Women entrepreneurs in a digital world: opportunities and challenges

Women who become self-employed with a digital business model do not do so primarily to be able to work flexibly in terms of time and location. But they use and appreciate these advantages enormously, because the variety of opportunities and the high degree of self-determination allow female entrepreneurs to creatively reconcile their ambitions with their personal life plans.

Women entrepreneurs want to do something meaningful

Many women cite the freedom and sense of purpose they associate with their own business as a reason to become self-employed. And that also motivate them to stick with it when the challenges become greater. All the women interviewed agreed
agree: the step into self-employment has been worthwhile. This is the result of the study "Digital Female Founders", which was conducted by an interdisciplinary research team from the Departments of Economics, Social Work and Engineering & Architecture at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The researchers investigated the motivations, characteristics and competencies of digital female founders and the path their company has taken from the idea to the foundation to the present. In addition, they wanted to know what challenges they had encountered, what funding and support they had used, and what additional support they would have liked to have received.

Financing always remains an issue

The question of financing occupied the founders continuously, but to varying degrees. Even though some prefer self-financing, they also approach debt financing proactively when necessary. The combination of cautious, risk-conscious action with the necessary courage at the right moment proved to be sustainable and successful in the startups studied.

In addition to these positive findings, however, the research project also sheds light on critical aspects of financing and investment issues: Women are still frequently confronted with gender stereotypes and structural inequalities. As a result, they are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to accessing investment capital, as international research also clearly shows. With another project "Funding Female Founders", the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts is therefore developing measures to facilitate access to investment capital for female founders. For their qualitative study, the researchers interviewed ten female founders and analyzed the interviews against the background of the international research literature. The selection focused on the goal of representing a broad spectrum of digital female founders in Switzerland. Thus, individual entrepreneurs were represented as well as founders of high-tech startups with more than ten employees and of globally active companies; very young companies as well as those that have already been on the market for more than twelve years.

Monthly event series

The survey showed that the Digital Female Founders would appreciate an exchange of experiences with women who have similar projects and would also like inspiring role models to become visible. Thus, the research project resulted in a monthly series of events starting on March 25, the Female Founders Luncheons.

The Digital Female Founders project was funded by the interdisciplinary thematic cluster "Digital Transformation of the Working World" at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and Smart-Up, the university's own support program for start-ups.

Source: Lucerne University. More information: www.fundingfemalefounders.ch. In the print issue 3/2021 of ORGANISATOR, the topic "Female Founders" is examined in detail in a specialist article. The issue is available here.