Female Founders’ Playbook by Anne Boden, published by Kogan Page in 2024, is a practical guide for women who want to build and fund a high-growth company. Boden founded Starling Bank in 2014 after three decades in financial services and led it from a startup to a licensed bank. In this book she brings together the experiences of women entrepreneurs and venture investors and adds her own commentary to turn their stories into a clear path from idea to scale.
What is Female Founders’ Playbook about?
Boden’s argument is that women are badly underrepresented among founders of high-growth, venture-backed companies, and that part of the gap is missing know-how: what investors expect, how rounds work and what the journey really looks like. The book sets out to close that gap by showing how women who made it did it.
The structure follows the life of a company in order. It opens with a case for founders who never planned to start a business, then moves through developing an idea, using the skills and contacts you already have, choosing co-founders and building an early team. The middle section covers money step by step: how raising works, preparing for a round, building and delivering a pitch, negotiating terms and managing investors once they are on board. Later chapters deal with further rounds and running a company valued above one billion pounds. A glossary of startup and venture terms and a reading list close the book.
What makes it different is the mix of voices with one experienced guide. Each chapter weaves in accounts from women founders and investors, and Boden connects them with her own view as someone who raised large sums in a regulated, male-dominated sector. The result feels like a mentor walking you through each stage.
What are the main lessons for founders?
- Late starters win too. Many founders in the book came to entrepreneurship after a long career. Treat your industry experience as the source of your best idea.
- Build on what you have. Your network, reputation and skills give you an early advantage. List the people and knowledge that a newcomer to your market could not easily copy.
- Choose co-founders for complementary strengths. The book stresses honest conversations about roles and commitment. Settle who decides what before the first disagreement.
- Prepare a round like a project. Investors look for traction, a credible team and a clear use of funds. Start building relationships with investors months before you need the money.
- Understand the terms. Valuation is one number among many. Learn what control, preferences and board seats mean before you negotiate.
- Keep investors close. Regular, honest updates build trust and make follow-on funding easier.
Who should read Female Founders’ Playbook?
It suits women building a company with venture ambitions, especially in the months before a pre-seed or seed round. It also helps women in senior corporate roles who are thinking about founding a company in their own field, and angel investors who want to understand what women founders face.
Skip it if you are building a lifestyle business, a freelance practice or a company you plan to fund from revenue. Much of the book assumes outside investment and rapid growth.
How do you put Female Founders’ Playbook to work this week?
- Write a one-page summary of your unfair advantages: industry knowledge, contacts and skills that make you the right person to build this company.
- Draft a list of 20 investors who back companies at your stage and in your sector, and note who could give you a warm introduction to each.
- Read the glossary and mark every term you could not explain to a friend. Look each one up before your next investor conversation.
For help shaping the deck itself, the free Pitch Playbook in the Fe/male Switch Startup School breaks a pitch into slides you can draft in an afternoon.
Where does Female Founders’ Playbook fall short?
The book focuses on the venture-backed path, so founders who want to grow slowly or stay independent get little from it. Its examples lean towards the UK and towards fintech and tech, which reflects Boden’s own world. Because it covers the whole journey in one volume, each stage gets a chapter instead of a deep treatment: you learn what a term sheet involves and leave the clause-by-clause work to other books. For a full guide to deal terms, read Venture Deals, and for a founder’s guide to building without privilege or wealth, read Build the Damn Thing.