Women Founders Are Struggling - And No One Is Talking About It

I thought about this while I was lying in bed, sick to the bone. I had traveled to New York in the middle of winter because of my business. When you are building something from the ground up, especially something that is still forming and finding its place in the world, you go where you believe you need to be. You attend meetings, introduce your work to people, and place yourself in environments where opportunity might exist. Not because it is easy or glamorous, but because you believe deeply in the purpose of what you are building. Instead, I caught a cold that completely shut my body down.

I could barely move. My body felt heavy, my head clouded, and even the simple act of getting out of bed felt like an impossible task. I was alone in a country that is not my home, far away from the people who normally take care of you when you are sick. The people who would bring soup, check in on you, or simply sit in the room so that you do not feel alone. In those moments, distance feels very real. You begin to feel the physical and emotional cost of the choices you have made. But I chose this. I came here because of my business. Because I believe in the work I am building and the purpose behind it. Entrepreneurship often asks for decisions that do not make sense to anyone else. It requires you to place yourself in environments that demand resilience and endurance. You travel when rest might be wiser, you keep showing up even when your body is asking for stillness, and you continue building because you believe the work matters. While I was lying there thinking about all of this, something strange happened. I blew my nose and blood splashed onto the tissue. For a moment I froze. It was one of those moments where your mind pauses before your body fully reacts. I remember staring at it in confusion, trying to understand what was happening.

For a brief second my life flashed through my mind—not dramatically, but in a quiet, disorienting way. I was sick, unable to move properly, alone in a foreign country, and suddenly aware of how fragile the moment felt. And in that stillness I realized that I had placed myself in this exact situation because I believe in building something. A business. A vision. Something that is still growing and becoming, but still fragile enough that it requires my presence almost constantly.

That moment forced a question into my mind that I had never really allowed myself to sit with before: Is this life actually worth it?

Not in a dramatic sense, and not in a way that suggests regret. But in the honest way people sometimes evaluate the paths they have chosen for themselves. Entrepreneurship asks for a great deal. It asks for time, emotional energy, financial risk, and a willingness to move through long periods of uncertainty. It asks you to continue building even when the outcome is not guaranteed. For women founders, the conversation around entrepreneurship is often filled with inspiration. During Women’s Month especially, we see messages encouraging women to start companies, lead industries, and shape the future of business. The language is empowering, and the intention behind it is positive. Women are told that they should build, lead, innovate, and take their place in the global economy.

But the numbers surrounding women in business create another layer of reflection.

Women-founded companies receive roughly 2% of venture capital funding globally. Within that already small percentage, about 79% of the funding that goes to women founders goes to white women, leaving women of colour with only a very small share of capital in an already limited pool. These numbers do not mean that women are incapable of building businesses. What they reveal instead is the structural reality of the environment women founders are navigating.

Building a company requires resources. It requires access to capital, networks, support systems, and stability. When those resources are limited, the experience of entrepreneurship becomes far more demanding than the glamorous stories often presented online. In recent years, entrepreneurship has become highly visible on social media. There are countless women who appear online presenting beautiful brands, successful businesses, and lives that look polished and aspirational. The imagery is compelling. It suggests that entrepreneurship is not only achievable but glamorous. The founder becomes a lifestyle figure: traveling, creating, leading a brand that seems to move effortlessly forward.

But there is another layer of reality that is rarely discussed openly. Many women who appear online as founders are building their businesses within financial structures that significantly reduce the personal risk involved. Some have partners or husbands whose income supports the household while the business grows. Others have family resources that make experimentation possible without the pressure of immediate financial survival. In those situations, Entrepreneurship becomes a creative pursuit supported by stability that exists elsewhere.

There is nothing wrong with having that kind of support. In many ways, it is a privilege that allows innovation to flourish. But it also creates a narrative that can be misleading for women who do not have those same support systems. For women building independently, the stakes are very different. Every decision carries weight. Rent, health, travel, and everyday survival are often tied directly to whether the business can sustain itself. There is no hidden safety net quietly absorbing the risk. The pressure is real, and the sacrifices are often invisible to the outside world.

When entrepreneurship is presented only through the lens of glamour, that distinction disappears.

The reality is that building a company often involves quiet moments like the one I experienced in that New York apartment. Moments where you are sick, alone, and suddenly aware that the path you have chosen demands a level of endurance that few people ever see. It was in that moment that an uncomfortable thought entered my mind. Maybe men should be the only ones founding businesses. It is a sentence that sounds shocking, particularly during Women’s Month when the focus is on celebrating women’s achievements. But the thought did not come from resentment or bitterness. It came from an honest reflection about the level of risk that entrepreneurship requires. Building a company is not simply a professional pursuit. It is a life decision. It affects your stability, your health, your relationships, and the structure of your everyday life. It asks you to keep moving forward even when the support around you feels thin. When you combine that level of sacrifice with the structural realities around funding and access to resources, it becomes reasonable to pause and ask whether encouraging every woman to pursue entrepreneurship is always the right conversation.

Some women will look at those realities and feel even more determined to build companies and challenge the system. That determination is powerful and necessary for change to happen. Others may reflect on the same realities and choose different paths for their lives - paths that offer stability, collaboration, or fulfilment in ways that do not require the same level of personal risk. Both choices are valid. Lying in that bed, sick and exhausted in a city far from home, I realised that entrepreneurship is not only about ambition or growth. It is about the human experience of pursuing something uncertain. It is about the moments when your body is weak, your support system is far away, and the only thing keeping you moving forward is your belief in the purpose behind what you are building.

And sometimes, in those quiet moments, the most honest question a founder can ask is the simplest one. Is it worth it? Not because the answer is no, but because asking the question reminds you that building a business is not only about success. It is about life, and the choices we make about how we want to live it.

In the end, I do not know what the exact answer is. Maybe men are simply wired differently for this kind of life. Maybe their bodies tolerate the constant pressure, the stress, the relentless pace of building and competing in ways that many women are not expected to endure. Or maybe the system itself is simply broken - structured in a way that demands sacrifice without offering equal support. I honestly do not know which of those explanations is true. What I do know, however, is that many women who are building businesses are doing so while carrying an invisible weight that is rarely acknowledged. The struggle is real, the exhaustion is real, and the loneliness can be very real too. And if we are going to continue encouraging women to build companies, to innovate, and to contribute to the economy in this way, then we must also be honest about something else: women founders need support. Real support. Financial support, structural support, and human support. Because purpose alone, no matter how powerful it is, should not have to carry everything by itself.