Success often breeds success–but triumphs also arise out of necessity. In a year that proved difficult in myriad ways, see how this year’s top female founders kept it together not only to endure but to thrive.
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Female Founders 200
They're pushing boundaries, paving their own paths and besting the competition. Meet our largest list of Female Founders yet.
There's no bad reason to start a company, but there are truly beautiful ones to keep going. Don't call Esther Wallace a female athlete. The 32-year-old former Division I college basketball player built her business on crossing out that gender modifier -- literally. In 2017, while working as the …
Being an entrepreneur can be a lonely, back-breaking business, but it shouldn't be. See how these founders find the fuel to keep thriving. When you're Eva Longoria, a lot of companies approach you asking to slap your name on a clothing brand -- and on bottles of tequila. Evaluating ventures through …
The longtime storyteller is working to widen her lens, moving beyond Hollywood in the process. Lena Waithe is a natural-born storyteller. She's known as much since she was a child, when she passed the time like most kids: in front of the TV. For her, that meant hour upon hour watching reruns of A …
They're among the rare female founders to land funding. See how they did it. Despite the noteworthy drop in capital invested in women-led startups in 2022, Ariane Goldman didn't manage to just snag a $10 million growth funding round for her New York City-based maternity clothes brand, Hatch. She …
How these women entrepreneurs grew their companies with empathy, compassion, and careful leadership no matter the challenge. Sahra Nguyen couldn't understand two things about robusta coffee: why it got such a bad rep, and why it was so difficult to find in the cafés she visited in Brooklyn. Nguyen, …
Their clean beauty business, Le Prunier, grew nearly 2,000 percent in the past two years, after the Taylor sisters figured out a lucrative use for their family farm's biggest byproduct: prune pits. Growing up just four miles from the Sutter County, California, farm their great-grandfather …
These founders know firsthand what it's like to overcome. They've overcome funding obstacles, hiring hurdles, and failure--and still they get up. The vision for a kinder, gentler sports betting media and education brand came to Jaymee Messler as she watched sporting events broadcast from empty …
For some it was appearing on Shark Tank, and for others it was realizing the business they should be in. Either way, growth comes to those who don't wait to their harness potential. Growing up in China, Alicia Long drank homemade plant-based milk. When she moved to the U.S. in 2008 for college, she …
Meet the cover stars of Inc.'s 2023 Female Founders 200 issue.
