You don’t need to be building a billion dollar business, to think like a unicorn. For the growing number of female founders, the unicorn business way of thinking could hold the key to success.
More women are starting their own businesses than ever before- 18% of SMEs In the UK are female-led; a number that reached a record-high last year. But when it comes to unicorn businesses, that reach a $1bn value, the stats aren’t quite as encouraging. Just 5% of unicorn businesses have a female founding chief executive. With the government’s, women-led high growth taskforce mission to grow the next generation of female-founded high growth businesses, here’s why implementing a unicorn mindset could be key to their success.
The gender based disruption gap
There’s no doubt that owning a business has become more accessible to women than in previous years. The world of online business has lowered the bar, the pandemic has shifted our relationship with how we’re willing to invest our time and entrepreneurship is fast becoming the next feminist movement.
It all sounds great, except gaps still exist. The gender funding gap is one- last year only 3.5% of equity funding was given to female-founded businesses. There’s also the disruption gap, which sees women in business playing it safe- affecting their results, ambitions but, equally important, the joy running a business brings.
Here’s the problem: most women don’t start a business thinking it’s even possible to scale to a $bn business. Perhaps, they might not even want to. But that doesn’t mean we still can’t adopt the unicorn business mindset. Approaching your business like youdo want to be part of the next stampede of unicorns forces you to get out of the weeds of your business and to think bigger about what you’re building.
The scale rinse repeat problem
If you’re out there, like many business owners, as a practitioner of a service and your business is built around the thing you do, you’re selling it on repeat. The internet will tell you how to make this your niche, how to sell and scale, but you’ll be stuck on a hamster-wheel of either doing the thing or selling the thing forever. You may have more time freedom, you might even start making more money than in your corporate job, but very soon it’ll start to feel small, confined and wondering why the fire has gone out.
The benefits of the unicorn ambition
If you started a business, with that same skill set but knew the ambition was bigger, you’d need to find a bigger problem to solve in the world. Having big, unicorn ambitions, means female founders are forced to build braver, fresher brands around them that differentiates them in their sector. It brings a plan for growth and a positioning that felt credible, but with the impetus to stretch in significant ways. Your focus would be on how you close the huge gap from where you are now, to where you need to get to.
You’d need to employ some creativity, an innovation mindset and it would require bold moves only. It would be the stretch and need for personal growth that would light that fire and keep it lit. You wouldn’t have time to sweat the details, you’d be more focused on what you’re building.
Building a personal brand the right way
Personal brand as a business owner isn’t about know, like and trust. We all see the advice telling us to be hyper visible, authentic and to let social media into every aspect of your life- but having unicorn ambitions, means we need to think bigger and more strategically. This changes your personal brand from being helpful, to building category-leading authority, to establish a contrarian point of view that can’t be ignored.
Women are taught how to sell their stuff and how to run a business, but not about how to think bigger, or how to create a valuable brand that has the power to disrupt an industry. Having unicorn ambitions is a mindset shift that changes the energy of an entire business, way beyond your revenue targets or social media following.
