Scaling Women Entrepreneurs: 'Imposter' Syndrome, Gender Insults And The Beauty Of Bragging

Women trying to go big in business face far more dismal success rates than their male counterparts: Only 3 percent reach $1 million in annual revenue. In the first part of "Scaling Chronicles," a three-part series, Forbes contributor Jean Tang interviews five successful women entrepreneurs to get to the bottom of the challenges women face with scaling—and how they might beat them. Forbes - In my inaugural Scaling Chronicles, I mention how few women entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue (“three percent,” according to Million Dollar Women). I heard from several female founders that this statistic was egregious, and I agree.

To figure out what gives, I convened five other women business owners one morning to discuss their particular challenges with scaling. What were some of our collective strengths? What did we perceive as weaknesses….and were our fears justified? Together, could we derive a model for scaling a female-owned business?

What follows—in a three-part series—are observations, revelations and excerpts from the lively discussion that ensued.

Visit Forbes to read the whole series, complete with observations from million-dollar CEOs and owners of service-based businesses.

Social Media Tips from 3 Wise Southern Women Entrepreneurs

ME Marketing Services brings us an interview with three women entrepreneurs from The Southern Coterie, sharing their wisdom and tips about social media and entrepreneurship.  Women are the primary users of social media and the Internet, and with women opening businesses at unprecedented rates, it's no wonder they're leveraging social media to help their companies thrive. From the difference between various social media channels and claiming your company's name to handling feedback and the importance of supporting others, these three women entrepreneurs have some fantastic advice for anyone looking to use social media to thrive in business—or even just in life.

memarketingservices.com - Here are some stats about women entrepreneurs:

• Women start companies at 1.5 times the average rate in the United States.
• The absolute number of startups in Crunchbase with at least one female founder has more than quadrupled in the last five years, from 117 in 2009 to 555 in 2014.
• Women entrepreneurs in the United States rank their happiness at nearly three times that of women who are not entrepreneurs or established business owners.
• The U.S. ranks No. 1 among 31 countries considered by Dell on the support of women’s entrepreneurship.
• Today, 18 percent of all startups have at least one female founder.
• There are just over 9 million women-owned companies in the United States.
• A net new 340,000 jobs were added by woman-owned businesses between 2007 and 2015. At the same time, men-owned businesses shed 1.2 million jobs, according to a 2015 study by Womenable and American Express.
• Forty-six percent of the privately held companies in the U.S. are now at least half owned by women.
• Financially, women entrepreneurs outperform everyone but blue chips over time. In the last couple decades, the growth in the number of women’s businesses (up 68 percent), employment (up 11 percent), and revenues (up 72 percent) blows past the growth rates of all but the largest publicly-traded businesses, and tops growth rates among all other privately-held businesses over this period.

Source: http://www.inc.com/lisa-calhoun/30-surprising-facts-about-female-founders.html

Being a female business owner, I’ve gotten to know others like myself from many different industries. Living in the South, there are thousands of us alone. I am a part of a group call The Southern Coterie, or more commonly referred to as the Southern C. This is a group of phenomenal Southern female entrepreneurs who come together to share their experience and knowledge to help each other. Through this group, I’ve gotten to know many of these wonderful ladies and today three of them are sharing their social media experience with us.

Read more here—including tips from Monica Lavin, founder of The Lavin Label; Alesya Opelt, CEO and founder of Alesya Bags; and Angie Tillman, owner of Phickles. 

WECREATE Center opens doors to Women Entrepreneurs

The Women’s Entrepreneurial Centers of Resources, Education, Access, and Training for Economic Empowerment (WECREATE) was launched last week with US Ambassador Robert Godec, and joins a number of other centers lunched to help empower women by promoting entrepreneurship opportunities globally, tailored to provide education and tools specifically to help women. The center is one of three announced by President Obama during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in July, 2015. Read more at the link, follow WECREATE Kenya on Twitter at @WECREATEKENYA, or visit the center online to learn more.

herbusiness.co.ke - The WECREATE center opened its doors last week, launched by the US Ambassador, Bob Godec. The centre aims to mentor and empower women entrepreneurs.

Based in Lavington, the centre is a fulfillment of one of the promises made by President Barack Obama during last year’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit held in Nairobi last year.

The WECREATE Kenya Women Entrepreneurship Center is a project of the United States Department of State and the Caterpillar Foundation.

