Imagine a woman who has built a business around her own time and skills. Customers keep coming back, orders are picking up, and she can see more work within reach. But there are only so many hours in her day. A first employee could help her serve more customers, and a new piece of equipment could let her accept a larger order. Either would move the business forward, and either requires money up front, before she knows exactly what the return will be.
For many women entrepreneurs, this is a turning point. Doing everything alone has started to limit what the business can become, yet growing past that point means taking on new costs, responsibilities, and risk.
October is National Women’s Small Business Month, and this year California’s Legislature made it official statewide. It is a fitting time to continue a story we began in March. Our Women’s History Month article, Women Are Reshaping Small Business: The Numbers Tell the Story, explored the rapid rise in women’s business ownership and the capital gap many women face at launch. Women founders often rely on personal savings and family support and are less likely to use SBA-backed loans. This article looks at what comes next, when an owner is ready to grow beyond a business of one, and how microloans for women entrepreneurs can help.
Crossing the Employer Threshold
Relatively few women-owned businesses reach the point of employing others. Wells Fargo’s 2026 Impact of Women-Owned Businesses report, produced with Ventureneer, CoreWoman, and the WIPP Education Institute, estimates that women owned 15.7 million U.S. businesses in 2025, or 40.6% of all firms. Only 9% of those businesses had employees, compared with nearly 18% of men-owned businesses.
Yet that small group carries most of the weight. The report counts about 1.4 million women-owned employer businesses, and as Wells Fargo highlights in its key findings, they produce 82% of all revenue from women-owned businesses. The other 14.3 million operate without employees and bring in an average of about $35,000 a year.
That is why the first hire is such a meaningful milestone, and why the report treats the move from solo owner to employer as one of the biggest opportunities for women-owned businesses. Among its recommendations, it calls for more microloan and grant programs designed to help solo owners make that move.
Close to home, the picture is encouraging. Based on growth and market presence, the report ranks California fifth, Nevada seventh, and Arizona ninth among all states for women-owned businesses, and places the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro area eighth among 51 metro areas nationwide. It notes that top-ranked states tend to see a growing share of women-owned businesses become employers.
Approval Is Only Part of the Picture
Making the move to add employees takes more than money before it pays off. A new employee needs a paycheck from the first week, while the added revenue may take months to build. For women who have already made the leap, the Federal Reserve’s 2025 Small Business Credit Survey, which gathered more than 6,500 responses from small employer firms in fall 2025, offers a useful look at how financing goes. Women-owned and men-owned employers were about equally likely to apply for financing and to receive the full amount they requested.
The difference is in what they are working with. According to the survey’s results by owner sex, 38% of women-owned employers were operating at a profit at the end of 2024, compared with 51% of men-owned employers. Wells Fargo’s Capital Access report, released in June 2026, points to several reasons. Many women-owned businesses are newer and smaller, have less capital behind them, and operate in consumer-facing fields such as retail, healthcare, and personal services, where costs run high and margins tend to be thin.
Thinner margins leave less room for error, and many women owners cover the gap themselves, continuing the pattern mentioned above. Among employers facing financial challenges, 60% of women owners turned to their own personal funds, compared with 51% of men.
Women-owned employers also tend to ask for less. Drawing on the prior year’s survey, the Capital Access report found that 35% of women-owned employer applicants sought $25,000 or less, compared with 19% of men-owned applicants. Smaller requests can be easier to approve, the report notes, but a loan that covers today’s expenses may leave little room for the equipment, inventory, or extra help that would let the business grow.
For an owner weighing a first hire, then, the question is not only whether she can get financing. It is whether the amount, cost, and terms fit her business’s size and cash flow, so that growth does not depend on her personal savings.
A Small Business Microloan Sized for the First Hire
The U.S. Small Business Administration’s Microloan program is built for financing at this scale. Microloans go up to $50,000, and the SBA reports an average loan of about $13,000. That range fits many women-owned employers. In the Capital Access data, about half of those who applied for financing sought $50,000 or less. Eligible uses include working capital, inventory, supplies, furniture, fixtures, machinery, and equipment. Funds cannot be used to buy real estate or refinance existing debt, and repayment terms run up to seven years.
For the owner we imagined at the start, working capital could help cover payroll while she builds the revenue to support a new position. For another business, new equipment or inventory could make a larger order possible. Either way, the loan is tied to a specific need rather than to more debt than the business requires.
The program is also built around guidance. The SBA does not lend directly. It funds nonprofit, community-based lenders with experience in both lending and business technical assistance, and those lenders make the credit decisions and work directly with borrowers. Women owners also receive more than their share of these loans. According to SBA data cited in the Capital Access report, women-owned businesses received nearly half of all SBA microloans in fiscal year 2025, even though women own about 41% of U.S. businesses.
Where an owner borrows matters, too. Online lenders were the second most common choice for women-owned firms seeking financing in the prior year’s survey, according to the Capital Access report. In the Fed’s 2025 survey, 60% of firms that borrowed from online lenders said their actual costs were higher than expected, compared with 37% of small bank borrowers and 32% of large bank borrowers. For a business already working with thin margins, an unexpected cost can undo much of what the loan was meant to accomplish.
As a Certified Development Company and Community Development Financial Institution, AmPac offers SBA Microloans through its Community Lending Programs to small businesses, startups, and nonprofit childcare centers in California, Arizona, and Nevada. Loans carry fixed interest rates, repayment terms of up to seven years, and no prepayment penalty. For women considering a first hire or a major purchase, that means women-owned business loans with predictable payments they can build into their plans.
Support Beyond Financing
A loan can cover a purchase or early payroll, but a first hire also brings new questions about payroll taxes, compliance, and recordkeeping. For a newer, smaller business, getting those details right can matter as much as the financing itself. The Capital Access report recommends pairing financing with coaching, financial tools, and business connections, especially as a business moves from solo operation to employing others.
That is the purpose of AmPac’s Entrepreneur Ecosystem, a community of more than 3,000 businesses and resource partners. Members have access to networking events, workshops, webinars, support groups, coworking space, and a mobile app, along with resource partners in legal, accounting, and other business services, including several women’s business centers. For a woman preparing to hire her first employee, those connections can help her work through practical questions, strengthen her financial planning, and prepare for larger financing as the business grows.
Helping More Women Grow Beyond a Business of One
For the owner we imagined at the beginning, a first hire would change how her work gets done. She could hand off some responsibilities and spend more time serving customers and pursuing new business. The decision would still carry risk, but it would also build a business that no longer depends entirely on her own hours.
Across millions of women-owned businesses, that shift matters well beyond any single owner. Helping more women move from working alone to employing others can expand their revenue potential, create jobs, and strengthen local economies, without asking them to carry all of the risk on their own. For some, a small business microloan may be a practical way to fund that first hire, an equipment purchase, or another essential need.
To explore whether a microloan is the right fit, visit AmPac’s Community Lending Programs or connect with the AmPac team.