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Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2014 9:49 pm
by sbriggman
Read the full article here: http://time.com/3111188/kickstarter-ind ... ing-women/

"Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor at the Wharton business school at Penn who co-wrote the study, told the Wall Street Journal that women’s success on Kickstarter may be precisely because they are so underrepresented in areas like gaming and technology. These female-started ventures get backed by “women who are activists who want to reach out and help other women,” he said."


Alicia Robb, a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, authored another study on crowdfunding that found 40% of Kickstarter ventures funded by women were led by women, compared with only 23% of projects backed by men.


What do you think? I think any time you are tapping into some kind of a community, it will increase your chances of funding. Typically, women have a bit more of a community sense (my opinion) than men.

Re: Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 10:16 pm
by mboix
This is interesting, but I don't quite understand all the numbers...

Take this quote:

Alicia Robb, a senior fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, authored another study on crowdfunding that found 40% of Kickstarter ventures funded by women were led by women, compared with only 23% of projects backed by men.


40% of KS ventures funded by women were led by women: does this mean that 60% were lead by men?
23% of projects backed by men... so 77% are led by women?

I get the concept, but the article is a little confusing...

Is the factor "being women" what matters? Why?

Re: Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 12:12 am
by Valiterra0014
Interesting article I wonder if it has to do with they they relate to others or communicate with others?

Re: Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 6:32 pm
by sbriggman
Another interesting stat: "Overall, the study found that women are 13% more likely to meet their Kickstarter goals, after controlling for factors like project type and amount of money."

@mbiox - I think what it's saying is that "40% of Kickstarter ventures funded by women were led by women, compared with only 23% of projects backed by men." Of all the kickstarter ventures that women have funded, 40% were created by women. Of all the kickstarter ventures that men have funded, 23% were created by men. Though, I'm not sure.

Re: Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 8:20 pm
by mboix
The wording is still confusing... It would be interesting to have more data to understand.

Nevertheless, it is still an interesting fact, we should try to dig a little bit deeper to understand the "female advantage"

Re: Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 10:18 pm
by sbriggman
For those that want to read through the official study, see: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=2462254

Re: Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 10:46 pm
by coolinvent
Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Women Out-Raise Men on Crowdfunding Sites

Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2014 3:42 pm
by drcsdirector
There are two different research studies being discussed in the Time magazine article. I read them both -- they are very interesting, and they summarize patterns in Kickstarter funding that I think anyone might be interested in. The 40%/%23 statistic came from the second one. Here's a quote from the paper stating what they found more clearly than the Time author did:

"One interesting finding is that female entrepreneurs are more likely to attract female investors. When we examine the gender of the investors of female and male led projects, we find very different investing patterns. While more than 40% of the funds of female investors were invested in projects by female entrepreneurs, only 22.5% of the male investor funds went to female led projects.
Investor Female Ent. Male Ent.
Female 40.1% 59.9%
Male 22.5% 77.5%
Total 29.9% 70.1% "

Ha, this particular statistic does not exactly look like a female advantage. The data in this paper also indicated that a reason women are more successful in meeting their fundraising goals is that they choose lower goals, and lower goals are more likely to get fully funded. But both papers together paint a picture of crowdfunding giving women access to startup funds that they have even less access to in traditional startup fundraising, like venture capital. Interesting stuff to read up on!