The State of Women-Owned Businesses and The Dames

We all love the perks that come with owning our own businesses. There is a fun side to the work that we do that feeds and nourishes us. The Dames was created to help us find other women who are doing the same in the world because we know when women have access to other women who have “been there, done that,” we will all succeed in reaching our goals and hitting the $1M+ revenue mark.

In 2011, I stumbled upon a piece of research that opened my eyes to the harsh reality that only 2% of women-owned business reach that $1M mark and kicked start my epic journey of establishing The Dames. The State of Women-Owned Businesses Report has been commissioned by American Express each year since 2011 and has recently published the 2018 key trends summary once again and I thought I would share some of the facts and stats that stuck out to me the most in this year’s edition.

Here are some fun national facts from 2018:

• Four of every 10 businesses in US are now owned by women
• 1,821 net new women-owned businesses were created per day from 2017-2018
• Women of color owned businesses have grown by 163% since 2007
• 67% of women who own their own business are 45+ years old, with 33% of women business owners between the ages of 25 and 44.

There has been overall, unprecedented growth in the number of women-owned businesses across the country, however this report outlines that many of these businesses have limited prospects for attaining real growth. These businesses are in desperate need of support, which we know looks like many different things, including training, mentorship, access to funding, capital and markets.

The report goes on to give more specific details pertaining to the growth of women-owned businesses by race, ethnicity, age, industry, revenue, employment, and location, however, below you will find the revenue statistics of women-owned businesses:

• 88% generate under $100k in gross revenue
• 5% generate $100k - $249,999
• 2.4% generate $250k - $499,999
• 1.6% generate $500k - $999,999
• 1.7% generate $1M+ - this segment contributes $1.2 trillion to the economy & make up 69% of women-owned business total revenue**

**The percentage of women-owned businesses reaching the $1M+ mark has gone down this year based on the large increase of new women-owned businesses that were started and is not an indication that the total gross number of businesses is less. The total number of women-owned businesses in 2018 was 12.3 million, which in our calculations has resulted in an increase of 664,665 new women-owned businesses in 2017.

“These $1 million-plus firms made an outsized contribution to the economy. They are economic powerhouses.”

I share these statistics with you to inspire us to continue the work we are doing in supporting each other to grow personally, professionally and to achieve success, happiness and fulfillment. I leave you with one final thought provided in this report to reinforce that we should be setting our goals high so we can all succeed together.

“Growth in both employment and revenues begins to take off for women-owned businesses when they reach $250,000 in revenues. Supporting businesses on the cusp of crossing this threshold ($100,000 to $249,999) — and those that have crossed it — could accelerate the growth of larger women-owned businesses.”

We would love to hear your thoughts about this recent publication! Comment below!