Today - the 9th of March - is Made in UK Day, where we celebrate and support businesses who make their products right here in the UK. With yesterday being International Women's Day (what a week!), we wanted to shed a spotlight on the female experience of creating and making things here in the UK.
This year's
International Women's Day theme is
#ChooseToChallenge. Their mission for this years theme is to remind everyone “We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world”.
So, we wanted to challenge more women to take the plunge and create their own businesses, and change what is still a male dominated world. In the last few years the number of businesses in the UK has sky rocketed, but still only
32.37% of them are created and founded by women. Despite the margin closing, there is still a huge gender gap between female and male owned businesses.
So, how do we change this?
Just start
It doesn't matter whether you're a one woman band setting up shop at your kitchen table, or a team of women hiring space from a friend together. Just start. Start small and don't do yourself an injustice by not applying for any and all funding you may be eligible for. Making that first product, or finding that niche is always that hardest part, but once you've done it once, it gets easier and easier.
Get The Right Funding
One of the many things standing in the way of women is the lack of funding.
As it turns out, women are actually offered less funding than men at quite literally every stage of their business. Alison Rose, CEO of Natwest conducted her 2019 "Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship" which found that start-up funding is the top barrier for women, and therefore they began their businesses with a massive 53% less funding on average than men did. We're also less likely to take on debt, and less aware of funding options we're eligible for. We can't even scale up - less than 1% of venture funding goes to all-female business teams. Make sure you keep pushing to get the support and funding you deserve.
Hire Women
Studio Courtenay and our sister company,
Trendlistr, are female-founded, with an all-women in-house team running things day to day. All-women teams are often pegged as bitchy or difficult, but it couldn't be further from the truth. Our team is supportive, encouraging and get's things done. Don't let stereotypes put you off from working with female teams - where possible, look for women to fill the roles you need filling to make your business a success.
Play to your strengths
No one is excellent at everything all of the time. You have your strengths and your weaknesses, and it's ok to admit it. Use them to create a plan that works for you, and if you can hire people to fill in your blind spots. You might be awful at marketing but brilliant at bookkeeping. Great - instead of getting an accountant, hire a marketing manager.