“The center should collaborate with public institutions in enhancing the skills of businesswomen and expanding their businesses beyond the borders,” Said Sicily Kariuki, the Public Service Cabinet Secretary.

The WECREATE Center is the second one to be opened in Africa and it serves as an entrepreneurial community center for women interested in starting or expanding an existing business. The Center provides mentoring, business connections, specialized training, connections to the community, media attention, access to markets and capital along with the technical tools and resources necessary for taking any business to the next level.

Read the rest here.

CURLS Launches 'Girls Rule the World' Campaign to Empower Female Entrepreneurship

The organic hair care company Curls, well known as a natural hair-care brand, is commemorating Black History Month with a program to empower women entrepreneurs. We love female entrepreneurship and we're inspired by programs like CURLS Girls Rule the World, which use the power of social media and women's stories to show other women that overcoming challenges and biases—even the intersection of racial and gender-based bias—is possible, and that resources are available to help women entrepreneurs triumph.

The featured event of the movement—the CURLS Girls Rule the World: Empowering Entrepreneurs Luncheon—will be held April 1; with celebrity expert mentors from business, media, entertainment, nonprofit and more.

We hope you'll visit Madame Noire to check out the whole story, including a list of luncheon guests.

Madame Noire - In celebration of Black History Month, CURLS has launched CURLS Girls Rule the World, a signature program dedicated to empowering female entrepreneurship, and MadameNoire has jumped on board as the official media sponsor.

To kick-off the national campaign, CURLS will host over 100 girls of color from New York City and Westchester County between the ages of 12 and 24 at its CURLS Girls Rule the World: Empowering Entrepreneurs Luncheon on April 1, 2016 at Mist-Harlem in New York City. The event will expose girls to accomplished mentors in various industries so they can begin to learn how they can make their dreams come true.

“We are so proud of our CURLS Girls Rule the World program and our upcoming ‘Empowering Entrepreneurs Luncheon’ in New York City,” CURLS CEO and Founder Mahisha Dellinger stated. “Having a mentor and being exposed to business resources to help me accomplish my dreams was something I did not have when I was a young girl. Being able to provide girls with the opportunity to meet successful women, who will stay in touch with them, is truly giving the girls a leg up in realizing that whatever they dream is possible.”

Essential Read: Impact with Wings

We know many of you are sure to be interested in the new anthology book now available for pre-order on Amazon, Impact With Wings: Stories to Inspire and Mobilize Women Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs. We discovered it through the recommendation of Lionesses of Africa, an online community fostering women’s entrepreneurship in Africa.  Read an excerpt of Lionesses' endorsement here, and click through to learn much more about the book and its authors, female impact investors who came together to co-found Wingpact, a global community of investors and entrepreneurs united in a vision to get more women involved in angel investing and entrepreneurship. 

lionessesofafrica.com - Look out for the launch shortly on Amazon of the wonderfully titled Impact With Wings: Stories to Inspire and Mobilize Women Angel Investors and Entrepreneurs. It’s an anthology of personal stories and research written by six female impact investors. This book's purpose is to enlighten and inspire women to step into angel investing and/or entrepreneurship, as it is through investing in each other that we can begin to tip gender imbalances and bring more women forward.

“As women achieve greater financial success, they are looking for projects they can support on behalf of women. Impact with Wings covers a timely topic of interest for more women than ever. It is an extremely valuable and thought-provoking narrative, coupled with practical information on financing.” --- Dr. Marsha Firestone, President/Founder, The Women Presidents’ Organization

The authors of Impact with Wings ask a fundamental question in their book - will you settle for leaving half the world’s wealth on the table? Discovering angel investing transformed the lives of the six women who cofounded Wingpact, a global angel investment and entrepreneur community. In a world where women’s capital remains underused, angel investing—providing money, human capital, and expertise for startup or early-stage companies—offers a potent and often overlooked opportunity for women to impact the future. The authors, all of whom are well-established in the global business and investment community, share their personal stories and insiders’ insights, offering a clarion wake-up call intended to activate new women angel investors and spur women to invest in female-founded companies.

Female entrepreneurs on the rise in male-dominated Kirkuk

Though they're still in the minority, there are thousands of women business owners in Kirkuk. From economic changes in the region to the ability to work on projects in supportive environments, Kirkuk paints a complex but encouraging picture for many ambitious women entrepreneurs. rudaw.net - KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region - When Fairouz Nasih started her own business in Kirkuk in the mid-1970s, little did she know that one day she her work would open new doors for women in the city.

