It’s no secret that women are big on entrepreneurship. But what’s not known is that although women start businesses at a high rate, many of those businesses don’t go above $1 million in revenue. Inc. spoke to a few successful women business owners to get their feedback on why many of their peers are not expanding and accelerating their businesses.

Women need to take more risk

When women think of businesses and entrepreneurship, they consider how that lifestyle will factor into their responsibilities as a mother and wife in the future. Those are serious concerns of course – however, those concerns may hinder how one projects growth and conceives of future development.

“Liz Elting, CEO and founder of global language service provider TransPerfect, advocates another tack: Go for broke when you are young and have nothing to lose. Don’t worry about what your life will be like in 10 years. Dream big and follow your dreams. When your business grows, so do your options for work/life balance.”

Women need to get tougher

Basically, you can’t be too nice. You have to understand that you’re in a business where hiring, firing, and cutting are part of the job. Essentially, women can’t be too scared of being perceived as a Itchbay.

Men need to get over themselves

Men often benefit from networking opportunities that take place in bars or on the golf course. Women are often left out, not only to their own detriment but also to the detriment of the men themselves.

Women need to get over themselves, too

Women also need to network amongst themselves more and also lend a helping hand as mentors to other women entrepreneurs.

Everyone needs to build more flexible businesses

In this day and age, we have more resources at our fingertips to work remotely. With the flexibility that’s being made accessible by technology, we need to think about building companies that foster and complement the new possibilities.

Wrote Geri Stengel: Let’s start firms that don’t follow the same old businesses model; let’s build a model that can accommodate the differing needs of GenY, parents, Type A workers, and those who want to work reduced hours. You can retain and grow talent by being flexible — flexible about taking a year off for family without losing a rung on the career ladder; flexible in working hours; flexible about telecommuting. If we don’t restructure business culture, we’re going to keep losing the talented people we’ve paid money to train.