Mackay has joined other women entrepreneurs in building businesses that now account for 39.2% of all enterprises in the United States. Since 2019, women-owned businesses have increased by 69%. Last year, women launched 49% of all new businesses, according to the New Business Formation report from Gusto. These women-owned businesses employ 12.9 million workers and have an annual revenue of $3.3 trillion.
Entrepreneurship can have many different paths. Choose yours and get going!
“One of our goals is impact and scale,” Tory Burch tells Oprah Daily. “How do we reach as many women entrepreneurs as we possibly can? Because the work we’re doing is now proven.”
Women are launching businesses at record rates, yet funding remains scarce. Tory Burch says removing barriers could unlock billions in economic growth.
Founder startups founded or cofounded by women generate 78 cents in revenue for every dollar invested, compared with 31 cents for those started by men.
“If we can be advocates for women in business to show what an incredible investment they are, we would be doing a great job,” she [Burch] says. “Women are the answer – and they’re the best investment possible.”
In this article, we celebrate the achievements of women in business – those who have shattered gender stereotypes in business – highlighting some of the most successful female entrepreneurs and CEOs.
What's driving this momentum?
The author of the article, More Women Are Starting Businesses Than Ever, but Many Are Doing It Alone, says "If I had to distill the most important things the data says women founders need to understand before they start, it would come down to the following principles."
A working paper by researchers at the University of Delaware and Rutgers University found women-owned businesses were significantly more likely than comparable male-owned firms to liquidate through Chapter 7 bankruptcy rather than attempt to reorganize under Chapter 11. And when women-owned companies did pursue reorganization, they were less likely to emerge successfully from the process.
I've always felt that failure is not an option but that's one reason bankruptcy laws exist, not simply to close struggling businesses but to determine which companies can restructure, recover and keep operating.
The findings point to a less-explored dimension of the gender gap in entrepreneurship.
Take Erin Giddens. She had long dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur—but not while she earned a steady paycheck in the corporate world.
Then came the layoff from her communications-associate role and a months long job search that went nowhere. By the time she decided to focus full time on her own video-production company last fall, she says, the move came down to this:
“Do I want to get back working in corporate, where they’re still going to have my career in their hands, or am I going to bet on myself?” she says.
Guess what she did? Read on about how she and many others like her are tired of the anxiety in corporate America and are creating their own destiny.
After all, that is why we started Escape From Corporate America July 7, 2004! Check out that post.
 |
| ©2026 Laurel J. Delaney (7/4/26). All rights reserved. |
AI is accelerating everything. Record numbers. Soaring net worths. An all-time high in total wealth held by women who earned every dollar of it.
The signal is clear: more self-made women billionaires exist today, with more influence and more opportunity, than at any point in American history.
 |
| ©2026 Laurel J. Delaney. All rights reserved. |
Women-led startups consistently receive less than 2% of U.S. venture capital, per Crunchbase data. That’s despite delivering 2.5x better returns than male-founded startups, research shows.
What's the deal and what's the solution?
Former PayPal executive Molly Huyck teamed up with Amie Konwinski, a U.S. Navy veteran and marketing executive, to found Aequitas Invest, an SEC-registered, funding portal.
Aequitas Invest is a space where women founders share their journeys – and investors learn how Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) works to expand access to capital for women-led startups.
Here's a walk through the essential steps veterans can take when starting a business and resources that can help every step of the way.
"The history of female entrepreneurship stretches back centuries, from Eliza Lucas Pinckney's plantation management in colonial South Carolina to Rebecca Lukens's 19th-century ironworks, Madame C. J. Walker's early 20th-century beauty empire, and later pioneers such as Estée Lauder and Martha Stewart. Across time, women entrepreneurs have often faced skepticism, discriminatory property and inheritance laws, and limited access to capital and networks."
Read more here – from defining female entrepreneurship, to breaking barriers, to its rise as a global phenomenon.
%205:7:26.png)
You won't want to miss it. I'll [Laurel Delaney] be there and hope to see you, too!
But back to why 2026 is the best year for women to start businesses. The data tells a compelling story. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, women-owned businesses now have access to targeted funding opportunities, federal contracting programs, and an expanding network of Women’s Business Centers that provide free training and counseling. These are all resources that significantly improve success rates in female-founded businesses.