Four decades later, her small sewing shop has turned into a design institute that gives complete courses in fashion, and even finds jobs for its graduates.

Nasih still remembers when she opened her very modest store in her poor neighborhood in 1974.

“I think everybody was shocked when they first heard that I ran a shop of my own,” Fairouz, now in her 60s, told Rudaw.

“I was very young, but I was extremely ambitious too, so after a while I rented a bigger place and continued from there,” said the woman, who currently owns her own fashion academy in Kirkuk.

Much has changed in the last decade with regard to women’s access to the labor market, as Iraq went through unprecedented economic growth, exclusively due to the money-spinning oil industry, which for now has declined as prices have dramatically plummeted.

Read more here.

Inside One Woman Investor's Plan To Get Black Female Founders Funding

Though black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States, their companies aren't being funded at the same rates as their peers--receiving only 0.2 percent of all venture funding in the past five years. Kathryn Finney set out to find out why--and to shed a light on the details. Calling black women entrepreneurs the "real unicorns of tech," #ProjectDianne was launched to show that there are viable startups founded by black women, as well as to promote the founders as part of a documentary. Finney hopes that these efforts, and the information collected through them, will help foster greater numbers of black women-led startups being funded.

Read about her efforts here and in the full article on Forbes.com.

forbes.com - Black women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S. They own 1.5 million businesses between them, up 322% since 1997. Their companies generate $44 billion a year.

So why is no one investing in their startups? Why have black women received only .2% of all venture funding in the past five years?

That was what Kathryn Finney set out to uncover when she launched Project Diane, a definitive study of the state of black women in tech entrepreneurship that took the better part of a year to complete.

“We knew it was bad, but no one was quantifying it,” said Finney, founder of Digital Undivided, a social enterprise that runs an accelerator program for startups led by black and Latina women. “It was just, ‘there are no black people, there are no black women.’ Anecdotally, we knew it to be true.”

 What she and her team found, after examining more than 60,000 startups: 88, total, led by black women. That’s 4% of the 2,200 women-led tech startups in the U.S.

Of these, only 11 have raised over $1 million in outside investment.

Read the rest here.

Start Me Up: Why Women Funding Women Entrepreneurs Works Best

Take the Lead Women, an organization dedicated to gender parity in leadership, examines a new study that shows that women venture capitalists financing women's startups leads the companies to greater success--closing the gap with male entrepreneurs. 

taketheleadwomen.com - Show her the money. Please.

New research published in the Harvard Business Review reveals that female entrepreneurs are more successful when their start-ups are funded by female venture capitalists.

Sahil Raina, assistant professor of finance at the Alberta School of Business writes: ”With startups financed by all-male VCs, there is a whopping 25 percentage-point difference in the exits of female-led and male-led startups. Yet when startups are financed by VCs with female partners, that difference disappears. There is no meaningful difference in the success rates of female- and male-led startups when they’re financed by VCs with women partners.”

Raina continues, “These findings suggest that, somehow, VCs with female partners are better able to evaluate or advise female-led startups, or both, to the point that there’s no performance gap between startups led by women and those led by men. However, if female entrepreneurs get their funding from VCs solely led by men, their startups will be far less likely to be acquired or make it to an IPO.”

Gender matching can be one big factor in the improved performance of women entrepreneurs, he writes. It could also be that female VCs are better at advising women entrepreneurs or better at picking the winners. Still, “If the goal is to have more successful technology startups led by women, it may not be enough to simply encourage more women to start companies. A crucial step to helping more female entrepreneurs succeed may be to encourage more women to join venture capital firms.”

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Huffington Post: Giving To Women And Girls And Why It Matters

When Sara Blakely—one of the world's youngest female billionaires—signed the Giving Pledge, an initiative started by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates encouraging rich people to promise half their wealth to philanthropic causes, her comments not only focused on investing in women as the right thing to do—but as the smart thing to do. When women philanthropists invest, they're more likely to support women's and girls causes—and that lifts up entire communities.

