She Builds: Celebrating How Far We've Come and Recommitting to the Work Ahead
March 2026 | Zahra Amanpour, Founder of Main Street Assembly
International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate how far we've come — and to recommit to the work still ahead.
The progress is real and worth naming: more women are starting businesses than ever before, driving innovation, employing millions, and reshaping what entrepreneurship looks like in this country. At Main Street Assembly, we work every day to build inclusive small business ecosystems where underrepresented entrepreneurs can access the tools, technology, and opportunity they need to grow. So this month, we want to honor the women who are doing exactly that — building businesses, creating jobs, and strengthening communities across the country. And we want to be clear-eyed about the structural barriers that still stand in their way, because celebration without accountability isn't enough.
The Numbers Are Remarkable — and They're Just the Beginning
Women entrepreneurs are a force. As of 2024, women own 14.5 million businesses in the United States — nearly 40% of all companies in the country. Those businesses employ close to 13 million people and generate $3.3 trillion in revenue annually. Between 2019 and 2024, women-owned businesses grew at a rate of 17%, outpacing the 12% growth seen among men-owned businesses over the same period.
Think about what that means for Main Street. Women entrepreneurs aren't just building companies — they're building neighborhoods, feeding families, training workers, and anchoring local economies. Given that nearly half of all U.S. private-sector workers are employed by small businesses, the growth of women-owned firms is one of the most powerful economic stories of our time.
And the ripple effects go further than the revenue line. Research shows that women reinvest up to 90% of their income back into their families and communities — compared to 30–40% for men. Women-owned businesses are also significantly more likely to hire women, with female employees making up roughly 40% of their workforces on average, and women founders consistently prioritizing hiring from underrepresented groups. Women-led businesses are more likely to source locally, reinvest in neighborhood programs, and create workplaces where people who have historically been excluded finally have a seat at the table. In short: when a woman builds a business, the whole community tends to benefit.
And the opportunity ahead is even bigger. Research from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor estimates that if women started and grew businesses at the same rates as men, $5 to $6 trillion in new global economic output could be unlocked. The World Bank puts the potential GDP increase from closing the gender gap in employment and entrepreneurship at 20% globally. These aren't marginal gains — they're transformational ones.
The Gap That Remains
But here's what the headline numbers don't tell you: women-owned businesses still earn, on average, only 40 cents for every dollar generated by all privately held businesses. The average revenue for a women-owned business is $142,900, compared to $474,900 across all privately held firms. That's not a small discrepancy — it's a structural gap that reflects decades of unequal access to capital, networks, and opportunity.
The capital gap is particularly stark. Of the $289 billion invested globally in venture capital in 2024, just 2.3% went to female-only founding teams. Meanwhile, 83.6% went to all-male teams. At the current pace of change, experts estimate it won't be until 2065 that we reach gender parity in venture capital allocation. That's nearly 40 years away.
Debt financing tells a similar story. Women entrepreneurs are roughly half as likely as men to report having borrowed from a bank to start, operate, or expand a business — a gap observed in nearly every OECD country. In the U.S., only 20% of women entrepreneurs successfully accessed debt capital in the past year. The total financing gap for women-owned small and medium enterprises globally is estimated at $1.9 trillion — more than 7% of total global GDP.
It's also not just about money. In deep tech, female founders report being questioned about their technical expertise 3.1 times more often than their male counterparts. In enterprise software, they spend 42% more time proving their market understanding. These aren't isolated experiences — they're patterns that compound over time, quietly but powerfully shaping who gets to grow and who gets stuck.
The Intersection of Gender and Race
For women of color, these disparities are layered. Black women-owned employer businesses grew their revenue by 103% between 2019 and 2024 — an extraordinary display of resilience and entrepreneurial power. Hispanic women-owned businesses grew revenue by 62% over the same period. These are stories of grit and genius.
But many of the programs and emergency supports that helped fuel that growth during the pandemic years have since wound down. As the crisis receded, so did some of the attention and investment. The work of building lasting, equitable pathways — not just crisis-response ones — is exactly what Main Street Assembly is here to support.
What This Means for Our Work
At Main Street Assembly, we believe that access to opportunity shouldn't depend on who you are or where you started. And that belief gets tested — and affirmed — every day in our work.
We see it in the woman who has been running a successful business for a decade but has never been introduced to a lender, because no one in her network has those connections. We see it in the entrepreneur who is sharp, resourceful, and ready to scale, but hasn't had access to the financial tools that would help her make the case to an investor. We see it in the business owner who is doing everything right — growing her team, reinvesting in her community, building something real — but still can't get a meeting because she doesn't fit the profile of who people imagine when they picture a founder.
We also see the other side: women who, once they get into a room, command it. Women who, once they get access to the right tools, move fast. Women who, once they find a community of peers who look like them and have faced what they've faced, start taking risks they'd been too isolated to take before. The barriers are real, but so is what happens when they come down.
A Note of Optimism
Despite everything, the outlook is bright. Two-thirds of female entrepreneurs expect to see revenue growth in 2026. More than half are pursuing expansion strategies, not just survival ones. And in 18 of 51 countries, women are launching innovative businesses at rates equal to or higher than men.
The women building businesses today aren't waiting for a system to change before they show up. They're showing up anyway — and they're changing the system by doing so.
This Women's History Month, we celebrate them, and we recommit to doing our part.
Main Street Assembly builds inclusive small business ecosystems by accelerating technology adoption, workforce readiness, and access to opportunity for underrepresented entrepreneurs and their workers.
Learn more at mainstreetassembly.com.
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