Women’s home based businesses rock!
March 8th, 2006
0 votes
The facts are in. Women are just as likely to be successful entrepreneurs as men. But we all know that women and men are from different planets. So what is different about the women who are starting businesses than the men?
I really don’t know. I really want to know.
Do women have specific entrepreneurial qualities or temperament that give them an advantage over men?
And here’s another question. Why are there so many stay at home moms who are starting businesses but not so many dads starting up home based businesses? Can a woman come up with a better idea for home based businesses than a man?
Ok women, here’s a man sincerely asking for your opinion. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.
March 8th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
There are probably plenty of reasons why the majority of new business start-ups in the U.S. are now owned by women entrepreneurs, but the #1 reason may be due to the need to balance career and family.
Fifty percent of all businesses are now home-based and although it is still more or less equally divided between men and women, that will obviously change if the current pace of women-owned start-ups continue.
Nevertheless, I believe that there are two types of home-based entrepreneurs, regardless if they are men or women.
1 – Some people have made a conscious choice to work at home and to be close to their spouse and kids. They want to be taken seriously but they have no interest in hiring employees or expanding their business beyond the point that they and their immediate family can easily handle. They are making a good living and they are perfectly happy with the status quo.
2 – Then there are those whose ambitions are much larger and who want to follow in the footsteps of Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Richard Branson of Virgin, all of whom started as a home-based business, but knew that eventually they would need to move out to a “real” office in order to grow their business. They are in their home office not as a life-style choice, but only as a first step, usually to keep their overhead low.
I think that the vast majority of home-based entrepreneurs, both men and women, fall into the first category.
What I have found interesting and rather disappointing, is that I could find no contemporary female version of the Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs story - a woman who started as a home-based entrepreneur and really hit the big time - - I wonder why? The best I could come up with was Mary Kay, but that was like 50 years ago.
Now there are plenty of women who have become incredibly successful and rich like Meg Whitman of Ebay - but she didn’t start the company.
Can anyone out there think of a woman who started a home-based business in the last 20 years and became a huge Fortune 500 type of company. And if not, maybe someone can tell me why.
March 8th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Very interesting topic. I had a similar conversation with a friend the other day. The second comment is really fascinating - I can think of several examples of women who have risen up to become top players in large companies - but not one pings my brain as the inventor of that business.
Going to give this more thought and get back to you all soon.
Best Michael.
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March 8th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
Of course, there’s Oprah & Martha Stewart - but to the best of my knowledge, neither one started as a home-based business.
March 8th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Perhaps some of us who do not have children but have a different "life plan" simply wanted to create something different from a marketing, product development, managerial, promotional, etc…etc..standpoint that was more unique anc consumer-centric than what corporate America can provide.
p.s. Martha started selling pies out of her kitchen.
Doing pretty well thank you guys.
March 9th, 2006 at 7:30 am
I would venture that the difference between a business that starts small and becomes huge and one that starts small and stays small is the mindset of the founder. The founder’s vision either opens or closes doors of opportunity.
Probably the most important question is whether that particular entrepreneur is happy with where their business is and where it’s going.
I once heard a wise man say "Life plan before business plan." Who was that?
March 9th, 2006 at 9:30 am
I simply had to find some examples of women entreprenuers who have "hit the big time" and came across:
http://www.ladieswholaunch.com/featuredladies.cfm/start/31
Featuring our own Wendy Halloway, founder of Sanx…
March 9th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Thank you Kim - you are quite right!!
Martha Stewart ran her catering business for 10 years out of the basement of her farmhouse in CT until she opened a retail store.
I’m also sure that there are other women out there who started a home-based business and made it big. I’d love to find out who they are.
And yes Kim, thankfully there are many "non-corporate" businesses out there that are marching to their own drummer and making consumers happy everywhere. However, the two shouldn’t necessarily be mutually exclusive, should they? A company like Starbucks seems to be both consumer-centric & employee-centric and maybe that’s what accounts for their huge success. Otherwise why would anyone pay almost $3.00 for a 50 cent cup of coffee?
March 9th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Spanx is the name of Wendy Halloway’s company.
Jeff, perhaps my point about "corporate" was unclear…in my own case it isn’t corp vs. non-corp…it’s corp. vs. Pet Set corp…in other words my vision, my philosophy.
I would bet that one challenge that might be holding women-owned businesses back, may be venture capitalism, and perhaps some women may need guidance.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Wow Kim - that’s a really great website with a lot of women who have started their own businesses and have achieved some really great success - some of those companies have tens of millions of dollars in revenue!!
Nevertheless, as successful as they are, with the exception of Lillian Vernon (who started decades ago) and possibly The Knot - none of those companies are what I would call household names and certainly none of them are in the category of Martha Stewart, Apple Computers, Amazon.com, Dell Computers, etc.
The search continues….
March 9th, 2006 at 9:57 am
And here is another resource for the venture capital deprived women entrepreneurs: Springboard http://www.springboardenterprises.org/ founded by Kay Koplovitz, an inspirational guest on the Jan 29, 2005 StartupNation Radio show. (http://www.startupnation.com/pages/radio/RD_Jan29_2005.asp)
March 9th, 2006 at 10:30 am
Yesterday’s News Roundup for Entrepreneurs on the StartUpNation’s Home page had a very interesting article on a Women’s Entrepreneurship Program - Check it out:
http://www.makemineamillion.org/m3/home.php
I will be contacting them today to see how my company, Offices2share.com, can get involved as a sponsor &/or mentor.
