While many Indian women have entrepreneurial ambitions, it is often more difficult for them to succeed. Achieving this visionary but realistic goal requires understanding the barriers facing the various types of women entrepreneurs across the landscape in India. Today India has 13.5–15.7 million women-owned enterprises, representing 20% of all enterprises. While large in absolute numbers, these businesses are overwhelmingly single-person enterprises, which provide direct employment for an estimated 22 to 27 million people.

Aparna Mishra, Founder, Women Shine and Cafebiz Women Entrepreneurs Hub (CWEHUB) is a Business Coach for Small Businesses, Micro Entrepreneurs, Women Entrepreneurs, and Startups in Sales, Strategy, and Marketing & Operations Domains while also being a POSH Enabler, impaneled with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, GOI.

Women Shine is an e-magazine that salutes all women across the globe for the amazing work they are doing in their respective fields.

Cafebiz Women Entrepreneurs Hub (CWEHUB) is a Community of Women by Women. This community works with Women who want to start their businesses or already running their businesses and seek some support so whether you are working from home, Founder, self-employed, or co-founder or mompreneur you can join this community. In today’s time, the Woman who wants to start her own business or already running their businesses faces many problems. These problems can be of Sales, Marketing, Funds, Staff, digital, website, taxation, Registrations, etc. CWEHUB will be addressing all these problems and helping them to sustain their ventures. 

About Cafebiz Women Entrepreneurs Hub (CWEHUB) 

Aparna explains what Cafebiz Women Entrepreneurs Hub (CWEHUB) does, “CWEHUB was launched 2 years back. Primarily it was focused only on the women of Uttar Pradesh but now it is spreading to other states as well. In startups, the things that are lacking are women who do not know how to go about doing things; they are unorganized, not registered, or unaware of the jargon used. So I built up this community to make them aware of these things as they are involved in their businesses but they do not know how to market their product. The purpose of creating this community that will be like hand-holding with them. There are women around who are CEOs, Doctors, Lawyers, CAs, homemakers, IT professionals, etc, so it is like a buyer and seller community together so everyone is getting benefit out of each other,” she says. 

On wearing many caps

Aparna talks on which role she has enjoyed the most, “All the roles were not done together so I had breathing time. The POSH Enabler certificate was something that I got during this lockdown since it was the best time to observe and learn so many things. I got a few other certifications done and I also launched my magazine during this time. I am into entrepreneurship for the past 11 years and initially, I had mentored the startups for 2 years so I enjoy consulting startups and mentoring them as my core domain is sales and marketing in operations and these are the areas that are really weak in businesses in terms of how to market your product, how to get customers, organize manpower, etc. So these are the things that lack and I thought of focusing on these core domains and help,” she says. 

The focus is to create more startups for employment

Aparna throws light on the subject of being a mentor with NEN, Startup India, and having mentored Startups from Mumbai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad at The Economic Times, Catapooolt Changemaker Crowdfunding event, “Compared to 2 years back, the situation has changed tremendously as compared to now. People are becoming more active; students are moving into startup roles and not looking out for jobs as in the previous decades where nobody thought of starting something of their own. Plus thanks to the government of various states and policies which are supporting startups, even colleges are focusing on getting incubators so that is helping. There is an ocean of mentors, pitching events in various sectors, etc who are encouraging and helping startups. Now the focus is to create more startups, livelihood,s, and employment so that is the main idea behind it. The other day I did an online session with a university and these ladies were still studying but they wanted to know how to get their startups jumpstarted, so they are coming up with ideas,” she says.

Launching a Global E-magazine - Women Shine (www.womenshine.in)

Aparna explains her experience of launching a Global, E-magazine - Women Shine, “This pandemic has been a blessing to some and a curse to many. I launched the e-magazine - Women Shine during this pandemic though it was on my list for the past 2 years. There are so many problems you happen to face which you had not perceived before but I am enjoying it, getting solutions to hiccups, and sailing through it. Now it is just 5 editions old and the revenue model is a little different. But we are getting good traction and we have crossed 3000 subscribers and it is gaining speed due to the amazing content and write-ups. It is not only an entertainment magazine, some of the articles are inspirational, some are educational, some are informative, some about travel journeys, about relationships, health, and many more, so it is a mixed bag of everything. And I am trying to do justice with this. While I was launching the e-magazine, I thought of doing it at a global level, since there are so many Indians living abroad and many people on my friend list are doing well in their field. That is how it became a global magazine and maybe in the long run it will do great,” she says.

(Edited by Rabia Mistry Mulla)