If you’re an entrepreneur seeking funding, it pays to be male and attractive, according to a newly released study.
The investigative paper Investors Prefer Entrepreneurial Ventures Pitched by Attractive Men, written by scholars at Wharton School, Harvard and MIT, established the gender and charisma of entrepreneurs have a noteworthy effect on whether their commercial ventures will receive financial support.
In more than a few experiments, the scholars established a “profound and persistent preference [by potential investors] for entrepreneurial ventures pitched by men, particularly attractive men.”
In the primary research set in a capitalist pitch competition, male businesspeople were 60 per cent more likely to attain pitch accomplishment when compared with their female counterparts. Among the male entrepreneurs, being exceptionally smart further increased the opportunities of accomplishment by 36 per cent, while no such result was shown for the female entrepreneurs.
In the subsequent research, participants heard pitches recounted by either a female or male businessperson and made a decision whether they would commit their funds in the venture. The male pitch was tremendously more likely to be given financial support over the female narration: 70 per cent opposed to 30 per cent.
The clincher was that both the female and male pitches were indistinguishable.
At the end of the day, when participating parties heard a pitch paired with the photograph of a good-looking male founder, they were much more expected to invest than when they were shown a not-so-charismatic founder. Additionally, charisma had little persuasion for female businesspeople.
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