Conditions better than ever for women entrepreneurs

Female entrepreneurs have long heard that it was difficult to be both a woman and a small business owner. But San Jose Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy says that things are now much better than they used to be.

He says that while women are still not on completely equal ground, the playing field has leveled significantly over the past 10 years, and women are more able than ever to raise capital to create a corporation or become the CEO of a company. The major reason that there are so many male entrepreneurs, he says, is quite simply that more men are getting out there.

“It is not about women. A man’s got the same challenges and a male entrepreneur, a black entrepreneur, a gay entrepreneur, they’re all going to have the same challenges,” Carol Realini, CEO of Obopay, a mobile payment company, told Cassidy.

Women entrepreneurs are actually more successful than men in many respects. Recent research by Illuminate Ventures found that women-owned startups are more likely than average to survive and become established companies.