In the world of work, women often have to do more than do men to prove themselves. As entrepreneurs, challenges facing women are even more daunting. Ingrid Vanderveldt has been both an entrepreneur, having built and sold two companies, and an advocate for women in leadership.

Forces that hold women back converge with the force against female entrepreneurs. Often, an involuntary baseline expectation that somehow women aren’t as capable as men is compounded for female entrepreneurs.

Sexist peers or potential business partners dismiss confident women who approach meetings with a networking and deal-making aim as being cocky and out of their depth. Their ideas aren’t seen to carry the same weight as those of their male peers, and their speaking up may be interpreted as aggressive behaviour. However, plenty of research show that firms with gender diversity are more innovative, profitable and are better governed.

The world’s most dynamic firms realise that gender equity helps them get to their goals faster. However, female entrepreneurs can’t rely on having to deal with just the enlightened lot.

Women are setting up their own businesses but the numbers are staggeringly low compared to those founded by men. Ingrid Vanderveldt is urging women to address the shortcomings she frequently sees.

Ingrid Vanderveldt, an American businesswoman and investor, previously served as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence for Dell and is currently Chief Executive and Founder of the Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 movement. She identifies three things that female entrepreneurs aren’t doing enough of or not doing at all, that are holding them back. They are, having a mentor, a dealmaker mindset and being an innovator.

As an entrepreneur, Ingrid has experienced losing everything. When her third business failed, she was left broke and homeless. When she bounced back from that setback, she was determined to help other entrepreneurs and women. “In everything I do I’m focused on empowering a billion women,” she says of the Empowering a Billion Women by 2020 movement (EBW2020). Ingrid Vanderveldt was in Sri Lanka recently, a visit arranged by MAS Innovation – a unit of apparel giant MAS, and spoke to a group of mostly female entrepreneurs. Her empowering women mission seeks to use technology to make it happen.

She started this in 2010 as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at computer giant Dell and, since leaving the company, has focused on it full time. “We take 90% of what we earn and invest it back to the community,” she says about the EBW2020, which she was also promoting in Sri Lanka during her first visit.

In addition to funding, credit and investment for ventures founded by women, Vanderveldt spends much of her time in the US speaking and engaging female entrepreneurs and encouraging them. Women are setting up their own businesses, but the numbers are staggeringly low compared to those founded by men. Ingrid Vanderveldt is urging women to address three shortcomings she frequently sees. She also has advice to offer on how that can be done.

1. A mentor mindset
There are two possible reasons that senior management is so male-dominated. Firstly, because men are sexists and like to promote people who are just like them. The second reason is that any woman (as do men) needs a mentor to be able to climb the ladder. Men would normally be apprehensive about mentoring women and there aren’t enough women in senior management who can mentor the swathes of aspiring younger female colleagues.

Vanderveldt says women need to push themselves, and have a strategy to contact and engage a mentor who would be willing to help. ‘I’m not sure I would have reached my full potential without a mentor’, says Ingrid.

Ingrid was able to convince the late Dr George Kozmetsky to be her mentor. Dr Kozmetsky was the benefactor of her business school, who was also the mentor of Michael Dell – Founder and Chief Executive of Dell Inc – and hadn’t seen any woman come out of the school’s business programme with a success story like that of Michael Dell. Ingrid was aware that he wanted a female success story. She aspired to be the female version of Michael Dell, and convinced Dr Kozmetsky that this made it worthwhile for him to take her on as a mentee.

She emphasises the importance of applying a timeline on every single planned thing, including one for securing a mentor. She says that the most spectacular mentors are those who would see your full potential and invite you to the table, willing to give an ear to your ideas and work through them with you. During that time of mentorship, she founded her first business.

The most spectacular mentors are those who would see your full potential and invite you to the table, who are willing to give an ear to your ideas and work through it with you.

2. The dealmaker
Once the mentor mind-set is in place, female entrepreneurs must become comfortable as dealmakers. For men, to hustle and make deals comes easily. She also says that men generally own their work. Unfortunately women aren’t as confident in owning their work. Furthermore, they don’t believe that they could ask for a number that gets them beyond their comfort zone. “When you want to secure that opportunity with someone who would write you a cheque you should go talk not about how you’re in service to them, but about how good your product is for them’, she says. “You need to talk to them about how your product or idea will add value to their business.”

She urges women to be present, show their full work and be crystal clear about how they want to do it. She also pushes women to get out of their safe haven and work towards collaborating with others in similar environments so their business ideas can sprout. “If an idea pops up and a female entrepreneur knows that this could be a successful venture, sitting back and just waiting till an opportunity falls on her lap is not going to take her anywhere.”

Generally, other dealmakers have many other deals on the table, so women are challenged to show dealmakers how their idea is different and value adding. She points out that an idea must be presented in a way that leads to a ‘yes’ or negotiation at the end of the meeting.

Most corporations have a positive view about the importance of female leadership. However women aren’t as widely seen as having the skills necessary for entrepreneurship.

3. An innovator mindset
What the quality entrepreneurial woman needs to have is an innovator mindset. After building a relationship with an investor, a customer or a business partner and you’ve explained how you aspire to make the deal work, “you need cultivate or have in place an innovator mindset”. Developing that aspect is the ‘icing on the cake’, suggests Ingrid. This means showing up with an idea and presenting that if technology is applied in a certain way, revenue will grow, costs will decline and how it will create an opportunity.

Ingrid also pointed to the jeopardy of addressing just two out of the three typical shortfalls of female entrepreneurs. “If you only possess a mentor and innovator mindset, you can’t gain from the dealmaker opportunities and the business would not gain from its innovation or your mentorship.If you are missing the innovator mindset, you’re missing out on opportunities to create efficiencies in the business and opportunities to maximize revenue, minimize costs and maximize profitability.”

Sometimes, when an entrepreneur gets too desperate, they tend to rush into a deal. “When the pressure for this mounts and you don’t have the mentor with whom you can exchange views, the possibility of a regretful misstep rises.”

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka – as in many other places in the world – lacks role models on how femininity and power can coexist. In entrepreneurship here the gap is even wider.