Woman's Hour - Who wants to be a female entrepreneur?

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Woman’s Hour is joined by BBC Radio Sheffield in Doncaster for a special live panel show to find out how to be a successful female entrepreneur.Woman’s Hour presenter Anita Rani and BBC Sheffield presenter Paulette Edwards talk to local business women and experts about how to start and sustain a thriving business. They investigate how the stubborn barriers of funding, childcare and confidence are still holding women back and explore the interventions needed to bring about lasting change, so more women and girls can choose to turn their great ideas into successful and lasting businesses. On the panel are: Amy Furniss, a nurse from Doncaster who turned entrepreneur with a dried flowers business; Akeela Mohammed, who sold her two nurseries in Doncaster and now wants to open a Desi café; Rachel Stockey, Head of Entrepreneurial Skills at the Entrepreneurship Institute, who empowers women to make waves by practising her Seven Skills of Entrepreneurial Mindset; Christine Hockley, Managing Director of Funds at the British Business Bank in Sheffield, who is one of a small number of the country’s female investors; and Emma Jones, who in 2005 set up Enterprise Nation, which aims to provide expert advice and support for small businesses. Presenters: Anita Rani and Paulette Edwards Producer: Rebecca Myatt SM: Phil Booth

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to Woman's Hour live from Doncaster for a very special programme called Who Wants to Be a Female Entrepreneur? Not only have we left Woman's Hour HQ for Yorkshire, I am joined by Paulette Edwards from BBC Radio Sheffield. Yes, we come into your life from CAST, the theatre in Doncaster, and this programme is being broadcast on both BBC Radio 4

and BBC Radio Sheffield, which covers South Yorkshire and North Derbyshire. So that means we've got Doncaster at our bosom on, yes, around our bosom this morning. So, Women's Hour finishes, of course, at 11 o'clock.

I will be broadcasting for three more hours, Anita, while you're having a massage, getting your feet up, whatever you decide to do. That's exactly what happens. And can I just appreciate the fact that you got bosom

into the opener of Women's Hour. Thank you for that. We are also joined, you might be able to hear them tittering in the background, by a live, packed audience. Welcome.

Still going, aren't they good? Yeah, amazing. They are made up of business minds, curious minds, Woman's Hour mega fans, and BBC Radio Sheffield fans. There we go. And maybe my mum. Today we're going to find out how to become a successful female entrepreneur.

But before we do, Paulette, as you are one of the local radio presenters on this patch, could you set the scene for us? Tell us a bit about Donny. Well, it's interesting to have this conversation because I think often when people say up north, they think that all northern cities are exactly the same. But if I look at the three that are kind of closest to us, I think of Leeds as the kind of big sister. She likes to put a dress on and go out partying, a little bit rowdy, likes everyone to know who she is.

The middle sister, Sheffield, a little bit more pensive, thoughtful, more cultural. Leeds will probably disagree with that, but definitely. A bit quieter, does things her own way disagree with that, but definitely a bit quieter, does things her own way. Doncaster, not quite there yet. She's a toddler. She's looking at her sister. She's not sure which one she wants to be. She's making a decision. She's biding her time. So if we look at the city of Doncaster, young city, toddler city, horse racing, St. Ledger Festival, four-day festival. We've got the fantastic rich railway heritage. The

Flying Scotsman was built here in 23, the Mallard in 38. A lot of wealth here. We've got the wildlife park. We need to talk about that. Among the 70 species, black rhinos, polar bears, we've got tigers and lions. Oh, they'll be cold. Yeah, they will be cold, but we're not well on that too much.

So, second largest city in South Yorkshire. Big area, a very big area. When you drive through Doncaster, it feels vast. And it's got coal mining heritage. We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago with the 40th anniversary of the strike, the miners' strike. So the closing of the pits caused economic difficulties and the city has become more of a service city, in a sense. Good communication links to the rest of the UK and beyond.

And, as I said, gained city status in May 2022. That was part of the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. So we need to talk about the women, don't we? The women in Doncaster. Leslie Garrett, we can talk about her, soprano, singer, musician, broadcaster. Old school Avenger, Diana Rigg from Doncaster. Wonderful Diana Rigg.

And we lost her recently, of course. And I went to an exhibition in 2018, the Rebel Daughters of Doncaster exhibition, which was celebrating the centenary of suffrage and talked about some wonderful women like Violet Key Jones. She was known as the railway suffragette because she travelled to and from Doncaster Station to make sure that she campaigned across Yorkshire. Sarah Julia Ward Aldam, she was described as a girl boss. She was born in 1858. What she did during the First World War is turned

her home. It wasn't a two up, two down, by the way, Nita. It was a Hooten Pagnol Hall. She turned it into a hospital and was credited for that. She did amazing things. President of Doncaster's Women Institute, and she was rewarded with an MBE. Women, of course, we have to talk about the women against pit closures. Fantastic strength and force behind those women, keeping the communities going during the strike action. And also we need to talk about Doncaster Bells. We need to talk about the success of that female football team. And of course the heritage is reflected by the variety of people here.

Can I just squeeze in Violet Radcliffe, international adventurer she was known as in the Rebel Daughters. And she, I wanted to mention her because she's from Portland in Jamaica, which is where my mum was from. You've got to give her a shout out. Yeah, definitely. Now, the reason we are here, if you can believe this, Doncaster came bottom of one league table for opportunities for women entrepreneurs in the UK last year, according to the website money.co.uk, which analysed data from the ONS. And maybe this is a good thing because it's giving us an opportunity to focus on this new, as you've described, a toddler city.

