We talk a lot about the funding gap for female founders; and there is good reason to.

Recent UK data from the British Business Bank shows that all-female founder teams received just 1.9% of total equity investment in 2024, despite accounting for around 7% of equity deals. Meanwhile, recent research from Piper found that many female founders are still relying on their own money, bank finance or mortgages to fund their businesses.

But it got me thinking about a slightly different question. Does every ambitious business need external investment to grow or r have we become so used to measuring entrepreneurial success through investment, funding rounds and rapid expansion that we sometimes overlook another perfectly valid route to growth? One that I know very well.

Personally Financing my First Business

When I co-founded Railbookers, we invested our own money into the business. We started in a small office. There was no big team, no large marketing budget and certainly no department for everything we needed to do. We did it ourselves.

We were involved in the sales, the customer service, the operations and all the other jobs that come with getting a new business off the ground and initially, that was exactly what we needed.

☑️We needed to find out whether customers actually wanted what we were offering.

☑️We needed to get some traction.

☑️We needed to generate revenue.

And then we could reinvest that money into the next stage of the business.

It was a very different kind of growth to the model we often see celebrated today. There was no pressure to grow at all costs. Instead, we were constantly asking: What do we need to do next to move the business forward?

Growth Teaches You What You Need

One of the things I learned from building Railbookers is that you don't necessarily need to build the whole business on day one. In fact, you can't. You build what you need when you need it.

At the beginning, doing everything yourself can be frustrating, exhausting and sometimes chaotic; but it also gives you an incredible understanding of your customers and your business.

☑️You discover what works.

☑️You discover what doesn't.

☑️You learn where the bottlenecks are.

☑️And, perhaps most importantly, you start to understand what you actually need to invest in.

As the business gained traction, our decisions changed.

☑️We could bring people in.

☑️We could develop the infrastructure.

☑️We could invest in the things that would help us grow.

The business itself was generating the evidence for our next decision.

So what does this have to do with female founders?

Quite a lot, I think. There is a genuine issue around women's access to capital. That's important but I don't think the answer is simply that “we need to get more women funded.” because funding isn't the only way to build a successful business. And, for some founders, taking external investment may not even be the right choice.

What if we asked a different question? Instead of asking: “How much investment can this business attract?” Perhaps we should sometimes be asking: “What type of growth is right for this business?” Those are very different questions.

External investment can be absolutely the right route for some businesses. If you are developing new technology, building a product that requires significant upfront investment or trying to expand rapidly into international markets, external capital can make a huge difference. But for other businesses, particularly many service-based businesses, growth can look very different.

It might mean:

👍winning the next customer

👍increasing profitability

👍developing repeat business

👍recruiting your first member of staff

👍building better systems

👍investing in technology

👍creating a strong team

👍reinvesting profits

👍gradually moving the founder out of the day-to-day

None of those things are particularly glamorous.

But they are how many successful businesses are actually built. Perhaps we need to rethink what “high growth” means. I think there is a danger in assuming that ambition always has to look like rapid expansion. More funding, more people, more offices, more markets. more revenue. More, more, more.

But what if the founder wants to build a highly profitable £1m business with a great team, excellent customers and the freedom to have a life outside work? Is that less ambitious? I don't think so. And equally, if a woman wants to build a £50m business and raise significant investment to achieve it, she shouldn't be made to feel that a more modest or self-funded approach is somehow more virtuous.

The point is choice.

The Lesson I See with Founders Today

This is something I see regularly when I work with founders. Sometimes the business doesn't need more money. It needs more clarity. The founder may be thinking about hiring another person, investing in marketing, launching a new service or moving into a new market. But before spending the money, we need to step back and ask:

What is actually stopping the business growing? Is it....

😞A lack of customers?

😞A lack of capacity?

😞Poor systems?

😞The founder doing too much?

😞A weak proposition?

😞A team that isn't yet ready to take more responsibility?

😞Or simply a lack of strategic focus?

Throwing money at the wrong problem rarely fixes it. Sometimes the b👉👉👉st investment a founder can make is understanding the business properly before deciding what to invest in next.

Building a Business Your Way

This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in the idea of Build Your Business Your Way. There isn't one correct way to become a successful founder. There isn't one correct funding model. There isn't one definition of ambition. And there certainly isn't one leadership style that every woman needs to adopt.

When I look back at Railbookers, I don't remember thinking about how much investment we could raise. I remember thinking about

👉How we could get the next customer.

👉How we could deliver brilliantly for them.

👉How we could make the next hire.

👉How we could improve what we were doing.

👉And how we could reinvest what we earned to keep growing.

Eventually, that small office became a business with a team of 25 and £8m in turnover. But it started with two founders, our own money, a small office and a willingness to do whatever needed doing. That experience taught me something I still believe today:

Growth doesn't have to start with investment. Sometimes it starts with an idea, a customer and the determination to make it work. And perhaps the conversation around female founders needs to move beyond: “How do we get more women funded?” And towards a bigger question: “How do we give women the knowledge, confidence and freedom to choose the right way to build the businesses they want?”

About the Author

Sarah is a business founder, MBA graduate and coach who has built and scaled businesses to over £8 million in revenue with teams of up to 25.. She now helps ambitious founders gain clarity, build motivated teams and create businesses that support the life they want to lead.

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☑️Recruit the right people first time so they fit with your core business values.

☑️Motivate your team and communicate effectively so they consistently deliver beyond expectations

☑️Step back from the day job and replace yourself with your team.