When women invest, they invest in women—and that helps the world. Now, the study Giving to Women and Girls: Who Gives and Why gives us hard numbers to back up that wisdom. Read on for more from the Huffington Post.

huffingtonpost.com - Sara Blakely, founder and CEO of Spanx, proclaimed in her Giving Pledge letter, “I am committed to the belief that we would all be in a much better place if half the human race (women) were empowered to prosper, invent, be educated, start their own businesses, run for office-essentially be given the chance to soar! I pledge to invest in women because I believe it offers one of the greatest returns on investment.”

With these powerful words, Blakley galvanized a top spot on the list of global leaders in philanthropy. Not only did she give us shapewear for every season, but she also declared as truth what so many women across the globe know intuitively but don’t have a megaphone to champion: When we donate to nonprofit organizations that lift up women, we can be assured that our philanthropic investments will generate dividends for entire communities.

And now, as a result of new research from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, we have empirical evidence to better understand why women invest in women. This research also offers inspiration for emerging and seasoned philanthropists alike with examples of compelling projects that are moving the meter for women and girls, both in the United States and around the world. The research, Giving to Women and Girls: Who Gives and Why, is the first empirical study to systematically analyze this trend among individual donors. The findings show that nearly 50 percent of female donors support causes for women and girls and — noteworthy — 40 percent of male donors also support these causes. Increasing age and income levels are the most likely determinants of giving to women’s and girls’ causes; other control variables do not affect giving to a similar extent.

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A Female Syrian Entrepreneur Builds in Exile - Newsweek

In addition to the other struggles of life as a refugee, most Syrian refugees in Jordan are not currently able to legally work. Newsweek sat down with Lara Shaheen for a fascinating look at how she is building a business, buying handmade soap, baby clothes, toys, creams, jewelry and more; employing others, and forging a path for herself and others. While her business is not yet legal, current measures to address refugees' worker status may soon change that. Read below and click through for the full story.

newsweek.com - Sitting behind a large wooden desk in her white hijab, a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, Lara Shaheen looks every bit the modern Arab businesswoman. The only problem is that her business is illegal.

Shaheen, 34, is a refugee from Syria—she fled four years ago after President Bashar al-Assad’s regime arrested her brothers. They were released after three months, but the experience was enough to prompt Shaheen and her family to flee Damascus. Shaheen came to Amman, Jordan, with her mother, father and younger sister, while her brothers escaped to Germany. After that ordeal, her parents developed health problems. With her sister only 17 and her brothers far away, supporting the family was left to Shaheen. “I’m the lonely girl who must work to make money for my family,” she says.

When she first got to Jordan, she volunteered with Hemma, a local organization providing support to Syrian refugees living outside of camps. But after nine months, Shaheen realized she wanted to do more, explaining, “We are staying here for a long time, so you can’t keep giving people handouts.”

With the Syrian conflict now in its sixth year, exile is becoming increasingly permanent for refugees like Shaheen. However, the vast majority are unable to work legally in Jordan. Although they can apply for work permits, obtaining them is a complex and often prohibitively expensive process.

As a result, Jordan’s Ministry of Labor estimates that fewer than 1 percent of refugees there have access to legal work permits, while some 160,000 to 200,000 Syrians are working illegally, without any of the legal protections Jordan’s labor laws offer. This could soon change. In March, Jordanian authorities announcedthat, as part of a new deal with the EU, they would allow up to 200,000 Syrian refugees to work legally.

In April, the government implemented measures to make it easier for Syrians to work, including a temporary waiver of application fees and a 90-day grace period for employers in the informal sector to obtain permits for Syrian refugees. According to the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, “this could see up to 78,000 Syrians able to work legally in Jordan in the short term, and thousands more in the coming years.”

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In India, successful female entrepreneurs are invited to speak only about women

Truly striving for gender equality should mean that women and men are asked to speak about most topics in their fields--like building a brand, raising capital, pitching--in similar numbers. And while more women have been invited to speak at recent events, it's usually about "expertise" related to one main aspect: being women. While issues surrounding being a woman and balancing family and work life are undoubtedly important, it's crucial to bring in more women speaking about every aspect of business and investing. Read below and click through for the whole story from Quartz India.

qz.com - In December, a friend who is also a public relations executive asked me if I could suggest the names of a few women entrepreneurs to speak at an event on India’s technology startups. “The client wants to include a discussion about women and entrepreneurship,” he said.

Since the event was only a few days away, I asked him to invite other women speakers at the event for this panel. But that wasn’t an option.

“We don’t have any women speakers so far,” he said. “That’s why we want to include a women-only panel.”