And you went off to Doncaster Live, which is a kind of careers fair for us, didn't you? Yeah, because I wondered what the entrepreneurs of the future had to say the creative minds but probably bored in maths as we speak the young women I wondered why they how they felt about coming last as in this way that you know whether or not there was enough being done here to support young women with ideas so I went to Doncaster Live as you, run by Doncaster Chamber of Commerce, type of careers fair. So I went there earlier this month to ask some teenagers what they thought. And I got some quite insightful and very honest responses from Ella, Abby and Imogen. Why aren't women in Doncaster setting up businesses? I don't know. I feel like it's because they might feel

like they're not good enough to become businesswomen. And then they just, like, dream of becoming a stay-at-home mum instead and let their partners do all the work. Is that how you feel, that you're going to be...? No, I feel like that's what people in... women in Doncaster feel, because I see a lot of people who are, like... ..like a lot of women who were just like have loads of kids and like their husbands are the ones who are out working have you thought about

setting up your own business is that something you'd ever think of doing do you think I do like a clothing one but yeah and what would you want to do with a clothing business then would it be selling clothes making clothes what would you do like making one making them like like that on a little sewing machine yeah and do you think you've got the skills for that then is it something you definitely want to do on a set of business i want to make clothes well i would but i just feel like well that's what i wanted to do but i just feel like it won't happen. Do you know what I mean? I don't know.

Why not? I don't know. I feel like it's just, like, the expense as well. Like, you see, like, YouTubers, like, creating, like, brands, but it's, like, cos they've got the money from doing that. And I feel like if you just grow up in, like, a small town, like, city... So what do you mean, then, about growing up in Doncaster? I mean, a new city of course

because it's like I feel like no people don't really know where Doncaster is yeah like compared to like London yeah do you think your school and your education do enough to give you the skills you need to set up a business or to think about your future I think college is like setting us up because we have this thing called PDBA where it like teaches all the stuff like outside of college that we can use to make a business but in like my old school they didn't really do much to help us like they just did stuff that I can't really think of examples but they didn't really do anything that was like actually helpful. So much to unpick there. Well actually Ella, Abby and Imogen summarized what we're going to be talking about today so they mentioned money confidence was a big thing role models doubt

an interesting one education they talked about pdba i had to do a research on that so that's a course of principles of business and they were working at level two with that yeah so we're gonna we're gonna unpick all of that absolutely we've got a panel who will answer all of our questions. But before we introduce them, we would, as per usual, love to hear from all of you listening to us at home. What are your thoughts? Are you a budding entrepreneur? Do you run a business? Do you wish you were running one? What have been your lessons, the good days, the bad days?

How are you encouraging your children, if at all, to go into their own business? What do they want to do? We we want to hear it all so do get in touch in the usual way you can text the number 84844 you can also contact us via social media it's at bbc woman's hour you can email us by going to our website or you can whatsapp me or voice note us on 03700 100 444 but now to our panel of guests who are we joined by paula well anita i mean obviously we've got a bit of expertise me and you but not enough to talk about these types of things so we're joined by rachel stocky head of entrepreneurial skills at the entrepreneurship institute the ei christine hockley do you want to make yourselves known by the way to the audience when i

mention your christine hockley md funds um at the British Business Bank, one of the small number of the country's female investors. We're going to hear about angels and unicorns from you as well, Christine, I understand. Emma Jones set up Enterprise Nation in Manchester, aiming to provide expert advice and support for small businesses. Akilah Mohammed ran two nurseries in Doncaster. She's now starting again. She wants to open a Dessy cafe.

And Amy Furnessess she was a nurse she's now an entrepreneur and she's got a dried flowers business give them a round of applause yes welcome so Rachel we're going to come to you first because you are head of entrepreneurial skills at the Entrepreneurship Institute at King's College. Is it something you can teach people? Because it feels like one of those things that you're either born with or you're not. Yeah, people tend to talk about it a bit like the Maybelline slogan, but we at King's College London

at the Entrepreneurship Institute fully believe that it is something that you can teach. How? So I designed a framework that kind of breaks down what we mean by entrepreneurial mindset into seven key skills, which really help people get it. It's more accessible, right? If you can learn a range of skills,

then you can practice those skills and you can get better at them over time. And that grows your confidence in turn. And actually being able to learn tangible things like how to be a disruptive thinker and how to validate an idea will help you over time you know spot opportunities and find ways um to take those opportunities and make them into something real in the real world so we teach that at kings we're not going to get into them right now because we will properly but go and list your seven key skills so our seven skills are compel disrupt think lean validate commit to growth build teams and get it done that's it well remembered well

remembered yeah well she came up with them so it'd be weird i think that's interesting as well anita because we were having a conversation rachel about whether we were entrepreneurial or not and i was saying i definitely am not. And you, Anita, were saying you definitely are. I just went, yes, of course I am. But then you looked at me and said you thought I was. And I asked Rachel, actually, backstage if she thought she could turn me into an entrepreneur. And what was your response to that, Rachel?

