Bootstrappers events inspire women-led businesses – Daily Business

Bootstrappers events bring women together

A free series of events to help women grow their businesses past £1 million in turnover while keeping their equity is coming to Scotland for the first time.

Bootstrappers’ Breakfasts, created by coach, growth adviser and entrepreneur Geeta Sidhu-Robb, will hold events in Edinburgh and Glasgow on Wednesday.

Each has 60 places for female founders and puts them in front of women who have already taken businesses past £1m, £5m and even £150m.

Bootstrapping means growing a company without raising investment. Growth is paid for out of the company’s own cashflow rather than by venture capital or angel investors, and the founder keeps every share.

For many women it is less a choice than the only route open to them. Just 1.3% of UK venture capital goes to all-female founding teams, according to figures cited by the series, which puts the untapped value of female-founded businesses at £310 billion.

Each Breakfast is built around what Ms Sidhu-Robb calls the Bootstrap Bargain: the trade women make, often without realising it, when they grow a business on cashflow alone.

The series argues the bargain is worth striking. Founders who bootstrap keep control, run on higher margins and tend to build companies they can still be running at 55 and beyond. 

Ms Sidhu-Robb said: “Women get told that if they’re serious about growth they need to raise money. I’ve spent years working with founders who’ve built profitable seven-plus-figure companies on nothing but their own cashflow.

“The bargain you make when you bootstrap is real. You may grow more slowly and you carry more of the risk yourself. What you get back is the company, all of it, and the freedom to run it the way you want. I want the women in these rooms to understand that trade and make it with their eyes open.”

The Edinburgh Breakfast takes place at the Royal Bank of Scotland Accelerator Hub on Princes Street from 8.30am to 10.30am. Darina Garland, co-founder of the Scottish pizza oven brand Ooni, gives the keynote.

The same afternoon the series moves to the Atera Bathhouse and Spa, Glasgow, from 12.30pm to 2.30pm.

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