Happy Tuesday, Reader!

When I read Dr. Elizabeth Comen’s All in Her Head last year, I was outraged, frustrated, and saddened. The book documents how women's bodies and experiences have been systematically mishandled by medicine and academia. But what surprised me most was how shockingly little progress has been made even in recent decades, despite constant headlines about breakthroughs in women's health.

It hit close to home because I'd been seeing the same pattern play out in my own sphere of influence: women in business.

The data on women-owned businesses is just as frustrating as the data on women's health.

When I started digging into the research on women founders, I found the same troubling gap: almost no rigorous, well-documented historical data, and surprisingly few modern studies, even as headlines celebrate a surge in female entrepreneurship.

What research does exist tends to look at the wrong companies. Most studies focus on the handful of venture-backed businesses with a primary female owner, or lump together any company where a woman holds at least a 50% stake with businesses that are 100% women-owned. Those are very different things.

And then there's the number no one is talking about.

Nearly 90% of companies started by women in the U.S. are solo operations. We have almost no rigorous research on why, what's keeping those founders from building teams, or what the early critical steps look like for the women who do scale.

What we do have are anecdotes. Friends, colleagues, clients — a small sample size that's more personal narrative than science. And as much as I value those stories, they're not enough to create the systemic, long-term change this issue deserves.

Introducing The 6% Project

Only 6% of 100% women-owned businesses in the U.S. gross more than $250,000 per year.

I crossed that threshold with Realign Consulting, but it took ten years. Why? Because there was no blueprint. No systems designed for companies like mine, built by founders who look like me and share my priorities.

In the eight years since, we've helped clients do it and walked alongside friends and colleagues as they've done it too. But our sample size is still small, and we don't work primarily with companies at that stage today.

Anecdotes are not enough. We need the pattern sets that only come from good data. That's why this research matters.

So, when I couldn't find anyone else to do this research, I decided we'd take it on ourselves.

At Realign Consulting, we want to provide a framework (because a total blueprint does not exist) for what it really takes to break the $250K glass ceiling as a 100% woman-owned company. We’re launching a formal research study called The 6% Project in Fall 2026.

We're looking for the commonalities, patterns, and practices behind sustainable 6-figure-plus businesses that meet this criteria:

• 100% owned by a woman or a group of women.
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• No venture backing (growth driven by revenue, not investor capital).
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• Sustained $250K gross for at least three consecutive years.

If you're a woman founder who meets these criteria (or if you're working toward it), we want your story in this study. Please share it in the form below!

More details on the project will be coming in the weeks ahead. For now, save your seat.

Until next time,

Renia C.

P.S. - Not at $250K yet? We're building something specifically for women on that journey called The $250K Club. Let me know about your interest here. In the meantime, if you know a founder who has crossed that threshold, forward this their way. The research gets stronger with every voice we add.

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