Starting a business is not for the faint-hearted. From the capital required to the countless hours of hard work put in, as well as a good measure of patience and understanding that you might not make money quick enough or that your business might even fail, entrepreneurs are really heroes in their own rights!
And while Entrepreneur Magazine has put out data to show that approximately 30% of small businesses close their doors within the first two years - and half will fail by the fifth year - it has not been a deterrent for Black Women entrepreneurs to set out and build their own empires.
In our recently published report titled the "State of Black-Women Owned Businesses in 2022", we asked Black women business owners to identify their motivations for starting a business and below is a breakdown of their responses:
88% cited increased flexibility
75% cited being their own boss
56% cited making more money
44% cited mental health concerns
25% cited a need to supplement their household income.
25% cited experienced racial inequality
25% cited experienced gender inequality
19% cited a less demanding job
6% cited job termination / unexpected unemployment.
We also asked them to identify some of the things that were lacking in the environments that they left and they indicated:
A sense of belonging
Advancement opportunities
Fairness of pay
Representation in supervisory staff
Representation in senior management
Inclusion
Internal mentorship
Transparency in pay norms across similar roles/workplace peers a
Internal sponsorship
Additionally, the report showed that the factors that they did not like about their previous spaces of employment had an impact on their decision to embark on entrepreneurship, with 81.2% of the women surveyed indicating this.
The majority of the women surveyed had worked for an average of 6 - 10 years as traditional employees before embarking on entrepreneurship.
You can learn more details about the Pathway to Entrepreneurship for Black women business owners as well as other key insights by downloading the full report for free.