At the start of the pandemic, like many other small business owners, I was exploring avenues to drive current and/or future profitability, market my business and utilize the time to expand my knowledge base. I considered my local business networks but I could walk down the street and see what other business owners were doing in my area. I needed a bigger pot to plant my seed.
A group of women began meeting on zoom on Friday nights to discuss the state of their individual businesses, exchange ideas and knowledge and support one another during these challenging times. It was through this process that The Village for Women was born. We realized we don’t all need to be experts in all fields when we partner and collaborate.
Women currently run 40% of private businesses and they are the biggest growth market in the next 10 years. Bigger than China and India combined times TWO! In fact, ⅔ of all wealth will be controlled by women over the next decade. And this is with women’s individual earnings plummeting by nearly 30% after being out of the workforce for 2-3 years due to care-taking responsibilities or recently being laid off.
Whether you work outside the home, in the home, you are an entrepreneur, sidepreneur or just trying to figure it out, women need a space that is unique to our needs as we see our gender rising in the labor force and the marketplace during these unprecedented times. The Village for Women was designed to meet these needs.
We are in an era when 1 out of 5 times, the mother goes to work and 40% out-earn their husbands. Women are driving the world economy but when polled 57 percent of respondents feel guilty every single day for working.
This is why there couldn’t be a better time for an all encompassing platform for women to connect, collaborate, grow, refer, learn best practices to achieve work/life balance, while selling/buying from other women-led businesses. Truly a full circle platform.