JOHANNESBURG - Many South African women lack the confidence that men have, making it necessary to support females venturing into entrepreneurship not only on a technical level, but an emotional and psychological one as well, a business woman has said.
Managing director of the Business Development Agency Pearl Maphumulo spoke at a recent Intuit QuickBooks event aimed at providing support for local small business owners.
A Mastercard report revealed that in South Africa women in early-stage entrepreneurial activity dropped by 15.7 percent in 2018, meaning that only 18.8 percent of business owners in the country are female, compared to 46.4 percent in Ghana, ranked as the country with the highest women-led companies in the survey.
Maphumulo said after working with entrepreneurs from rural, township and urban areas alike, she found women did not seem to have as much confidence in themselves as business leaders as men did.
"This could potentially be attributed to a cultural stigma which needs to be broken," she said. "In order to do this, I believe that women venturing into entrepreneurship need to be supported not only on a technical level, but an emotional and psychological level as well.”
She urged aspiring entrepreneurs to research the market they wanted to enter, to avoid duplicating an already over saturated market.
Another common mistake made by entrepreneurs was the failure to separate business and personal finances, Maphumulo said.