You know the female founders’ lament — greater challenges raising money leads to fewer closed deals and lower amounts of money raised per deal.
As a result, female founders are forced to do more with less. Yes, they do. They outperform their male counterparts. Businesses founded by women delivered higher revenue — more than twice as much per dollar invested — than those founded by men, making women-owned companies better investments for financial backers, according to Why Women-Owned Startups Are a Better Bet by BCG.
Feeling stale in the corporate world of scientific research and communications, Iman Oubou leveraged being crowned Miss New York US into becoming a voice for a generation of ambitious millennial women. She launched a podcast on which she interviews women entrepreneurs and influencers who tell raw relatable stories about their successes and failures. "Entrepreneurs En Vogue quickly rose to #2 on iTunes’ new and noteworthy podcasts,” said Oubou.
The podcast’s success made her realize that there was a white space in women’s media. Millennial women have an appetite for stories more than just about fashion and beauty. They want to dig deeper into business and the news. They want to engage in a conversation about the ups and downs of their lives and careers. Oubou launched Swaay, an online media and community company for ambitious millennial women that blends lifestyle, business and news content.
Media industry investment is still a boys club. “They just don’t get the potential of millennial women as a market,” said Oubou. Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases, including products such as cars and computers. Millennial women are moving into their prime spending years. While she was able to raise pre-seed money, including from one male investor, the seed round has been harder and is taking longer than she anticipated.
While fundraising, Oubou learned to brush off comments about her physical appearance and to tolerate questions from male investors than that her brother — also raising money — never had to field. “I got a lot of questions about how I would prevent failure,” she said. “His questions related to the potential of his app and future opportunities.” This is consistent with the research findings of Dana Kanze, Laura Huang, Mark A. Conley and E. Tory Higgins.
As the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. “We [women] think of rejection as a bad thing,” Oubou said. Rejection can be crushing but, over time, she came to think of it as an opportunity to pivot and dream bigger and bolder. “It made me go back to the drawing board and find a better, bigger way to expand on the vision,” she continued. Oubou had to develop new revenue streams that would immediately generate profit that could be plowed back into scaling the company.
While the effectiveness of hard-sell, traditional advertising among millennials is fading, millenials are receptive to brand storytelling content that aligns with their values, writes Kelly Ehlers in Forbes about The Millennials on Millennials Report by Nielsen. They are early adopters and are loyal to brands that deliver on their promise. Recognizing the rise of social and influencer marketing among millennial women, Oubou launched the Swaay Content Studio. It develops content for brands that want to engage these women in a way that resonates with them.
Emerging and Fortune 500 companies in the health, wellness, beauty, automobile categories are the first to seize the opportunity. These brands know that millennial women are in the early stages of developing brand preferences. If you meet millennial women’s needs, your brand will be rewarded with their loyalty. These women are also known for sharing with others, including which brands they love or don’t love.
Oubou also sees a big opportunity for financial services and insurance companies. As the primary family caregivers and household managers, women have more demands on their time. They view money and the accumulation of wealth differently than men do. “Women have different values than men, and they approach money and work differently” she said. “For women, it’s about purpose, family and community.”
What new lines of business can you start that will generate profits so you can scale your business?
