Recent legislation like California’s AB 168 and Hollywood’s Time’s Up initiative hope to raise awareness and turn the tide of the enduring gender wage gap. As a female entrepreneur, I can relate so I wasn’t too surprised when I read on Shopify about the bias women business owners face when funding their ventures.

Did you know?

• In the U.S., women-owned businesses constitute 42% of all businesses but in 2019 only 2.3% of VC funding went to women-owned businesses.
• Small business loan applications by women are rejected more frequently than men’s and, when approved, women pay higher rates.
• In 2018, the average loan size for women-owned businesses was 31% less than that of men-owned businesses.

When I started my own firm, Katalyst Group, back in 2006, I self-funded because it didn’t even occur to me that someone would invest, even though my male peers had no qualms about raising capital for their ventures. Despite my successful track record leading Talent Acquisition for companies like DreamWorks and Yahoo! Media Group, even thinking about it makes me a little uncomfortable.

Women just weren’t socialized to network in the same way or to ask for investment, so I just learned to do it on my own rather than be beholden to someone else. I’ve always been proud of building it myself, but it would have allowed us to be less bootstrapped and more strategic in our growth along the way. Click here to read the full Shopify article.