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Entrepreneurship is a key component that promotes socio-economic development, innovation and growth in various ways for any country and among many other reasons it provides opportunities for women and men all over the world. Therefore, it allows them to drive change with new products and services that enable new markets to be created.

In recent years, the number of women-led businesses has rapidly increased which shows that women are turning to entrepreneurship more than ever. Today, I will share with you my experience as a female entrepreneur highlighting the importance of this sector and why women have been favouring it, in addition to some insights on the entrepreneurial ecosystem emphasizing the opportunities and challenges that face us in this journey. Also, several lessons for aspiring women in entrepreneurship will be shared.

Female Entrepreneurs Are Uniquely Different:

Women play an influential role in every society and at any position they hold, however, in many cases one woman can manage different roles at the same time. She can be a partner, a mother, a leader, a caregiver and an entrepreneur all together. Nonetheless, since we all differ in defining success, each female entrepreneur describes success in her own terms. For example, for some success is to build strong connections with clients and reach financial independence whereas for other female entrepreneurs, success means achieving a better work-life balance by controlling duties and working on something meaningful and fulfilling. This indicates that women can gain both economic and non-economic outcomes out of their entrepreneurial activities and their goals and motivations differ based on many factors such as family, career and values.

The Entrepreneurial Environment:

As an entrepreneur, I know for a fact that it is a continuous journey of learning and developing, even for the most successful business ventures, they still have to go through the unlearning and relearning process to continue growing and pivoting. Nevertheless, besides the obvious challenges, female entrepreneurs continuously face other critical issues such as traditional gender role expectations, societal dimensions and the entrepreneurial environment’s constraints which does not give them enough capacity to accomplish their full potential. While much progress has been made, we still have to find the right solutions for these challenges or else we will be losing a great driving force of the entrepreneurial growth in the future, the female force. From my point of view everyone needs to commit to this cause and help in strengthening this vital sector through different initiatives and supportive policies such as initiating a platform that enables and empowers women in entrepreneurship through different programs that promote the knowledge, the know-how and the tools for female entrepreneurs.

Lessons for aspiring women entrepreneurs:

• Believe in your ideas, your mission and most importantly believe in yourself:
  An entrepreneur’s daily job is not the same as someone having a conventional job routine, they need to take the extra mile in every step of the journey and in order to achieve that self- confidence is highly needed. It is actually considered one of the most important traits for entrepreneurs, especially female entrepreneurs. So have faith in your abilities and focus on your strengths.
• Seek support from your community:
  Building a supportive network is essential for any entrepreneur as they are the ones who understand your pain points and can relate to your challenges. Such communities motivate us, energise us and remind us why we became entrepreneurs. In addition, they can expose us to fresh ideas and new perspectives that help in developing our businesses and partnerships.
• Learn as you go, as you win and as you fail:
  We need to constantly remind ourselves that failing does not make someone a failure, on the contrary, failing is just another step to move you closer to your goals and dreams. Furthermore, lifelong learning is fundamental for lifelong winning, this skill needs to be prioritized by entrepreneurs. Each day brings us enormous ways to learn from, so pay attention to the details of your victories, challenges and everything else. Lessons can be found everywhere.
• Support women to become entrepreneurs:
  Many times, our economies miss out the contributions of our talented women because they do not own the right set of skills and tools to enter the entrepreneurial world. It should be our duty to continuously support and empower other women through knowledge sharing, motivation and guidance. As simple as this might be, but it remains key to encourage women to take the entrepreneurship route and succeed.

Women entrepreneurs are changemakers and challenge seekers, they devote their lives to add meaning to their families and careers. The more I meet female entrepreneurs the more I believe in the importance of this sector to us. Despite the challenges, it is still considered the most flexible career path for women. Moreover, our duty as a community lies in finding more solutions that would help break the mould and support women in this ecosystem whether it is through policies, initiatives or concessions. Lastly, I believe that economic growth will drive progress when more women are on board and take part of the entrepreneurial activity.