Stand Up For Female Entrepreneurs

Always something ...

After defending women entrepreneurs and their math abilities, Michelle Greer (pictured) was called illogical, idiotic, arrogant, angry, a troll, and the ...

Read the entire piece here:

Woman Defends Female Entrepreneurs on TechCrunch and Gets Called ...

Women Step It Up in Hi-Tech Entrepreneurship

Are things getting better for women versus a decade ago, especially in the tech industry? Some think so.

A new whitepaper published by Illuminate Ventures and entitled, "High Performance Entrepreneurs: Women in High Tech - Summary," states:

... that many more women are starting companies, taking them public and providing investors with bigger returns on smaller investments.

... Growing Influence in Tech: Women-owned or led firms are the fastest growing sector of new venture creation in the U.S., growing at five times the rate of all new firms between 1997 and 2006 – now representing nearly 50% of all privately held businesses.

... Fewer Failures: Despite often being capital-constrained, women-owned businesses are more likely to survive the transition from raw start-up to established company than the average.

To receive the complete whitepaper (you must register first), go here.

Related resource: An interview with Cindy Padnos, founding Managing Director of Illuminate Ventures.

Unstoppable Women Entrepreneurs

Check out these gutsy women entrepreneur innovators on what it took to put them in the driver's seat to success.

Tips From Unstoppable Women Entrepreneurs

Some great pearls of wisdom:

“You don’t stop moving because things are slow, and if they’re not slow, you create some down time to prepare your playing field.”

“Key in going out on my own was doing it for the right reasons. Being angry or disgusted at something is not reason to make a change,” she said. Being an entrepreneur “is about the love of something, not hate.”

“Take a risk early on because there are a lot of opportunities to learn—even if you fail initially,” Peitler said. “Failure isn’t the end game, but another learning opportunity."

“Failing actually goes with entrepreneurship; most, if not all entrepreneurs, have gone out of business and retooled and reinvested. Failing is only failure if you stop trying.”

“Share what you’ve learned with the people around you,” she said. Some Krupp wisdom: “Follow your instincts and your gut.

“Parlay. Parlay. Parlay. Never miss an opportunity; ‘no’ is not an answer.”

The F Word: Failure

One of the single biggest stumbling blocks to business owners is the 'F' word: Failure.

It's not so much what it is but rather what to do about it should it occur. Some call it resiliency, others refer to it as bounce or lessons learned. However you define it, failure is a necessary ingredient to running a healthy business.

Find out why here:

American Express OPEN Forum
Making the Most of Failure by Laurel Delaney

I Vote for Ginny Rometty to Run IBM

Sometimes you just have to put yourself out there and support a woman to advance in corporate America!

Read more here.

Pictured: Ginny Rometty, IBM

Posted by: Official Escape From Corporate America blog

Think BIG

Theresa Daytner (pictured) is running her third business, Daytner Construction Group, a Mt. Airy, Md. construction management firm that had 2009 revenue of $3.5 million. She credits much of her success to her willingness to seek out business relationships with entrepreneurs who think big.

Read the entire article here.

She is missing out on one important peer-to-peer learning organization: Women Presidents' Organization.

Full disclosure: I serve as the Chicago Chapter Chair for WPO.

Work: An Extension of Who You Are

To all working women, this one's for you.

Immediate download of PDF file: The Reality of the Working Woman

• With research partner JWT and Ad Age Insights survey on attitudes of today's working women.

Publish date: June 6th, 2010
By: Mya Frazier
Word Count: 12,000

Posted by: the official Escape From Corporate America blog

Women Rebels With a Cause = Entrepreneurship

Frances Osborne provides her suggestions on books about female adventurers (much like women entrepreneurs) that offer a thrilling ride. These are each worth a look.

1. Rebel Heart
By Mary S. Lovell
Norton, 1995

2. Mistress of Modernism
By Mary V. Dearborn
Houghton Mifflin, 2004

3. A Voyage in the Sunbeam
By Annie Allnutt Brassey
1878

4. To War With Whitaker
By Hermione Ranfurly
Heinemann, 1994

5. Gertrude Bell
By Georgina Howell
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007

Go here for the entire writeup.

Great Business Websites for Entrepreneurial Women

Here's a list of personal favorites from our respected colleague and friend, Rieva Lesonsky who runs GrowBiz Media.

Go here to access.

We Interrupt This Blog to Bring You a Male CEO: Mark Palmer

Here's one male CEO's takeaway on a session he attended, "The Power of the Purse" about women leaders in our world, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The two-hour session was like an intellectual popcorn popper; one profound observation shot up after another, and I frantically took notes. The conversation ricocheted between social, sexual, business, and emotional topics. So rather than present them as one thought, I thought I’d list the tastiest kernels.

Read the entire commentary here.

Agree or disagree with his insights and observations? As always, we welcome your comments.

Illustration credit here.

Related resource(s) here.

Beat the Odds to Win

Women Push Forward

I refuse to focus on "what's holding women back" because I think there's absolutely nothing getting in our way.

Sadly enough though, some women still consider it risky to pursue power in the Corporate world and that's the emphasis of this contribution by The New York Times blogger Adriana Gardella.