Challenge accepted. Right, so by the end of the hour, let's see if we can turn you, Paula, into an entrepreneur. Let's see. Is there a kind of character that you see in entrepreneurs though it's a range and I think that's the thing that um sometimes puts people off because they're often the representations of entrepreneurship we have are very singular so the the main reference points we have are you know dragon's den or the apprentice and it makes people think that there's only one type of entrepreneur but actually in my role I

get to see a huge number of different people applying their entrepreneurial mindset in a huge range of different ways. And I think that's what we need more of is the broader representation of what it can mean to be entrepreneurial, because then more people will see themselves in it. I'm going to talk to Amy now. So Amy, you are a local startup. You, Amy Furness, sell dry flowers, but you were a nurse before that. How did you go from nurse to becoming an entrepreneur then? alongside working evenings and weekends um and then it sort of the side hustle just grew into something bigger and bigger yeah so we started up at home um the house was completely chaos as you can imagine boxes flowers everywhere um but we just made it work we worked till early hours um then i got up did my nine till five job um I worked as a practice nurse so I worked Monday to Friday um and then used to come home and then work up until like one and two in the morning wrapping parcels and getting stuff ready for people yeah. Would you say it was worth it? 100% at the time if you'd ask me that I used to go to work and think I used to dread going home because of the mess.

You usually go home to just be nice and clean and quiet, have your tea. And I can remember just moving Pampas aside to put my dinner plate there to eat my dinner and then move the plate aside and just carry on wrapping. Yeah, it was not something that you could have done for a long time, really. But where did that idea, the first inkling that you wanted to do something different come from so um i want i was redecorating my house because when we bought the house it needed renovating so i was at the final stages of adding all the nice homey parts and i couldn't find pampas grass anywhere for sale um so i just that's really where it started i just went on the hunt

looking for them and i thought surely if if i'm looking for pampas grass for my house, there's other people out there who are looking for the same. And yeah, I had to make an order with a wholesaler, which had to be of a certain amount of money because they wouldn't allow me just to buy three stems what I wanted for my vase at home. So I ended up with this massive box of Pampers coming. I thought, like, what am I even going to do with all this?

I can remember my husband said, wow, like, what's going on? And, yeah, I just thought there's definitely a gap in the market. And I've always kept an open mind. Like, I've always thought I need to be... I've always just thought I can definitely do something I want to just do something for myself and that that were it yeah do you know you know what they say about pampas grass don't you yeah I do well I didn't until I started and then I thought I hope people don't think that yeah I'll tell you later am I the only person in the

room who doesn't know um and now you've got your husband working with you as well. Yeah, so we do it together. Yeah, me and him do it together around the kids. It's a bit chaotic, but we make it work. So, yeah, it's really good. We enjoy it, yeah. Wonderful. I'm going to bring in Emma Jones, who is someone who's dedicated to helping the entrepreneurial community.

Emma started and sold her first business by the age of 27. I mean, what were the rest of us doing? And in 2005, she set up Enterprise Nation in Manchester, and you now provide expert advice and support small businesses. But not only that, you've basically got 120,000 founders as members, 60% of them are women, and some of them are from Doncaster. So what, I mean, that's incredible just to have that percentage. So what are you doing that has encouraged so many women come to you? Great question.

I also don't know what Pampers Gross is either. So maybe we can come to that later. Of course, I'll show you. Of course you have. This is the great thing that entrepreneurs do, always pitching. So what do we do at Enterprise Nation? We support small businesses. So we help people start and grow their own business.

And as you say, Anita, I kind of started this business about 17 years ago, very much seeing that more people would decide to start their own company. So I was actually inspired to start the business reading a book called Free Agent Nation, which was written all about the US economy, where there was the author, Dan Pink, was talking about the rise of the self-employed in the States. And I read this and I was in Manchester at the time and I thought I think the same thing is going to happen in the UK. People will have side hustles, they'll spot gaps in the market, they will look at their passion, their skills, their hobby and they'll say actually can I turn that into a way of running a business. What we exist is to hopefully direct those business owners

to support and And support is something that we think that you need across the whole of the journey from startup right through to scaling. So, you know, everything from how do you access finance? How do you do your marketing? How do you get your product to market? How do you start hiring people? How do you start exporting? The job of a business owner is never done. So Enterprise Nation exists to be that friendly place where hopefully business owners come to get some of the answers and to meet other founders who look like them. And what kind of businesses, 60% of them are women who are with you, what kind of businesses are they running? All sorts. But actually, if you look at the sectors

that we're particularly seeing women are doing well in at the moment, wellness, fashion, food and drink, creative design services. You heard the young students on the call who were saying, I'm going to start a fashion business. I'm going to become a famous YouTube blogger. This is kind of what female entrepreneurs are looking at. It goes back to what is it that you love doing and actually for anyone who's listening who is thinking of starting a business if you can start a business based on what you love it really helps you when the going gets tough because of course starting and growing a business can take hours of commitment, lots of hard work so it just really helps if you love what you do.

So these are the sectors particularly that we're seeing do well with female founders. So you did law and Japanese as degrees. Was there anything in there that led you to the world of being an entrepreneur? So my history with entrepreneurship started a little bit before then with my mum. So talking about teaching entrepreneurship, I was taught entrepreneurship at the dinner table. So my mum ran restaurants as we grew up as kids and of course at the time when you're 11 and your mum's saying to you right you've got to work in the restaurant this Saturday you're not enjoying entrepreneurship you're like what all of my mates are going out why is it that I have to stay and wait on but you kind of learn these things we would we equated my brother and I equated when mum did well in the restaurant, that's when we went on holiday. That's when we got the nice trainers that we wanted.

