It seems that you can't turn on the television these days without coming
across an entrepreneur handing out money or advice (or both) to eager
start-up companies looking for help from an established business figure in
their quest to become a success.
However, if I asked you to name a famous woman entrepreneur aside from the
late Dame Anita Roddick, you would, most likely, struggle. Saying the
blond-haired woman off Dragons Den doesn't count either. I need her name.
Perhaps the name Deborah Meaden doesn't slip off the tongue as easily as Alan
Sugar or Duncan Bannatyne, but while Deborah ploughs her lone furrow in
reality television the facts of female entrepreneurship tell a different
story. There are more than one million female entrepreneurs in the UK and
research has shown that the rate women are moving into self-employment is
increasing while at the same time decreasing for men. Even venture
capitalists have taken notice and launched the Trapezia fund to provide
capital to start-up companies run or influenced by women.
The fund was set-up by StarGate Capital, whose executive chairman is Herta von
Stiegel. Giving her reasons on why the fund was set up, she said:
''Businesses with a female CEO receive less than 2.5 per cent of venture
capital funding in the UK and across Europe. We lauched Trapezia to fill
part of this equity gap.
''Research has shown us that the businesses case for investing in women's
enterprise is absolutely compelling. There are many women who could and
would be very successful entrepreneurs if they had the proper funding and
support system. Having your own business is a great alternative to corporate
life.''
A young female entrepreneur who epitomises the progress women's enterprise has
made over the last decade is 35-year-old Sháá Wasmund. Sháá started her
career at the age of 22 when she promoted fights for the boxer Chris Eubank.
Since then she has been involved in projects as diverse as marketing Dyson
vaccum cleaners and being an adviser to the social networking site Bebo.
Sháá is currently the CEO of Brightstation Ventures, a company that invests
in start-up IT businesses.
Sháá believes that being a woman has actually helped rather than hindered her
as an entrepreneur. She said: ''I think that being a woman gives you certain
advantages in negotiations. In my opinion, women are more likely to look for
a 'win-win' result instead of a 'I win-you lose' result. I also think women
are naturally better than men at multi-tasking, which is an absolute skill
for entrepreneurs. And once kids come along women have no choice but to fine
tune that skill.''
The fact that venture capitalists are sitting up and taking notice of women's
enterprise is a good indicator of how far things have come in the last five
years and young female entrepreneurs, like Sháá, are proving the management
skills that women bring to a company fit perfectly with modern day
businesses practices.
Sháá would love to see more women starting their own businesses and has this
advice: ''There is no better time than the present to start a business, no
matter what your cicumstances might be. Running your own business is
exhausting, but is also totally liberating.''
And who knows, one day it might even be a grumpy old man making up the numbers
on Dragons Den.
— For infomation on the Trapezia fund visit www.trapeziacapital.co.uk
— For more information on Brightstation Ventures visit www.brightstation.com
