They fix lunch, shepherd the kids to swim lessons, do the laundry and somehow find the time to create businesses. They’re Mompreneurs, entrepreneurial moms who walk the tightrope between family and business, looking after the kids and the bottom line at the same time.
Maybe it’s the economy, but moms on a mission to make money seem to be everywhere. Nationally, 10.1 million firms are owned by women, accounting for $1.9 trillion in sales, says the National Association of Women Business Owners. These 10.1 million firms employ 13 million people, a sign that Mom is often on her own, working from home around the kids’ schedules.
Michelle Spelman, a Newport mother of three young boys, and her husband just launched a card game called Jukem Football, and she spends a lot of time on the road pitching it to toy stores around the country. In August, she took her 10-year-old on a sales trip up the New England coast from Boston to Maine, stopping to cold call every toy store on the way. Business can benefit from a mother’s intuition, says Elizabeth Edwards, whose downtown firm, Neyer Holdings, helped finance the card game venture. “Those instincts paired with business instincts make them a force to be reckoned with,” she says.
Dissatisfaction with the sacrifices required to climb the corporate ladder is driving the Mompreneur trend, says Kim Lavine, Michigan-based author of “Mommy Millionaire.” “Women are dropping out of the workforce in record numbers,” she said. “They refuse to sacrifice their family anymore for their careers.”
Photo by ninahale