Levelling The Playing Field For Women Founders

Bejul SomaiaDecember 22, 2020 – 6 Minutes read

In 2018, we announced the Extreme Entrepreneurs training program in a blog post titled “OUR (SMALL) ATTEMPT TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD”. That post articulated our purpose and motivation for launching EE and continues to serve as a powerful compass to guide our decision-making, especially when we are tempted to consider changes to the original format that might conflict with our mission. In that post, we wrote the following:

The idea for EE arose from the following realisations:

Each of us is shaped by what we have been exposed to. Our ability to imagine new possibilities is a function of, among other things, what we have seen or experienced.
In the start-up industry, exposure to successful entrepreneurs and disruptive ideas is available to a relatively small number of privileged start-ups that have been funded by top venture firms. These funded start-ups have extensive access to our global networks of entrepreneurs, companies and thought leaders. As a result, there is massive information asymmetry. It is not a level playing field.
We believe there are a large number of high-potential founders in India who have the talent, determination, passion and commitment to build something special, but lack access and exposure. This limits their possibilities and shortchanges them and the entire entrepreneurial ecosystem in our country.

None of this has changed.

Exposure to people, ideas and knowledge is still only available to a privileged few.
There is still massive information asymmetry.
It is even less of a level playing field, as capital concentrates around predominantly male founders who are ecosystem insiders from large metros.
There continues to be a large number of high-potential founders, especially female founders, who lack access and exposure, and whose dreams are not fully realized.

We’re proud that Extreme Entrepreneurs has stayed true to its original purpose and has changed the trajectory for many of the participants in our prior cohorts. One of the things that excites us most is the increased geographic diversity in the applicant base – from 450+ applications from India in our 2018 cohort to 1000+ applications from India and Southeast Asia in this year’s cohort.

That said, as we start working through this year’s applications, something troubling is emerging – we aren’t seeing enough applications from female founders, a key segment of ‘outsiders’ to the start-up ecosystem. While we continue to see an improvement in geographical diversity, the under-representation of female founders in the applicant pool significantly increases the likelihood that they will also be under-represented in the next EE cohort. We would consider that a failure on our part given EE’s stated mission to level the playing field.

So we need your help. If you know any creative, determined and passionate female founders that might benefit from EE, please encourage them to apply at ee.lsvp.com or nominate them here. We’ll reach out to them directly to discuss the program. And if you have any other ideas on how we can increase the proportion of women-led startups, please drop us a note at ee@lsip.com

Thanks in advance for helping us level the playing field.