Female Entrepreneurship’s On The Rise—Will Funding Follow?

There’s no question the pandemic’s disproportionately affected women. Many hard-hit industries were over-indexed for female employees. And with few childcare options and extended remote schooling, millions more women have dropped out of the workforce to care for their kids.

But the pandemic’s disruptive effects have also led to a wave of entrepreneurial activity, as some have used newfound time—from lost or reduced work hours or time saved by no longer commuting to an office—to pursue business ideas. U.S. Census Bureau data shows applications for the employer identification numbers, which entrepreneurs need to start a business, have surpassed 3.2 million so far this year, compared with 2.7 million at the same point in 2019, according to reports. 

And many women are among them. A recent survey by the global women’s network, AllBright, found one in three women in the U.S. have plans to launch a business, 40 percent of them with the goal of gaining more autonomy and being their own boss. Read more.

7 New Year Strategies to Help Black Entrepreneurs Achieve Growth and Success in 2021

Of course, with COVID-19 in place last year, no one could have seen how individuals and small business owners could have navigated those unpredictable waters. But with last year gone, entrepreneurs can build on steps their peers just started taking or are now planning to apply to fuel growth this year. Those efforts include revamping business models, offering goods and services that meet customers’ demands, and staying resilient to flourish despite the ongoing pandemic.

Yet, one thing appears to remain certain: The way customers deal with businesses and how those firms interact with customers will most likely be different than in previous years. So here are some resolutions small business owners may do well to consider and implement this time. Read more.

39 Stats About Diversity In Entrepreneurship

When you think of a successful entrepreneur, what image comes to mind? Do you think of an individual of a certain age, gender, or ethnic background? If so, that could be due to implicit bias because research supports the significance of diversity in entrepreneurship.

According to research commissioned by American Express, four million new jobs and $981 billion in revenue could be added to the U.S. economy if the average revenue of women of color-owned businesses matched those of white women-owned businesses. Additionally, this study showed women-owned businesses are a source of new jobs in U.S. cities that experienced slow job growth between 2014 and 2019.

When people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives are building successful businesses to solve relevant problems there are significant economic advantages. For instance, in the Minneapolis metro alone, increasing the number of businesses owned by people of color could add as many as 87,000 new jobs to the region. Read more.

How Latino Entrepreneurs Can Boost the U.S. Economy

The number of Latino business owners has surged by 34 percent over the past decade, outpacing that of any other ethnic group. Yet despite that entrepreneurial vigor, Latino business owners face ongoing challenges, as their companies tend to remain smaller and less profitable than white-owned businesses.

And while Latino entrepreneurs fare better than the general Latino population when it comes to average income and homeownership rates, they still experience significant gaps relative to other groups in their rates of home ownership, health insurance coverage, and income. Read more.

SBA Releases New PPP Guidelines Designed To Buoy Small Businesses

As the U.S. continues to stare down economic and political turmoil, the SBA has released interim final guidance on the next round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—the vital relief program aimed at saving small businesses from shuttering.

While I am certain additional information and changes are forthcoming, my team and I are committed to ensuring this relief funding is accessible and the process is as easy as possible. If you’re a small business owner, now is the time to begin preparing your documentation and information. Read more.

The Economic Recovery Of Women Entrepreneurs Will Take More Than PPP Loans

While the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was intended to help small businesses hit hardest by the Covid-19 crisis—those owned by women and people of color—it failed to deliver on its promise. From the beginning of the program on April 3 to the end on August 8, struggling minority owners received aid later than their white counterparts, according to an analysis of the program’s data by the Associated Press. 

ZIP code data with the greatest proportions of white residents received loans at twice the rate of areas with the smallest proportions of whites. Data by gender is not available, but because women are more likely to be nonemployer firms and in sectors most impacted by the pandemic—personal services, retail, and restaurant—it is expected they would have experienced a similar pattern as ZIP codes with a lower concentration of whites. “Almost 60% of women business owners state they don’t have the same access to capital that men have,” said Candace Waterman, president and CEO of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP). It is the largest nonpartisan advocacy organization for women and minority entrepreneurs. Read more.

How to Go Full Entrepreneur in 2021

How can you take charge of your own future in the face of a long-running pandemic that has crushed economies, markets, businesses and lives?  Waiting is not going to cut it – waiting for more government stimulus, waiting for the virus to magically disappear, waiting for customers to suddenly come back. The most successful entrepreneurs are not sitting it out. This past year has seen an explosion of newly launched small businesses and startups. As the authors of The Entrepreneur’s Faces: How Makers, Visionaries and Outsiders Succeed, we’re not surprised. It’s not just first-time founders. We’ve also seen tremendous pivots by more traditional businesses, adapting on the run to seismic shifts in habits and behaviors that experts predict will outlast the pandemic. America has done this better and faster than nearly any other country. At heart what we are seeing is the value of innovative mindsets and practices. Ready or not, entirely new challenges will confront you in 2021. It’s time to go all-in, to go full entrepreneur. Read more.

Opening Up Entrepreneurship To All: The Resource Hub

Plenty of potential entrepreneurs have great business ideas but are held back in their pursuit of their goals by barriers: knowledge and resources kept out of reach of all but a few, as well as assumptions about who might be an entrepreneur and where they might come from. And while it’s understood that starting your own business is a tough road — particularly in the age of COVID, where many small businesses are struggling to stay afloat — it’s to the betterment of all that more people should have the tools available to them to try their hand at a startup.

Enter Nicole Loftus, the founder of The Resource Hub, a national directory for small businesses, as well as SkinX, a funding platform for entrepreneurs, both New York based. She’s working to help entrepreneurs succeed, including over 3,500 resources on the Resource Hub and adding new ones regularly. Read more.

Entrepreneurship Defined: What It Means to Be an Entrepreneur

The road to entrepreneurship is often a treacherous one filled with unexpected detours, roadblocks and dead ends. There are lots of sleepless nights, plans that don’t work out, funding that doesn’t come through and customers that never materialize. It can be so challenging to launch a business that it may make you wonder why anyone willingly sets out on such a path.

Despite all of these hardships, every year, thousands of entrepreneurs embark on this journey determined to bring their vision to fruition and fill a need they see in society. They open brick-and-mortar businesses, launch tech startups or bring a new product or service into the marketplace. Read more.

A Message from Acceler8Success Founder, Paul Segreto

Imagine the wave of emotions immigrants experienced as they saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time upon entering New York Harbor. Based upon hope for a new, better life ahead they were proud to be here, in the land of the free and home of the brave. Certainly, they wouldn’t forget their heritage but they were excited by the opportunities ahead of them, including that of becoming an American citizen without any notion of entitlement as they were committed to work their fingers to the bone to provide for their families and to achieve the American Dream! Yes, failure was not an option. It truly is amazing what they achieved despite poor living conditions, little to no food, and most did not speak English. Yet, they did what they had to do with no excuses and not only survived, but succeeded in so many ways. We, as a society will need similar attitude, determination and commitment as we move forward through and beyond pandemic-related challenges and hardships. God Bless America!