I should have guessed. The all-female panel was, as they often are, an afterthought.

Women are a rare sight at technology events in India. Unless there is a discussion on “managing family with work” or “how the industry accepts women.”

Questions on innovation and business are usually reserved for their male counterparts.

For instance, in January, the Indian government hosted its first-ever “Startup India” event and invited five women entrepreneurs for a 30-minute panel called “Celebrating women: Stories of innovative women entrepreneurs.” The discussion during this session revolved around the advantages women bring to the startup industry, and how women should deal with questions about marriage.

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‘You’re a girl,’ and other obstacles to becoming an entrepreneur in South Africa

South Africa trails the rest of the country and continent in women entrepreneurship. Quartz Africa explores what makes the entrepreneur world so challenging for women--especially young women--and how to improve the business climate.

qz.com - “You’re a girl, you’re young.” Those words have followed Boitshoko Masetla at every turn on her journey as an entrepreneur.

At first it was her family, especially her male relatives, who believed she would be better suited to training for a stable and nonthreatening desk job. Then it was the potential investors who preferred to invest in her male colleagues’ untested technology rather than her already established bakery.

The worst was a potential mentor at an entrepreneurship skills incubator who thought the best path for her business would be to buy her out and giver her a job in the marketing department of his established confectionery.

“That’s where I learned the world of entrepreneurship is for men,” said the 23-year-old, who raised seed capital by selling ice-lollies. Today she runs a bakery from her home in Pretoria, supplying five schools in her neighborhood and supplying everything from cupcakes to bread for local events.

Her business, Sakatola Trading, employs six people and she is the sole owner after her three partners abandoned the business in the early years for more stable jobs. The only people willing to invest in her was her mother and a lecturer who realized her potential in her entrepreneurship college class.

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This One Thing Gives Women The Edge In Crowdfunding

Even though women face an uphill battle when pitching to investors, telling a compelling story to potential investors can often give them an edge in crowdfunding. Read on for the full story from Fast Company.

fastcompany.com - From glass ceilings to wage gaps, women in the workforce are often at a disadvantage. For female entrepreneurs, the challenges are sometimes even greater. But recent research has uncovered something that is working in women founders’ favor: storytelling on crowdfunding platforms.

Even though , an MIT study found that when women pitched investors for funding, they were less likely to score than a man delivering the exact same pitch. If you’re a mother or a woman of color, hurdles from biased thinking to lack of networks make it even harder to get funding.

Crowdfunding aimed to level the playing field for startups. Industry analysis from Massolution, a research firm specializing in crowdfunding, estimated that global crowdfunding raised over $34 billion in 2015, making it an increasingly popular alternative to venture capital and angel investing.

Platforms such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter eliminated the need for pitch presentations and their potential for unconscious bias. A study from NYU and Wharton revealed that women tended to support each other in greater numbers in crowdfunding. Women-only teams had a 40% better chance of meeting fundraising goals, while in tech, the success rate for women-led Kickstarter projects was 65% as opposed to just 35% for men.

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Female founders bring much more than diversity to startups

SheThePeople, a video and digital platform dedicated to women in leadership, lays out five reasons diversity and gender equality isn't just fair in business--it's beneficial. Women and men alike can buck trends, but with statistics backing up some very real advantages among women-led startups, it's worth embracing female founders no matter how you look at it.

shethepeople.tv - The gender biases of the startup community are long-standing topics of debate but this piece is focusing on really why women make the startup community more relevant and how they matter to growth.

Diversity in founders is imperative for the ecosystem. Women founders bring elements different from male ones and often those inputs can go a mile more in determining the longevity of the enterprise. Investors are missing out by not investing in startups led by women. This is a really big problem, folks, and it’s one that we have the ability to change.

Higher return on investment: Women-led tech companies in the US achieve 35 percent higher return on investment, and, when venture-backed, bring in 12 percent more revenue than male-owned tech companies as per a survey by Kauffman Foundation. In India the number of women startup owners have increased over the year 2015 in a big way. “Now, women are more into technology than in the previous years. Digital media has also empowered them a lot more to come into entrepreneurship,” shared Swati Bhargava, co-founder of coupons website CashKaro.com at the Digital Women Awards.

Women tend to empathize more. They listen and understand. Women have a brilliant way of understanding the consumer pysche and reflect with an intuitive sense.

