There are currently 9 million women who run businesses in the United States today. According to Entrepreneur magazine, women owned businesses in the US are growing at a rate more than 1.5 times other small businesses and provide an estimated 5 million jobs. However, this progress is offset by the fact that female-led businesses only make up 30% of companies throughout the world. As a woman going through the startup process with her own small business, I find myself contemplating these statistics when looking for funding and pursuing network opportunities. Am I being judged on a different scale than that of my male peers?

Women make up more than half of all college students and surpass men in attaining undergraduate degrees, but are vastly underrepresented in the STEM field. In the tech field, in particular, women are outnumbered 4 to 1. This gender gap has very real consequences for the industry as a whole, with user centric approaches ignoring the fact that women account for about 85% of all consumer purchases. This affects companies from the bottom up, with less gender diversity comes less job satisfaction and ultimately less consumer satisfaction. So how can we encourage women to get into the tech industry?

I can only speak from personal experience, but for me seeing women as role models in fields that I want to go into speaks volumes. Mentorship programs are incredibly important for women to see others they admire taking on fundamental entrepreneurial roles. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship for Coursera to learn coding, and I think having free or low cost offerings for women is an excellent way to encourage more women to dip their toes into the tech space.

For more information about how VC funding disproportionally impacts female founded businesses, read this.