Here Ayesha looks at the challenges startups may face when building a business that goes against the status quo and why, sometimes, you need to rip up the rulebook.

Going from wealth management in a very traditional industry that’s run (largely) by men for (largely) men, to running my own property investment business, and then my startup Propelle, has in many ways been a baptism of fire. But because the approach I'm taking now with Propelle is so inherently different from what traditional investment platforms typically do, albeit operating in the same space, I’ve been able to innovate and do things that go against the grain.

Building a business for women by a mostly all-female team has meant that we’ve deliberately gone against the status quo, and much of what you’re taught about when it comes to how to build a business. This is what I’ve learnt so far, and I’m sure that there are plenty more lessons to come.

Ditch the stereotypes (some will be unconscious, so you may need to actively work on this)

Making a website pink or purple, adding some photos of women, or getting women to market your product online in an attempt to attract a female audience or build with women in mind, is, in my opinion, offensive and lazy. Frankly, it doesn't work. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at the number of companies who do this.

You are not necessarily your target audience (don’t ignore the data)

Just because you’re a woman (or have women on your team providing their views), it doesn’t mean that you have a blanket insight into your female audience. The only way to get the insights is to go back to basics. Research, research, and research again.

When I had the idea for Propelle, I thought I knew exactly what women wanted when it came to investing. I reasoned that as I am a woman and saw the failings towards women in the investing space first-hand, I knew what the issues were and how to solve them. But it was only by conducting research, surveys, working groups etc., and drilling down into the data, that I realised that there were crucial nuances and, in some cases, stark contrasts to what I had expected. My target audience knew much more than me about what they wanted and needed from our platform.

The lesson I learned here was that your potential customers will tell you exactly what to build if you really listen. When you come from a very traditional background (in my case wealth management in investment banks), you can be conditioned to think certain things and approach problems in certain ways. You’re likely used to tried and tested frameworks, but if those frameworks are based on products built by men for men, then you might want to question how effective they’ll be. Many are gender agnostic and will be very useful, but not all are. In order to really understand my target audience, I had to unravel years of conditioning that I’d been exposed to through my career and life, and really look at the data and what it was trying to tell me.

Build what your customers need, not what you think they want or even, in some cases, when they think they want it.

Build tech with women in mind

Whilst building our platform, we knew that we needed to do things differently, because what’s out there at the moment isn’t giving women what they want.

Tech is a key part of this; instead of rolling out a platform that already exists, we’ve built it from the ground up, looking at the nuances of how our audience thinks and acts every step of the way. We’ve introduced what we call ‘goals-based investing’, for example, we found many men approach investment more generally to ‘make more money’, but we found many women liked to have specific investment goals to aim for. We’ve built tools that we know are useful for women and how they think. We’ve also built a community element to the platform because our research has shown us that our audience wants a place where they can discuss, support, and share ideas.

We know what they want and we’re building it for them.

Act in a way your audience understands

One of the key things that we have focused on with Propelle is creating an investment platform that feels and behaves like a female lifestyle brand.

We know women don’t want another boring financial product telling them what to do. We understand how women want to invest and what they want to do with their money. If you’re looking to shake up the status quo then it’s so important that you don’t just fall back into it, whatever industry you’re in and no matter how lonely it can sometimes feel being the only stand-out company.

For example, we’ve hosted a series of webinars recently focused on things that we know are important to our audience - not just the financial pieces that you might think we’d address. Fashion, side hustles, and property are all things we know our audience is interested in, and we’ve taken those as springboards to show them that we’re aligned with them and what they want to know about.

One of the key lessons I’ve learnt from building a platform aimed specifically at women is that they are far more receptive to it when you speak their language. Don’t expect them to change for you; you need to adapt to the way they think and act.

Collaboration is key

Strategic partnerships and collaborations have been key to us spreading the word about what we are doing. In my experience, women - especially in the startup world - are incredible at giving each other a leg up and celebrating each other.

Collaboration used to be seen as a dirty word (society typically favours competition over collaboration), but in our experience collaboration has been a key factor in bringing women into our world and showing them what we can do. Don’t underestimate the power of partnerships, especially the more non-traditional partnerships.

This is something that is so different from the traditional business world, although some are catching on. Because they are, it means that there are also interesting opportunities to be had with more traditional businesses that are trying to innovate and do things differently. If you’re communicating with just women, then there are other people who want a piece of that pie - don’t underestimate how valuable you can be for the right brand to align themselves with. So, it’s always worth looking for collaboration opportunities in unusual places.

Community and word-of-mouth

Community is perhaps one of the most important points of difference when building a brand aimed at women.

It is a key element of our Propelle platform because we know from our research that the women who use us want to share, ask questions, and connect with other people. It’s an important part of the platform and one that differentiates us from other more traditional financial offerings. The community doesn’t just stay within the platform itself; we’re building a wider community outside through our partnerships, our social media, and our brand friends.

Word-of-mouth is another area that can’t be underestimated. Women share with their friends, their family, their social audience. They recommend and talk about you. Harnessing this is an incredibly powerful (and cost-effective) way of getting known for what you do in those early startup days.

Build your brand from the inside out

Building a women-focused business isn’t just about the end customer, it’s also about the people that work within it and the principles that you want to build the business from.

Going from a very male-dominated, traditional working environment to a predominately female startup has allowed us to create a culture that means we’re starting as we mean to go on, and we’re effecting the change that we want to see. It has also meant that I’ve had to unshackle myself from some of the traditions of the institutions where I came from. Empowerment, diversity, having different perspectives - these are all things that are fundamental to our internal culture and key areas for us to check back against as the business grows and expands and new team members join.

Don’t be afraid to rip up the rule book

Whilst we have been developing Propelle, we have received advice to build something that looks like other platforms, to not be “too creative” or to change things one bit at a time. People are scared of change and doing things differently, particularly in a sector that has been pretty resistant to change. If we’d listened to that “advice” then we wouldn’t have been able to create a product that our audience loves.

As a female founder I have found that unsolicited advice from so-called experts who tell you they know better is free following and in some cases, it’s almost as if the underlying effect (whether deliberate or not) is to destabilise, to make me go back to the status quo.

Change is uncomfortable. So, conviction is incredibly important - doubly so if you happen to be a woman at the helm. If you know you need to do things differently then you need to go for it. By all means surround yourself with people who can advise you but choose wisely. Ultimately, you need to believe in your vision, put the blinkers on, and don’t let anyone knock you off kilter.

Be Prepared to be frustrated when it comes to funding

There’s nothing like fundraising to make you realise how far female- founded startups still have to go in order to be treated as equals in business.

Building a startup is hard. Building a startup based on a product that is aimed specifically at women, led by a female founder, and built by a predominantly female team, is harder, much harder.

During the 18 months that we have been building the Propelle platform, we have invariably met two different (male-dominated) investment camps. The first don’t understand why there’s a need for this type of product and have even gone as far as questioning whether women want to manage their own money(!). The second “WomenWash” the issue - they champion the idea, they take the meetings (they check the D&I tickbox off as they do) whilst making a big show about it, but ultimately ask questions like “Who’s looking after your kids when you work?”, “Are you planning on having any more children?” - things that male founders and CEOs in a boardroom would never get asked.

Fundamentally the traditional investment routes aren’t built with women-led businesses in mind.

It may be hard, but it’s absolutely needed, and more importantly, very much needed

With all being said, despite the challenges, building a business with women in mind is how we are going to effect change; it’s incredibly rewarding to know that you’re a part of something bigger.

And who doesn’t love to prove the naysayers wrong?

This article originally appeared in the Sept/Oct issue of Startups Magazine. Click here to subscribe