The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur

Here’s what Google Images pulls up when I google ‘Anatomy of an Entrepreneur’:

This is what our society pictures when we think of an entrepreneur. Less than a quarter of these images hint at female anatomy, while males - mostly in business suits - make up the other three quarters. (Minus that robot entrepreneur thrown in there). If our society was made up of 3 quarters men and only a quarter women, then I wouldn’t be writing this article, because all of this would make sense. But that’s not the case.

I wanted to figure out why – other than a lack of capital funding for female-led companies and a disproportional expectation on women to handle most of the child-rearing – that society views females as just not as competent at founding a business as males.

Maybe part of the answer is this: the average female doesn’t typically think of themself as an entrepreneur. And even if they start to, they’re met with plenty of doubt and opposition from people around them when they express this.

My dad started his own business in the 90s, and I watched my mom work her butt off to run a couple of businesses too. I’m a typical millennial in a sense that my parents always told me that I was special, and that I could do anything that I set my mind to. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) So I’ve always had the 'entrepreneurial bug', and as a kid, I just assumed that I would start my own business one day. 

But even still, I was met with plenty of self-doubt, (as I’m sure any entrepreneur is), and it was just reinforced as I looked around and started researching entrepreneurs. Son of a wealthy businessman here, Harvard alumni there, male software engineer over there, etc. etc. But it didn’t stop me, and it doesn’t have to stop you either.

The first thing that I had to work on to put myself in the position of starting a business was to set up shop in a 5 x 8 space in my apartment that would normally be reserved for a dining room table. 

I was at a point in my life, (we're talking March 2016), where I felt like I was finally healing from my divorce, had about *ahem* 10+ years of partying under my belt, and was ready to work. I wanted that dining room space to become an office. I was ready to devote space to a career that I was going to love.

At the time, I was working as a mortgage loan officer, and was just uninspired and felt lazy as a result, and wanted to develop the parts of myself that I felt like I'd been neglecting so that I could have a 'real job'. I just couldn't get into it though, and I kept looking for more, but could never find it. 

I kept the day job, and once my home office was set up, I started brainstorming. A couple of months later, my unnamed business was born!

If you’re someone who wants to start a business – go after that business, regardless of your gender. And so what if you haven't finished college, if you're a single parent, or you don't even have the discipline to not eat taquitos all day? You'll learn! You're adaptable.