The first ever National Women's Enterprise Week kicks off
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The new event encourages consumers to spend money with female-led businesses – with the aim of creating more female entrepreneurs
Small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the indisputable engine room of the UK economy, contributing more than £2 trillion to national GDP and employing some 44% of the British workforce.
However, few of these SMEs are owned or run by women. Today in the UK only one in four businesses has a female boss, while just 20% of small business startups have a woman at the helm. Meanwhile, male entrepreneurs are much more likely to receive financing for their ventures: female founders currently only get 2% of VC funding.
Aiming to remedy this is the first ever National Women’s Enterprise Week (NWEW), which kicks off today [Monday 19 June] and runs until Friday 23 June. During the week, people will be encouraged to support female-led businesses by buying products and services from them before sharing details about the business on social media feeds afterwards.
Conceptualised by entrepreneur Alison Cork MBE and her Make It Your Business nonprofit, NWEW has a firm focus on supporting ‘acorns’ (ie small, ‘kitchen table’ businesses) rather than unicorns.
“We talk a lot about unicorns but… I like to talk instead about acorns because there are hundreds of thousands of them and to me they’re much more important,” Cork told The Times today. “The acorns are small businesses and small in this case is definitely not a pejorative term – it’s about those initiatives that women start up which might only generate a few thousand pounds a month.”
As part of NWEW, a free ‘Women’s Launch Lab’ incubator programme will take place for female-led startups. The three-day bootcamp will help 12 aspiring female entrepreneurs on their enterprise-building journey by giving them professional advice from successful businesswomen, training on pitching techniques and marketing strategies, as well as developing a ‘go-to-market’ strategy. The 12 entrepreneurs will also get to fill their contacts books by attending networking events at the British Library and House of Lords, before pitching their startup to venture capitalists and angel investors this Thursday [22 June].
Aside from NWEW, Make It Your Own Business hosts free events across the country where women can meet established local female entrepreneurs and learn from their experiences. Speaking with other entrepreneurs is vital for building confidence, says Cork.
“There’s sometimes a feeling among women that if it’s not perfect, I’m not going to do it,” Cork told <The Times>. “So if they hear from someone else that she has had problems getting her kids to school in the morning… and her life isn’t perfect but she’s still done it, [they think] maybe I can do it too.”
National Women’s Enterprise Week takes place from today (19 June) until Friday (23 June).
To share purchases you’ve made from female-led businesses on social media, use the tag #NWEW
To organise your own local networking events where female entrepreneurs can make important connections email Tracy Horth at: hello@makeityourbusiness.co.uk