Entrepreneurs: 'Don't Give Up'

Today, I met an incredibly driven female entrepreneur completely by chance, in a coffee shop. She carried a business plan on her that included supportive letters written on behalf of high-ranking royalty. Entrepreneurship was in her blood. She was fiercely intelligent, sharp, and passionate about her work. Determined and totally focussed. And she was a nun. A nun running a fledgeling not for profit company geared towards spreading peace and reconciliation on planet earth. Sweet.

For me, this is what The Hip Girl's Guide to Being an Entrepreneur is all about. Highlighting those girls and women that totaly break the mould of what being an entrepreneur is perceived to be. Celebrating their successes. Inspiring more.

There's been much talk of this new breed of female entrepreneur - documenting her rise through the ranks of the businessworld, as she challenges the glass ceiling with a juggernaught zeal to rival even Alan Sugar's. Yet how many female start-ups really want to be some kind of Apprentice? How many start-ups actually want to take over the world according to 'traditional' singularly profit-driven business models, anyhow? Yes, quite a few! But, with social enterprise, creative entrepreneurship amongst artists and cultural entrepreneurs, mumpreneurs, the rise and rise of values and ethics within business, the run-away success of companies like Innocent, the growth of the freelance economy - all these things mark a genuine shift within the contemporary commercial world. With increasing kudos and momentum, value-driven business is at the forefront of innovation and change.


Featured in the Hip Girl's Guide to Being an Entrepreneur are stories from some of the world's most inspiring entrepreneurial women. Over the past three months alone, I've heard first-hand some of these stories from a few of the UK's leading entrepreneurs: male and female. Jacqueline Gold, CEO of Anne Summers talking candidly on the need for courage, passion and confidence in your convictions. Author and inventor Anne Miller at her book launch (http://www.themythofthemousetrap.org), on the importance of self belief in the face of negativity. Brothers Nico and Alex van Somervan of N Cypher on the entrepreneur's need for self discipline, optimism, and the ability to deal with failure.

All these people were ordinary, brilliant, individuals who have run with their dreams. And not given up.

The truth is, entrepreneurs are often romanticised as maverick, risk-taking outlaws -cult figures with an uncanny ability to gamble - and win. Yet some even argue that they're made only in hindsight: while they're still struggling to 'make it', they're wrongly perceived as 'flaky' crackpots, or dreamers. And by the time they do - they're so accepted by the business community that they're no longer the 'true' entrepreneurs they once were. They might go on to successfully create enterprise after enterprise, but this is relatively low-risk - with newly increased access to capital, confidence, and kudos, this is a different breed of entrepreneur altogether.

Perhaps this is the one trait that unites all entrepreneurs, then - female and male -the ability to keep going despite failure, defeat, mistakes. The art of resilience. More glamorous, of course, than just turning over and giving up.