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Lighting the Way to Women’s Economic Empowerment

Sustainable development has to include--and encourage--the contributions of women worldwide. One company is seeing the financial and social profitability in embracing the idea. ONergy, a renewable energy venture in eastern India, is helping to introduce solar power to East and Northeast India while partnering with women in training programs that educate and empower the local entrepreneurs to promote the products throughout the region. The company plans to introduce clean, reliable energy to 1 million people by 2017 and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 100,000 tons. The company has already trained more than 5,000 women and plans to reach out to 50,000 in the next three years, training them on ONergy's technology and features as well as partnering with organizations like NGOs and microfinance institutions to help women gain knowledge to enter the entrepreneurial world and support their families and communities.

Read more about the venture below and at the link.

3blmedia.com - The women of East and Northeast India no longer need to fear the dark. ONergy, an award-winning social enterprise, has developed a number of innovative energy solutions that not only address the dearth of electricity in the region – improving safety in their communities – but also light a path toward economic empowerment for women.

ONergy’s innovative solar power solutions are providing energy to meet India’s development and social challenges. To promote solar as a clean and reliable source of energy, the company is training women entrepreneurs in its products’ technology, usability and special features. By partnering with local grassroots organizations – microfinance institutions, NGOs and women’s self-help groups – the company is imparting product know-how while also enabling these women to serve as company distributors – providing both income and empowerment.

“Lack of energy is an important bottleneck to development. And women are the central force in the development of their families and the shaping of the next generation,” says Piyush Jaju, CEO of ONergy. “ONergy’s products provide environmental benefits by reducing the use of diesel generators, kerosene and other harmful energy sources – and empower women to help shape a brighter tomorrow.”

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Four myths about women entrepreneurs

"Unicorns" aren't the only mythological terms you'll hear when discussing startups and entrepreneurs--particularly women entrepreneurs. Here are just a few preconceptions people tend to have about female founders, with responses that should equip you to understand more and bust a few myths. 

her.yourstory.com - As a woman entrepreneur, I’m sure you’ve faced more than your share of misconceptions and preconceived notions. No matter how far you’ve come or how high you’ve risen, there will always be people whose notions are grossly incorrect, sometimes downright offensive. For instance, how often have you been asked, “How are you able to manage it all?” On the flip side, we don’t often hear men being asked such questions about how they tread the fine line of work-life balance, right? So why are we, as women, subjected to such presumptions?

Myth #1: You won’t have a life outside the home or office

One of the most common (and therefore most persistent) myths out there is that you just won’t have a life outside of work. While this may be true in the early stages of your entrepreneurial journey, once you’ve established your business, it becomes easier to take a step back. The trick is to ‘prioritise and compartmentalise’ – that is, focus on the top tasks on your ‘to do’ list and devote time exclusively to each task. Leave work behind when you come home and learn to set aside time for yourself. I know scores of women, like me, who helm corporations and have a demanding family life, but still manage to squeeze in some ‘me time’ for themselves on a daily basis. Chalk out at least a half-hour every day to do something you love and then watch the magic unfold.

As for me, I always try to steal away from my packed schedule a weekend trip to Pune, every few months, to spend time with family.

Myth #2: You need to act like a man to succeed

Here’s another golden oldie – that, to be successful, you need to behave (and dress) like a man.

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From Forbes: 5 'Can't Miss' Conferences For Entrepreneurs In 2016

With 2016 well under way, we looked back on a list by Forbes columnist Cheryl Conner listing some fantastic conferences for entrepreneurs this year--especially with several of them coming up next month or this summer. If you're looking to network, learn more about finances, hear inspirational stories, drive online business, learn from industry leaders or more; you should definitely check out these conferences and the organizations that host them.

forbes.com - Where will entrepreneurs spend their networking and educational time in 2016? Today I’m following up on one of my most read columns of 2015 with an update to my list of recommended events in 2016 for entrepreneurs. I have selected these picks with an eye toward high networking and learning benefits for entrepreneurs who are looking for connections to top mentors, new funding and innovative ideas for PR.

This is an unofficial list I compiled on the basis of quality of attendees, avoidance of hard sell platforms, social responsibility missions, and positive results for those who’ve attended. I attended all but one of these events, the NextGen Summit, in 2015. As disclosure, I serve in an unpaid role as a faculty member for one of the events I’ve listed, CEO Space.

