[ad_1]
![A woman sits on a bench smiling.](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/microsoft-in-business/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2023/03/SMB_Organic_ImageOnly_v1-1024x538.webp)
Small enterprise homeowners should overcome many milestones—from elevating capital to hiring workers—to develop their companies. Ladies entrepreneurs face the identical obstacles, after which some. Three frequent challenges that girls encounter are defying social expectations, discovering funding, and sustaining prime abilities and operational excellence.
Nonetheless, these obstacles aren’t stopping girls from realizing a extra equitable future. Based on the Small Enterprise Administration, there are 12 million woman-owned companies in the US, and rising.[1] With over 31.7 million small businesses in the United States, the chance is limitless and a transparent name to motion to shut the hole.
Enterprise leaders Meredith Leapley, CEO and Founding father of Leapley Building Group, and Lisa S. Jones, CEO of EyeMail, are two examples of ladies who’ve discovered success within the fields of development and expertise. By sharing their experiences, we will learn to navigate adversity and domesticate numerous views to develop personally and professionally.
Persisting regardless of the gender hole and rejection
“I’ve heard so many nos and rejections via my 24 years in enterprise,” says Meredith Leapley, Founder and CEO of Leapley Building Group, a woman-owned development agency in Atlanta.
At 26 years previous, Leapley had a imaginative and prescient for her enterprise. When she entered the Atlanta business actual property and development markets, she was conscious of the perceptions that others had of her. She acquired fixed messaging from males—each implied and express—that they didn’t imagine that she would succeed.
Finally, Leapley’s dedication to range set her aside. Though the trade common for girls in development is simply 10 %, 42 % of Leapley Building Group’s challenge managers are girls. Leapley continued to uphold this dedication when she secured a contract to construct out 16 flooring at Microsoft’s Midtown campus at Atlantic Yards.
“I do know what it means to be the underdog, and I do know the totally different obstacles,” says Leapley. She has additionally made it her mission to advertise provider inclusion at Microsoft via the enterprise accelerator program Crafting Futures Together.
Supporting and empowering girls in startups
Lisa S. Jones has handled distinctive challenges as an African American innovator and the CEO of EyeMail. She remembers being advised that she would by no means begin a profitable tech firm and not using a background in coding. She refused to let these limiting beliefs cease her. In instances of want, Jones would flip to her mentors and sources for help to assist construct her enterprise.
Securing funding is one other problem that each Jones and Leapley confronted. Leapley famous that she didn’t match the standard profile of a development chief, and the financial institution deemed her enterprise enterprise too dangerous. Jones skilled comparable setbacks. After a number of funding sources rejected her, she made the choice to self-fund to scale operations.
However restricted funding isn’t the one impediment that girls entrepreneurs face. Many startups depend on expertise to compete with bigger manufacturers, however restricted sources depart them weak to safety threats. Microsoft desires to fill this hole by providing alternatives for small enterprise leaders to construct their companies and bolster their safety with minimal effort. Microsoft can be supporting small enterprise homeowners via initiatives just like the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub, the place enterprise leaders can obtain as much as $150,000 in Microsoft Azure credit and entry free productiveness instruments.
Changing into a disruptive chief with novel enterprise concepts
Jones grew to become the primary Black girl to participate within the Microsoft Innovation Lab program whereas creating automated video-in-email expertise that will lead her to discovered EyeMail. She additionally labored with the Microsoft Technology Center to entry technical experience that will convey her idea to life.
EyeMail has since grown to serve among the United States’ largest manufacturers together with Warner Media, Make-A-Want, PepsiCo, and Delta Airways. In 2022, CIO Views named Jones one of many 10 Most Disruptive Ladies Leaders. She was additionally a Microsoft finalist for Various Provider of the 12 months and Lady of the 12 months in Expertise.
Jones and Leapley acknowledge that upholding operational excellence of their discipline has meant asking for assist from leaders who encourage and push them to develop. To make these connections, they usually attend trade occasions, equivalent to Microsoft’s Go Big for Small Business.
Leapley additionally sees her willingness to stretch outdoors of her consolation zone and connecting with individuals as a aggressive edge. She has constructed relationships outdoors of her trade via her involvement in Large Brothers Large Sisters of America and the Atlanta Ladies’s Basis.
Accessing sources for small and medium-sized enterprise homeowners
The Microsoft US Small and Mid-Sized Enterprise crew stands prepared to assist small enterprise homeowners handle in the present day’s challenges with cost-saving measures, elevated safety, and essentially the most strong cloud choices available on the market. A crew of technical consultants is providing a no-cost personalized cloud and security evaluation for your business. Signal as much as make the most of this useful resource and find out about the next steps to grow your business.
[1] – Small Business Facts Women-Owned Employer Businesses, 2021, U.S. Small Enterprise Administration
[ad_2]