Are you a girl, Who is dreaming of becoming a successful woman entrepreneur? Do you dream of becoming the next kylie Janner of the business world? If that’s what you are looking for, Then you are in the right place, Here I am going to reveal some of the best female entrepreneurs who started with nothing.
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Related: Habits of successful people
These success stories will give you motivation and inspiration. You will find girls like you who became business tycoons.
They all tell one story,
if I can do it, You can do it too.
They were not any different from you, Neither they were born in Royale Family, Nor they were the daughters of rich people.
These entrepreneur girls were just born in middle or lower-class families. They didn’t blame their parents for being poor. Instead, they worked hard and made their parents proud.
So if you are on your way to becoming an entrepreneur, Then you need to hear their advice, Their life story.
It will give you a road map to success, and a blueprint for living a great life.
- You will find obstacles in your way,
- There will be people making fun of you,
- There will be days when you will want to quit.
- You will find people passing comments “You can’t do it”,
- “You are a girl, you are supposed to be a housewife”.
But no, say no to all these people and work on your dreams, I assure you in the end, there will be a happy ending.
Fact, Around 30% of all business in us are owned by women, Which will increase in the future furthermore.
Related: Quotes for Tough Women
Table of Contents
1) Cindy Mi
Cindy Mi lives in North America, But she is originally from Beijing, China. She is one of the Female Entrepreneurs who started with nothing.
This female entrepreneur has changed her luck quite well, She founded a company with the name vipkid.com, Which is a platform for learning English.
This is one of the fasted growing companies online, With an evaluation of 3 billion dollars. (founded in 2013)
The interesting fact about Cindy Mi is that she was poor. It is said that she spent her lunch money on resources (like buying magazines..) for learning English.
This shows that she was passionate about her career, She wanted to do something no matter what. That is why she was willing to leave her lunch and spend that money to learn something new.
And also she was self-taught. She didn’t take classes, There was no teacher for her so that she could learn the English language.
But she didn’t give up, It was her passion that kept her going on, and later on, Cindy became an English teacher.
Cindy created started her business in 2013, and from there she didn’t stop. She is now running a 3 billion dollar business with 100k teachers.
Read more about Cindy Mi.
2) Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey is a black African-based American. She is a media executive, actress, talk show host, and producer.
Oprah Grew up in an extremely poor family but ended up becoming a black billionaire in the USA. she is Female Entrepreneurs who started with nothing, her annual water ($125k ) bill is now probably more than your early expenses.
Early Life
Oprah was born in Mississippi in 1954, she lived her childhood in Mississippi and then moved to Baltimore.
She was treated horribly in the early days, She was raped by her uncle and cousin when she was just 9 only. She gave birth to a child when she was 14.
Her son died in two weeks, but she didn’t lose hope after all these tragedies, She was passionate and wanted to do something bigger. She wanted to be a Hollywood star from childhood.
She was Beaten
Apart from getting rape, probably her family didn’t like her.
I went to a well to get some water and carry it in a bucket. And I was playing in the water with my fingers, and my grandmother had seen me out the window and she didn’t like it.
She was beaten so hard,
She whipped me so badly that I had welts on my back and the welts would bleed. And then when I put on my Sunday dress, I was bleeding from the welts. And then she was very upset with me because I got blood on the dress.
Oprah Winfrey’s First Anchor Job
Oprah was given an anchor job at Baltimore’s WJZ station, But they were not kind enough to her.
Being black was always hard for her, People didn’t like it, Specially white Americans’ never do. And that’s why she always struggled for being a black girl.
And my bosses certainly made no secret of their feelings, They told me I was the wrong color, the wrong size, and that I showed too much emotion.
She was fired from this job, As her boss said we need to broaden the network, We want more viewers. And she was put aside, for another white female.
Oprah Winfrey’s Failures
She has failed many times, But the two of her failures are heart-melting.
