New entrepreneurs are better educated and more likely to enter the more lucrative fields of technology and finance. In men, the goals tend to be to fulfill a market opportunity and be wealthy at a personal level. Numerous studies that track revenue and employee growth have found that women's businesses tend to grow more slowly than men's. They also tend to be smaller. What's not clear is whether the figures mean that women-owned companies are less profitable or simply smaller on average.
Many owners are reluctant to disclose profit figures.
Several studies have found that women entrepreneurs take fewer financial risks and are less likely to finance their companies with debt than men, though that seems to be changing. Discrimination and the smaller size of women's companies may be factors. That may reflect their smaller presence in high tech. Emphasis on quality. In surveys, more women than men repeatedly rank quality among their top objectives.