On that note, my choices are as follows:

1) CEO Space. Now in its 28th year, this event is billed as a business growth accelerator conference and touts itself as the world’s central catalyst for Cooperative Capitalism, which I have written about in this column before.  It addresses entrepreneurs of all ages, including teens at its five annual week-long events in Lake Las Vegas, in Henderson, Nev.

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Yes Bank Gets $50-Mn IFC Loan for Women Entrepreneurs

corporateethos.in - April 6: IFC, a member of the World Bank group, has announced a $50 million loan to Yes Bank to be used exclusively to lend to women-owned businesses.

This project is part of the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility (WEOF), the first-of-its-kind global facility dedicated to expanding access to capital for approximately 100,000 women entrepreneurs. It was launched by IFC, through its Banking on Women program, and Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women in 2014.

The $50 million Yes Bank loan aims to support women in all 29 states and 7 Union Territories in India.

On the successful completion of the transaction, Rana Kapoor, Managing Director and CEO, Yes Bank said, “this is a significant step towards strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women and will directly impact livelihoods. This facility demonstrates Yes Bank’s ability to partner with global institutions like IFC and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women to expand access to finance to the unbanked and undeserved populations and achieve our vision of Responsible Banking. This facility will also complement various Government of India schemes for women entrepreneurs”.

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This Women's Clothing Brand Is Made For Professional Women Who Hate To Shop

It's one of the oldest and most culturally ingrained stereotypes: Women love to shop. It even may have had some basis in truth, fair or not, when women were less able to pursue their own careers. But it's not always true these days. This editor, for one, is excited to see a company offering a professional "uniform" for women--an option men have had for ages.

The fashion company MM.Lafleur, whose founders were recently interviewed in another post we shared, is bucking the stereotype and their business is thriving. Shopping is still wonderful for all of you who love it--but for women who are a little less enthusiastic about shopping, or who just want to streamline professional decision making, this is a welcome option.

fastcompany.com - "I'm so sick of the stereotype that all women are shopping-obsessed," Sarah LaFleur, the 32-year-old cofounder of the workwear brand MM.LaFleur, tells Fast Company.

After college, LaFleur spent several years working in management consulting and private equity, where she needed a rotation of crisp, smart work clothes. But she had neither the time nor the inclination to shop for them. In her few free moments, the last thing she wanted to do was browse for blazers online or at a boutique. "For some women, buying clothes is just not a priority for one reason or another, but it doesn't mean that they don't care about good style or looking elegant," she says.

LaFleur believed that there were many other female executives who felt like she did. So three years ago, she decided to do something radical. She started an online company called MM.LaFleur that challenged two deep-seated beliefs of the fashion industry: that women love the shopping experience, and want to buy trendy clothes.

She partnered with Miyako Nakamura, the former head designer at Zac Posen, to create a line of classic shift dresses, pencil skirts, and blouses in muted colors that would appeal to working women of all ages. Together, they spent hours ensuring that each outfit was tailored to fit a wide range of women's bodies. And with a third cofounder, Narie Foster, who headed up operations, they invented a system of selling these outfits to busy professional women without requiring them to spend any time shopping.

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The most common way to become a millionaire, according to someone who studied over 100 of them

Owning a business is the path to becoming a millionaire, according to the research of one author. Jaime Masters, who decided to survey more than 100 millionaires to see how they achieved the goal. Entrepreneurship, while risky, gives you more control over your fortune and destiny than other paths, Masters says. Click through to read more, and visit her website to read case studies from her interviews with self-made millionaires who make their fortunes on their own terms. businessinsider.com - Jaime Masters, author of "The Eventual Millionaire: How Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur and Successfully Grow Their Startup," hoped to change her lifestyle when she was 24.

Masters, who wrote under the name "Jamie Tardy," was over $70,000 in debt and hated her job as a project manager for a company that installed computer equipment.

"I felt stuck, because I knew we were in debt and I couldn't quit my job because of the choices I had made," she writes.

Instead of giving up, Masters began to study and interview people who had already reached that goal.

Based on research from Thomas Stanley in "The Millionaire Next Door," and the many "first-generation rich" millionaires she interviewed, she come acrosscommonalities that led their successes. You can read some of her case studies on her website.

She writes that the one proven way to become a millionaire is not by investing, nor is it real estate. Instead, more millionaires have made their money by owning their own businesses than by any other means.

Read more here.