Once When she was fired from the job as an anchor, It was a jaw-dropping moment for her. She lost herself, she even thought it was a joke.
The general manager called me upstairs, and I thought it was an April Fool’s joke when they told me, ‘We have bigger plans for you; we’re going to put you on the morning cut-ins.
The second time when her biggest movie flopped, It flopped right after the night when it was released. This movie cost $80 Million but bringing only $22 Million.
I don’t want to call it a turkey, but it didn’t work, and it sent me into a massive, depressive, macaroni and cheese-eating tailspin – literally! It was the only time in my life that I was ever depressed, and I recognised that I (was) depressed because I’ve done enough shows (on the topic). ‘Oh, this is what people must feel like who are depressed.
Related: CLear your mind from unwanted negative thoughts
The Oprah Winfrey Show
She started her own show in 1983-2011, It was the most successful show ever of its kind. she gained tremendous popularity through this show.
Because of this now she created her own channel with the name OWN ( Oprah Winfrey Network).
The Most Influential Women In The World
Oprah Winfrey ranks #20 on the list of top influential females in the world. And she has an estimated net worth of 2.6 Billion dollars.
Oprah Winfrey Books
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3) Julie Deane
Julie Deane is an absolute wow, She is the most hard-working female entrepreneur. Julie qualifies as Female Entrepreneurs who started with nothing because she started her business with 600 pounds.
She proved that you don’t need a lot of funding and a big idea to work on anything. It should be something that you love and that you care about.
Her business is about selling bags (handbags), She called her business Cambridge Satchels.
How She Came Up with Idea Of Business?
Julie needed money to admit her kids to a private school, But that was expensive and she didn’t have a good job to afford all those expenses.
So she thought of starting a business, She had savings of 600 pounds, which she used for her business, and got started.
That was the whole reason I started this business – to pay the school fees. And they are expensive. I wanted to use £600 as my seed fund to start the business and I had the length of the summer holidays to make it work, because Emily was going to start at The Perse School in Cambridge that September. That was my motivation.
The Difficulties She Faced
You might have heard, Nothing great comes easy, The same goes with Julie she didn’t start this business easy, and it was even harder to scale it next level.
Julie’s business was going well, but something happened very bad, She found that her manufacture was copying her brand, and it was killing her business.
So this time she had to start a new factory in a matter of days, While there was no prior experience of such things, She still had to do it.
They were getting 18,000 orders on a monthly basis, and it was a huge headache to handle all these things, not only this they had to start manufacturing too.
Despite all these things, Julie didn’t give up, She made her own factory form where she created these bags, and then sold them too.
I don’t expect other people to solve my problems and I’m not prepared – after all of this – I’m not prepared to give up on this. There’s a kind of tenacity about it and there has to be some kind of self belief.
How She Grew Up Her Business
A business that was started with 600 pounds grew up to 50 Million pounds. That’s an incredibly huge return, It does not even look practical.
So how come it was possible? Who helped her grow such a low funding business?
The answer is Fashion Bloggers, The company sent some bags to fashion bloggers, and boom they were noticed in new york fashion week.
The new york time named them “The British ‘It’ bag”, and then they grew their business very fastly.
4) Ankiti Bose
Ankiti Bose is one of the Indian Female Entrepreneurs who started with nothing.
Can you expect 1 Billion dollars of revenue in 3 years of business? That’s what she has done, she made 1 bn in just her first three years of doing business.
She is truly an inspiring entrepreneur for every woman this earth, She has done wonders.
Early Life
Ankiti was born in India, And she completed her educations from there and then went to the sequoia capital where she worked as an analyst.
During the job, She met some great entrepreneurs and gained some knowledge about the startup. Because she was working in a big company she already had the experience of online business.
She had a close friend, and they both were having an entrepreneurial mindset. So both of them decided to leave the job and start a new company.
They had $60k of savings so they were able to run a new business.
How She Got Started Her Business?
