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Got a great idea and want to start your own business? Or have you already set one up and need a bit of guidance?

During Listener Week on 大象传媒 Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, we discussed some of the barriers to setting up a business as a woman and heard advice for those starting out.

Here are seven tips for young, female entrepreneurs from Jo Fairley, co-founder of Green & Black’s chocolate and Julie Baker, Head of Enterprise and community banking at NatWest.

1. Spot the gap in the market

There are still plenty. There are lots of businesses to be started simply from the standpoint of putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and going, ‘I can’t find this product’, ‘I can’t find this service and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who needs it’, rather than going out and deciding you want to copy somebody else's product because it’s successful. That copycat product or venture will never match the original.

Julie Baker (left) and Jo Fairley (right)

There are lots of businesses to be started simply from the standpoint of putting yourself in the customer鈥檚 shoes.

Jo Fairley

2. Try crowdfunding

In terms of raising money, the great thing about 2019 is that there is the opportunity to crowdfund your business through organisations such as Crowdcube or Kickstarter. In terms of Kickstarter, this is without giving any equity away of your business.
You put together a pitch, it goes online and all sorts of people, partly because banks are giving terrible rates of interest at the moment, are keen to find exciting projects to back.

If you’re looking for £5,000, £10,000 or £20,000, the initial filter of putting that idea out on a crowdfunding platform will help you discover whether your business is worth getting off the ground.

If you can’t raise the money, then you probably need to look at what it is you’re doing and how you might change that. But if you convince people to part with their hard-earned cash, then that’s a really good start. Not only that, anybody who invested in your business is literally a stakeholder and will go and help promote it because they want to see their investments do well.

3. Don’t be discouraged by men putting you down

Quite often, women who are going out to find sources of funding or to pitch their businesses come up against men who put them down. I think women are very often tempted to scurry away with their tail between their legs and think, ‘I’m never going to be any good’. Just as all bullies are cowards, very often the reason people are negative towards you is because they feel threatened by you. So actually see it as a sense of power and not as a sign of weakness.

4. Get a mentor

Seek reassurances from those who have been there and done it. Get a mentor. Get somebody experienced around you that can support you and your confidence will grow.

5. Do your research

What I would say to a female entrepreneur setting out is, do your homework. Do consider a start-up loan company, do look at investors, but do look at all the alternatives.

6. Make sure you have a support network

Women are twice as likely as men to have family care responsibilities, especially now we’ve got an aging population. I would recommend, from my own experience, make sure you have a support network, both in the workplace and at home. But also look out for those agile and flexible opportunities and showcase that you can do a good job working flexibly.

7. Go to events

Women believe they are less likely than men to have skills. See what’s available in your geographic area. There are lots of free workshops with the British Library, with the local growth hubs, with local enterprise partnerships. Go along to those events, be educated, get information. Then you will learn to build your network. This is the right network that fits your lifestyle - which is so, so important for females in business.

You can listen to the full Woman's Hour discussion about young women in business here.

Woman's Hour is on 大象传媒 Radio 4 on weekdays at 10am and at 4pm on Saturdays. You can catch up with all episodes via 大象传媒 Sounds.