A Woman’s Point of View on Entrepreneurship

There have been a lot of high points in my life.  Besides becoming a wife and mom, being an entrepreneur rates right up there.

There are a lot of reasons why launching my own business made sense for me, and could make sense for smart, able women with an idea and some chutzpah.  The following have certainly been factors for me that you should weigh before you leap into entrepreneurship:

• I am in charge.  I have been in charge since Day 1. And, I call the shots.  I didn’t have to don the blue suit and claw my way up the corporate ladder to earn my leadership role, or grapple with office politics along the way,  And, I certainly never encountered a glass ceiling.  But the price of leadership is a heavy one – a 24:7 kind of one — and its not for the faint of heart or the half-committed.  As an entrepreneur you will face many sleepless nights.
• I’ve had the chance to put my unique imprimatur on my company, creating a company “eco-system” that reflects my most important values and building a team of people who share these values.  This was a gift.
• While it all had to begin with the kernel of an idea – I enjoy great freedom to dream and create, to design, to build and to deliver.  I don’t have to hand my ideas off to a manager or to a committee for endless reviews until my ideas are either blessed or discarded.  There is a great deal of fulfillment from this ability to drive a process from idea to market.
• I’ve had flexibility to balance growing my business with my priorities on the home front.  In the early days I was able to spend precious hours with my firstborn and could still work into the wee hours creating and building our website.  I can only imagine the stress of being late for a meeting in a corporate setting or the disappointment on my pre-schooler’s face when I wasn’t there to pick him up from his first day of school.

If I had to make the decision again, all the unknowns now being familiar terrain, I would have still braved entrepreneurship over any other career option.  I’ve been able to have my cake as an entrepreneur (and eat it, too….) And I like it!