Editor’s note: Women need an outlet to share their frustrations, hardships and perceptions about starting and funding a company in a still male-dominated startup world. And now with several female-oriented groups starting up—besides SOAR, there’s E51 which holds its first CoffeeConnection this Thursday and the Triangle Multicultural Women’s Entrepreneurship Meetup—perhaps this is the first time the Triangle has provided a place for aspiring female founders to share those stories. But there’s only so far we can go as a startup community simply sharing our problems. So writes Laura Baverman, editor of ExitEvent, in this latest post that’s part of the news partnership between WRALTechWire and ExitEvent.

RALEIGH, N.C. – I get it. Truly, I do.

The older I get, the fewer female friends I have that are aspiring in professional careers. They’ve decided to stay home with kids, or to scale back their workload, or take a less demanding job. And even fewer are starting or scaling businesses, let alone raising money to fund them.

The fact is that it’s hard to find other women who understand what it’s like to start a company (or in my case, build up a news site) and can be both vulnerable enough to admit the challenges and helpful enough to advise you through them.

That’s why I wasn’t too surprised when last week’s kickoff of SOAR—the female-entrepreneur mentoring and networking group sponsored by American Underground and Google for Entrepreneurs—turned from panel discussion with investors to emotional storytelling by entrepreneurs.

Women need an outlet to share their frustrations, hardships and perceptions about starting and funding a company in a still male-dominated startup world. And now with several female-oriented groups starting up—besides SOAR, there’s E51 which holds its first CoffeeConnection this Thursday and the Triangle Multicultural Women’s Entrepreneurship Meetup—perhaps this is the first time the Triangle has provided a place for aspiring female founders to share those stories.

But there’s only so far we can go as a startup community simply sharing our problems.

Read Baverman’s complete story at ExitEvent.