Finding time to funding: The struggles of female entrepreneurship

Dilemma of women leaders: Female entrepreneurs present an example of empowerment to society, but are as human to challenges and stereotypes.

While Women’s Day becomes a day for celebrating exceptional women leaders, founders and female entrepreneurs took the initiative to demystify the stress around perfectionism on this day.

Notably, this year’s theme is Inspire Inclusion, aimed at celebrating the achievements of women, taking action to drive gender parity and raise awareness against bias.

Un-Celebrating Women’s Day

Mamaearth co-founder and CEO Ghazal Alagh shared she declined over 30 events on Women’s Day, and rather focused on equal opportunity for women leaders, investing in female entrepreneurs and educating the youth on gender equality. 

“It's exhausting how everyone wants your voice for 3 days and if you say no, you are 'high-nosed.' This year I am un-celebrating Women's Day and focusing on real action. Women's Day is about taking a meaningful change, not events & gifts,” she posted on X.

As per a recent report by LONGHOUSE Consulting, 39 per cent of Indian companies are employing women in CXO positions, which outpaces the global average of 32 per cent.

While the findings suggest 40 per cent of HR directors and CFOs in India are women, there are lags in the proportion of CEO and MD, and other roles for women.

Juggling work with life

MD & CEO Edelweiss Mutual Fund Radhika Gupta shared how she falls short of sleep due to work and travel, and juggles responsibilities of being a mother and a top boss.

She was sharing her response to a woman’s question on her morning routine.

“She probably was hoping to hear that I wake up at 5 am, have a warm glass of water, meditate, plan my day and have the perfect morning that influencers talk about,” she said.

Revealing the true picture, she said, “ I am usually short of sleep because I travel and work late nights, wake up to find a running 1.5 year old who then jumps on my lap and eats or spills half his breakfast,  and barely find time to get ready in a sari before work.”

The front stage of her life, she shared, may look glamorous but the backstage is chaos, like it is for every working mom.

Notably, 80 per cent of working women in India are taking a career break, as per the LONGHOUSE Consulting Report, with a majority (45 per cent) of the women going on a work hiatus for childcare and personal commitments in home making.

On road to startups

SUGAR Cosmetics CEO Vineeta Singh has shared on multiple occasions how she had to face gender bias from venture capitalists, with roadblocks in receiving funding unless her husband Kaushik Mukherjee came on board full-time.

"In 2012-13, when Kaushik was still with Mckinsey, I've had an investor say 'We don't invest in solo women founders so, until Kaushik quits Mckinsey and joins full time, we can't give you a check'," she shared.

Singh has spoken of creating a network for female founders, since networking for founders has been male-dominated historically.

In the present scenario for the startup ecosystem, only 14 unicorns out of 112 in India have more than one woman director on their board, according to PrivateCircle Research. Out of 598 directors across unicorn startups, only 77 of them are women - including founders, investor representatives and independent directors.

But initiatives have been underway.

Gaurav Bhatnagar, Head of Seller Acquisition and Development, Amazon India shared the company has empowered over 1.6 million women entrepreneurs across India, facilitating the sale of more than 1 lakh products spanning 10 categories like apparel, jewellery, groceries and more.

The Amazon Saheli program, which provides a dedicated community in the e-commerce ecosystem for women-led businesses, features founders such as Gauri Malik of Sirohi Furniture, Minal Pareek of  Astitva Homes, Geetanjali Gupta of   Geetanjali Crafts, Pooja Ratnakar of Art Bunker and Rahee Ambani of Terravita.

These founders were hailed by the e-commerce giant for creating jobs in local communities.