Geri Stengel's blog

Gender matters. It impacts the type of businesses entrepreneurs start, their aspirations for growing the business, and how they the fund it.

Read all of How Can We Increase Venture Capital Investments in Women-led Businesses? on Forbes.

LinkedIn groups are an interesting way of taking the pulse of a specific community on a topic and collecting feedback on challenges you face. It’s also a way of becoming a thought-leader, by answering the questions of others. Yet, it is not one of the top five reasons nonprofits use social media.

As the results of Ditch Digital Dabbling: How Small Businesses + Nonprofits Can Master Online Marketing demonstrate, nonprofits need to take a deeper dive into online media. Well, an opportunity is knocking at your door.

Women entrepreneurs, take note: As a group, you are dragging your feet when it comes to using and building your confidence in online marketing. It’s a good bet that your foot-dragging is a drag on your revenue as well.

Read all of Women Entrepreneurs Not Being All They Can Be on Forbes.

What you don’t know can hurt you, especially if what you don’t know leaves your business back in the 20th century while your customers are well on their way into the 21st.

In that case, you are losing opportunities to grow, to reduce costs, and to build customer loyalty.

That old adage, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” certainly applies to end-user entrepreneurs, that is, those people who face a problem, solve the problem, then market the solution.

Disturbed by the wasted money and ecological irresponsibility of buying toys, then throwing them away after a month? Want organic clothes for your baby? Can’t find the learning tools your special needs child needs? How about being able to sample high-end beauty products without cruising the counters of department stores? Or you “never have anything to wear” when an important occasion comes up? And, oh, those hot flashes!

Women entrepreneurs often start their own businesses in order to have more control over their hours and to create a better fit between home and work. If these sound like businesses that will remain forever small, think again. Women have their own way of doing business, one that may take a different trajectory from the standard business school model.

Read all of 2 Women Model Women's Way to High-Revenue Business on Forbes.

“Tech-enabled business,” like “stay-at-home” Mom, are terms that have taken on new meanings for entrepreneurs.

I’m delighted with the recent Ernst & Young report, Thinking big: How to accelerate the growth of women-owned companies, which matches what I’ve found from talking with high-growth women entrepreneurs. With the number of women-owned businesses increasing yearly, accelerating their growth is important.