Female founders “in toxic relationships” with their businesses
Why women entrepreneurs need to stop doing it all to have a real chance at scale.
For many women, their relationship with their business has quietly turned unhealthy. The startup they love so much is harming their mental, emotional and even physical wellbeing, but they feel trapped caring 24/7 for the thing they have created.
Ambition is rarely the limiting factor when it comes to scaling a company. More often, growth is held back by a founder who cannot let go.
Sometimes, the most strategic move a founder can make is to make herself less essential.
Ahead of the female founders’ SCALE session in Manchester on 11 November, I sat down with Julia Spencer, Accelerator Community Manager for Universities at NatWest, to talk about what really holds female founders back at the point of scale.
We were joined by Pauline Vuyelwa Muswere-Enagbonma, founder of Jessamy Care Group and creator of the Founder Intelligence programme, who will deliver the session for women and non-binary entrepreneurs at NatWest’s Spinningfields offices.
Don’t confuse busy with growth
Pauline opens her sessions with one question: are founders building a business that is actually growing, or one that is simply becoming more demanding of them?
"Those two experiences can look remarkably similar from the outside, but they are not the same thing," she said.
She speaks from experience. "I had a business where revenue was increasing, the team was expanding, my diary was full."
"My name was being mentioned in so many rooms, and my phone never stopped ringing."
"To the world, that looked like success. But I was drowning as a founder, because everything was permanently urgent."
The test, Pauline said, is whether a founder is carrying all the risk on her own shoulders, solving every problem herself and holding everyone and everything together. Or, is she building a team that can hold those things for her instead?
Women’s caring instinct keeps a business going, and keeps a founder stuck
Running a care business taught Pauline that whatever she was feeling, she had to show up calm and composed. "I've got to be confident, whether I feel confident inside or not," she said, "because I've got carers that are caring for somebody that can't get out of bed without them."
Julia recognises that women operate like this at home as well. "It doesn't matter how I'm feeling. I need to turn up consistently and create a safe space for the kids," she said. "And we take the same exacting standards into our professional lives."
The problem is that women’s caring superpowers can keep a founder holding everything herself. She cares for her team, her customers and her business, and puts her own needs last, when what the business actually needs is for her to let go.
The founder does not have to be the CEO
One of the most painful discoveries a founder can make, Pauline said, is that an investor would back the business, just not with her in charge of it. Her advice is to think about that before someone else forces you to.
"We're not asking founders to disappear, because there is a lot of value in the founder. We're just asking you to step back from what is not your speciality."
Pauline is following that advice herself, building the leadership and systems needed to ensure the mission can continue without depending on her being involved in every decision.
Julia sees the same pattern among the academic founders she works with through NatWest's university partnerships. "Being technically brilliant and having a PhD doesn’t always mean you’re a natural CEO," she said.
"Those founders can continue building and driving innovation and become Chief Scientific Officer, for instance." But what the business needs is someone with a track record of scaling.
Trying to wear every hat, or stubbornly clinging to a role that doesn’t fit you, doesn’t do you or the business any good.
There’s “good pain” in making yourself replaceable
Pauline has a visual impairment and has epilepsy. Seizures can temporarily take her out of action. Even so, like many founders who care for everyone else first, she kept carrying everything herself, because she could.
"When I'm unable to run this business, the mission must still be protected," she said. "So really, I must be replaceable."
Every day, she asks herself which of her functions need to be handed over in case she cannot do them tomorrow. "It was painful to learn that, but it's good pain."
"I always say founders have toxic relationships with their businesses," said Pauline. Many are tied to businesses that are doing well, while their next chapter, and their next startup idea, waits in the wings.
Julia agrees. "It can definitely become a toxic relationship," she said. "The support system is essential: people you trust who can say, ‘It’s gone too far. That's not okay. This thing you love should not be doing that to you.’"
The bigger question is about impact and legacy. "Do you want a business that will grow and outlive you, or do you just want a hobby?" Pauline asked.
Julia put it in investor terms: "Are you trying to create an asset of value, or is it a lifestyle business? Both are absolutely valid, but whichever you choose, do it with purpose. Do the soul searching first."
A new approach to ‘investor-ready’
Most pitch preparation focuses on the deck. Pauline wants to help founders interrogate the business behind it. "All founders have brilliant ideas, but are they commercially viable?" s it investable and am I investible?"
That means separating what a founder is passionate about and what she can prove. What she needs to keep hold of, and what she needs to let go in order to unblock growth.
Join the Founder Intelligence Boardroom on 11 November
SCALE is teaming up with NatWest Accelerator to run a Founder Intelligence session for female founders preparing to pitch, on 11 November. Led by care entrepreneur and creator of Founder Intelligence Pauline Vuyelwa Muswere-Enagbonma, the morning will push founders past the usual pitch prep and into the harder questions investors ask when they are genuinely interested.
The session is part of the build-up to SCALE Manchester on 25 November at Freight Island, where the female founders’ pitch competition will name a winner and runner-up, with the winner taking home a package of scaleup support worth almost £13,000 from SCALE and its partners, including the Angel Investment Network, Bruntwood SciTech, YFM Partners and Smile IT Solutions.
The 11 November session is open to female founders whether or not they are pitching at SCALE Manchester, and is already attracting interest from across the North West and beyond.
Following the Founder Intelligence Boardroom, participants will get a chance to practise in front of experienced judges and investors at NatWest Accelerator’s Pitch Panel Demo Day.
SCALE is working with personal stylist Lauren Carina to offer free drop-in styling sessions for female founders who attend.
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