COVID-19 has been a setback for working women. These first-time entrepreneurs prevailed | Companies

LOS ANGELES – Life had stalled La Kesha Wash’s dream of working in interior design.

More than a decade later, she decided to give it a try – amid a global pandemic that hammered the economy and closed stores.

“I thought to myself, okay, you’re not getting any younger, so now is the right time. If you want to do it, just do it,” said Wash, who quit her job as a clerk for the city of Alameda a few months ago to get on with it to focus on getting their business, Meticulous Designs, off the ground.

The pandemic has disproportionately affected women, with a significant number of layoffs, leaving jobs or cutting hours to care for home-schooled children or other family members.

It also had another effect: women, especially those who had never started a business before, took up entrepreneurship and fueled a wave of first-time business ventures that experts say are a pandemic silver lining to be in worth investing.

For women who are the main breadwinners in their household and whose jobs have been affected by the pandemic, this leap was a financial necessity. For those part of double-income households, with greater financial cushion or fewer spending obligations, the pandemic gave them time to think about what they really wanted to do with their lives.

“The pandemic just gave people a little more space to indulge in the things they wanted to think about or do but didn’t have the time or capacity to commute to work or sit at a desk or just in the office said Hayya Lee-McDonald, CEO of Next Chapter Property Solutions and founder of the Women Small Business Owners Network group on LinkedIn.

Personnel platform company Gusto found that 49% of people who started a business in 2020 were women, up from 27% in recent years.

The latest census data on female entrepreneurs nationwide is from 2018, so it’s difficult to quantify the trend, but many women who run entrepreneurship groups on sites like LinkedIn and Facebook have reported numerous new members, many of them first-time in the Business are owners.

The Women Business Owners Supporting Women Business Owners Facebook group had around 1,000 members in November 2019; As of August 2020, it was 15,000 and today it’s about 21,000, said Amber Powers, founder of the group and president of Powers Digital Marketing.

“A lot of people have had some tough and tough realities to deal with during that time, and I think entrepreneurship makes an incredible amount of sense to a lot of people,” she said.

New women entrepreneurs have drawn to coaching, virtual assistant and e-commerce companies, especially as remote working and software for virtual conferencing became the norm, according to founders of women’s business groups on social media.

The pandemic’s emphasis on virtual connections helped Jessica Bruny and her mindfulness coaching company JessBeU reach people when and where they were. The Upland resident had the idea for her company for several years, but decided to finally start it in June 2020.

“This virtual presence has also opened a multitude of doors for people to connect with people around the world, but also to see how they can exchange ideas, start business, meet new friends, and forge new relationships,” she said . “It’s like no other.”

Alexa Stanfill completed her law degree in December and is in a job market with few opportunities for entry-level lawyers.

She needed a job and had thought about starting her own business for a long time, especially in the horse industry. As a rider herself, she knew that riding breeches could be expensive and uncomfortable.

In January, Stanfill, mother Shelby, and friend Kara founded Esprit Equestrian Wear, a Murrieta-based e-commerce company that began selling low-cost breeches ($ 60 a pair, as opposed to the traditional cost of 150 U.S. dollar). to $ 200 on the low end).

Stanfill set up a website and negotiated with manufacturers, and in six months the company had sold nearly 4,000 pairs of pants. Their merchandise has since expanded to include belts, sun shirts, and jewelry.

Although starting a business during the pandemic was scary, Stanfill said the flexibility to run your own business quickly paid off. She can choose when to work and does not envy the long hours and rigid hours of lawyers. She looks forward to planning longer-term trips.

“Starting this e-commerce business will give me more freedom than hanging around a desk,” said Stanfill.

The membership of a Facebook group called The Female Entrepreneur Community also skyrocketed during the pandemic from 880 members at the beginning of the year to nearly 45,000 in August, said Whitney McQuade, the group’s founder and business coach.

McQuade said she started the group to create an inclusive online community because she and other black and biracial women she spoke to felt “we weren’t represented in the online space”.

Women of color were hit harder by job losses than white women during the pandemic, and many are struggling to recover from work, with families disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and juggling child or family care responsibilities. Other online groups shied away from discussing racial justice and its impact on businesses, and McQuade wanted to create a space where a diverse community felt like they were being seen and heard.

“It created a really safe space for women to come together during these difficult times,” said McQuade. “There were a lot of people who had no idea how to run a business but needed feedback, support and guidance to make it work, so they could take care of themselves and their families.”

A March poll by Gusto and the National Assn. of women entrepreneurs found that nearly half of the women who started new businesses during the pandemic were women of color. They were more than twice as likely as white women to say they started their new business because they were laid off or worried about their financial situation.

“This is a very inspiring trend where women of color are turning barriers into opportunities and starting new businesses, but the conversation can’t end with ‘This is an inspiring trend’,” said Luke Pardue, an economist at Gusto who authored the survey has test report. “We need to find ways to support these new business owners and ensure their businesses don’t fail.”

Economics and entrepreneurship experts say it would require more investment in small business development centers, low-cost counseling, and other programs that give women the education and tools to learn and grow their businesses.

“Women are very, very strong about social support, family support, and informal social networking,” said Lois Shelton, a professor at Cal State Northridge who specializes in entrepreneurship and strategy. “Where women are somewhat disadvantaged … they access these business networks. Men are very strong there.”

Spurred on by the setback women faced in the workplace during the pandemic, entrepreneur and venture capitalist Brit Morin launched Selfmade, a 10-week online entrepreneurship seminar for women.

As of June 2020, almost 2,000 women between the ages of 20 and 70 have completed the program. Of those who took part, around half had recently become unemployed or on leave, and the other half had a side job that they wanted to turn into a full-time job. Many women wanted to join the program to work on what they are most passionate about, Morin said.

“With the pandemic, many people have reassessed their lives,” said Morin. “They want a job that makes sense to them.”

Esmeralda Jimenez recently took on her part-time property manager job to focus on growing her Mexican pastry and bread business, Clementina’s Sweets. She founded it in late 2019 in San Diego as a passion project for weekends and leisure. Following the recent deaths of family members and friends, Jimenez decided to take the plunge and focus more on what she loves.

Although it was difficult to give up the security of her job, Jimenez knew she had to give up something in order to further build the success of Clementina’s Sweets, named after her grandmother.

“Life is not easy,” she said. “Doing what you love is what defines life.”

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