Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Assessment Of Women
Entrepreneurship In India
Follow-up chapter to the Book
“WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Role Of Women Entrepreneurship Towards
More Inclusive Economic Growth”
Mridula Velagapudi
http://mridulavelagapudi.blogspot.com
4/30/2011
© Mridula Velagapudi
SOME REVIEWS FOR THE BOOK
“Mridula, Template for the interview is good. It covers a broad range of sub
topics involved in entrepreneurship without losing focus on the real issues. Domain
selection is also well balanced. As presented, starting from "home services", selling home
made products, offering financial advice, consumerism to waste management, the material
provides, for a new comer to entrepreneurship or just to study the field, a good beginning.
One of the important things that it brings out vividly, in almost all the interviews is
that, a solid (backstage at home) support is required to keep the focus on the work; in this
case running the business. As one author puts it (in one of the last interviews), there is no
balance, one has to sacrifice a lot in one place to get success in other places. Of course, in
few cases luck has played its role too.
If only you could have collected more details, I mean data points in terms of hours
put in; number of employees, approx. investment etc. this study could be published
academically as well.
There were some grammatical errors in quite a few places. No one is perfect. Please
minimize them. All in all a good work.”
- Shilpi Sharma,
Budding Entrepreneur,
ex-Relationship Manager, Mahindra Satyam
“Initially I was a bit hesitant to read the book, given the lack of perceived relevance
for me and the title reminiscent of a doctoral thesis. And as I started reading through it, the
hesitance gave away - bit by bit (Bullet points, and shorter paragraphs would have
accelerated the de-hesitancy bit; but then one can't have it all).
The prologue could have been a trimmed more than a bit, as well as intros into each
of the 19 cases. The set up was good, drawing the reader into each of the cases in a
meaningful manner, than they appear to be on a cursory glance. The questions are to the
point, charming the protagonists into laying out their experience and wisdom out there for
the reader to profit from. The fields chosen are diverse and interesting; most apt for a single
individual with possibly fewer resources (time, money, capital inputs) but with a sound idea
and unbridled passion to bring it life and make it succeed.
"This book is an idea whose time has come. Never before in human civilization have
women been equal partners not just in raising family, but in powering economic
development. In the past, if women took to entrepreneurship, it was simply to supplement
family income. But today, even women can have game changing ideas and can be as much
of trail-blazers in building highly successful enterprises. Even Mompreneurs are not just
„livelihood‟ entrepreneurs any more, content with just starting at home something to „keep
themselves occupied‟ but are serious surplus creators. This book captures and glorifies the
wealth- creating spirit of women entrepreneurs."
“….What Mridula has managed to do is bring out consistent threads of information via
her questions from each entrepreneur she spoke with. One can see some patterns emerging
through the book……..Books like these play an important part in highlighting streaks of
innovation and change, which typically get little attention in mainstream writing. Overall an
easy and simple read especially for anyone interested in the subject.” Read the full review.
- Pluggd.In,
India’s Leading online directory on Start-ups
ASSESSMENT OF WOMEN
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INDIA
I decided to publish this follow-up chapter based on suggestions from
readers and on my own keenness to bring out the critical analysis of the women
entrepreneurship situation in urban India vis-à-vis the international arena. If you
read my book with this chapter in the backdrop, you will appreciate why I have
written the book and understand that there is more than just a ray of hope for
„women entrepreneurship‟ to advance in India. I have tried to give comparative
analysis supported by data. But before I start to present the comparative analysis, I
would like to specify the substance of my book.
My book brings out the importance of some key facts after reading the
interviews of the 19 women entrepreneurs. I want readers to understand and learn
from the stories of these 19 women – adopt the positives (advantages) and explore
how to improve upon the negatives (obstacles). There are four points which stand
out in my book:
It is very clear from the 19 cases of the women entrepreneurs, that almost all
of them have fabulous family support. By family support I mean the support that
they receive either from their parents or their in-laws for managing the show back
at home, managing the household and the kids. To be specific, women have a very
good system of “joint family” culture to bank upon in India; not to forget the
support (moral and hands-on) extended by their spouses and the cheap labour
available in the form of domestic help such as aayas, nannies and cooks. The
following graph will give you a better picture of this fact:
12
Number of Women Entrepreneurs
10
0
Joint Family (In-laws or Nuclear Family No Kids in the family
parents living together)
Figure 1
Out of the total cases 52% (Figure 1) of women have family support where
kids can be taken care of by grandparents.
Regarding co-founding their start-ups, majority of the women have either co-
founded with their husbands or they have started it alone.
9
8
7
6
5
4
Series1
3
2
1
0
Anyone from Spouse as Co- Friend as Co- No Co-founders
immediate founders founders (Founded Alone)
family
Figure 2
Around 42% of these women entrepreneurs started their ventures alone and
31.5% of women co-founded their start-ups with their husbands. If we combine the
two categories – „spouse as co-founders‟ and „Anyone from immediate family‟, we
find that it also accounts to 42%.
On the funding side, it was clear that out of the 19 women entrepreneurs, all
of them have self-funded their businesses. Whereas it is good to start with own
funds and bootstrap your venture, but not every woman might have enough funds
to go beyond kick-starting their ventures or businesses. Do we have enough
investors‟ interest in funding a company owned by a woman? This is an important
point to be probed further.
Figure 3
Many studies have been carried out in these countries to understand the
motivation factors behind women taking up entrepreneurship. Most of such studies
reveal one of the following reasons to start their own ventures:
1. Self-actualisation
2. The need to be their own boss
3. Dissatisfaction with working for others
4. Increase in desire to control
5. Flexibility in work hours to balance work and family
6. Philanthropic commitment towards their communities and economy.
Unlike India, much of the western world does not have the culture of living
in joint families. Nor do they have access to such cheap labour as aayaas, nannies
or cooks. So how is it that more women in countries like USA, Canada and UK are
able to contribute by taking up opportunity-based entrepreneurship? Although
much of the businesses owned by women fall under small businesses category,
that is still commendable and encouraged as the small businesses definitely form
the backbone of an economy.
1. Less encouragement from close family and friends and a mark of guilt
that the kids will get ignored. Though the 19 cases published in my
book “WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP: Role of Women Entrepreneurship
Towards More Inclusive Economic Growth”, have not hinted at any
family conflicts as far as work-life balance is concerned, there are still
many such households which may not have elders in the families with
such modernistic attitudes that the women should be career-oriented.
Entrepreneurship certainly is out of question as running a business is
perceived as more time-consuming, though doing a job may still be
permissible. (According to me this is not the case. My personal
experience says that jobs can be extremely taxing too as far as
personal life is concerned).
2. Less confidence shown in the business world by the men counterpart
when a woman approaches for business or funding (attitude issues).
Whenever a women-led company approaches another company (not
woman-led) usually the deal is viewed with scepticism. This is so
because people have lesser confidence on women‟s abilities to carry
on a business.
3. Even the external investors are shy of investing in women-led
entrepreneurial ventures (though I do not have any data to support
this at this point in time).
How many small business owners are women?. (2011, April 20). Industry
Canada. Retrieved from http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/sbrp-rppe.nsf/eng/rd02504.html
The future of the global economy: women. (2010, October 15). Women
Entrepreneurs Grow Global. Retrieved from
http://womenentrepreneursgrowglobal.org/2010/10/15/the-future-of-the-global-
economy-women/