the mif blog

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Picture a street anywhere in Latin America or the Caribbean.

A woman in high heels stumbles on the sidewalk, falls flat on her face, cuts her knee, and her tights get a big run and hole in them. How does she react? She looks around, sees three people running to help her, turns as red as her bleeding knee, and jumps up. She tells them, “Nothing happened”, and she walks away as fast as she can.

Foto:Tripp

El ecosistema emprendedor de América Latina sólo tiene un protagonista: el emprendedor(a). El resto de organizaciones y actores, juegan un papel secundario pero clave para convertir nuestra región en un conjunto de economías basadas en la innovación. Estas son 4 de mis reflexiones sobre cómo liberar el potencial de los emprendedores tras asistir al seminario  5° Seminario-Taller para Profesionales del Ecosistema Emprendedor en América Latina organizado por el Prodem:

Entrepreneurship and startups are moving faster every day. But this doesn’t mean that you are too late. There are still lots of opportunities to develop new businesses, products, or services, or to create or discover new needs to be satisfied. Where to start? Here are 10 tips to keep in mind and get started. 

Almost three years ago, the MIF asked us to apply a “gender lens” to all of our operations. So our Early Stage Equity team brainstormed about how we could do this, and decided to take an entrepreneurial approach. First, we began contacting our colleagues and friends who had a role in building entrepreneurial ecosystems in the region. After many calls, a clear focus for our intervention emerged: women entrepreneurs’ need to strengthen and expand their networks, and to find women role models. 

So much of the “conventional wisdom” about women entrepreneurs is just not true. Women do have a tolerance for risk. Women are highly motivated to start their own businesses. Women are starting businesses in high-tech fields. Women’s businesses are just as successful as men’s—under comparable conditions.

That’s an important caveat, because all too often, women don’t face the same conditions that men do. They have less access to smart capital. Their circles of advisers and investors are much smaller. They encounter social stigma about women’s roles related to that conventional wisdom I mentioned before.