Thriving Business
THRIVING BUSINESS
Business Insights to Help You Grow Your Business with Ease
We’re two seasoned business owners — Sam Morris and Kate De Jong — sharing our nearly thirty-year combined experience of starting and growing service-based businesses from the ground up. We so many small businesses struggling or falling prey to expensive promises of quick fixes or silver bullets. Both of us know what it REALLY takes to start and grow a business, we've done it many times over and we've got the blisters to prove it! We’ve joined forces to share our knowledge and experience so you can find the easiest path to success, doing it your way, and most importantly — staying true to yourself.
Thriving Business
Venture Capital and Gender Bias: How Questions Shape Funding Allocation
In today’s episode, Kate and Sam discuss a thought-provoking article that was published in The Harvard Business Review. The article explores how male and female entrepreneurs get asked different questions by venture capitalists, leading to funding disparities. Despite female business ownership being high, women receive only 3% of venture funding. The questions asked to men focus on the vision and potential, while women face defensive queries about risk and break-even. Flipping prevention questions to promotion ones can change the trajectory. It’s quite incredible how the way a question is asked can have such profound consequences on mindset and perception. They discuss how disrupting bias in questioning is crucial for funding equality and for women to succeed in business generally.
Here's the link to the Harvard Business Review article:
https://hbr.org/2017/06/male-and-female-entrepreneurs-get-asked-different-questions-by-vcs-and-it-affects-how-much-funding-they-get
Tune in now and learn more about the importance of being mindful of the questions asked - even how you frame questions to your friends and family! Today’s discussion encourages entrepreneurs to be proactive in shaping the narrative during pitches and marketing of their message.
Episode Highlights:
- Gender bias in venture capital funding
- Unequal funding for female entrepreneurs
- Defensive position for female entrepreneurs
- Influence of female venture capitalists
- The Funding Gap: Entrepreneurs who field prevention questions raise significantly less funding compared to those asked promotion-focused questions.
- Seeking External Funding: Many women turn to their partners for initial funding, facing similar questions that hinder their funding opportunities.
- The Power of Passion and Purpose: The importance of passion and purpose in business to stay motivated and resilient through challenging times.
- Flipping the Bias: The hosts propose flipping prevention questions into promotion answers during funding discussions to disrupt the cycle of bias.
- The need to position themselves differently and offer a competitive advantage in their business approach.
- Understanding finances and presenting ideas effectively
- Parenting Styles and Questions: Kate and Sam explore how their differing parenting styles impact their children's responses and emotions.
And so much more!
Connect with the Women Doing Business Hosts:
Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business
Website: https://katedejong.com/
Instagram: katedejong.inspiredbusiness
Email: kate@katedejong.com
Sam Morris | The Business Implementor
Website: https://thebusinessimplementor.com/
Instagram: sammorris.businesscoach
Email: sam@thebusinessimplementor.com