One day Ankiti was having a casual shopping walk in one of the Singapore markets. She realized that a lot of merchants from rural areas are coming to the remote areas So that they can sell things.
These people were lacking many things, she wanted to fix, for example,
- No technical support.
- No Financial Support.
- They were not able to sell in an organized way.
- Hard to find the right customer.
These people were mostly poor and uneducated, So there was no organized way to sell anything, no right customer.
This was the problem which she identified and then worked on it. Here she saw the opportunity, She knew that it’s a great time to start an online business, and started a company with the name zilingo.com,
With this idea, people were able to work from home, These people didn’t need to go very far to do their businesses.
Zilingo Company
Zilingo is a Singapore-based company, but they are operating in all east Asia, they allow small business owners to list their products.
They earn money in a commission-based system, Where the business owner will only pay his commission to Zilingo if he sells his product.
Basically, it’s an online e-commerce business, Which focuses only on the B2B system.
Ankiti Bose Net Worth
It’s estimated that Ankiti Bose has a net worth of $997 Million dollars (approximately billionaire)
Ankiti Bose About Being Women
She says women are always put down, People assume that they are backward.
If I go to a meeting with a male colleague, most people will automatically assume he’s the senior one, or that I’m the assistant. It’s not super easy to be a woman on the ground in the commerce or trade busines
Ankiti wants to see a lot of women to be successful, she wants to give equal rights to women in a male dominant society.
Gender inequality is a systemic issue, so I think it is more important that we focus on making more women successful. When more people see women leading, this view will no longer be commonly perpetuated.
Ankiti is always striving to help women succeed, She does not think of women as weak people, she wants every woman on this earth to be bold and a strong leader.
5) Rebecca Andrea And Danielle
These three female entrepreneurs are from one family, they started a business of high-quality bad sheets. They are of those Female Entrepreneurs who started with nothing.
Rebeca had the experience of garments because she spent some time with garment workers in a factory. so one day she came home with the business idea in mind.
How They Came Up With Idea Of Business?
Rebeca wanted to start a business with her family Because all three of their family members had some experience related to her idea.
Her mother Andrea was an interior designer, and she was in this business for a long time but couldn’t find a way to scale it.
my mother is an interior designer and she spent years trying to source really high-quality bed sheets at an affordable price but found it was almost impossible.
Her sister was a fashion model and wanted to create a product of her own.
Getting Started?
When finally these three decided to start their own business, It took them a huge amount of time and effort to create their first product and sell it.
They literally wanted to make a perfect peace, with a reasonable price. This time it was their intention to build a brand that was never built.
We spent a year and a half preparing for the launch of White & Green and in the end we almost had to be forced to launch it – we were so scared of not getting everything absolutely perfect.
She says, we wanted to make it perfect, but after all, there will be mistakes that you can’t stop. There is a world outside of pen and paper that you can’ experience without going in there.
So they gave it a start and created some high-quality bad sheets with reasonable prices, and They are running a very successful business now.
You can check them out at whiteandgreanhome.com.
6) Jk Rowlings
Who in this world wouldn’t know this woman entrepreneur? she is the first author billionaire, no author has ever received a billionaire award accept her.
You must be familiar with the harry potter series, This tv series has gained a big reputation and huge money, and the credit goes to Jk Rowlings.
So how did she start? let’s see a few facts about her.
Early Life
Jk Rowlings was born in England in 1965, She grew up there and got her early education in England.
When she was 25 her mother died, That was difficult to handle for her, After that she went to Portugal and started teaching English there.
Divorce
In Portugal, she married a journalist, and from which she gave birth to a daughter.
Right after a year her husband left her alone, he divorced Rowlings, Which was the lowest point of her life, she had hit the rock bottom.
Rowlings was jobless, she was living on unemployment benefits, It was all over for her. She is one of those Female Entrepreneurs who started with nothing.
Jk Rowlings Failures
Jk Rowlings is famous for her failures, Because one can’t even imagine trying again after these many failures.
