Are you tired of bro marketing, manipulative algorithms, and sales funnels that encourage you to ‘trip’ a prospect to make her buy more? Then you’re in the right place.
On Small Stage, Big Impact veteran digital strategist, Renia Carsillo, combines solo teaching episodes with interviews to help you learn how to build a sustainable, people-first digital strategy that works for your business. Along the way, she speaks to digital activists, upstart developers, badass content creators, brave community leaders, and other behind-the-scenes folx you probably haven’t heard on a podcast before. To help you answer one important question:
How do we do better digital (#DoBetterDigital) so we can be better humans?
The media spent the summer calling the surge in solo businesses a ‘fake business boom.’ I dug into the data and found something else: just under half of new businesses are started by women, in a dataset that doesn’t even track gender. Most small business research is built to leave women-owned companies out entirely, and I talk about why that matters. In today’s episode, I also share my own path, from solo owner to a 10-person team.
The media says the small business boom is fake. What if nobody bothered to study the women behind it?
Scott Galloway and his Prof G Markets co-host, Ed Elson, spent weeks calling this year’s surge in micro and solo businesses “the fake business boom.” Most of the media picked up some version of that story.
I wanted to jump on the bandwagon. I know what it is to be the one who signs the checks. But when I started digging into the available data, I saw something different.
In today’s episode, I’m walking through why “fake” is the wrong word for as many as half of these new businesses, and why the data we’re using to judge them can’t even see who’s behind them.
A business with real revenue and real customers isn’t a fake business.
A record 3.23 million business applications came in during the first half of 2026. Only about 5.7% of them are projected to become payroll businesses within four quarters. But survey data suggests just under half of new businesses are started by women. Almost none of the female-owned companies I’ve worked with start out believing they’ll ever hire anyone.
I ran a solo business for seven years before I hired my first employee. It took twelve years before we made the leap to a 7-figure company, and a $7,700 PPP loan-turned-grant is what finally made that possible.
The lesson here? Unfunded businesses convert to employer firms on unfunded timelines.
Smart founders keep the day job on purpose.
The data also shows us that women-founded businesses almost never get access to outside funding. When you’re part of that demographic, keeping a day job while you build is pragmatism, not hesitation. The idea that serious entrepreneurs risk it all for their business is a B.S. masculine story that creates more failures than wins. I ruined myself financially for over a decade because I bought into it.
We were never in the sample.
All-women founding teams received just 1% of U.S.-only venture capital in 2024 and 2025. But most small business research is built on the data that’s easiest to reach: bank customers, VC portfolios, payroll software users, and loan applicants. Every one of those sample choices comes with a filtering frame that leaves women out.
The Census Business Formation Statistics is the exact dataset the whole “fake boom” verdict rests on, and it has no gender variable at all. We are debating a boom in real time using the one measure that’s structurally blind to who’s behind it.
Ready to dig into the data? Listen to episode 63 now!
What we Cover
- Why I think “underfunded” is a more accurate word than “fake” for many of this year’s non-employer startups.
- How a $7,700 PPP loan-turned-grant changed the trajectory of a twelve-year-old company, and why it took us 28 quarters to hire instead of the four to eight the Census expects.
- Why keeping your day job while you build is pragmatism, and why the “risk it all” story hurts more founders than it helps.
- The venture capital, credit, and personal-exposure gaps women founders are building under.
- Why the JPMorganChase Institute study critics will cite can’t see the women-owned micro-businesses I’m describing.
- How five of the most-cited small business data sources miss 100% women-owned companies.
- Why I’m asking you to join The 6% Project, and to point me toward any research on 100% women-owned businesses I might have missed.
Episode Recap
- [00:00] Introduction: The media says the small business boom is fake, but what if nobody studied the women founders behind it?
- [00:52] The “fake business boom” story, and why the data made me see something different.
- [03:13] Why the Census should break its numbers out by gender, and my 12-year path to outside funding.
- [05:29] Underfunded, not fake: 28 quarters to hire our first employee, and what $7,700 changed.
- [07:55] Smart founders keep the day job on purpose, and why the “risk it all” story creates more failures than wins.
- [10:18] Same drive with different conditions, and the funding gap behind the numbers.
- [12:40] Personal financial exposure, the support cliff, and the JPMorganChase Institute study critics will cite.
- [14:59] How that study’s sample, necessity proxy, and survivorship bias exclude women-owned micro-businesses.
- [17:22] No gender variable in the Census Business Formation Statistics, and five methodologies that miss the same woman.
- [19:42] Why banks, payroll companies, and government research miss us, the real story behind the summer’s reports, and The 6% Project.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
- Half of America’s New Business Founders Are Women. The Data Can’t Even See Them. (original Substack article)
- The 6% Project
- The fake business boom (Prof G Media)
- Gusto Insights: Women’s entrepreneurship 2025
- JPMorganChase Institute: When Opportunity Knocks
- U.S. Census Business Formation Statistics: About the data
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