Imagine you’re an entrepreneur, heart racing, about to hit “launch” on your biggest idea yet. That familiar knot in your stomach shows up. What if it flops? What if I’m not good enough? What if no one believes in me?
Every founder knows those whispers of fear. But fear of failure is not experienced in a vacuum. It is shaped by the environments founders move through and by how others read, judge, and support them.
That is why Bryan Darden, Franz Kellermanns, and Emma Best focus specifically on transgender and non-binary entrepreneurs, a group still understudied in entrepreneurship research. Their question is not just whether entrepreneurs fear failure, but whether those fears sound different when gender identity meets unequal social realities. Do transgender entrepreneurs hear these fears at the same volume as cisgender entrepreneurs?
The six flavours of fear
Researchers Bryan Darden, Franz Kellermanns, and Emma Best focused on six important dimensions of fear that shape how entrepreneurs experience the journey of starting a business. These fears are not imaginary; in practice, they can sound like very concrete questions:
- Fear of Funding: Will anyone actually give me the money to make this real?
- Personal Ability: Do I even have the skills to pull this project off?
- Potential Idea: Is my idea really any good? Will people actually want it?
- Financial Security: What if I lose the financial safety net I already have?
- Threat to Self-Esteem: What will everyone think of me if my venture fails?
- Opportunity Costs: Am I wasting my time and energy on something that might never pay off?
Every founder hears some version of these voices. Focusing on such fears, researchers wanted to know something simple but powerful. “Do transgender entrepreneurs hear these voices at the same volume as cisgender entrepreneurs?”
What the study actually found
To discover the answer, they gathered experiences from active entrepreneurs across many different countries, some who identified as transgender or non-binary and others as cisgender. Each participant responded to the same detailed questions about those six fears.
Transgender entrepreneurs reported noticeably higher fear in three specific areas: getting funding, trusting their own personal ability, and believing in the potential of their idea. The differences were clear and statistically strong.
However, both groups had similar levels of fear of financial security, social esteem, and opportunity costs. No meaningful difference emerged there. So while some fears weighed heavier for transgender founders, others were shared equally.
That naturally leads to the next question. Why these three and why should the rest of the entrepreneurial ecosystem care?
Why the difference exists—and why it matters
To interpret the pattern, the authors turned to Social Dominance Theory.
In simple terms, this theory suggests that societies tend to form invisible hierarchies. Some groups face additional barriers and biases simply because of who they are. For many transgender individuals, this can appear in workplaces, lending decisions, and everyday judgments.
When those broader social experiences intersect with entrepreneurship, certain fears may intensify.
Funding conversations can feel harder in environments where gender biases in investing already exist. Repeated societal questioning can amplify the “Do I have what it takes?” voice. And knowing that an idea may face extra scrutiny can increase doubts about whether it will truly succeed.
At the same time, many transgender entrepreneurs enter entrepreneurship as a response to constrained employment environments and workplace exclusion. That motivation may help explain why fears about losing existing financial security, social judgment, or opportunity costs did not differ significantly. In those areas, the fears looked much like everyone else’s.
This is where the “so what?” becomes important. If these fears are shaped by hierarchies and biases, then the answer cannot simply be to tell founders to be more confident. The ecosystem around them also has to change how it evaluates, supports, and responds to different founders.
For transgender entrepreneurs, the findings offer something quietly powerful: recognition. Those heavier worries around funding, ability, and idea potential are not personal weakness. They are grounded in measurable patterns and linked to broader social realities.
For investors, mentors, accelerators, and incubators, the takeaway is practical. Clearer communication, transparent evaluation processes, and inclusive feedback can directly ease the specific fears that weigh more heavily in those areas.
And for anyone who believes entrepreneurship should be open to every kind of dreamer, the message is simple. When we understand how fear operates differently, we can design ecosystems that respond more thoughtfully and more fairly.
A small shift, a big difference
Fear is part of the entrepreneurial journey for all of us. No founder is immune to those quiet questions before launch. But this study reminds us that fear is not always evenly distributed. For transgender and non-binary entrepreneurs, some fears are intensified by the social contexts they navigate.
Seeing that difference does not make entrepreneurship less universal. It makes our support more honest.
The more clearly we see these fears, especially the fears that have remained less visible for transgender founders, the stronger the entrepreneurial community becomes. And perhaps that makes hitting “launch” just a little bit braver, not only for some founders, but for every founder who deserves to be seen fairly.
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