So that was kind of my introduction to entrepreneurship. And law and Japanese, as you say, gave me the logistical foundations, I guess, that you need to do things like business planning. You always need a good legal mind to get your contracts right. But actually, I spent a year in Japan Japan which was where I started my first business so I started a business there teaching English to Japanese kids and just one slight thing in terms of a cultural difference what you see in Japan is a huge work ethic and commitment and again I kind of come back to this point of when starting and growing a business so many businesses start as a side hustle but when you go full-time into the business it kind of requires that level of commitment so you pick

up learnings along the way i'm loving the use of side hustle i love that as a whole concept so uh we're going to talk to akilah muhammad now she ran two nurseries in doncaster was looking to grow her business until sadly she lost her husband she She found it necessary to close both, to concentrate on her family, understandably. Five years on, Akilah has set up Healthy Her, a not-for-profit group to empower Muslim women. She's self-employed as an advisor about community engagement and has a new venture in mind to open a desi cafe. We need to say as well that you were nominated

in our Make a Difference Awards on BBC Radio Sheffield in 2023, so that's all important to say as well that you were nominated in our make a difference awards on bbc radio sheffield in 2023 so that's all important to say as well so you're passionate about role models and networking akila how important has that been to get you to where you are now because you're just about to embark on another business aren't you well i'm thinking about it oh you're just thinking i think i'm the right lady here. You might be convinced by the end. Yeah. I think it's really, really important that we, as coming from a woman from a

different culture, that our young girls see us in certain places and within businesses. And I think, especially in Doncaster, it's a very small city in that sense, that we're not as big as Sheffield, where multiculturally there's a lot of different nationalities.

So I think for the girls in Doncaster and the women in Doncaster to see somebody doing well and somebody actually opening their own business, and when I opened the nursery, it was very difficult for me because there was nobody like me, there was no other Muslim women or Asian women that were running their own business. And I had different things within business that would affect me that would not affect my other counterparts, the English white ladies that owned the nurseries.

So we have other layers of culturally not being strong women, I guess. But again, my dad owned a restaurant in Doncaster and I kind of saw him. He was very entrepreneurial and did lots and lots of different things in Doncaster businesses. So I think I was very lucky that I had him as somebody that I could, you know, who would support me and give me good advice. But, yeah, definitely I think for women, it's really important that we have them really positive, good role models. And I was thinking about this as I was talking to young women, as I've been interviewing businesswomen, I was thinking, is it about having an idea?

And you say it's more than about having an idea, Akhil. Yeah, I think it is sometimes. I think it's that support and knowing that somebody could help you with that. I think you do have the idea. You have to have an idea, don't you? Does the idea come first or just wanting to start a business come first?

Chicken-egg situation, which comes first? I think with me, personally, I had an idea. It was at Sheffield. I used to work in Sheffield. And it was seeing other nurseries and thinking, I could do better than this. Actually, would I send my child here? No.

So what should I do? Actually, I'm going to go out there and open my own and just give this provision, kids a really good provision. So I think mine was the idea. And you have to have that passion, absolutely absolutely I think you have to have that passion it's problem solving as well isn't it because you're same with Amy you both thought I can I could do this I could some no one else is doing it and I could do it better yeah yeah absolutely I just wonder what those extra layers were that you were talking about as an Asian woman that you come with I think um I think one within society where society we're seen as sort of stereotyped as, you know,

staying at home and, you know, cooking and cleaning and looking after your husband. And I was very much fighting against that and thought, no, actually, you know, I want to go out there and I want to do something myself. And I kind of, in a way, proved myself to the men in my family and showed them that actually, you know, we can do, you know, we can go and open a business. We can do something ourselves.

So, and I think we have that little bit of pressure of, you know, actually, oh, you can't do it. And even when I did have my business, I did get sometimes men coming and saying, oh, is the owner here? Or, you know, is is your husband does your husband own this right you know this business and say no actually it's me it's mine so um yeah i think we still do get that a little i'll um earlier this week the prime minister said a new female focused investment fund will help the uk become the best place for women starting a business akilah how has it been for you finding investment and getting investment? Well, we were talking about this actually.

I didn't get any investment, and I didn't know about where to get investment from. And when actually, Donker's Chamber were actually great, and they did come to me and say, because they knew my dad and the businesses, they were like, oh, we can help you. But actually, I was very much like, well, I was a bit scared because I thought I'm going to owe money. Because I kept thinking, well, if I get some investment,

that means I have to pay somebody back and I have to owe this money. But also I kept thinking, well, you know, they do a lot of network events and that was a big thing at that time. And I thought, well, I don't want to walk into a room of men. And that kind of put me off as well. So I never really went that in that area so well we're going to get into it now because i'm going to bring in our next um panelist christine hockley who's managing director of funds at the british business bank the uk's economic development bank

because we know firms with all female founders you know these facts and figures christine received only two percent of venture capital funding in 2021 a figure that has hardly shifted over a decade there's also a geographical imbalance last year saw 80 percent of venture capital investment following the golden triangle of london oxford and cambridge so your you are one of the small number of the country's female investors in an average year your team invests 200 to 300 million pounds this helps fund high growth businesses across the uk and includes female founded businesses why is it so hard for women to get funding yeah i think i mean british business bank what we're about is is helping people get access small businesses get access to to the

funding they need um regardless of who they are or where they are. So here in Doncaster, making sure that you've got the opportunity to get the funding, you need to grow your business right here in Doncaster. And I think for female founders, I mean, those statistics are really stark, aren't they? Two pence in the pound goes to female founders. And we're really keen to understand why this happens. So we've done research into looking at why does this happen. And I think one of the things, as I go about working with investment firms, one of the things is that there aren't that many female investors.

