Children’s book and toys that were developed as a result of Association of Business Women in Serbia’s mentorship program.
Fear of failure. Lack of confidence. Aversion to risk. These are some of the biggest hurdles that one faces when starting a business. Around the world, these challenges are often far more pronounced for women entrepreneurs. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2012 Women’s Report noted that one of the top reasons why there are significantly fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs is because women simply believe they are incapable of launching their own businesses.
What can be done to reverse such beliefs?
One answer is fostering a network among women in business through mentorships.
The Association of Business Women in Serbia (ABW) and Red de Empresarias de Nicaragua (REN) both saw a pattern in their countries: women are reluctant to start businesses because they lack role models and the right skillsets to pursue entrepreneurship. To fill this gap, CIPE is supporting both organizations to empower and support aspiring or new women entrepreneurs in Serbia and Nicaragua.
Most start-ups fail within the first few years of operations. That’s why ABW decided to support women with new businesses that have been operating less than three years. ABW is facilitating 27 mentorship pairs between new women business owners and ABW members with established businesses throughout Serbia – in Cacak, Valjevo, Zajecar, Subotica, and Belgrade.
By making such connections, ABW is helping grow women-owned firms around the country. For instance, Maja Enis from Belgrade, who owns a children’s book publishing firm, is mentoring Tijana Jovanovic Petrovic, designer/owner of an educational toy company. As Maja began mentoring Tijana, she saw a strategic business opportunity between them: to produce a children’s book with toys. The mentoring pair came up with the idea, designed the products, and successfully published a children’s book entitled Healthy Foods: Fruit and Vegetables and developed educational toys that go with it. The two products are sold as pairs in bookstores in Belgrade now, and both the mentee and mentor are pleased with the sales so far.
ABW is also raising awareness of successful women entrepreneurs in the country. They hosted their annual Success Flower awards ceremony in November 2014, which attracted over 600 attendees from the government, embassies, international organizations, civil society organizations, as well as the local media. During the ceremony, ABW honored four awards to celebrate inspiring women business owners. Thirteen TV stations and twenty newspapers reported about the ceremony and the award recipients, which helped highlight the important role women entrepreneurs play in Serbian economy.
On other side of the globe, REN in Nicaragua is encouraging entrepreneurship among young women and empowering the capacity of women micro-entrepreneurs through mentorships. Their program has two beneficiaries: female university students from Managua and emerging women micro-entrepreneurs, and they are all paired with successful businesswomen. REN matched ten teams (each mentorship team consists of a micro-entrepreneur, mentor, and an intern) for this project.
The students intern at their mentor’s company to learn basics of what it takes to run a firm, and they also work with their mentors to support the micro-entrepreneurs with technical assistance to improve their businesses. Simultaneously, the university students and the micro-entrepreneurs are provided with networking and professional development opportunities to expand their skills and knowledge. REN is expanding the horizons of young women and emerging women entrepreneurs to meet and learn from women in business who have already succeeded.
REN also organizes business training sessions for both the interns and micro-entrepreneurs on useful skills, such as accounting and inventory management. Such training has been extremely useful for the micro-entrepreneurs because most of them were operating without any formal business education. Almost all micro-entrepreneur participants have voiced that their productivity and profitability have increased since learning and implementing a proper inventory system for their businesses, for example.
Women around the world with the right motivation and skillsets are all capable of starting businesses. Yet, as research show, women need the confidence and a support system to actually start a firm. And this can be done – as REN and ABW demonstrate – by providing business training and space for established business women to share stories and become role models for the next generation of women entrepreneurs.
Read this month’s Economic Reform Feature Service article on supporting women entrepreneurs, which features insights from REN’s president and other successful leaders.
Maiko Nakagaki is a Program Officer for Global Programs at CIPE.
