Start-up report Female Founders Monitor spoils women’s desire to start a business

founders

Are male-led startups the benchmark to aim for?

(Photo: Getty Images/Westend61)

The Federal Association of German Startups wants to increase the number of female founders in Germany – but its “Female Founders Monitor” presented on Tuesday can spoil the desire to start a business. The numbers are frightening: only 20 percent of founders in Germany are women. And across Europe, a meager percent of venture capital goes to female founders.

However, the classification of the association is questionable. Whether growth ambitions, capital requirements or financing: the report reads as if the male-led start-ups were the yardstick to strive for. “Company growth remains a challenge for female founders,” it says in bold. The growth plans of the women’s and men’s teams show that the founders do not want to increase their number of employees so quickly.

It goes on to say that women’s teams received external funding as often as men’s teams. But the sums “still” clearly differed. No one asked the women founders whether they would rather have control of their company themselves instead of being talked into by investors.

Are women perhaps more profitable?

It gets involuntarily funny when it comes to the financing data. Accordingly, men’s teams have more frequent need for external financing, which is also higher. That could also mean that female founders operate more profitably and get through the crisis better. But the association sees a problem here: female founders are “down by a factor of 2.8” with an average requirement of 1.6 million euros.

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To avoid any misunderstanding, it is important to identify and examine differences between the sexes. These must not result from the fact that women have less access to sponsors or are discriminated against. But it is wrong to expect that everything will only be fine when women run their companies like men.

This is particularly evident in the report when it comes to the topic of family: “For female founders with children, the average weekly working time is reduced by almost six hours,” it says – from more than 53 hours a week to 47.4. Not a word about the fact that corporate management must be possible for parents during this time. Fathers who work 56 hours instead of 57 – and are happier, according to the report – are apparently the norm.

An appeal: In order to achieve more parity, the start-up scene should first question its ideal images and consider whether they are desirable for all founders.

Women should be told: start up as you see fit: whether a profitable start-up or a company pushed by investors. Founding in itself would be a win for the diversity of the economy.

More: Only every fifth start-up is founded by women

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