Women entrepreneurs on the rise in China

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Nie Weiwei is a celebrity in the circle of new mothers. She is founder of the post-natal care online service company Nainiumama, a name that translates to this: the mother who gives you milk.

And that is the core service of her start-up back when she started it at the end of 2014. She wanted to give new mothers what she wanted to find in the first few months after giving birth to her second child (her 4-year-old son), good post-natal care – properly done in the age of the Internet.

Nainiumama group /Photo provided by Nie

A veteran in China’s fast-growing IT industry, she said she had the “logic of the Internet ” many shared in the industry: connect the dots and put up your own business. Do not miss a chance.

The idea of Nainiumama was a success. It put her onto the national stage, at a CCTV show. She then won her first few rounds of investment – which counted in the millions of yuan.

Nie Weiwei on CCTV start-up show /Photo provided by Nie

It was the first time she started a business, and Nie said she figured her success with the investors had something to do with her being a woman and a mother.

She told CGTN that, “My investors picked me BECAUSE I'm a mother. They believe I will be responsible, and ALL-IN to the cause. Moreover, I’m highly educated and ticked all the boxes of skills they look for. “

There is a growing number of women entrepreneurs just like her. And women in business are seeing their star rise, very fast.

Hurun Research Institute has reported in a 2017 list that of the richest women in China, 68 percent have started their businesses from scratch.

And in 2017, the country's richest female entrepreneurs saw their average wealth jump nearly 50 percent .

Zhou Qunfei of Lens Technolgy is the No.1 self-made woman not only in China, but also in the world. Zhou is estimated to have 70 billion yuan, or 10.61 billion US dollars in wealth. Industry surveys also found that in China the percentage of women in management and high positions, especially in tech companies, is higher than that of the US.

Nie agrees to the finding, and told CGTN that, “I'm definitely seeing more women entrepreneurs these days. We have many groups that bond us together and help us through the process. There're venture capitalists that now pay special attention to start-ups by women.” But she also said there hasn’t been enough women in such positions, and there is still a long way to go.

In an age when women are aiming higher than ever before, Nie is now moving on to her next step: a full service chain that caters to new mothers and babies' needs.

She said, “There is no going back. Once you've been in the founder or management role, you just can't go back to doing single task jobs or being a mother at home.”

Even when her business hit speed bumps on the way, giving up and returning home was never a real option.

She hasn’t taken a holiday in the last four years and says she probably wouldn’t find time in the years to come. But that’s the price a woman in business like her, is willing to pay.