So it's getting better, and particularly at the junior levels. But I think a report recently said that 21% of those senior investment professionals are women, and that's all. And you might think, well, you know, I just want money for my business. Why does, you know, who works in the industry make a difference? But actually the research says that it does make a difference. So those firms that have got more people, particularly at that senior level, that are female on their committees that make these decisions as to you know which companies get investment then more female founded businesses do get investments from those types of firms so I think that's really important. Why is

that why does that work? I think because there's different networks that those people have so interesting networks are really important and interesting you talked about your father knowing the chamber of commerce so that got you into that network. And females tend to have different types of networks, so different types of businesses come to them for funding. And then I think also the decision-making. If you've got a more balanced group of people making decisions, so more balanced between male and female, then you get different investment decisions. So you might invest in different types

of businesses so so I think there's you know there's many faceted reasons as to why that can happen. And how did you come into this line of work then how did you come into this way of working because this sounds it sounds dramatic what you do in terms of the amount of money that you're dealing with was it a challenge to get to here for you, Christine? So I think like most people through your career, you weave your way through. So, you know, I'm a scientist by background. I then went to work in technical sales and marketing. I was really interested then in businesses. So fundamentally, I love science and technology and I love business.

So I went to do an MBA to kind of, you know, learn more about it and then went into the investing world. Is that easy to get into then? I think if you're determined and you know what you want to do, then you can get there and do that. So I've worked in many different companies sort of in that investment world and I think what drives me and I think what drives a lot of investors is actually that love of the businesses that they're working with, what people are doing, what the entrepreneurs are doing, particularly in technology, the new technologies that are coming to solve the world's problems actually so it's a fascinating business uh and and i think

what people with businesses need to know is actually the people who are financing you want you to succeed you know they really love what you're doing and that's an important message i think for people who may be a bit nervous about getting funding of course they want you to succeed because they want your business to succeed otherwise well we've got lots of business owners in the audience and we have akila and we've got Amy on the panel. I actually hung out with Amy yesterday. I went to the shed at the bottom of the garden, hung out with the beautiful Pampers because she's very gifted at what she does. Well, let's talk about the type of funding an entrepreneur might want to achieve, because there's so many different varieties, depending on what stage your business is at, where you're at, Amy, because you were talking about this yesterday. It's just you and your husband. Yeah. But you're at, Amy, because you were talking about this yesterday, it's just you and your husband.

Yeah. But you're at that point now where you might need a bit of help? A hundred percent, yeah. Yeah, there's only so many times you can work till one and two o'clock in the morning before you just get completely burnt out. Like most of my days are working until ridiculous times at night and yeah, just jam-packed with all sorts of jobs so so what might

you offer amy if she came to see you and what types different types of finances what different journeys are there if you want to want finance for your business yeah so so all sorts of things i think when when people are starting a business you know if you if you're a woman sat here in the in the in the audience most people would go to you know the high street bank the names that you know or you might be really fortunate you might have family and friends maybe that you can borrow money from and that's great you can start your business off you can do your research or you can fund the the expansion of your business but but maybe not everybody's that fortunate and can't borrow money that way and maybe the banks turn you down but actually there are other options out there and that's what what we're about making sure that we expand all those different opportunities so that

you can build your business so you might get a startup loan for example so startup loans you can get them for up to 25 000 pounds British Business Bank administers these loans and what's really great about them is that you also get 12 months free mentoring so I think you talked about help you know helping helping you with your business on that journey so you've got the money and then you've also got some support to to help you be successful if you've got a business and maybe it wants to grow you could perhaps go to an angel investor so an angel investor is someone who who probably has business experience they've made their money through business and they then want to invest in other people's business

so um so they would take shares in your business but also they've got experience and networks that they can help you grow your business with too um if if you want more funding or or perhaps um you know your business is growing um actually we've just launched the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund right here in the north yesterday, in fact, in Leeds, the big sister. Yeah, showy clothes. And that's a fantastic announcement because that's £660 million worth of funding to go to Yorkshire, Humberside, North West and North East for people who want to get funding from smaller loans down

25 000 pounds right up to two million pounds and also equity investment up to five million pounds so there's lots and lots of different places that you can go different opportunities for different types of finance regardless of what your your business needs thank you very much so i did say at the beginning of this that i'd like to have a virtual party bag to leave with. You've mentioned the angels. So we'd all like to get something from this experience of being here today in this room with this expertise and we're in a variety of positions, our audience.

Some of us are like me and never started a business up. Maybe we'll think about it after today. Maybe we're in a position where we've got a business just starting, an idea like Akilah said, or maybe know get to go to the next level with our business so we're hoping that in our virtual uh goodie bag we'll have all of these skills when we leave you talked about angels unicorns i'd like in my goodie bag what are they it's like a princess party isn't it yeah so a unicorn is is a name for a business that's a billion-dollar business, so it's grown, so it's a billion-dollar revenue business,

usually often a technology business, and that's the terminology that's used for that kind of thing. Can I just say that you can text the programme, Woman's Hour, BBC Radio Shuffle. We usually use different numbers on Radio Shuffle, but today we're using the Woman's Hour one. So the number's 84844. Texts are going to be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email us through our website and you can send

a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700100444. Data charges may apply depending on your provider, so you might want to use Wi-Fi if you can. And terms and conditions can be found on our website. Now, we are in front of a live studio audience, so at any point, if one of you has a question, we will come to you. Before we do, I'm going to come back to Rachel. We'll come to our audience in just a second,

