrepreneurs don’t have the ability to move across the country into an accelerator, or into an urban hub that can help network them into the right circles. They have babies and mortgages, and full-time jobs that pay for the latter. All of which prevents them from even thinking about leaving their homes.
Not every founder gets the runway to be that kind of founder, and we need to stop defining entrepreneurship - or startups - in that way, especially when it comes to women in the space. Because this is our chance to do it differently. As builders of this new economy - by women, for women; as innovators addressing needs of women the market has long ignored; as mothers who want their days dictated by school plays and not unpaid overtime; as entry-level employees who are tired of learning their male peers are already getting paid $15,000 more than they are for the same damn job; as VPs who feel they have to reinvent themselves because there’s nowhere else to grow or go; as women who have had their career - and lives - destroyed by those who have abused their positions of power - this is not just an opportunity to build a new career path. This is our opportunity for building a new way to work.
Remember the bigger picture, the next time someone tells you your idea is too small, Other Founder. Or when you’re told that it’s a cute 'project’. Or that your Etsy company isn’t a real thing. At the end of the day this path your forging -or even the path we’re forging as women business owners - isn’t about their standards. It’s about figuring out your own standards, your own business culture, your own goals for growth, and forging forward as the kind of founder you uniquely understand yourself to be.
My challenge to you moving forward, Other Founder, is to ask yourself a series of new questions: how do you define work? How do you define business? How do you define being a founder? As women business owners, finally have the chance to redefine all of it. Take that chance, and forge your own path.