For Women Entrepreneurs
Resources for women entrepreneurs building on their own terms.
Most resources written for women entrepreneurs assume you want to lean in, soften your ask, or perform calm in a room that has already decided your number. These resources do not. They are written for women who plan to build serious companies and would like the actual numbers, frameworks, and receipts to do it.
Kathryn Finney has spent the last fifteen years inside the rooms women entrepreneurs are usually shut out of. She is a Managing General Partner at Genius Guild, the founder of digitalundivided, and the author of Build the Damn Thing, the bestselling playbook for founders who were never handed the rules. The page below is the working set of resources she points women entrepreneurs to first.
Start with the playbook
Build the Damn Thing is the book she wishes had existed when she was raising her first round. It covers pricing, positioning, fundraising, and the parts most founder books skip, like negotiating with people who do not believe your industry exists. Get the book, or read the first chapter free.
Read The Receipts
The fastest way to get inside Kathryn's brain is to read The Receipts, her every-other-week newsletter for women founders. Each issue runs the actual numbers behind a single founder question, the same way she briefs her own portfolio companies. Funding math, pricing math, ops math. No fluff. Free to subscribe.
Free tools and frameworks
The free entrepreneurship tools page has the worksheets and calculators women entrepreneurs ask Kathryn for most often:
- The Five Entrepreneurial Prototypes quiz, so you know whether you are a Forced Founder, Co-Builder, Solopreneur, Intrapreneur, or Freedom Founder before you choose a path.
- A pricing worksheet for service businesses that finally tells the truth about margin.
- A fundraising prep checklist, including the questions investors will actually ask.
- An equity split tool for co-founders who want to talk about it once and never again.
Articles in this series
How to start a business as a woman: a 90-day playbook from idea to first paid customer
A practical, 90-day plan for women starting a business: validate the idea, ship a paid version, and reach the first ten customers without burning out.
May 8, 2026
Best businesses for women to start in 2026
A working list of the best businesses for women to start in 2026, picked for high margins, low overhead, and fit with a real life.
May 8, 2026
AI tools for women entrepreneurs: a small stack that runs marketing, ops, and customer support
The AI stack for women entrepreneurs running lean: tools for marketing, ops, content, customer support, and analytics. Tested, current, and budget-aware.
May 8, 2026
Funding challenges women founders face, and what to do about them
What the data says about the funding gap for women founders and Black women founders, plus the capital strategies that actually work outside venture.
May 8, 2026
Starting a business after 40: why a second act outperforms a first try
Why founders over 40 build more durable businesses, and the practical playbook for starting a second-act business with experience, capital, and clarity.
May 8, 2026
Building a business without venture capital: the bootstrap, customer-funded, and grant-stacking playbook
The realistic playbook for building a business without venture capital, from a founder who has funded businesses with customer revenue, grants, and small checks.
May 8, 2026
Business ideas for women in 2026: how to find one that actually fits your life
How to find business ideas for women that survive a slow month, fit your real life, and produce paying customers inside 60 days. From Kathryn Finney.
May 19, 2026
Best businesses to start in 2026: 10 categories where the math works right now
The best businesses to start in 2026, picked for margin, demand, and fit with the current macro environment. From Kathryn Finney.
May 19, 2026
Women founder advice in 2026, from someone who has been in the rooms
Advice for women founders in 2026 on capital, credibility, distribution, and the mental game, from Kathryn Finney.
May 19, 2026
Side hustles for women in 2026: 10 that pay back the time you spend on them
A working list of side hustles for women in 2026, picked for real margin, low overhead, and the option to scale into a full business when you are ready.
May 19, 2026
Bring her into your room
Kathryn keynotes accelerators, founder programs, and corporate stages on women in entrepreneurship, capital access, and how to build a company in conditions that were not designed for you. She also runs working sessions for cohorts of women founders. Inquire about speaking.
About Kathryn
Yale-trained, Chicago-raised, currently writing from her desk and a thousand airports. Read the full bio.
Build the Damn Thing · Sprint
Stop researching. Start building.
BUILD is the six-week sprint for women entrepreneurs who are tired of programs that end in a pitch deck and nothing else. You leave with a working revenue model, a real plan, and a small group of women who will hold you to it.
Updated May 2026. Resources for women entrepreneurs, women entrepreneur tools, and the playbook from Kathryn Finney.