because, Rachel, we're going to come back to your seven skills. You've got get it done, disrupt, compel think lean validate commit to growth which is the most important that's like asking me to choose which is my favorite yes i'm asking you choose it's you've got to make that choice today i would say if we're talking about someone who's starting a business i would go with validate explain because. Because this is, I think, one of the pitfalls that we see people fall down when they have what could be a fantastic idea is getting really wedded to what it's going to look like

and just assume that people are going to love it and want to pay for it. And actually, before you've started that business, that's just an assumption. And we have to prove that that's true. So validate is about how you do that assumption testing. How do you talk to potential real world customers and find out their experience of the problem that you're trying to

solve? So one of the thing for your goodie bag, my most recommended book at the Entrepreneurship Institute is a book called The Mum Test. And it's based on the principle that if you were to say to your mum, I have a business idea, she'd go'd go that's amazing you're going to be a millionaire it's it's fantastic but she's biased right she wants to tell you what you want to hear but that's just an exaggerated version of just basic human psychology people like to be nice so if you say i've got this business idea do you like it they're going to say yes but actually the mum test principles teach you how to do like potential customer research in a way that people can't lie to you yes we have an example sitting right next to you because amy you validated it by

starting very small didn't you yeah i would i would definitely say like if you've got an idea in mind like i had i didn't need to make that massive jump because i was working full-time so it's just sort of if you've got an idea i would say just go for it. Well you set up your Instagram account. Yeah yeah set up an Instagram account the hardest part was thinking of a name like that's the hardest part um and finding one that no one's already used but yeah so just start your Instagram account um buy whatever it is or if you make things like I've got a lot of friends that make handmade things that are so nice just do it as a side hustle the word again um but yeah just see how it goes and if you fail then you've got nothing to lose like you could just work it alongside can i ask you um

can we go back to that young woman who's in a maths lesson it's double maths and she's bored out of her head yeah can we turn her into a woman who's going to think about setting up a business what would you say to her then she's in Doncaster she's in a maths lesson um and she needs something else to dream about because she's not sure this is for her really she's not sure academic you know the academic world works for her what would you say to her Amy the difficult thing that I found when I I sort of thought I want to do something for myself like my dad was a market trader he's he was the role model in my life to sort of um open my mind that way um so I've always been around that kind of um family but I think for me schools don't show you about well from when I was at school like we had no funding

you know like you were saying about having funding I had no we had no funding we're looking to grow I have nowhere I don't know where to grow I don't know how to do it so for me to get anything from today is how you would look at growing yeah definitely so um you you mentioned your father your dad works on markets emma you mentioned your mom akila your dad how important is it to have role models who are entrepreneurs emma yeah it's vital i mean we've mentioned parents they don't have to be parents this is one thing that i should say and it almost uh makes me worried when everyone kind of says well my dad, my mum, because then people will think, well, if I didn't have a mum or dad who started a business,

what does it mean for me? Which also goes back to can you teach entrepreneurship? Role models are vital. This well-known phrase, you can't be it if you can't see it. And therefore, I definitely think, and again, with female founders, we were just talking about unicorns. If you think, is there a female founder in the UK who runs a unicorn business, I would struggle. In the US, there's the lady who founded Spanx. She's a unicorn. You'd struggle to think in the UK. So it is so important. And it's almost how entrepreneurs then give back. So entrepreneurs who've been successful, or even kind of who are still achieving success, to profile themselves, offer any opportunity to come on radio shows, to be on the telly. If Business Doncaster says, can we promote you? This is what young people and people of all ages need to see. Someone who looks like me has achieved this, makes it more attainable for me to do it. I can see our audience are itching to get involved here. So let's get the microphone to you. Hello there.

Hello, good morning. My name is Beverly Giorgio and I have the Glass Strawberry Restaurant in Doncaster. I've actually been on the same site for 42 years. Along with what the panel were just saying, obviously I went through education. My two grown-up daughters have gone through education. And I think, I believe, that they offer two routes.

So they say, we'd like you to go to university, this is how we're going to help you. Perhaps you should start work at 16 or 18, and this is how we're going to help you, we'll show you how to fill a CV in. Do the people on the panel believe that there should actually be a third route and they should say, you know, you don't have to do that, you could work for yourself, you could start up something on your own, you could build it, you could grow it and maybe show a third route. So when they have the careers fair at school and they fetch people in and they say i'm a doctor i'm a dentist i'm an engineer they could then have a third route and say well

i'm in business and there is a third route and you could do this on our own channel feel rachel let's do they need to be explicit then like that it needs to be clear because it isn't is it at the moment yeah it's it's hugely in my opinion lacking in careers guidance in schools generally the way that people approach careers guidance is what job do you want to do not what problem do you want to solve and i think there's a shift that we need to take in how we talk to young people about what they're going to go on to do in the world we're facing a huge number of world challenges and it's going to be the young people that are going to be we're going to be turning to to find the solutions to those challenges but that's not the way that we're talking about young people's futures and I think if we reframe

it to be what problem are you passionate about solving here are the tools and techniques and systems you can use to go and bring a solution out into the world it shifts the way that young people are going to think about what they could end up doing with their future. And one of the things that we do at university is sort of catch all of the students that have missed that message and hopefully it's sort of a little rather late than never, but it should be happening far, far younger.