Before diving into what you think will be a viable business, ask yourself these three questions:
Here are the stories of women who became the heads of well-known and Fortune 500 companies.
 |
| ©Laurel J. Delaney. All rights reserved. |
Organizers say more than 3,100 events have been registered in all 50 states, with more than 9 million people expected to participate. Or as Trump would say, "Billions are showing up :-)! It's going to be the biggest ever!"
Photo credit: Laurel Delaney of Chicago's flyer for the No Kings rally 3/28/26.
The trend is particularly strong among younger women and women of color, who are ambitiously launching new businesses.
Read more here.
Happy St. Patrick's Day 2026!
Today, Irish women in Texas continue to embody tremendous drive, through leadership in business and innovation, contributions to the arts and academia, and service to their communities, they are forging modern links between Ireland and Texas.
Meet some of the Irish women who are making their mark in the Lone Star state.
At 20, she immigrated to New York City with little more than determination and soon transformed her experience into a book amplifying the voices of immigrant women entrepreneurs across the U.S., celebrating their resilience, ingenuity, and community‑driven leadership.
After spending years living and working remotely in more than 30 countries, Saloua now blends storytelling, education, and strategy to help others craft sustainable, location‑independent lives grounded in freedom, purpose, and impact.
Saloua is redefining freedom, entrepreneurship, and immigrant storytelling.
To unlock this potential, growth-oriented women-led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) – the “missing middle” – must receive stronger support. These firms face major financing gaps, being too large for micro loans but often viewed as too small or risky for banks and investors.
Read more about what the World Bank has set as a target for reaching more women and women-led businesses by 2030.
However, in the realm of publicly traded companies, women leaders remain scant. Just over 40 companies on the S&P 500 had women CEOs – a paltry 8%.
The growth is slow.
While there are thousands of publicly traded companies worldwide, The Story Exchange only found 44 thus far that had women involved from the very beginning.
 |
With every purchase, 10% will be donated to Live Limitless Refuge Center, a Luxury Women's Shelter in Troy, NY, and you can choose to purchase a kit that will be donated to the women served at the shelter. Every purchased donation kit will be delivered monthly to the shelter.
The money will go towards purchasing more feminine products and other necessary items for women who come through the doors.
Julie Vavrichek of WELLinsulated, created a line of chic, insulated bags designed to protect skincare, electronics, and medication from freezing temperatures.
Jaye and Julie have created niche products specifically for cold-weather challenges, addressing both comfort and protection of goods.
Sounds like the perfect time to explore these products while the bitter cold blankets USA!
Here, female entrepreneurs share their must-reads for you and for me. Oh, and my favorite? Anything by Jim Collins, the late Clayton Christensen or Peter Drucker.
 |
| Image created by ChatGPT prompt: Sophia Woodhouse's 1819 straw hat |
“She went and picked the grass and discovered a method of turning it into beautiful bonnets,” said Gillie Johnson, Wethersfield Historical Society. “And in 1819 she entered the Hartford Agricultural Society’s Cattle Show and Fair and displayed a bonnet that dazzled people and what was popular at the time were Leghorn bonnets from Italy, and people said her bonnet was just as good if not better than those bonnets.”
Sophia Woodhouse turned her bonnet making into a business, creating a cottage industry. She is known today as one of the first female entrepreneurs of the greater Hartford, Connecticut area, even earning a patent for her design in 1821.
Two first ladies, Dolley Madison and Louisa Adams, wore her design. President John Quincy Adams called the bonnets “an extraordinary specimen of American manufacturing.”
Despite these green shoots, the path for a woman entrepreneur or employee in the MSME sector is less of a ladder and more of a labyrinth. The challenges are not merely operational but are also, unfortunately, deeply entrenched in the social fabric. One of the most glaring issues remains the lack of asset ownership.
Women entrepreneurs, no matter where they are based continue to shoulder the responsibility of propelling economic growth, employment, and exports.
Personal note from Laurel – Happy 2026! Make it a standout year for you. Also, feel free to attend a wegginar I am presenting on 1/7 at 11:00 AM CT on global trade trends. It's free of charge but you must register to get the sign-in link. Get a leg up for your business in 2026.
Posts
All Comments
