Kauffman Study Examines Key Gender Traits in Entrepreneurs

Citing the importance of entrepreneurs as contributors to the economy, the Kauffman Foundation recently conducted a study to determine what can be done to actively identify, recruit, mentor and encourage would-be entrepreneurs.  One of the key factors the foundation studied was what role gender plays in the shaping of entrepreneurs. 

\The report, The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur: Are Successful Women Entrepreneurs Different from Men?, surveyed respondents from randomly selected high-tech companies – all of whom had similar levels of education, experience and repeat entrepreneurial successes. 

The report indicates that while successful women and men entrepreneurs are very similar, there are some small, but potentially informative, gender differences.  For instance, motivations for starting a business differed between men and women, with women more likely to cite a business partner’s encouragement as a key incentive for “taking the plunge.”  Women also were more likely than men to get early funding from their business partners. 

Women also tend to put more emphasis on their prior experiences in gauging their chances for success and they rate their professional and business networks more highly as important contributors to their success than did men.  Women entrepreneurs are more worried about protecting intellectual property than their male counterparts who tend to worry more about the inherent fiscal insecurity of being part of a startup.
Report findings suggest that efforts to promote women’s entrepreneurship should ensure that all women have access to the mentoring and support networks that they view as important contributors to their success.

For more information, download the pdf