After one of her make-up products “went viral” on social media, people assumed Zoe Trigwell was an overnight success and a millionaire.

The truth was, the business owner was paying herself a small wage to get by having been through a lot of lows.

One academic said social media success stories can mask the harsh realities women in business face, and they lack a platform to complain about how little money they make for fear of looking “greedy”.

The Welsh government said its specialist advice service Business Wales was committed to supporting female entrepreneurs.

Zoe, who has two children, started Trigwell Cosmetics in 2020 after her make-up academy business shut during the Covid pandemic.

Initially she bought a few products to sell to friends, family and clients, funding them by running online make-up tutorials for £2 a ticket.

“I had no idea… investment was a thing, but I had no idea where to turn to or who to ask. I don’t think there’s that much information out there on how to actually get investment for small businesses,” she said.

The 31-year-old said when one product went viral in 2022, people wrongly assumed she was an overnight success and millionaire.

“I paid myself a small wage just so that we could live and get by but I didn’t take any massive chunks of money, especially in those days when we started go viral, because every single penny that was made had to be reinvested to keep up with the demands,” Zoe said.

She said she feels that there’s a lot of pressure for female founders to be perfect and to always make perfect decisions – something she tries to challenge online.

“It’s really, really important, especially for people that are wanting to become entrepreneurs, to show that it isn’t all highlights and not everything is rosy, and you don’t just sell out instantly.

“There’s a lot of hard work and a lot of downs and negatives that do come with it,” she said.

Entrepreneur Lauren Bell said it took four years before she was able to take a salary from her business, Cosi Care.

The 33-year-old created a gadget to help her brother cope with eczema, which he has had throughout his life.

Lauren said: “It’s so challenging to get the big cheques. People don’t support women. People almost don’t believe that women can achieve what men can achieve.

“They see me in a pink suit with a nice Welsh accent, and they just don’t believe that you can reach those levels.”

The entrepreneur said that while she’s really proud of what she’s achieved as a woman in a STEM industry, it’s a “shame” she didn’t have more support in the early days.

Lauren, a design graduate, has recently won a million-pound investment and will be moving the entire business to the US soon.

“I’m moving all of our employees there. I’m manufacturing in America and moving everything over to America, which is a real shame, because I did really try and do it in the UK, but there just wasn’t the same scale of support for female-owned businesses,” she said.

Dr Sarah Marks from Swansea University agreed business owners are under pressure to present themselves as successful online.

“For people to really be successful and to really consider themselves as a successful entrepreneur, they actually need to be generating quite a lot of income, and my research suggests that actually the vast majority of women do not generate anywhere near what will be a market equivalent income for themselves,” she said.

The lecturer in the school of management said her research showed entrepreneurship often doesn’t provide sustainable living for women, with many giving up.

“Women are actually denied a kind of platform in which to complain about how little money they’re earning… they don’t want to be seen as greedy; they don’t want to be seen as ungrateful and that can be a real pressure for women and a real burden,” she said.

A report published last month by the Women and Equalities committee found that female entrepreneurs face significant disadvantages in accessing finances, investment networks and support systems.

The cross-party group of MPs found that while numerous programmes have been established to address the issue, they have had limited effect.

A spokesperson for the UK government said it was “putting women at the heart of its grown agenda to make the UK the best place for women-led businesses by tackling barriers and unlocking opportunities for them”.

“The Invest in Women Taskforce has secured over £500m in funding for women-led businesses over the past 12 months and investment in female entrepreneurs began in August this year,” they said.

The Welsh government said since May 2021, Business Wales had supported 2,301 start-ups led by women which is “56% of all start-ups supported”.

“The Development Bank for Wales supports female entrepreneurs via many projects, including the Women Angel of Wales syndicate which increases the activity of female angel investors” they added.