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Joy Hoover
Professor Crystal Echols
English 1201
15 October 2021
Entrepreneur Research Literature Review
What would the top five strategies be to obtain entrepreneurial success, while
generating substantial income? The Journal of Business Venturing defines an
entrepreneur as “the founder, owner, and manager of a for-profit business” (Zhao).
Entrepreneurs are typically stereotyped as men, but the National Women’s Business
Center states that since 2014 there are more than 7.8 million women-owned firms (US
Senate). In a 1990 study by Sexton and Bowman-Upton, they concluded that “no
evidence was found to support the perception that females may be lacking in the
attributes necessary to initiate and manage a business”. When studying the relationship
between age and entrepreneurial success, researcher Hao Zhao concluded that various
factors such as life stage and gender had a complex influence on entrepreneurial
success.
According to John Steele Gordon, entrepreneurs truly emerged in the mid 1800’s,
but date back to ancient times. Since 2012, “women-owned entities in the formal sector
represent approximately 37% of enterprises globally, a market worthy of attention by
businesses and policy makers alike” states the Harvard Business Review (VanderBrug).
Historical examples of female entrepreneurs date back to 1776 with Mary Katherine
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Goddard, who became the first female postmaster (Archives of Maryland), and Madam
C.J. Walker who went from slave to the first American self-made millionaire in 1905
through selling her own scalp products (Inventor). Post pandemic of 2020, many women
have left the workforce to become home entrepreneurs, such as Jazmine Garrison, who
switched from a marketing specialist to selling her candles online, and Vivian Xue, who
left her software engineer job to launch her hand painted nail business through TikTok
and now is a millionaire (Wingate).
There are many ways to become an entrepreneur and start your own business, keep
it small, or scale it with employees and outsourcing. Many women can start a simple
side business from home, offering a service to customers that they excel at like sewing,
baking, writing curriculum for the homeschool classroom, or becoming a self-published
author. A female can also raise her kids from home, and simultaneously work a side
business selling digital products on Etsy, being a brand ambassador for a company, or
becoming an influencer on a social media platform such as Instagram, TikTok, or
YouTube. Whatever direction is taken with a small business can be backed by local
support through business grants and loans to get you started. Local mentorship
opportunities are provided to small businesses wanting to succeed and scale their
business and resources.
There’s a growing desire among entrepreneurial women to put their passion into an
activity that they love and simultaneously generate substantial income. Though job
availability has soared in availability since 2020, many women are seeing their potential
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to earn big money in a niche market working for themselves, instead of for a company
garnishing a pittance salary (Wingate). One of the main ways to generate high income
levels is to have a desired product or service to sell to a target audience (Kerpen 76).
Having your brand well defined and in a specific niche is helpful when you’re advertising
it online. Marketing your product online through multiple social media campaigns can
reach millions in a fast manner, creating instant customers. Automating this process can
even reach a wider audience, while you concentrate on additional avenues in your
business. Many entrepreneurs who start with an idea to market will often have the idea
fabricated and turned over to an outside manufacturer to mass produce and possibly
even a third party to package and ship for them (Kerpen 124). This way, they become
the business manager, instead of the business worker.
Service industries have become a big development in the pursuit of the
entrepreneur. Many startups need to create a product and have a team to manufacture
and distribute their product. Often what is needed to grow these local maker, profitable,
job-generating firms is a zoning restructuring of city requirements (Greco). Cities like
Philadelphia have rezoned vacant industrial spaces to include both commercial and
residential mixed usage permits (Greco). This new arrangement “gives flexibility to small
artisans while allowing for the as-of-right reuse of old warehouse buildings, which is a
community goal of ours” (Greco).
What factors influence success long term in entrepreneurial business adventures?
New business ventures often face financial, technical and market difficulties, placing
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them in danger of failing (Zhao). A more challenging issue is “selection bias due to small
businesses' low survival rate and the fact that only survivors can be studied” (Zhao).
Author, Carrie Kerpen, points out in “Work It” that to succeed you need to form an
accurate career plan, make critical life decisions before and during the process, and
address common fears of stepping out in business.
Top challenges that emerge for the entrepreneur are start-up capital and how to
obtain it, what type of business venture to begin, how to generate high income levels,
and how to succeed long term. The topics within this discussion could range far, as
there are a multitude of arenas to venture into to generate high income levels. Despite
many obstacles faced by women entrepreneurs, “the future of entrepreneurship in this
most entrepreneurial of countries remains bright” (Gordon).
Misconceptions surrounding this topic of entrepreneurship are that men outnumber
women in this field, that men are a better success than women, that all small
businesses are likely to fail, and that women are not capable of making the same
money that men do in working for themselves. Probable answers to this research topic
include instituting a firm business plan, taking actionable steps, achieving benchmarks
set for yourself, resetting after failures, and growing through losses. We all have a
multitude to learn from other women entrepreneurs who have been in the arena, fought
the fight, and achieved economic and financial success as a result of their unsatiating
effort.
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Works Cited
Archives of Maryland Biographical Series. “Mary Katherine Goddard (1738-1816).”
Maryland State Archives, 15 March 2006.
https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc3500/sc3520/002800/002809/
html/2809bio.html. Accessed 23 October 2021.
Gordon, John Steele. “Imprimis: Entrepreneurship in American History.” Hillsdale College,
vol 43, issue 2, February 2014. https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/entrepreneurship-in-
american-history/. Accessed 20 October 2021.
Greco, JoAnn. “Making Way for 'MAKERS.'” Planning, vol. 80, Issue 2, Feb. 2014,, pp. 20-25.
https://web-p-ebscohost-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?
vid=5&sid=1aef200a-ff44-4824-9d6b-f49eb23f557d%40redis. Accessed 10 October
2021.
Inventor Highlight-Madame C. J. Walker. James B. Duke Memorial Library, 2017.
https://library.jcsu.edu/inventor-highlight-madame-c-j-walker/. Accessed 23 October
2021.
Kerpen, Carrie. Work It. TarcherPerigee, Illustrated edition, 2018.
United States, Congress, Senate, Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs: Understanding Success, Addressing Persistent
Challenges, and Identifying New Opportunities. U.S. Government Publishing Office, 23
July 2014. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113shrg89448/pdf/CHRG-
113shrg89448.pdf. Accessed 16 October 2021.
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VanderBrug, Jackie.” The Global Rise of Female Entrepreneurs”. Harvard Business
Review, 4 September 2013. https://hbr.org/2013/09/global-rise-of-female-
entrepreneurs.
Accessed 20 October 2021.
Wingate, Kiera. “Amid Pandemic, Women Catch Entrepreneurial Bug.” USA TODAY, 1
September 2021, p 1b.
Zhao, Hao, et al. “Age and entrepreneurial career success: A review and a meta-
analysis.” Journal of Business Venturing, January 2020, https://www-
sciencedirect-com.sinclair.ohionet.org/science/article/pii/S0883902619302691?
via%3Dihub. Accessed 22 October 2021.