Entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting a business—it’s about finding a problem worth solving and mobilizing the resources to solve that problem. It’s about shaping the future around you. And if we want the future to be brighter for women and girls, we need women and girls to be the ones building it. The most accessible path to wealth creation in the United States is entrepreneurship, yet too many young women are socialized to believe it’s not for them. What a missed opportunity for them and all of us!

At Girl Gonna Launch, we’re on a mission to change these limiting and false beliefs.

Women have always been inventors, innovators, leaders, and changemakers. Women invented Kevlar, the life raft, the alarm system, the dishwasher, duct tape, the Murphy bed, frequency-hopping technology (that laid the groundwork for wifi, GPS, and Bluetooth), the first computer language, and I could go on and on...

For hundreds of years, women have designed products and services that have improved lives. And yet, we often find ourselves written out of the story of entrepreneurship. And here’s the truth: when women-led ventures get funded, they generate higher returns on that investment. Because women design solutions that address the needs of huge portion of the population, and we take on challenges that have been long ignored.

Yet, despite all this, women are still less likely to see themselves as entrepreneurs. Not because we lack the skills or the drive, but because we’ve been conditioned to think we won’t succeed. That needs to change.

Women can and do succeed as entrepreneurs. And we want girls to clearly see this path to success.

For nearly a decade, I’ve taught entrepreneurship at colleges and high schools in the midwest. I had the privilege of working with thousands of students from all 50 states and across the globe—from Asia to Africa to Latin America. These students weren’t just business majors; they came from backgrounds in art, creative writing, data science, psychology, and politics. And that diversity of thought made them exceptional entrepreneurs.

I have built an entrepreneurship curriculum with students and for students—one that emphasized active learning, resilience, human-centered design, and the art of persuasion. We didn’t just prepare students to start businesses; we prepared them to think like entrepreneurs no matter where their lives or their careers took them.

But over the years, I kept seeing the same pattern: young women hesitating to see themselves as founders. They’d tell me entrepreneurship was for men. That guys had a better shot at success. That the startup world wasn’t built for them. But that’s a lie.

Women can and do succeed as entrepreneurs. The problem isn’t ability—it’s visibility. If girls don’t see women leading companies, pitching to investors, securing funding, and launching ventures, they won’t see it as a viable or feasible option for themselves.

You have to believe you can do it in order to do it. And others have to believe in you, too.

That’s why I launched the Girl Gonna Foundation.

I knew I could use my experience to rewrite this story, writing girls back into the story of entrepreneurship. Around the world, women are seen as risk-averse, as fearful of failure, as less trustworthy leaders. They receive less funding from venture capitalists and angel investors—not because their ideas aren’t good, but because they don’t fit the outdated stereotype of what an entrepreneur looks like.

But here’s the thing: when female founders get funded, we all win. Consumers finally get products designed with them in mind. Problems that have been ignored get solved. The world becomes more innovative, more equitable, and more reflective of the people who live in it.

Research shows that women-led ventures not only outperform over time, but they’re also driven by purpose, creating real social and economic impact that prioritizes making life better for everyone

Let’s face it—if we want real solutions to the problems women and girls face right now, only we will need to make it happen. Period. No one else is going to step up for us the way we can. It was women who designed the bra because they understood the need. Women who invented the dishwasher because they knew the weight of the labor. Women who created the rape kit because they saw justice slipping through the cracks. And that’s exactly why we need more women entrepreneurs—because if we’re waiting for someone else to solve the problems that affect us and our children, we’ll be waiting forever.

The Girl Gonna Launch Foundation is committed to helping more girls see the value and potential in their BIG ideas and to develop their confidence to step up, take risks, advocate on behalf of themselves, and launch their BIG dreams. Because when women and girls succeed as entrepreneurs, the world changes for the better.

When more women and girls succeed as entrepreneurs, the world changes for the better.

I believe fiercely in the promise & potential of entrepreneurship. And I am energized by and motivated to expand entrepreneurship to all and for all so that everyone gets a fair shot at achieving the American Dream.

Girl Gonna illuminate the path forward…