Let’s say a woman is contemplating starting a business.  Startup, small biz, whatever. Perhaps she asks herself, “Do I have what it takes?” So she Googles it. And here’s what she finds:

“[For] the entrepreneurs who create outcomes at the high end of the Power law, there’s an element of them where they’re willing to walk across Highway 101 blindfolded. In fact, they’re willing to run across it, and they don’t think that it’s possible that they’ll fail. They don’t calculate the risk; they’re just outliers among people. … I think men are more likely to be like that, for better and worse, than women, in what I’ve seen.” -Male co-founder at a venture firm via TechCrunch.

“I’ve long noticed that the most innovative, decisive, and risk taking companies are led by founders or at a minimum have their founders actively engaged in all key strategic decisions. There are many examples. One could point to Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Rupert Murdoch.”  – Fred Wilson (Union Square Capital)

“At the end of the day, the single biggest factor we (venture capitalists) look for in a founder is simple, but perhaps surprising: grit. Do you take personal responsibility instead of blaming others? Do you set clear goals and exhibit determination, albeit others’ beliefs? Do you exude self-confidence about the challenges stemming from “figuring it out”?”  Josh Linkner via Forbes

So to summarize:

• lists of legendary super-founders (all male)
• the need to outwardly exude self-confidence and “grit”
• the compulsion to run blindfolded across a freeway

I’m a 3x founder/CXO and I’m having trouble seeing myself in any of these mirrors. But I think the overarching message — not just on the web but in much of the lore around entrepreneurship — is that we need to model ourselves in the image of the entrepreneurs that have come before us. And the reality is that most of those models are male.

Here’s a wonder I don’t know the answer to: There are hundreds of listicles about the 5, 11, 17 top traits of entrepreneurs. Many of them based on academic research regarding entrepreneurs. But if most of the super successful entrepreneurs have been men, doesn’t it follow that the data set is mostly men? And if that’s the case, then isn’t it possible that the traits identified as making them successful are likely to be ones we identify as masculine?  (If anyone has an answer or data on this, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.)

At the end of the day, I believe the media and possibly unintentionally biased-research have skewed the perception of what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.  I’ll be taking a deep dive into this in the coming months, and I’ll be sharing what I discover.