How important is it for you, Akilah? We were actually going to do something like that in Doncaster with the Chamber of Commerce actually they were amazing and it actually was just before lockdown and it didn't happen but that was one thing that and I know they're here today that one thing that we found was really important and it was really for me

because I didn't go to university and I was like you know there are children out there that are not going to go to uni but there's so many people in Doncaster that actually have really good successful businesses but they didn to go to uni so but there's so many people in Doncaster that actually have really good bit you know successful businesses um but they didn't go to uni and they've done it they've worked hard so we wanted to put them on the platform and say actually this is how we did it this is what we did this is how we've got to where we are but we didn't go to uni we didn't go through that route um and I think that's really and again it's going back to role models isn't it

yes and it's going back to that so yeah we're going to come back to the audience, but before we do, I'm just going to read out a statement from the Department of Education. They said, We know how vital work experience is to young people's development, which is why we're funding the Careers Enterprise Company to provide schools with high-quality work experience through careers hubs and enterprise advisors. Their recent initiative will bring more women entrepreneurs into schools

to inspire the next generation of female business leaders and challenge gender stereotypes about work. This is on top of the £100 million government investment to support delivery of high quality careers advice and guidance of people of all ages and backgrounds. So that was a statement from the Department of Education. And it's not just about young women as well. It's about, you know, if you're in your 50s and you want to start a business, where do you go for education? That's part of it as well, isn't it? Hi, my name's Jill Pollard.

I was a headteacher and a maths teacher. A good one. In a school in Doncaster, in an area which was really hit by the mine closures and aspiration was low, and I was very interested in the interviews that Paulette conducted. I was passionate about promoting and instilling ambition and aspiration was low and I was very interested in the interviews that Paulette conducted. I was passionate about promoting and instilling ambition and aspiration in young people, particularly the girls, many of whom had the ambitions like those young girls were saying. And I just wondered in particular, Emma, whether you felt that you had a role

or your organisation might have a role in getting into schools. Like the colleague was saying here, a lot of our students, we did get them eventually to university, but then they don't come back. And that was seen as the role. And in careers advice, it was obviously, it was often very much about that and not what you were talking about and your organisation. I just wonder whether you did work with schools in that way. So thank you for the question so what just a statistic first of all at the start of every year we carry out something called the Startup Ambition Report where we essentially go out and say who is looking to start a business and this year the figures that came in is one in every three adults wants to start a business at some point in their career but when you ask younger people it's one

in two so we're looking at a generation where half of young people say at some point in their career but when you ask younger people it's one in two so we're looking at a generation where half of young people say at some point in their career they want to start a business uh anita mentioned careers uh an enterprise company i sit on their employment advisory council and i was actually talking to rachel about this before we came on air the last time they had a meeting my one piece of kind of input to them they haven't actually invited me back since is is i actually said to them you need to put the word enterprise in the the actual title of your name being the careers and enterprise company so one thing we are looking at is how can you embed entrepreneurship in the education system and when we have looked at this we feel it's really difficult for teachers teachers have a very

busy and active program already so how do you then put another subject on top that's really tough to do so what we're looking at is how do you embed entrepreneurship across existing curriculum so if children are taking a geography course rather than kind of saying right let's teach geography goes back to this point around problem solving you would also say to young people there's an issue of global warming how would you start a business to solve the problem of climate change so this is what we're looking at is how do you embed that at the earliest stage and then of course then children just feel more confident about it so much we come back to this confidence of starting a business confidence of going from a side hustle to a full-time business confidence of taking your first hire confidence of raising funding if you've had that ingrained in you from an early age you don't feel the fear of doing it so it's

definitely something that we're looking at as we are up in the north actually i think it's really important as we're in doncaster christine that we do talk about uh the how worse off women are in the north because of positioning and you know you talked about the northern powerhouse is the northern powerhouse throbbing for women is the question I think probably yes no so so yeah I mean I think um funding is a challenge outside of of of the southeast of England and I think it's really important that these funds for the different regions are there to help businesses in the north to get that funding to them. So access to funding, having these big numbers available to people

to go and improve their businesses is fundamental, I think, to making sure that, you know, this is the regional disparity of funding not being so much helping here. And I think particularly in equity funding, it's very stark that most of the funding is in London and the southeast. And so, you know, when we're looking at at investment people who are investing into places like Doncaster that's certainly something that we take into account and there are fund managers in the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund that will just be doing that very important. Can we go back to the audience then for another question? Morning I'm Gemma Peebles I'm a Doncaster founder CEO of Harrison College so our study programme our curriculum is all about careers, entrepreneurship, enterprise.

I think I'm a rhino. I'm not quite a unicorn yet, so I'll go as a rhino. So the team know me as the main rhino in the college. I was interested to hear about the Enterprise Institute and the seven skills that you look at. I think part of what I teach our students and we work with the team is there are skills you can learn, but there are attributes of an entrepreneur that I believe can't be taught. I think there's things like risk-taking, like determination. So Harrison College didn't start as a side hustle. It was a full both feet, whole family into this particular idea. And I think how do we, how do you as a panel suggest we foster young people or any age of person, as Paulette said?