All the more reason to start a business and become an entrepreneur.

The comments are worth a look.

Photo credit here.

Woman's Entrepreneurial Sweet Spot?

According to this roundup of the latest venture capital news and analysis across the Web, a woman's entrepreneurial sweet spot age is 40. Anyone wish to challenge that?

Does the world need a Y Combinator for women? New York-based entrepreneur Tereza Nemessanyi proposes the XX Combinator, a start-up accelerator focused on women in their 40s. The problem with Y Combinator, Nemessayni says, is that only seven of the 250 founders participating in the program have been female. She argues that Y Combinator participants are mostly in there early 20s but that a woman’s “entrepreneurial sweet spot” is around age 40. Venture capitalists Fred Wilson weighs in, saying that while there certainly is a shortage of women entrepreneurs, “a different model is required if this were to work” (though he’s not sure what that is.).

Original source on passage above can be found here.

Drink Up Ladies to a Powerful New Feeling of Well-Being

Julie Smolyansky is the chief executive officer, president and director of Lifeway Foods Inc. Its main business activity is the manufacturing of probiotic, cultured, functional dairy and non-dairy health food products (pictured above).

Smolyansky inherited (instant entrepreneur) the top spot at Lifeway Foods when she was 27 (2002) and not in a way in which she has fond memories.

Read her back story on how she has built the food company into a powerful force here.

Wave of the Future: More Women at the Business Table as Both Equal and Different Partners with Men

Learn what motivates women in the workplace (discover where companies go wrong and why many women leave Corporate America for entrepreneurship) and find out how companies that learn to adapt to women will be better able to respond to the challenge of an aging workforce and the demands of the next generation of knowledge workers.

"Why Women Mean Businesss" by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox (related post involving Avivah here) and Alison Maitland

11 Wild and Crazy Tips for Disruptive Thinking

What a practical article and we are so pleased to be mentioned in it. Read it and do something disruptive today as it relates to your business!

Here's the lead:

Stepping sideways to see things from another angle often leads to breakthrough thinking, which in turn creates new markets and topples traditional ones. Innovation is a top strategic priority for a large majority of companies today. As such, creativity — arguably the driving force behind successful innovation — is increasingly gaining recognition as the new capital in uncertain and challenging economic times. For people trying to innovate and work within a creative, adaptive culture, we offer 11 ideas for extreme outside-the-box thinking.

Read the entire article:
An Idea So Crazy it Might Work: Tips for Disruptive Thinking
IMT Industry Market Trends

Posted by: the official Escape From Corporate America blog

Happy Birthday No. 234 to America and No. 6 to the official Escape From Corporate America blog!

Freedom comes in many forms -- the best is when you choose it for yourself. We wish you a Happy Independence Day United States and a Happy Birthday No. 6 for the official Escape From Corporate America blog! Refresh your memory in terms of how it all began for us here.

In celebration of both birthdays, our gift to you is twofold:

1. A hearty thanks for your continued support and loyal readership. Without you, this blog would not be nearly as much fun to produce. We love what we do here (can't you tell?!), so we just keep doing it. Yet we never lose sight of the fact, we do it for you! Thanks for listening, for commenting from time to time and for reading our blog.

2. We just compiled a new (FREE!) e-book, "Entrepreneurial Obsession: 13 ways to a brighter future for your business." It's yours to do what you wish with. We hope it inspires you to escape from corporate America to start your own business.

Best wishes,
Laurel
July 4, 2010

Posted by: The Escape From Corporate America blog

Women Can Grow a Million Dollar Baby

According to Michelle Stockman who works with Little Rock-based Arkansas Capital Corp. to promote entrepreneurship development around the state, women may not be as active in entrepreneurship as men but they sure know how to grow a business to a million dollar+ baby.

Read more here.

You might also appreciate this related piece.

Posted by: Escape From Corporate America blog

Pulling Men Into a Woman's Entrepreneurial Universe

The old days used to be about women trying to get ahead in the working world of primarily men. Then entrepreneurship took hold, leveling the playing field and allowing women to jump out of corporate America to create their own world of work.

Now, there's a new twist on feminism (or what I call a woman's ambition):

Katrin Bennhold, New York Times: Historically, feminism has been "about women pushing into the world of men," but the future of feminism "is shaping up to be about pulling men into women's universe -- ...

Read more here and here.

There's the Official Escape From Corporate America Blog. Now, There's Corporate Mom Dropouts

We've seen and heard it all ... first by getting wind that there was a book out by the same name as our blog, "Escape From Corporate America" (hey -- we warned them well in advance that there might be confusion or a potential conflict but there's no stopping people who think they have a good idea at the time). Anyway, we started our escape blog way back on July 2, 2004 -- nobody can claim that idea! It was tied to an article I wrote for The Conference Board (2003).

Now there's a new blog, "Corporate Mom Dropouts" launched earlier this year (2010). Check it out here.

Best wishes and congratulations to all who support women interested in creating their own destinies! There can never be enough of us around helping other women achieve their dreams.

Posted by: The official Escape From Corporate America blog