Women entrepreneurs seek greater support and opportunities throughout Austin

A group of Austin’s leading women entrepreneurs wants the city and business stakeholders to help increase access to capital for women business owners and founders, while creating broader professional networks and providing more business tools and services.

Those three areas of need were the most common threads among the 12 recommendations included in a recent report from the Mayor’s Task Force for Austin Women Entrepreneurs.

Mayor Kirk Watson formed the group last summer to address the gaps in resources and opportunities for women-owned businesses in the Austin area.

Led by longtime business leader Carla McDonald, founder and managing director of investment group Dynabrand Ventures, the group’s 22 members brought experience in finance, public organizations, tech startups, government operations and consumer goods.

Participants shared that they experienced a closed-door dynamic among many Austin business leaders toward women entrepreneurs. At a panel discussion during South by Southwest on the experience of women entrepreneurs, McDonald stated bluntly, “There is something very broken here.”

The recommendations include opening a local U.S. Small Business Administration Women’s Business Center, creating an angel investor group specifically for women entrepreneurs, and a similarly focused city grant program.

The report also calls for a capital pledge for businesses to support women entrepreneurs, expanding debt financing, creating an online marketplace for affordable goods and services for women entrepreneurs, and establishing a child care initiative to assist women business owners.

Among the final recommendations were creating an innovation academy and virtual networking hub for women, adding a women entrepreneur council at the Austin Chamber of Commerce and streamlining the process to become a certified women-owned business for city contracting.

While the city has an assortment of chambers of commerce for ethnicity- and culture-based groups, it lacks one specifically serving women in business. The Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Texas is based in Austin, and there is an Austin chapter of the Texas Women in Business nonprofit advocacy group.

Fang Fang, CEO of Big Plan and former president and CEO of the Greater Austin Asian Chamber, said Austin could look to successful initiatives to assist women entrepreneurs in other cities, such as New York City. She highlighted mentorship programs and attempts to streamline regulations for women business owners as two areas the city could focus on to produce substantial results.

“In other cities, I’ve been impressed by initiatives that focus on building strong networks and support systems for women entrepreneurs, such as co-working spaces exclusively for women, mentorship programs pairing experienced entrepreneurs with newcomers, and pitch competitions specifically for women-led startups,” she said. “These initiatives not only provide valuable resources and opportunities but also foster a sense of community and solidarity among women entrepreneurs. Austin could emulate these efforts by investing in similar programs and creating a collaborative environment where women feel empowered to pursue their entrepreneurial aspirations.”

By email, McDonald labeled the report as a “call to action” for the city’s business and political leaders.

“From policymakers to private sector, higher education, and nonprofit leaders, we all have an important role to play. We will never reach our potential as a city if we leave half our entrepreneurial population on the sidelines,” she said. “If we were to give our women founders the same level of support we give our male founders, we could increase our local GDP by $6-$12 billion, create thousands of new jobs, accelerate innovation, and build an even better city since studies show that women entrepreneurs invest more in their local communities.”

In a prepared statement, Watson praised the task force for its seven months of work and said the city will look for ways to enact the recommendations along with local business leaders.

“The findings in this report show exactly why I formed this group. We’ll analyze these findings and thoughtful recommendations and take action to make sure Austin is the best place for women to start and grow a business,” he said.

Photo by EranVzl, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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