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The Times of India

Title : To build their world-class companies, GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUNDS
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Article Date : 11/22/2015
A Few Days After Women's Entrepreneurship Day, TOI Finds That Gender Isn't A Barrier To
Starting Up, But Finding The Right Staff Remains A Challenge. And If There's One Change Female
Entrepreneurs Want, It Is To See More Women Entering The Ecosystem
Men don't have to make as many adjustments as we do
Anjana Reddy has never hired on the basis of gender but 65% of the employees in her sports fashion brand
company are women. The world has changed and people around me have never made me think about
gender. I am fortunate to be in such a position, says Reddy, who received funding for her startup when she
was 23 from one of the top venture capital firms, Accel Partners. Her firm sells several celebrity apparel
brands, apart from accessories and memorabilia. Reddy returned to India to start her own business after
interning at a boutique investment bank in London for a year. The biological cycle makes it imperative for
women to make adjustments in their careers. These are adjustments men don't have to make, and that is why
we don't see many women at senior levels. Hence, women don't have many inspirational entrepreneurs to
look up to, says Reddy, who believes women make better salespeople. She is hopeful the infrastructure for
women to work after childbirth will improve with companies providing flexible working hours
Women need to break away from just following
In entrepreneurship, gender hardly makes a difference, says Rashmi Daga, 36, founder of online food startup
FreshMenu. I'm from a Marwari family and my family was not even surprised when I took the plunge, she
adds. Mother of a four-year-old daughter, Daga had taken a break from work for a year in 2011. It is a
challenge and you need to do a balancing act. There is never going to be a time when your kids will need you
less, says Daga, adding that her husband spends more time with their child. She feels that sometimes women
find it difficult to estimate how much work one can do because they are trained to follow. You have to
step out and say I want to do this, says Daga, adding that occasionally it is tough to convince people that
women are as capable as men. Despite the inherent bias, you don't see people say that publicly, Daga says.
She believes women understand consumer behaviour better and make for better entrepreneurs.
We need more female coders
The idea of Pipa+Bella was born with the understanding that fashion jewellery is a fast growing yet highly
fragmented industry in India. Young women are increasingly fashion conscious and exposed to international
markets and trends, yet there aren't enough brands for them in India. I saw this as an opportunity. My
background was largely in marketing, so when I started Pipa+Bella, I felt the need to hire a person with a
strong technical engineering background that would complement my softer skill set.I was keen on hiring a
female CTO because our product and customers are female-centric but there is a shortage of female coders
compared to male, says Pandya, who has an MBA from Wharton. This is a reality not only in India, but in
other startup hubs around the world, including Silicon Valley, which is dominated by men. The same is true
for the venture capital space, where there is an unintentional selection bias towards male founders. In July,
Pipa+Bella raised $650,000 from a group of investors. Her suggestion is to have coding academies
specifically for women along the lines of ones in the US and UK.

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At first, people thought we were just two girls having fun

In 2012, when Shivani Poddar and Tanvi Malik started FabAlley to make shopping easier for single,
independent women in metros, they faced one challenge: Two 25-year-olds were not taken seriously.
Recruitment was a challenge. Most often, we were interviewing men who asked us about our background
and age.People wouldn't meet us; they thought we were two girls doing this as a fun thing, says Malik.
Customers and potential staff realized how serious they were only after they met them. Now, more than half
their 75-member team is male. Poddar and Malik feel there is no glass ceiling, and women's participation in
startup events across the country is increasing. Not many women are entrepreneurs but you can see more
women-only discussions happening, says Malik. Poddar feels being a woman in the fashion space has
advantages. People trust women in this space, she says, adding that success isn't defined by sector. In the
end, it comes down to how the idea is executed.
Investors rarely look at gender before funding you
Priyanka Gill and Namrata Bostrom were living in London when they started noticing that there was no
digital content for young women in India. So they started a portal to provide content about fashion, beauty,
lifestyle and pop culture. The duo believes the challenges female entrepreneurs face aren't different from
men. Investors rarely look at gender before investing. We haven't struggled to raise funds, says Gill, whose
30 employees are all women. However, she adds that not many women start their own ventures though
they're happy to work in emerging businesses. There is a perspective that only women understand, she
says. Gill is also mother of two, a five-year-old girl and a nine-year-old son. I make it a point to switch off
during the weekends to spend time with my children, she says. That obviously happens only because she
manages her time well. And with a lot of help from a supporting family! she adds.
Ability to multi-task helps when starting from scratch
Aditi Avasthi doesn't believe there is a special challenge one faces as a woman entrepreneur.
Entrepreneurship is exciting and fraught with challenges, says Avasthi, who set up ed-tech startup Embibe,
which specializes in competitive entrance exam preparation, in 2012. Having worked in the corporate sector
as well as run a startup, she feels both offer equal opportunities to women. Running my own business and
being able to breathe life into my vision of disrupting the education system using data science and technology
makes me more determined to achieve my goals. Patience, persistence and being able to multi-task come
naturally to me as well as most women so that is a big advantage when starting from scratch. Avasthi has a
favourite startup story: The team was in the middle of a big debate when their admin person called. They
walked out and saw a couple, parents of a student who had got into BITS Goa. The student had insisted they
come and say thank you to us with sweets. We ask ourselves every single day: What more can we measure to
improve the score that defines young people's lives?
(Reporting by Samidha Sharma, Anand J and Shalina Pillai)

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