How do you foster those attributes? How do you identify in yourself and get people to have a risk taking determination? As an entrepreneur, a lot of things go wrong. You've got a lot of resilience. How do you get people to identify themselves? Actually, you've got a lot of self-drive and motivation well let's come back to rachel who says you can teach all of these skills i'm still waiting to be taught right yeah so i think it's it's as you say you can break it down into component parts which is the first thing right we teach the skills individually and then they can come they can come

together so when you talk about risk taking the way that we actually talk about that is it's actually largely risk mitigation your job as an entrepreneur is to to de-risk your proposition as much as possible and then be comfortable with the risk that's left so how do you go out and do market testing and start on a small scale with a small budget until you know you're going in the right direction and you can teach that I think the the part about education is really important because you can give a sandbox for people to play in when the risk isn't so high as thinking i've got a mortgage and bills and things that i need to pay and if this goes wrong what happens i think that's why it's really important to start in the education system because students have a bit of a safety net around that but I think the other the other part about grit and grit and determination is I think

it's a one of our skills is commit to growth right that has a big draw on resilience and it's about having the conversation a lot of the time around what does it mean to fail forwards like I am going to do this thing that I know is going to be difficult and if it goes wrong or something doesn't go quite as i expected what am i going to learn from that and separating i am not my business i think is a really important thing i think a lot of women entrepreneurs particularly are like my business is my baby it's quite bad just if the if something goes wrong with the baby so having christine in on yeah no and i agree and i think it shows in the research as well because when we look at the research um women

actually don't apply for loans for example as much as men and then when they do apply they don't get as much finance and some of the reasons for that is um is that they don't know it's there but also that it's that that kind of fear of being turned down. And I think some of the things that you're talking to play to that sort of data. And I think one of the things we're really proud of is within the start-up loans, 40% of those loans go to women. So there's a billion pounds worth of finance that's gone out

in the past 10 years, over 100,000 loans. 40% of those are for female entrepreneurs. And I think that that's really successful. So the resilience women need to have is extra anyway, because, you know, as you said, Akilah, you didn't even want to go into the room because, you know, to ask for finance, because you don't know who you're going to have to convince to give you the finance if you're going to get it in the first place.

We're going to run out of time very quickly. Let's get another question from the audience. Hiya, my name's Vicky. I run a floristry business. It's been established 60 years, but I've had it for about 10 now. I was just wondering, listening to the audience. Hiya, my name's Vicky. I run a floristry business. It's been established 60 years, but I've had it for about 10 now. I was just wondering, listening to the girls from Doncaster, it was quite,

they didn't seem to have the confidence or the drive to go where they wanted to go. And I wanted to mention, I've got children, I've got a family. I wondered, I know Amy does as well, does anybody else think that one of the barriers to women in business is still, even though things are getting better, I think confidence is it is it not hindered by having a family but does anyone else

feel that it's one of the reasons why we don't always push forward as women in business well let's talk to both Akilah and Amy because you've already been to businesses and have your families and Amy you said to me yesterday that you've got two children now but you wouldn't necessarily have set up your business with two no looking now, if I was to start it up and be in that home setting, you know, like I was saying, to begin with, where it was chaotic and boxes everywhere, you could never bring a child up in that environment. I can remember saying to my husband,

we need to get this sorted before the health visitors start coming out when he's born because they will not allow all this chaotic mess. So, yeah, it would definitely be. Akilah, how about you? Well, my youngest was four when I bought the business and had three. So I think I was really, really lucky that I had family. I had family that, you know, my mum and dad were down the road and I could drop them off and they had them and looked after them,

took them to school, took them to nursery. So that was really important for me. yeah I think so the entire system needs to change child care needs to be absolutely yeah yeah that's a big part of what the young women were already thinking about before they became mums. Christine can I ask you why is it so important then that Doncaster and other areas Doncaster was at the bottom, but not the only one, you know, with a low level, low amount of female founders, entrepreneurs, I'm still not quite sure, and all the language around that. Why is it so important that that moves forward, that we get the businesses going, that we get the growth, that we get the confidence? Why do we need that to happen? Well, I think, you know, we're 50% of the population aren't we so so why why should we not be 50 of people running businesses and i think if you you look across the uk what we need for

prosperity in the uk is more successful businesses throughout the you know no matter whereabouts in the uk it is and so i think from from all those points of view we need to make sure that you know we all get out there and we have successful businesses no matter who we are or where we are within the UK to drive that growth that's needed. So if I gave you the magic wand then Christine to sort of solve a few problems that would encourage more women because we do need more women to be running businesses we need to get some equity and some equality in the workforce what would you do i think um as we said we need more more people more females out there more female investors we probably need more education of what opportunities are out there both for building

your business and funding your business more more role models of females more people to help people with with businesses growing their businesses as we've heard on the panels today so i think you know it's it's a big problem to solve but um i think they're some of the things that the research said would help well how's your goodie bag looking my goodie bag's looking all right i still need rachel to give me the question as somebody who hasn't got a business and i know there are a few people in the audience who are thinking of businesses who haven't set them up yet. Just briefly, one thing that you think I need to consider in your skill set of seven things,

which is the thing for me, do you think, Rachel? How could you get started with no money? I think we use a different version of MVP. Lots of people know it as most valuable player. In entrepreneurship, we talk about minimum viable products. So how do you, what version of your idea could you launch without requiring any funding to get you started, whether that's social media or any other version?

Wonderful. Thank you so much. I'll put that in my goodie bag. Thank you so much, Rachel. So much good advice. I just want to say a big thank you to everybody who's been on the panel, Rachel Stockie, Christine Hockley, Emma Jones, Akilah Mohammed and Amy Furness. Thank you to much, Rachel. So much good advice. I just want to say a big thank you to everybody who's been on the panel. Rachel Stockie, Christine Hockley, Emma Jones, Akilah Mohammed and Amy Furness. Thank you to the audience. Big round of applause for the audience.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. I'm Sarah Trelevan and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.