What I've Learnt Watching Women Build Businesses From Scratch

Every year, I facilitate at the Women Entrepreneurs Network Business Retreat at King's College London, an event I've been involved with twice now. I've also been part of Birkbeck's Pioneer Programme for seven years. Both bring together founders at every stage of their journey to learn, connect, and build.

I always leave with the exact same thought: the ideas coming out of those rooms are extraordinary. Not extraordinary in a polished, pitch-deck way, but because they solve real problems, often ones the founders have lived through themselves.

I've watched a woman turn her own experience with postnatal isolation into a vibrant peer support platform. Lydia, on the Pioneer Programme, built support and community for amputees, drawn directly from her own experience supporting a family member's recovery; that has stayed with me ever since. I've also sat with founders in their first six months, with an MVP barely built, who are already thinking with complete clarity about who they serve and why.

What strikes me isn't a lack of ambition or capability; it's what's missing around them.

I set up Wildflowers of London a decade ago after feeling that gap myself. I was senior in my career, surrounded by colleagues, and still isolated. There was nowhere to be honest about the parts of building a career that don't show up on LinkedIn.

Wildflowers has grown into a collective of over 900 professional women. More recently, I established Wild for Purpose, my coaching practice, for the exact same reason. Watching brilliant women hold themselves back, not from a lack of ability but from a lack of space to think clearly, is what led me there.

Access to capital remains starkly uneven. Only around 2% of UK venture capital goes to fully female-founded businesses, a figure that has barely moved in a decade. Yet, the Alison Rose Review estimated that closing this gap could add up to £250 billion to the UK economy.

There is movement, even if it's slow. Signatories to the Investing in Women Code directed 32% of their venture capital deals to teams with a female founder in 2025, above the wider market. Women like Debbie Wosskow, who co-chairs the Invest in Women Taskforce, and Agata Nowicka, founder of Female Foundry, are pushing to shift that number further.

Networks matter too, and not just the informal kind. Many women are building without a network that hands them an introduction, a customer, or a co-founder over a drink after work. That's exactly why showing up matters: at retreats, in coaching rooms, and at events like The Business Show London. A room full of founders and decision-makers in person still accomplishes something a LinkedIn message simply can't. That is part of why these spaces are so vital; not because they hand out funding, but because they bring people together, allowing founders to borrow confidence and contacts from one another.

A few things I've watched work, again and again.

Proximity to other founders. Hearing someone else describe the exact problem you're stuck on is worth more than most advice you'll pay for.

Permission to start messy. The founders who get furthest rarely have the most polished plan on day one. They start before they feel ready and adjust as they go.

Practical, unglamorous support. Help with a pricing model, an introduction to an accountant who understands small business cash flow, or a second pair of eyes on a pitch before it goes to an investor. None of this is glamorous, but all of it moves the needle.

The businesses coming out of these communities aren't just a side story in the UK economy; they represent a massive opportunity that remains largely untapped.

If you're building a business right now, my advice is simple: find your room and show up in person whenever you can. Growth rarely happens in isolation, no matter how capable you are.

And if you're ever in a position to open a door for someone else, take it. I've seen firsthand just how far that can go.

About Lou

Lou Nylander is a fractional CMO and founder of Wildflowers of London, a 900+ member professional women's collective. Find her at lounylander.com and wildflowersldn.com.