Need Money For Your Startup? Being An Attractive Male May Help
Google. Twitter. Facebook. Back before they got big, companies like these were just startup ideas, born in dorm rooms and run out of garages. Then came the venture capitalists: rich, older men ready to fund the brilliant ideas of younger, creative men.
But what if you are a woman with a startup idea? A new study says you might not do so well. It's been well-documented that businesses started by women receive very little venture capital money.
"Women-led businesses probably only receive between 5 and 10 percent of all the venture capital that's allocated to startups in their very earliest in their growth phases," says Fiona Murray, who researches business innovation at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Murray partnered up with colleagues at Harvard Business School to find out why the funding gap existed.
There were a couple hypotheses: Perhaps women are just not asking for funding, or perhaps women's business ideas don't have as much growth potential. Or maybe venture capitalists are subconsciously biased against women. The study was designed to test that third hypothesis, that women get less funding because society thinks they are worse investments.
The study used real startup pitches from real companies. Each pitch was presented in four ways to observe the effects of gender and attractiveness. It would be given in a male voice, with a photo of an attractive and less attractive person of that sex; and it was also presented in a female voice, with pictures of two women of different levels of attractiveness.
All Tech Considered
Gender Disparities In Tech Flare Up Again: A Reading Guide