Susan Dunk , who created the T
oddler-Coddler to keep her kids from slumping in their car
seats, was prodded by friends and family to put her
invention on the market. “I didn’t have a patent at
the time, and I was scared to death. I worked up the
courage to go to a children’s industry trade show, and
came home with orders totaling 118 units!” Four years
later, ToddlerCoddler is recommended by chiropractors
for healthy spinal alignment, and it has won several
awards from parenting groups.
MICHELLE GUILBAULT
site ( www.mompreneursonline.com) dispenses advice
and provides resource links to more than 7 million
women each month. WebMomz (www.webmomz.
com), which was recently endorsed by none other
than Dr. Phil, has helped thousands of women to
start online businesses. And Moms In Business
Network ( www.mibn.org), an online, women-only
networking group, represents the interests of the 60
million working mothers in the United States.
No one definition
What do these entrepreneurial moms look like?
They have begun businesses as at-home advertisers, authors, attorneys and alpaca raisers, bakers
and beauty consultants, chefs, cleaners and crossword puzzle makers, dress, diaper and decal designers, employers and engineers, financial planners,
fitness trainers and furniture designers, genealogists
and graphic designers, home decorators, information specialists and inventors, jewelry makers, lifestyle coaches, marketers, news producers and nurses,
organizers, painters, pet sitters, potty trainers and
private investigators, quilt makers, real estate agents,
singers, skin-care specialists and speech therapists,
taxidermists, T-shirt designers and toymakers, virtual assistants, Web designers, wedding planners
and writers.
“A mom entrepreneur is anyone who is able to
work from home and make a living,” says Costco
Laurie Zerga
left the world of high finance
to be closer to her two
middle-school-age children.
When she couldn’t find
existing culinary or cooking
classes for teens to support
her daughter’s interest, she
combined her business
knowledge with her passion
for nutrition and culinary
arts, and held her first youth
culinary camp. Now, Laurie’s
Culinary Camp has assembled
a team of locally renowned
chefs to teach courses for
youths, teens and adults that
cover nutrition, the science of
food safety, cooking instruction, table etiquette and tours
of food businesses.
member Kristie Tamsevicius, founder of WebMomz,
a work-from-home resource community, who has
operated a Web design business from her home in a
Chicago suburb for the past nine years. “Someone
who telecommutes to work from home, operates an
online-based business or home-business franchise,
or does direct sales and network marketing opportunities. Or someone who takes her corporate job and
does it from home.”
“I am a mompreneur in three ways,” says
California resident Laurie Zerga, who left the business world to become a chef and culinary educator
( www.lauriesculinarycamp.com). “First, I stayed
home to be closer to my children. Second, my children inspired the business idea. Third, my business
supports a role once held by stay-at-home moms:
teaching their children the culinary arts.”
Women’s reasons for becoming entrepreneurial
moms are as varied as their businesses. Some were
Fortune 500 business successes before becoming
moms, and they don’t want having a baby to force
them to leave the business world behind. Others have
time and creative talent on their hands, and a need for
extra income. And an increasing number are putting
their specific parenting needs into production,
inventing and manufacturing child-care items that
they simply couldn’t find anywhere on the market.
All of these women share a common desire not
only to satisfy a creative and financial need, but also