Harnessing Mentorship to Scale Women-Owned Businesses

Radhika Mahadevan is the founder and CEO Bengaluru-based company Birdsong. She received mentorship at the WeScale program. (Photograph courtesy Radhika Mahadevan)

Thousands of women entrepreneurs work tirelessly to create new businesses. But research shows that women entrepreneurs are more likely to face barriers, as compared to their male counterparts, and have a harder time accessing financing, market information, advanced technical skills and crucial business networks.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) supports tech-focused women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses, raise external funding and build networks through its WeScale program.

WeScale, a part of USAID’s South Asia Regional Digital Initiative (SARDI), offers women entrepreneurs 12 weeks of high-level training and support through online and in-person sessions. In 2023, these sessions connected 100 women from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka with experienced business founders and experts who provided training and mentorship on essential business skills like marketing and branding, pitching, government policies, and cybersecurity. The participants represented new businesses in a wide variety of fields, including climate and sustainability, arts and handicrafts, global supply chain, and health and wellness. USAID partners with India Accelerator, a seed stage support organization, to implement the program in India, and Accelerating Asia to operate the program regionally.

Deeksha Bhartiya, founder of Genomiki Solutions, says she learnt more about fundraising during the WeScale program. (Photograph courtesy Deeksha Bhartiya)

Building networks

WeScale participants say the program has helped create connections with investors, potential clients, fellow entrepreneurs and mentors.

“If you speak to any founder, they’ll tell you how lonely the journey [of entrepreneurship] is,” says Radhika Mahadevan, founder and CEO of Birdsong, a Bengaluru-based health and wellness company that produces sustainable ayurvedic oral care, skin care and pain relief products. She says the program offered her a platform to exchange experiences with fellow small business founders, and access mentorship and support. “They really welcomed us,” shares Mahadevan. “I met with an official of one of the biggest Indian oral care companies. Normally he would have been my competitor, but there, he was my mentor.”

Deeksha Bhartiya, founder and director of Noida-based Genomiki Solutions, says the mentors at the program helped participants learn the art of fundraising. “The mentors, typically company founders, walked us through how to talk to investors,” says Bhartiya. “We may have silly questions about business; but they were very happy to help us.” She adds that many mentors stayed in touch long after the program ended.

Bhartiya, a Ph.D. in bioinformatics, says such support was especially helpful as she had no experience running a business. “A few months earlier, I was working as a scientist.” she says.

Bhartiya and Mahadevan met at WeScale and have stayed in touch. “Radhika and I come from completely different businesses,” says Bhartiya, “but we are each going through the same struggle and the same journey.”

Wider reach and scale

Program manager Gunika Grover of India Accelerator says they wanted WeScale to reach promising women entrepreneurs who were at the early stages of developing their businesses and needed mentorship. “We wanted to keep the focus on those who could not reach venture capitalists easily, who had a new business and who were outside of the big cities,” says Grover.

At the end of the 12-week basic program, 20 participants joined a four-week intensive program WeScale+, which offered additional mentorship, coaching and networking opportunities.

Through consistency, support, mentorship and partnerships, WeScale has given several women entrepreneurs the resources to grow their businesses regionally and internationally.

Burton Bollag is a freelance journalist living in Washington, D.C.

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