Launching While Female: Smashing the System That Holds Women Entrepreneurs Back

By Susanne Althoff

Book Overview

An expos of the gender gap in entrepreneurship and a road map for a more inclusive and economically successful future for us all

Journalist and professor Susanne Althoff investigates the obstacles women and nonbinary entrepreneurs--especially those of color--face when launching, funding, and growing their companies, obstacles that persist because the current start-up world was engineered by and for white men. Through interviews with over a hundred founders across the country and in all industries, Althoff paints a picture of an entrepreneurial system rife with bias and discrimination, where women receive less than 3 percent of this country's venture capital, struggle to find mentors in the wake of #MeToo, and are dismissed as "mompreneurs."

The effects of this unequal system--a weaker economy, fewer jobs, less innovation--are felt by all of us, and Althoff explains how more equitable structures in business and entrepreneurship will benefit all people, not just those hoping to fund a startup.

By exploring some of the practical ways we can open the entrepreneurial system to everyone, Althoff provides a rallying cry and a way forward for women entrepreneurs and their allies, showing that change is urgent and within our reach.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807042978
• ISBN13: 9780807042977
• Release Date: October 2020
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 9.1"