Small Business

Gender matters. It impacts the type of businesses entrepreneurs start, their aspirations for growing the business, and how they the fund it.

What you don’t know can hurt you, especially if what you don’t know leaves your business back in the 20th century while your customers are well on their way into the 21st.

In that case, you are losing opportunities to grow, to reduce costs, and to build customer loyalty.

That old adage, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” certainly applies to end-user entrepreneurs, that is, those people who face a problem, solve the problem, then market the solution.

Disturbed by the wasted money and ecological irresponsibility of buying toys, then throwing them away after a month? Want organic clothes for your baby? Can’t find the learning tools your special needs child needs? How about being able to sample high-end beauty products without cruising the counters of department stores? Or you “never have anything to wear” when an important occasion comes up? And, oh, those hot flashes!

“Tech-enabled business,” like “stay-at-home” Mom, are terms that have taken on new meanings for entrepreneurs.

I’m delighted with the recent Ernst & Young report, Thinking big: How to accelerate the growth of women-owned companies, which matches what I’ve found from talking with high-growth women entrepreneurs. With the number of women-owned businesses increasing yearly, accelerating their growth is important.

If you are a start-up business or a nonprofit in need of an office make-over or a lesson in how social media can raise your profile, check out the Win a Sweet New Office Contest sponsored by Turnstone, a company that designs and furnishes offices.

Strange as it may seem, workplace flexibility is no longer just a mommy-track thing or a benefit given to employees by a generous business owner.

When you start digging, you find out all sorts of interesting things, both good and bad. I’ve been researching the success factors that unite highly successful women entrepreneurs. Along the way, I’ve learned about ways in which small businesses can help themselves move up the ladder of success, how focusing on work/life fit can help a company grow and, yes, the factors that help women entrepreneurs succeed as well as pitfalls to beware of.

Just a reminder -- well, maybe I’m nagging a bit; I have been saying it for a long time -- it’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. Too often entrepreneurs -- especially women -- think they have to do it all. But that’s not true, according to the very successful women I’ve been interviewing.