For years, much of the conversation around women and entrepreneurship has focused on getting more women to start businesses, improving access to capital and helping women grow their companies.

Those conversations matter. But there is another conversation we need to be having: Are women building businesses that can become meaningful sources of personal wealth?

There is an important difference between building a business that generates a good income and building an asset with significant enterprise value. For women entrepreneurs, understanding that difference could represent one of the biggest untapped wealth opportunities in business.

A Business Can Be More Than a Source of Income

Women already own a significant number of businesses in the United States. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the substantial economic contribution of women-owned employer firms.

But revenue alone doesn't create wealth.

Many entrepreneurs spend years building businesses that provide them with a salary, distributions and financial independence. That's valuable. But if the business depends heavily on the founder to generate sales, manage customer relationships or make every important decision, much of that income may disappear when the founder stops working.

Enterprise value changes the equation.

A company with strong profitability, predictable revenue, diversified customers, documented processes and a capable management team can potentially become an asset that exists independently of its founder.

Instead of simply creating income, the entrepreneur is building equity.

Business Ownership Can Be a Wealth-Building Strategy

Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has demonstrated a strong relationship between business ownership and household wealth. Business-owning families tend to hold substantially more wealth than families without businesses.

That shouldn't be surprising.

Entrepreneurs have the opportunity to own an appreciating asset while simultaneously earning income from it. As the company becomes more profitable, scalable and less dependent on its founder, its enterprise value can increase.

Yet many founders don't think about their businesses this way.

We routinely talk about investing in retirement accounts, stocks and real estate as strategies for building wealth. Business owners may be sitting on another potential wealth-building asset every day: their companies.

The data suggests that there is a significance of business ownership to household wealth with research showing that business equity represents 34% of household nonfinancial wealth , second only to home equity.

That makes enterprise value difficult to ignore.

The Opportunity Is Bigger Than Selling

Building enterprise value doesn't mean every woman entrepreneur should be preparing to sell her company. It means she should be building a company someone could buy.

That distinction matters.

A valuable, transferable business gives its owner options. She may eventually sell to a strategic buyer, transfer ownership to employees or management, bring in an investor, sell a minority interest or retain ownership while stepping away from daily operations.

And she may never sell at all.

The same characteristics that make businesses attractive to buyers (strong financial performance, recurring revenue , efficient systems, management depth and reduced owner dependency) can also create healthier businesses today.

Know Your Value Gap Before You Need To

One of the biggest mistakes founders can make is waiting until they're considering an exit to find out what their business is actually worth.

There can be a significant difference between the value an owner expects and what a buyer is willing to pay. That difference is the value gap .

Closing it rarely happens in six months.

It can take years to strengthen margins, diversify customers, develop leadership, build recurring revenue and remove the founder from critical areas of the business.

Women entrepreneurs should understand the potential value of their companies long before they intend to leave them. That means asking not only, "How much revenue can this business generate?" but also, "What am I building that someone else would want to own?"

The next chapter of women's entrepreneurship shouldn't only be about starting and growing more businesses. It should also be about turning those businesses into assets that create lasting wealth.

A successful company can provide an entrepreneur with income for decades. A valuable company can potentially provide something more: equity, options and capital that can be invested into whatever comes next.

For women entrepreneurs, the wealth opportunity to building wealth may already be sitting inside the businesses they're building.

Melissa Houston, CPA, CEPA , is the founder of The Sellable Firm , where she helps founder-led businesses build more valuable, transferable, and profitable companies. With more than 25 years of experience in finance and accounting, she specializes in helping business owners increase enterprise value through stronger financial performance, reduced owner dependence, improved operational efficiency, and long-term strategic planning.

Melissa is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), a Forbes contributor, the author of the international bestselling book Cash Confident: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating a Profitable Business , and the host of The Sellable Firm Podcast , where she shares practical strategies for building businesses that create lasting wealth and future options.

Learn more, explore additional resources, and listen to the podcast at TheSellableFirm.com .

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are intended for informational purposes only. They should not be considered accounting, tax, legal, or financial advice. Readers should consult qualified professionals regarding their specific circumstances.