Coaches and incubators need to stop misleading women in business

Australia has no shortage of entrepreneurship programs, incubators, startup workshops, and business leadership courses aimed at encouraging more women to start their own businesses, but are they selling a pipe dream instead of actually helping women?

I’ve heard community leaders openly admit that multicultural women needed to start a business to gain a sense of belonging and that it “didn’t matter” whether they were making money or not. Whether they are university-led, community-led, or corporate-led, the entire business coaching sector is rife with programs that simply don’t work and were never intended to achieve the goals they were made for. 

Worth a staggering $11.6 billion globally, the business coaching and incubator industry is going through a rapid expansion phase in Australia. But the sector’s track record in helping women build profitable businesses remains to be seen. As a country with one of the most highly educated women workforces in the world, Australian women desire financial independence but are being hamstrung by inflexible schedules, the lack of opportunities for career progression, and the lack of support to help them balance work with family responsibilities. 

It is against this backdrop that the number of women small business owners is surging, having increased by 24% between 2006 and 2021. In 2023 women small business owners account for close to 2 in 5 small business owners with more women aspiring to join their ranks every day. With the cost of living pushing families to breaking point, making a profit does matter very much, and it would be disingenuous to say otherwise.

These aspiring businesswomen are ambitious and not afraid to work hard but are being let down by those they trust enough to seek advice from. The truth is, very few startups succeed on the first try and there are far too many business coaches and mentors selling an unrealistic picture of what life as an entrepreneur actually looks like. 

Too many business coaches and mentors who have a track record of business failures and too many entrepreneurs who have never turned a profit are in the ears of hopeful business owners telling them what to do. In the end, if women business owners aren’t making money, they are losing both money and time. 

Without focusing on the key elements of starting a business — commercialisation and profit — these women are being systematically set up to fail. Any attempt to cultivate an environment that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship should include the hard truths about what it entails. These include (but are not limited to) a lack of work-life balance, no steady stream of income, and an element of risk.

Small business owners are exposed to an incredible amount of stress as they often wear many hats and are forced to grapple with making their business work all on their own. They receive no maternity leave, or sick pay, and they work as much as 50 hours a week with some logging in more than 60 hours a week. When it comes to earnings, 75% of small business owners bring in less than the average wage in Australia despite clocking in more time at work. Even more damning is the fact that 43% of small businesses are making zero profit at the moment.

Women small business owners, particularly the 300,000 small business owners who are also mums face unique challenges compared to their male counterparts. Issues such as access to finance, gendered perceptions about business ownership, and balancing business with family responsibilities are just the start. In 2022 23% of the startups funded had at least one woman founder, but these operations only received a 10% share of the total capital raised.

Nurturing woman entrepreneurship is a laudable goal, but we must ensure aspiring businesswomen go in with eyes wide open and with honest advisors. What struggling women business owners don’t need are more false narratives about the reality of entrepreneurship. To safeguard innovation and entrepreneurship, these women require tailored programs with an emphasis on financial education, access to capital, mentorship, and an authentic portrayal of the business landscape. 

A good start would be to improve the quality of organisations that receive government tenders, and also make it easier to access funding for women entrepreneurs by incentivising financial institutions and venture capital firms to invest in women-led startups, particularly via government-backed programs and guarantees (and call out those who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk). Further education should aim to train women on what ethical VCs look like plus access to key business skills like digital competency and scaling up strategies to properly equip them for a challenging environment.

When developing entrepreneurship programs for women, more effort must be made to test those who claim to succeed but leave a trail of carnage behind them but receive repeat funding. They also need to acknowledge the hardships of running a business, especially in the context of balancing business and family, accessing networks, and dealing with gender bias. Mentorship programs should connect experienced entrepreneurs with new women business owners, and support the development of networking groups that help women find peers and advisors to lean on in times of hardship. 

Starting a small business is a huge leap of faith, and just because there is a program promising the world doesn’t mean it is financially viable to help your small business or entrepreneurial journey. Women deserve to be taken seriously, told the unvarnished truth, and be given the chance to go through with their eyes wide open. 

Amanda Rose is the founder of Entrepreneurial & Small Business Women Australia.