‘I do think women are naturally more risk-averse than men’: Marissa Carter on female entrepreneurs

"I hope I don’t get murdered for saying this."

Marissa Carter doesn't look like someone who's afraid of taking a risk. She opened her own salon at the age of 21 and has gone on to create a beauty empire with household brands Cocoa Brown and Carter Beauty; making a career out of jumping in at the deep end. But Marissa has revealed that she believes female entrepreneurs can be more cautious than their male counterparts. "I do think that women - and I hope I don’t get murdered for saying this - but I do think that women are naturally more risk-averse than men when it comes to financial risk," she told All In, the new business show from JOE.

"Because I think we want to protect our family, we want to feel safe, and I think now more than ever we want to be more financially independent; taking financial risks is something that I think as a female entrepreneur I certainly have to push myself a little bit to do. "I’ll take more risks in every other way with the business but the financial risks, I hold back a little bit."

Speaking about her work as a mentor for other women in business, she added: "One of the first things that I sit down and talk about with the group of eight or nine other women that are there, is taking a risk and what that looks like for you financially." She herself took a big risk, she explained, with the launch of Carter Beauty in 2018.

"The week it launched we had just under half a million units of product come in from the manufacturer in a week. "Both [my husband and I] sat back and went eesh, I hope this works! "You do obviously have to take measured risks but you still just have to keep taking risks if you want your business to grow."

Marissa features on this week's episode of All In, the new business how hosted by Yvonne Redmond. The other guests are Mark Little and Niall McGarry, the founder of Maximum Media which operates Her and JOE. Subscribe for free to hear the full interview here. https://youtu.be/AWN7T-j6x84 All In, backed by AIB, is available everywhere you get your podcasts and on YouTube every Wednesday.