Women’s Entrepreneurship Day: 4 Start-Up Myths You Need to Ignore

If you’re a woman who has been dreaming about starting your own business, now is the time to make your move. If you’ve been side-hustling or pursuing your passion project on top of your full-time job, today is your day: November 19 marks the sixth annual Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. The global advocacy campaign’s goal is to empower women and girls around the world to participate in the economy with the help of female leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs.

The facts are grim: In the U.S., 38% of new businesses are founded by women, but only 2 to 6% of them receive venture capital funding, according to the Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization (WEDO). But when women are given opportunities, the benefits are far-reaching. For companies, an increase of women in leadership positions from zero to 30% is associated with a 15% boost in profitability. Plus, both women and men claim to be happier working for a female boss rather than a male one, says a new survey of nearly 60,000 workers in 43 countries by Peakon, an online platform that tracks employee engagement. 

I know how scary it can be to leave a stable career and strike out on your own. It doesn’t help calm your nerves when people tell you just how hard starting a business is on your mental and physical health. But in my experience, most of those discouraging things—especially the ones that haunt you and hold you back—simply aren’t true.

Once you slay these myths, you’ll be one step closer to launch. 

Myth #1: You must hustle 24/7.

While I certainly have hustle in my blood, I also carve out time for daily hikes, international trips, reading books and bonding with my large family. I believe that work-life balance makes

me a better leader and business person. I’ve come to view hustling as showing up to meetings fully present and engaged, gracefully closing deals and powering through big projects. I don’t think hustling is staying up all night and forgoing the things that rejuvenate you. (Related: My 4 Secrets to Hustling Without Burning Out) 

I decided to start my own company, Hint Water, when my kids were young. In fact, I dropped off an early shipment to our first-ever retail partner—a Whole Foods in San Francisco—a few hours before going into labor with my fourth child. I was thrown into being a CEO and a mom of multiple kids simultaneously and learned how to balance the two very quickly. Don’t get me wrong: Working hard is a requirement of entrepreneurship. And there will be nights when you stay late and times when you work over the weekend. But if you’re mindful and disciplined, that work-around-the-clock behavior doesn’t have to become your new normal. 

Myth #2: Your idea is probably going to fail. 

The second you start talking about your new business, people will try to poke holes in it. They’ll tell you that your idea can’t be done. But I’ve learned that if you drown out the negativity and believe in your own abilities and intuitions, you can accomplish just about anything. (Related: How to Make Sure Your Business Survives Every Challenge)

In the beginning, my biggest challenge was to be taken seriously. After all, my prior experience was in media, not food and beverages. Industry people told us that it was impossible to create a beverage with no sugar, artificial sweeteners or preservatives that had a long shelf life. Luckily, I kept pushing for new solutions. After lots of trial and error, Hint became the first beverage with real fruit that didn’t require preservatives. When we launched the product, it had a three-month shelf life, and we eventually figured out how to prolong it to 18 months.     

 My outsider's point of view actually helped my company get off the ground. It’s hard for industries to innovate, and having a different perspective gives you an edge. I always encourage aspiring entrepreneurs if they really want to make a difference in the world. And if they do, what do they think is wrong and needs to be fixed? Then see if your idea aligns with the change they want to see. If you believe in your idea, you’ll find a way.  

 Myth #3: You need to know all the answers from the get-go. 

The best advice I got was to not be afraid to build the plane while you’re flying it. When it comes to starting a business in an unfamiliar industry, there are going to be unanswered questions. All you can do is start with what you have, do the best you can and figure the rest out as you go.

If I hadn’t taken that advice, I would have never founded Hint. There’s a lot you learn on the job. As scary as that can be, you sometimes have to trust your gut, take that leap of faith and believe that you’ll be able to make it work.

Myth #4: You have to hire the person with the most impressive resume.

For me, passion trumps experience. When I started Hint, I assumed I needed to recruit only beverage industry veterans. I quickly realized that experience didn’t equate to success in a company that’s disrupting the entire industry. I was determined to create an alternative to diet soda (and other sugary drinks) that contained no sugar, artificial sweeteners or preservatives. My team had to approach this task in a non-traditional way. And that requires a team of people who are willing to think differently and innovate. Now, when it comes to growing my company, I hire the person who seems the most passionate and the one who’s best at creative problem solving.  

No matter how much you believe in your own business idea, there’s no way to predict how successful it will be until you’re out there in the market. So forget about all these scary entrepreneurship myths and forge your own path to realizing your dream. 

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Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of San Francisco–based hint, a healthy lifestyle brand that produces the leading unsweetened flavored water and a scented sunscreen spray that’s oxybenzone and paraben-free. She is also the founder of The Kara Network (TKN), an online resource for aspiring and thriving business-minded people. Listen to her podcast,Unstoppable, where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and disruptors across various industries and keep up with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.