Hi, it's Betsy Ludwig,
Executive Director of
Women's Entrepreneurship at
Northeastern University again.
Welcome to module one. At Northeastern,
we undertook some analysis to
understand why there aren't more women
entrepreneurs. Our analysis concluded
there are a few fundamental issues,
which are exceptionally simple
to unlock. First of all,
women don't have many
role models. Typically,
men will come to university and
want to be the next Elon Musk,
or Mark Zuckerberg, or Bill Gates,
or Steve Jobs. The list is endless.
There are a lot of examples of
success. Women don't have so many. And,
as the adage goes, you cannot
be what you cannot see. So,
we need to create more role models that
are inspiring to the next generation of
women. The second factor,
is that women tend to suffer
from imposter syndrome,
especially in the entrepreneurship
space, much more than men.
This is highly correlated to the job
application phenomenon that you might've
heard about.
Whereas a man will apply to a job when
he can check three to four of the 10
criteria in the job description, where
women will wait to apply to a job,
until they can check eight
to nine of the 10 criteria.
They tend to think that they aren't ready.
Beyond role models and imposter syndrome,
another key element that holds women
back is that they hesitate to idea with
others. They tend to hold an idea inside,
until they think it's
perfect, and this need
for perfectionism, and
the fear of failure,
it just hinders the growth of
that fabulous business idea.
Because we all know that by sharing an
idea, whether it's with your mother,
your partner, your sister, your
friend, your dog, the mirror,
that every time you
say that idea out loud,
you internalize it a little bit
differently. It grows in your own head,
not to mention the fact that you find
people who can help you take your idea
forward. And, you might
even find a cofounder,
which is very important with
building a strong company. So,
lastly, we also think that women need
to understand their risk tolerance.
For whatever reason, and
this might be biological,
all sorts of different reasons, women
tend to be more risk averse than men,
which hinders them in the entrepreneurial
space, which is a lot of risk taking.
And, research has found that a
side hustle, or sidepreneurship,
as it's called sometimes,
is a great way to mitigate risk while
testing the idea of entrepreneurship,
while you keep another job. Sometimes,
that other job just could be motherhood.
Sometimes, it's a proper career.
It looks different for everybody,
but given the fact that technology has
advanced so quickly in the last few
years, doing the side hustle
actually is much easier today,
than it was a decade ago. In this
introductory part of the program,
we're going to take you
through the success story of
role models, Sara Blakely,
founder of Spanx,
we're then going to offer you some
education about entrepreneurship as a
mindset, rather than
a skillset. And, then,
we're going to give you an
overview of imposter syndrome. So,
you understand why it's
important to understand,
and why it might be holding you back.
You'll then watch a TEDtalk by
Harvard professor, Amy Cuddy,
the famous "Fake it Till
You Make it" professor. And,
she's going to give you some great tips
and tricks on building your confidence
and, taking your idea forward,
especially if you're talking
to investors. And, lastly,
there's a great case study of a recent
Northeastern alumna, Sophie Gechijan,
who is a Fidelity trader by day,
and entrepreneur by night. And,
Sophie has really mastered the side
hustle. In fact, during the COVID crisis,
she was able to pivot her business,
within the first couple of weeks,
and increased her sales by 400 percent.
There's a lot to be
learned in Sophie's story,
and she serves as a great role
model for women everywhere.
In the next module after this,
you'll learn some business
basics from Dr. Grippa,
we'll demystify business terms,
which may seem intimidating to you,
especially if you don't have a business
degree. And, then, in module three,
Dr. Welsh will drive home the importance
of leveraging your personal and
professional networks, where
you can learn to ideate,
and take your ideas further and faster.
We hope you enjoy this Lifelong
Learning On Demand program. Good luck.
