When Tonya Thurman Rintye moved to Savannah from Atlanta in 2004, she struggled to find a job that satisfied her. In her spare time, she rescued animals with her husband, and soon realized that her area was sorely in need of a quality doggie day care. “We couldn’t find a good place for our own dogs, so thought, why don’t we open one?” Rintye says.
When she visited the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center for advice about how to set up the business, they told her that no bank would give her money unless she could contribute at least 20% in cash as a down payment.
So, she got to work and started saving (tip: opening a high yield savings account or certificate of deposit account can help your money grow faster). For income, she sold her signature dog treats at community markets and got a license to board dogs in her own home—all of this, too, while raising her then-four-year-old daughter.
After a year, she had enough saved to secure the loan and open a brick-and-mortar shop. Today, her doggie day care business, The Hipster Hound, has two locations, 35 employees and houses roughly 100 dogs per day.
She credits her success to hiring the right people. “I have strong managers in all of my locations,” she says. And while she’s not sure if being a woman business owner makes any difference to her bottom line, she hopes that it gives her somewhat of an edge compared to big corporations like Amazon and Target.
“People always say, buy local, buy women-owned,” she says. “And I hope they aren’t just saying that.”
The History of Women-Owned Businesses
Women-owned businesses (WOBs) are making more of an impact on the U.S. economy than ever before. The first recorded female-owned business dates to the 18th century, when Eliza Lucas Pinckney took over the operation of three family-owned plantations in South Carolina in 1739.
Although entrepreneurs such as Madame C.J. Walker, the first documented, self-made female (and Black) millionaire by the time of her death in 1919; Coco Chanel, who built the eponymous fashion house; and Oprah Winfrey, who became the first Black female billionaire in 2003, all built impressive businesses from humble beginnings, the vast majority of women did not own their own businesses in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Indeed, it wasn’t until the 1988 passage of H.R. 5050, otherwise known as the Women’s Business Ownership Act, that women were able to take out business loans in their own name. (Previously, many states required a male relative to co-sign the loan.)
WOBs by the Numbers Today
Rintye is just one of the millions of women in the past two decades who saw a gap in the market and decided to fill it. Since 1972, the number of WOBs in the United States has increased more than 3,000%, with an average of 1,821 new businesses started per day by women between 2017 and 2018.
According to the 2021 Annual Business Survey released by the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 1.24 million, or 21.4%, of businesses in the United States are owned by women.
In total, WOBs account for $1.9 trillion in receipts, 10.9 million employees and $432.1 billion in annual payroll. This is astounding considering that a mere 50 years ago, female-owned businesses only accounted for $8.1 billion in revenue.
The vast majority (99.9%) of businesses founded by women have less than 500 employees—the average is eight—although there are some marked exceptions to the rule (Rent the Runway, for example, which was founded by Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss in 2009, has 1,800 employees).
Although these businesses are in every type of industry, the sectors with the largest number of workers employed by women include healthcare and social assistance (1.7 million employees), and accommodation and food services (1.5 million employees).
Somer Hackley, the CEO of Distinguished Search, an executive recruitment firm based in Texas, believes that identifying as a female-owned business has drawn more loyal clients to her company. “My clients respect who I am,” says Hackley, who founded her business in 2020, just before the pandemic started. “We have a real partnership. There is nothing subservient about it.”
How the Pandemic Impacted WOBs
Like Hackley, who is also the author of Search in Plain Sight: Demystifying Executive Search, millions of women started companies just before and during the pandemic.
According to a survey by payroll and employee benefits firm Gusto, 35% of new business owners in 2020 started a business because they were laid off from their jobs. And in 2021, 25% of businesses were started by entrepreneurs seizing pandemic-related opportunities. Of these new business owners, a whopping 49% were women.
While conventional wisdom states that most businesses take two to three years to become profitable, the Gusto survey also found that 41% of women who founded businesses during the pandemic were more successful than they expected to be.
This was certainly the case for Sara Graham, who began baking scones for customers in her kitchen in March 2020. By May, she was baking roughly 1,400 scones a month and realized she needed to find a commercial space.
The result? Graham opened The Savannah Scone Company in February 2022. “I’m working harder than ever,” says Graham, who, before becoming a baker, had a career in telemarketing. “But it’s so fulfilling to pour your heart and soul into something you’re passionate about and to show other women that it’s possible to build something of your own.”
The Future of Financing for WOBs
Despite the growth in WOBs in recent years, there is still a lot of work to be done for equitable representation. While there are more women than ever in positions of leadership at venture capital firms, WOBs still received only 2% of venture capital funding in 2021. Black women in particular struggle to find funding from large firms and accounted for only 0.34% of the total venture capital spent in 2021.
Instead, female entrepreneurs—especially Black female entrepreneurs—are forced to rely on a complicated system of grants, bank loans, personal savings and credit cards to get their businesses started.
Elbi Elm, who opened coffee shop and artisan marketplace the Culturist Union in 2022, struggled for three years to find a bank that would give her a loan—and eventually only secured one after offering the equity on her home as collateral.
While, as a Black woman and veteran, Elm received business grants from American Express, Facebook and the Savannah College of Art and Design, she didn’t have enough cash on hand to open her business without a deficit. “Getting an investment in your business shouldn’t feel like winning the lottery,” she says.
If you’re a woman with a business idea, and you’re not sure how to get funding for it, start by visiting a local Small Development Business Center, a federally funded program that provides training and counseling for small business owners at over 900 locations around the country. (To search for a development center near you, use this resource.) With the help of a representative, you can write a business plan and determine how much funding you’ll actually need.
Once you have a plan, you can explore various options for funding. Some great resources include grantsforwomen.org, which lists all the grants available to women-owned businesses, and ifundwomen, which offers training, business grants and crowdfunding resources. You can also check out crowdfunding sites like IndieGoGo, fundBLACKfounders and SeedInvest.
If you’d like to pursue funding through a venture capital firm, make sure you do your research before the pitch. Consider focusing specifically on firms that are dedicated to funding women-owned businesses, like Female Founders Fund and Valor Ventures.
And, more than anything, get ready to network. “I’m constantly talking to other people,” says Elm. “I’m always grabbing coffee with someone, trading tips, exchanging services or pitching to yet another potential investor.” It’s a long and tough journey, but it’s worth it.
Brienne Walsh is a writer based in Savannah, GA. She contributes to Forbes, Rangefinder and MarketWatch, among other publications.
Illustration by Josie Portillo
LEARN MORE: RVC High Yield Savings Account