During the pandemic, a wave of new businesses were created nationwide — many of them founded by women.
BY RACHEL LOZANO CASTRO
Lozano Castro is director of The Brink Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at the University of San Diego. She lives in Paradise Hills.
I was 16 when I met Ray. He was a business owner in Philadelphia, a few hours from my New Jersey childhood home. He owned a neighborhood business on a busy urban intersection, and I was struck by how he employed formerly incarcerated and differently abled employees. After I met him, I knew I wanted to one day own a company that created jobs in my community. At that age, I didn’t have the vocabulary to express the view that social enterprise or business could be a force for good, and certainly never thought of myself as a businesswoman, but that was the beginning of a direction and a drive.
Fast forward to Christmas Eve 2018. I’m clicking through various governmental websites, paying my San Diego Tax ID and filing for my Employer Identification Number (EIN). We need to spell that out I had decided it was time to finally start my business. Previously, I didn’t think entrepreneurship could be for me — but I was close enough to see and experience a problem that was painful for enough people and knew I was fit to solve it. That’s how a lot of founders get their start — not with a solution but with a problem that needs fixing.
Saving Small Business
I made a leap to help other small businesses succeed as director of The Brink SDBC at the University of San Diego. At The Brink, I work with local, small businesses to help them learn, grow and build their brands.
During the pandemic, a wave of new businesses were created across the country — many of them founded by women. Here in San Diego, our team saw similar trends. In fact, between January and August 2021, 140 businesses were created across the San Diego SBDC network — nearly half of those from women.
During October, and every day, we celebrate women entrepreneurs during National Women’s Small Business Month. And this year, during a pandemic, celebrating these women is more important than ever. I’m honored to work with women-led business owners like XplorStem, founded by Vicki Nienaber-Meadows, a career scientist, working in biotech and pharmaceutical industries for decades who realized “falling in love with science” was out of reach for many students, so she created XplorStem to make science fun. Or Ashleigh Ferran who founded In Good Company as a pivot from a former company impacted by the big arena closures of 2020. Thanks to her, you can now get chef-made, frozen dishes delivered to your home — solving problems for busy foodies in SoCal.
Diving Into Trends
The pandemic deepened some already emerging trends. Women were disproportionately impacted by job losses in 2020, and continue to experience pay inequity in the labor market — both driving a need to secure additional income, often via entrepreneurship. And the research is out — women are great leaders and entrepreneurs. Women are recognized for their ability to pull together social collaborators and secure initial funding from friends and family, but they still face systemic challenges in the area of accessing business and investor networks. However, investors are taking notice. While females made up only 4.9 percent of venture capitalists in 2020, the number of female-led funds is growing. And women investors are twice as likely to invest in women founders. This means we should see a huge potential increase in funding to women-led startups in the coming years.
Read the rest of the article in The San Diego Union-Tribune! The Brink SBDC is part of the San Diego & Imperial SBDC Network. Connect with us to learn more about how we can help your small business at no cost to you.
