Fortune Favors Bold Women Entrepreneurs

Crowdfunding platforms such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter are everything but the rage these days.  Why not?  For crowdfunding benefits are the ability to quickly raise capital and the enhanced marketing profile generated via the fundraising campaign.

But almost as important is how crowdfunding allows startups to pursue fast and relatively affordable market validation for their products.

According to Techvibes.com, crowdfunding also offers much better opportunities for women entrepreneurs than traditional venture capital, which directed as little as 4% toward women-run startups versus 96% for male-fronted companies according to recent research.

“Women entrepreneurs are incredibly successful with crowdfunding raises,” said [Craig] Asano [Executive Director of the National Crowdfunding Association of Canada (NCFA). “Through crowdfunding women entrepreneurs, project owners and company owners are achieving much higher raises, and in some cases they are more successful than men.”

Read the entire article:  Crowdfunding Cultivates 'Fail Fast' Culture, Helps Women Raise Startup Capital

For more on crowdfunding that we've written about, visit here.

Get Comfortable With "The Ask"

  

The Ask!

When you're ready to seek funding for your business, get comfortable with "the ask."  You've got to be bold enough to put your business out there in the market, strut your stuff (capabilities) and "ask" for what you want.  But that's not what this article is about.

The article below is about why crowdfunding is a game-changer for women entrepreneurs. 

Women-owned firms start and grow businesses with substantially less outside financing, according to a Department of Commerce survey of women-owned companies across the U.S. That helps to explain why the average women-owned business has 25% lower revenue than the typical male-owned firm in the same industry.

Read the entire article here.

Many of you have asked me via email for donations on your projects over at Indiegogo and Kickstarter.  What's your experience been like on the funding front -- good, bad or indifferent?  Have you heard of the new kid on the block (not necessarily a crowdfunding site) called Fundwell?

Corporate Climber Turns Business Owner

I love getting emails like this, especially on a Sunday, because it tells me somebody is really working it:

Hi there Laurel,

I'm a former corporate climber (spent 10 years building an architecture career) who just picked up the keys to my first business location as an entrepreneur last weekend. I'm opening a private fitness studio, the culmination of a two-year journey towards total self-employment and fulfillment. It's been a terrifying, exciting, challenging, and thrilling process.

I'm in a position of finding creative solutions, like so many women do, to make this work, so I've launched a crowdfunding campaign (refer below) to support this startup and fill in the gaps between my budget and our dreams for this studio.

Would you consider sharing my story and this campaign on your blog? I'm reaching out for creative ways to spread the word and connect with women who get what I'm going through.

You can check out the campaign at indiegogo and please email me if I can share more about what we're trying to do.

Katrina Cobb, Owner, NASM CPT
reFORM Studios Personal Training
North Charleston, SC  U.S.A.

Visit: reFORM Studios Personal Training | Your premiere personal training experience

Illustration credit:  reFORM Studios Personal Training

Best wishes and much success Katrina and we do get what you are going through!