We need a lot more of these groups. Also check out SCORE.org a non-profit group affiliated with the SBA that gives free advise and mentoring. They have over 400 offices nationwide.
Also see The Small Business Development Centers - another group associated with the SBA that gives free advise. They too have hundreds of locations throughout the U.S. Go to - http://sbdcnet.utsa.edu
March 9th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Steve is right. Success is measured in many different ways.
But I also think that women–say baby boomer women particularly– were not brought up believing they would be business moguls, or even aspiring to that type of goal. Our mothers worked out of neccessity for the most part, not becuase they were driven to succeed in business. If they didn’t need to work, they didn’t. Or they dabbled in work they enjoyed.
The middle class "American" dream was to try and make your child’s life better than your own, and still is–many women with homebased businesses start them to help pay the bills and augment their children’s lifestyle with lessons and trips to the mall, as well as to combat the monotony of running a household and raising children (not to say it isn’t fun and gratifying to be a stay at home mom, but there are only so many games of Pokemon one can play without going batty!)
I think that as time goes on, we’ll see more and more women filling the shoes of traditionally male business moguls. Hopefully, we are raising our daughters to believe their role in the world can be whatever they want it to be.
And I think Martha Stewart did start by catering out of her kitchen.
March 9th, 2006 at 11:00 am
Amen Joan. Rachel Ray is another up and comer…she started giving 30-minute cooking lessons at her local gourmet shop up in NY stat (that’ seems like an paradox, I know.)
Also there are groups such as The New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners that I’m hoping are making their presence known in high schools and colleges across the state.
Happy Women’s History Month.
March 9th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
Some "household" names:
Vera Wang
Donna Karan
Mrs. Fields Cookies
Kate Spade
Elizabeth Arden
J.K. Rowling
Anyone want to add or contest?
March 9th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Joan - I think you hit the nail on the head, but I believe those attitudes are changing fast.
Many college kids, both male and female, want to start their business upon graduation or even while they’re still in school, and never even bother with getting a "regular" job and first working their way up the ladder to get some experience - the way most of us and our parents did.
Just look at the recent success of the Facebook, which was started by a few guys in their dorm room and attracted $12 million in VC funding.
Every kid wants to do something similar.
I speak from experience here - my 20 year old daughter, who’s a business major, can’t wait to start her own business and has absolutely no intentions of working for someone else!!
She has my support all the way.
March 9th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Hi…I am the founder of Ladies Who Launch and we do not see it as a problem that there are not Fortune 500 companies started by women, what we find are that women do not want to start Fortune 500 companies, they would rather sell their company to a Fortune 500 company…think Jeanine Lobell who founded Stila Cosmetics sold to Estee Lauder, the same with Bobby Brown…or Julie Clark who started Baby Einstein and sold to Disney. But yes, you can check out our web stie to find hundreds of other examples of women launching very successful businesses.
March 9th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Welcome to the conversation Beth. It’s an honor to have you contribute.
We have had Sara Blakely of Spanx & Lindsey Wieber and Gwen Whiting of The Laundress on StartupNation Radio this past year - two of the featured Ladies Who Launch companies on your website.
"entrepreneurship & creativity as a lifestyle!" - what a fantastic mantra!
March 9th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
Hi Beth - First of all, great website!! I’m hoping to find some time over the next few days to read some more of the great content that you have.
You make a really great point that didn’t occur to me.
Most people, men & women, dream about being able to grow a company to the point where a Fortune 500 would be interested in buying them out - I know I do!! In fact, once you get to a certain size the entrepreneurial thrill is gone because you are no longer an entrepreneur but a manager.
Maybe that’s the answer…and it’s not a male or female thing…the excitement is in creating and growing the business. Once you start spending most of your time in meetings trying to manage things, it’s time to sell the thing and move on to your next brilliant idea.
You’re right - there are actually very few people who have taken a business all the way from a home-based business to a Fortune 500 company, but there are certainly plenty of entrepreneurs and serial entrepreneurs that did fabulously by selling to a much larger company.
March 10th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Jeff your response to beth is very eloquent.
To your point: [i]In fact, once you get to a certain size the entrepreneurial thrill is gone because you are no longer an entrepreneur but a manager.[/i][blue][/blue]
I truly believe that if one has a natural entrepreneurial spirit, the thrill never goes away. One’s business model may evolve to align with one’s evolving vision…but the thrill never goes away.
I also believe that if more Sr. management in corporate America had an entrepreneurial spirit or work ethic, some companies might not be in the shape they are in today: case in point the American Auto industry and the American Banking/investment sector.
March 10th, 2006 at 10:04 am
When making the choice to work from home are there many other options other than starting your own business? I have heard of Jet BLue offering employment for people from their home, but do not know of any other examples.
Maybe some women feel they have no other choice but to start their own business if they want to work from home.
If mothers had the option to take their normal 8-5 and perform the tasks from home but have to take a pay cut in exchange, would the convenience outweigh the smaller paycheck?
What are the biggest advantages and disadvantages of having employees who work from home?