How High-Technology Female Entrepreneurs Perceive and Overcome Startup Challenges

Abstract

This research investigates the problems and challenges facing high-technology female entrepreneurs in Canada. After an extensive literature review on entrepreneurial challenges and means to overcome them, five Ottawa-based women technology entrepreneurs were interviewed to find out how they perceive these challenges. The findings show that they considered the most important challenges as the lack of technologically innovative business ideas, the lack of sufficient business network, and the lack of business and management skills. The study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by suggesting that these external challenges to female technology entrepreneurship are more essential than internal factors including family obligations, the lack of motivation, or the difficulty of overcoming previous bad experiences. The findings suggest that aspiring female technology entrepreneurs should partner with entrepreneurial support organizations such as 'Lead to Win for Women' and academic educational programs such as Carleton University's TIM program to get better technological ideas and business advice. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 1 is divided into seven sections. First part presents a brief introduction; the second part provides an overview of the research; the third section outlines the deliverables of the research; the fourth section provides contribution of the study, and sections five, six and seven consist of relevance, organization, and key definitions respectively.