Comfort vs. Resources
Some of the most meaningful rooms I've ever been in were small groups of women business owners. There's a particular kind of trust that forms when you can say "I'm not sure I'm pricing this right" or "I'm exhausted" and everyone around the table nods because they've been there too. I wouldn't trade those rooms for anything.
I've also noticed something over the years that I didn't have words for until I started digging into the research. Many of us have been in a peer group or mastermind that felt wonderful, and months later we realized our businesses looked about the same. The support was real, but the referrals, introductions and opportunities weren't really flowing.
What the research says
A 2025 study by Raina Brands and colleagues helped me understand why (Brands et al.). They looked at women entrepreneurs and a specific pressure many of us know well: the sense of being judged as a woman in business, which researchers call social identity threat. Close-knit networks, where people know and trust each other, eased that threat for women. The thing doing the work was trust.
That's the comfort side, and it matters. But the same researchers point out that closed networks aren't where most new information and opportunities come from. Those tend to arrive through more open networks that bridge to people outside your usual circle. Comfort and resources are different things, and a group can be great at one without delivering the other.
Both rooms, on purpose
I don't read that as a reason to leave the cozy group. I read it as a reason to be intentional. The authors point to what network researchers call a "cocoon" strategy: build your venture inside a close, trusted network, then open up to a wider one. One feeds your confidence, and the other feeds your business, and most of us need both.
This research shaped a lot of how I designed Weaver. I wanted women to have a close circle where they feel safe saying the hard things, and also a wider network that actually connects them to clients, partners and capital. Holding both together felt like the piece that was missing for so many of the founders I've met, including me.
If you're in a group you love but you're wondering why it isn't moving the needle, you're not alone, and nothing is wrong with the group. It might just be time to add a few new rooms alongside it.
Where do you find your support, and where do your opportunities come from? I'm curious whether those are the same places for you.
Further reading: Raina A. Brands, Ece Ozgumus, Laura Huang, Aneeta Rattan and Clarissa I. Cortland, When Form Leads to Function: Network Closure and Social Identity Threat Among Women Entrepreneurs, Personnel Psychology, 2025 (free to read). More on our Reading List.
