Mumbai witnessed a gathering of women founders, professionals and decision makers at the She Leads Mumbai summit held at the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday. The event brought together leaders across sectors for conversations around entrepreneurship, leadership and the evolving role of women in India’s economic growth.
Among the speakers at the summit was Shinjini Kumar, co founder of SALT and the platform MySALTApp, who shared insights on the realities of women entrepreneurship in the country. Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Kumar discussed the structural factors that influence the way many women start and build businesses.
Kumar, who has also authored the book Busy Women, said the challenges women entrepreneurs face are often misunderstood. According to her, fear of failure or judgement is not always the primary barrier.
“I do not think there is something that is stopping women as much as something that is pushing them into choices that may not necessarily be the most suited for success,” she said, pointing to the structural circumstances that shape entrepreneurial decisions.
She noted that a large number of women in India are engaged in small commercial activities, although the country still lacks comprehensive data capturing the full scale of this participation.
The trap of low entry businesses
According to Kumar, many women entrepreneurs tend to enter businesses with very low entry barriers. These include sectors such as food services, wellness ventures, home based businesses and lifestyle services that can be started with limited resources.
“What happens is that many women end up entering businesses that have almost no entry barriers. They move into cooking, wellness or similar activities because those are the easiest places to begin,” she explained.
While these sectors make entrepreneurship more accessible, they also create a crowded marketplace where competition is intense and business survival becomes difficult.
“When a large number of entrepreneurs enter the same segment, the mortality of those businesses also becomes very high,” Kumar said.
She emphasised that the issue is not a lack of capability among women entrepreneurs. Many women possess strong business instincts and the ability to understand markets. However, circumstances often nudge them towards familiar and convenient options rather than ventures built around clear market demand.
Successful entrepreneurship, she said, requires identifying real opportunities and investing sustained effort in building solutions that people need.
Capital, location and life stage constraints
Drawing from her research and conversations with women entrepreneurs while working on her book, Kumar identified three factors that commonly influence how women start businesses.
The first is access to capital. Many women begin their entrepreneurial journeys with limited financial resources and often rely on personal savings. This naturally pushes them towards ventures that require minimal investment.
“Most women start with whatever capital they already have and therefore choose something that can be built around those resources,” she noted.
The second factor is location. Women frequently start businesses from home due to social expectations or family responsibilities. While home based enterprises offer flexibility, they can also restrict growth and scale.
“Location becomes a constraint because stepping out and building something outside the home is not always easy. There are social questions women often have to navigate before making that decision,” Kumar said.
The third challenge relates to life stage interruptions. Women often experience multiple breaks in their professional journeys due to caregiving responsibilities or family transitions.
“These pauses can slow down the process of building or scaling a business, and many women end up progressing more gradually because of those realities,” she added.
Uneven access to wealth and funding
Kumar also highlighted the deeper structural issue of unequal access to wealth and inheritance.
In many households, she pointed out, men are more likely to inherit family assets or financial resources. This creates an uneven starting point for women even before they begin seeking investment.
“A lot of change has to start at home. Girls do not inherit wealth as often as men do, and that means their first capital is harder to access,” she said.
While venture capital and institutional funding opportunities for women founders are gradually increasing, Kumar believes the initial stage of capital formation remains one of the most significant challenges.
Focus on solving real problems
Despite these challenges, Kumar believes the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India is gradually becoming more open to supporting strong and scalable ideas led by women.
For aspiring entrepreneurs, her advice is simple. Instead of choosing businesses purely because they appear easy to start, women should focus on identifying genuine problems they can solve.
“If you have identified a problem that you can solve, then go ahead and build something around it. Do not automatically choose the lowest entry barrier business just because it is convenient,” she said.
Kumar added that as technology reshapes industries and traditional employment opportunities become less predictable, entrepreneurship will play an increasingly important role in solving problems and creating livelihoods.
According to her, meaningful ventures are built not merely on convenience but on understanding markets, recognising demand and committing to long term growth.
