Creating a bias-free space is paramount for the growth of women-led businesses. With the desire to bring first-time women entrepreneurs together on a common, bias-free platform to help each other grow their businesses, Her Entrepreneurial Network (HEN) was born. Ruche Mittal (Founder, HEN) and Ruche are childhood friends from Calcutta and business owners. Priyanka Changiaare women working in corporates who came together during the COVID-19 pandemic and founded HEN 2.0, a space where women entrepreneurs can collaborate, find mentors, and talk about business with peers. Priyanka Changia, co-founder of HEN, spoke to Bizz Buzz about her vision to provide value to entrepreneurs and grow the community many-fold in the coming years, making it a self-sustaining community that will live on beyond its existence.
From HEN on Facebook with 25,000 members to HEN 2.0, an online platform… What was the reason for the transition?
In 2008, Ruche had to shift her graphic design business to Bangalore after her marriage. It was during that time that she realised that she had to start her business afresh by finding partners and clients. When everyone was interacting on Orkut, Ruche found her first clients and partners there. When social media marketing was not in vogue, Ruche understood its power in finding new clients and collaborators. To harness the power of social media for other entrepreneurs like her, Ruche founded HEN on Facebook in 2011. For almost a decade, the community thrived on FB and grew to 25,000 people. But with the changing times and social media platforms, it was getting difficult to bring the community together. After the first wave of the COVID pandemic, Ruche reached out to me when I was on furlough as a corporate employee. Since we shared the same passion and vision, I decided to join as a co-founder and bring my work experience in research and analytics to the table. Thus, HEN 2.0 was born to bring all the services under one umbrella.
How is HEN different from other business networking platforms?
Each business community has different objectives. As we are an English speaking community, our entrepreneurs are in the age group of 25-45 years, from urban, semi-urban areas and comfortable with technology. We have major presence in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Gurugram, Ahmedabad, Kolkata etc. Being a virtual first community, HEN has over 1000+ entrepreneurs among its members. We also have over 100+ members from Hyderabad who are equally interested in the services and products space. HEN is a platform to discuss your day to day challenges, find and leverage partners and experts/mentors to grow. We do not work with women who are in the ideation stage. Interested entrepreneurs can check our website. There is an application form to fill up. Our team will review it, understand your business requirements and later on onboard you.
What membership plans are available?
There are multiple plans. Firstly, a one-month trial or complementary plan allows you to test drive HEN and see what we have to offer. Secondly, HEN Community for Rs 2,000 (excl. VAT) per year, which gives you access to our community platform and WhatsApp marketing group. Thirdly, HEN Network for Rs 5,000 (excl. VAT) which gives you all the above plus learning sessions. Finally, Hen Power Circle for Rs 9,500 (excl. VAT) which gives you visibility opportunities, access to mentorship, an international network and more.
What kind of growth does Henn expect to see?
The community building space is very challenging. Right now, our focus is not just on numbers, but being able to cater to the needs of entrepreneurs and provide value. We aim to grow our community many fold in the coming years. Our aim is to create a self-sustaining community that will survive after us. All I can say is that the value HEN brings to women entrepreneurs is immense and members will definitely benefit from finding a support system here in their entrepreneurial journey.
How do HEN members benefit from existing partnerships, such as your partnership with WeHub?
Every partnership at HEN is focused on bringing value to our members. Our partnerships work from a giving perspective. When we started Hen 2.0, we realized that early-stage women entrepreneurs are hesitant to invest small amounts. They are hesitant to invest because everything is a cost to their business. For example, women are reluctant to adopt new technologies, they avoid it because it costs money. We give them tools like Canva, Zoho, etc., and let them try them out and adapt later if needed. These technology partners help entrepreneurs understand the tools, see if they are relevant for them, and implement them. We then partner with peer communities like WeHub. Other partners include WeConnect International, Amazon Saheli, and Havas. All these collaborations provide access to mentoring.
What learning sessions are available for members?
The learning sessions are geared towards one mission statement: your business needs to be able to scale and grow. This usually doesn’t happen overnight and you’re not structured to handle big orders at the beginning. Therefore, the learning sessions are aimed at helping entrepreneurs build a solid foundation so they’re ready for growth. Moreover, we discuss different aspects of your business like sales, marketing, branding, managing customer data, leveraging technology, etc., which you can learn and apply to build a solid foundation before moving on to step 2. There is no handbook for becoming a successful entrepreneur. It’s all about making the right decisions at the right time, investing money where you need it, taking small risks and nurturing yourself to take bigger risks, opening doors that were otherwise inaccessible.
In your opinion, what are some of the early challenges that first-time women entrepreneurs face?
Currently, the biggest challenge in India is that even if women want to start a business, their families don’t take them seriously. The general mindset is that once the children grow up, the mother will have time to do something. I’m not saying this is true everywhere, but generally, this mindset is common in the society. More than 50 percent of these businesses are not registered under GST or MSME. They continue to operate from home as sole proprietors and that’s where the limitations lie. HEN’s vision is to provide women entrepreneurs with the tools and techniques to structure their business properly, get encouragement from other experienced women businesswomen and grow their business with the HEN community as a backbone of support.
What other issues do HEN members approach the community about?
Everyone has introduced a product or service and most of them take the extra step of creating a website. However, the challenge is selling, building a strong back-end system, a team. Then how do you make your business relevant, evolve as an entrepreneur and take your business to the next level of growth? Next is access to capital and funding. Gone are the days of startups where the idea is funded. Today, investors want concrete business metrics, operations, etc. I am not saying that funding is the only way to grow a business. Self-funded businesses can also thrive, but the intention is to create a space where women-owned businesses can become so strong that they can pitch to investors and leverage the entire startup ecosystem to grow their business.
What is the biggest fear that female entrepreneurs face?
The biggest fear that women have when starting a business is the fear of failure and being criticized. Some may disagree that there are strong women entrepreneurs, but I am not counting them out or belittling them. But the reality is that when women start a business, it is mostly as a side business. And most of the time, their families just discourage them from getting GST or MSME registered. HEN has organized many sessions on why GST, the process of GST registration, why and how to get MSME registered, how to prepare presentation deck for MSME grant, preparing your business for grant etc. and now we are organizing a session on MSME funding. So if you are a member of HEN, all these conversations and horizons will be expanded. Not only will you learn from the sessions, but you will also learn from your fellow entrepreneurs.
Why are women-owned businesses concentrated in a few key sectors?
I agree with the fact that women entrepreneurs are active in 3-4 major sectors, but it is because of their skills. They are either active in lifestyle, fashion, food or accessories because they have natural talent for it. You also see women entrepreneurs with 20 years of experience starting businesses in HR consultancy, accounting, asset management. These are definitely more targeted sectors for women entrepreneurs. When we talk about innovation, I do believe that businesses need innovation, but the difference is in the successful execution of the simplest ideas.
Female founders of STEM startups…are the numbers impressive?
For women in tech, the way forward is to join a company and take up a position. If they can manage their personal life, family and children well, they can continue working. They more often leave tech jobs. Across big cities and small towns, women shoulder most of the childcare responsibilities. On top of all this, starting a business requires a lot of passion, strength, commitment and support. We need to encourage young girls to dream bigger. There are many success stories and there should be more.
