Problems Women Entrepreneurs Face While Scaling Up

When it comes to entrepreneurship, women entrepreneurs face multi-layered challenges. Here are some women entrepreneurs who share the challenges they faced while scaling up their ventures:

Integration Between All Stakeholders

Asha Khaitan, co-founder of Pure Nutrition (an online nutraceutical start-up) avers, “Scaling up operations of our business in a cost-effective way involved a progressive integration between all stakeholders of the company - employees, vendors, and customers."

When asked about the problems she faces on a daily basis, she replied, "The challenging part is mostly ensuring the transition is smooth and coherent. Shaping employee perceptions and keeping it in line with the company’s larger mission of a healthier, happier society posed to be an equally crucial challenge. That said, the appetite for risk and uncertainty keeps me upbeat to take the problems head-on.”

The appetite for risk and uncertainty keeps me upbeat to take the problems head-on.

Diversity & Building a Team

Vidushi Daga CEO of Whizjuniors (an edutech platform that uses social-gamified technology to educate students) says, "As an entrepreneur, I too have faced many challenges and continue to face them. Initially, my struggle was to get across my idea/vision to people of a digitally literate India which require cooperation to spread across the word. After having met with some success through like-minded people now the bigger challenges I face is to diversify my work and reach out to more people across the country which requires both monetary and management assistance."

Adding that she still considers Teamwork as the most crucial aspect of her business, Vidushi thinks, "being codependent on the team is important as they will be the sole drivers to spread across my vision and also its credibility, to build a team, instil your vision and manage it, is one long-term effort."

SURVEY: What challenges do women entrepreneurs face?‘

Quality and Performance Management

Salma Moosa a high school dropout, founded Startups Club to mentor start-ups and providing them business solutions. She believes growth happens when you face the problems. "As a mentor to thousands of entrepreneurs in our community, a founder myself, the top challenge that I have seen in my journey within us and other start-ups is the performance by the team. With growth, new people get added, and as this happens as the pace of the growth is so aggressive, keeping a close watch on the quality and performance of the people in the company becomes next to impossible. We have been putting all efforts to balance it out with teaming together great performers and low performers to ensure that it does not impact the company adversely. This strategy of teaming up even helps the (low performance) individual in gearing up. It’s a day-to-day struggle to the management of the company to make sure the performance overall is not affected for us a community and a brand.”

With growth, new people get added, and as this happens as the pace of the growth is so aggressive, keeping a close watch on the quality and performance of the people in the company becomes next to impossible.

As a responsible entrepreneur or a leader running a business smoothly, being aware and being hands on are just enough. It is important to expose yourself to challenges. Then de-challenge whatever it is bothering your business.

Read More Stories By Ria Das