When she wrote her first novel “harry potter and Philosopher stone”, she was rejected by 12 publishers at that time.
Sent it to one publisher, NO! another publisher But again big NO!
Reject, Rejection, and Rejection…
She didn’t have any hope left, She thought it’s over, she will never make money from her books.
I think it is fair to say that by any conventional measure…I had failed on an epic scale…The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
She Wanted To Commit Suicide
At this point she was completely depressed, she was living her life with unemployment benefits. There was no income source she had.
We’re talking suicidal thoughts here, we’re not talking ‘I’m a little bit miserable. mid-twenties life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted.
Her condition was clinical, she needed a doctor to help her, in such case she still didn’t give up and mustered the courage to get out of this trap.
Jk Rowling’s Success
Jk Rowlings went to 12 different publishers but none of them considered publishing her novels. She was depressed at that time and couldn’t figure out a way to publish it.
But then one of the publishing companies loved her novels, They took this project and worked on it, also they told jk Rowlings, to find a day job, these books will not make her money for a living.
But she proved everyone wrong, this book did wonders, they were astonished to see the results, people were buying her first book like crazy.
This book made 7.7 Billion dollars, They could never expect this, it was a life-changing moment. But jk only got $4k only from this project.
But she got popular, she went on writing the harry potter series and became the most successful author in the world.
Jk Rowlings Net Worth
Jk Rowlings has a net worth somewhere around $650-1.2 Billion, (according to buisnessinsider.com)
Books
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Final Words
These are not the only female entrepreneurs who started with nothing, but many are there who took their business from zero to millions and even billions.
They all tell us one thing, There is nothing impossible, don’t consider being female as a weakness. You can do wonders, you can do whatever you want to do.
No one can stop you from being a successful entrepreneur, you need to believe in yourself, and be strong.
All of these entrepreneurs have failed at some point, all of these entrepreneurs started with nothing. If you don’t have money, if you don’t have good support, it’s ok. You can create an empire without all these.
Take the example of jk Rowlings, She was rejected 12 times, she was alone in this world, There was no one to care for her she got depressed, but still, she didn’t give up.
She was a total failure, which she herself admitted, but now she is making billions. It was her attitude and belief that kept her going.
So these Female Entrepreneurs who started with nothing are a great example for you if you are struggling with your life.
So that’s it for the day, I hope you got some motivation from this post.
And also don’t forget to share your story with us, we will be glad to hear from you, about your goals and vision.
Faq’s About Female Entrepreneurs
1) Who Are The Most Successful Female Entrepreneurs?
These are the top 10 female entrepreneurs of the current age.
- Anne Wojcicki
- Falguni Nayar
- Payal Kadakia
- Jk Rowlings
- Oprah Winfrey
- Cindi Mi
- Ankiti Bose
- Steph Corey
- Tina Sharkey
- Mackanzie Bezos
2) Who Are The Most Richest Female Entrepreneurs?
According to Forbes, These are the top 10 Richest Female Entrepreneurs.
- Alice Walton, $54 Billion.
- Francoise Betterncourt Meyers. $48 Billion.
- Julia Koch. $38.2 Billion
- Mackanzie Bezos, $36 Billion.
- Jaqueline Mars, $24.7 Billion.
- Yang Huiyan, $20.3 Billion.
- Susanne Klaten, $16.8 Billion.
- Lauran Powell Jobs, $16.4 Billion.
- Zhong Huijuan, $14.6 Billion.
- Gine Rinehart, $13.1 Billion.
3) How Can Women Become A Successful Entrepreneur?
These are the 10 steps to becoming a successful women entrepreneur.
- Find a business idea.
- Create a plan.
- Ask for help.
- Learn from Big companies.
- Don’t be afraid of failures.
- Learn about funding.
- Know the startup process.
- Launch your business.
- Prioritize things.
- Keep improving.
The End…