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Stay-at-home moms turned entrepreneurs
By Kim Nguyen, Staff Writer
In reaction to the down-turning economy, several stay-at-home moms have decided to pick up their hobbies and turn them into a business.
“Mompreneurs,” or stay-at-home moms who redirect their creativity, experience and education into starting businesses on the side, are on the rise.
Many “mompreneurs” take a break from another career, intending to stay home for a while and work just one demanding job: that of mom. But a passion for their hobbies, the ability to be crafty and the realization that others wanted them too led many women to embrace the risks of starting a small business. Along the way, many say, they have found the perfect answer to combining parenthood with an engaging career.
At the time, Stewart was trying, with not much success, to teach her then 4-year-old daughter to tie her shoes. Using her creative flare and access to her father’s woodshop, Stewart developed a simple learning activity for her daughter. After spending 10 minutes with the “toy,” Stewart’s daughter was tying her own shoes.
“My neighbors started asking for one because they also had kids who were having trouble tying their shoes,” Stewart said. “Then, before you knew it, an early learning center requested an order of 150!”
The success of the simple shoe-tying activity gave Stewart the idea of providing more learning materials to parents and teachers. Stewart knew that as a teacher, it was hard to locate classroom supplies and decorations to purchase at a reasonable price.
With the help of her two sisters, Stewart opened Teacher’s Depot in July 2006 in the Centre at Preston Ridge in Frisco. The Teacher’s Depot provides parents and teachers with learning tools and necessities through all levels of education.
The Teacher’s Depot is a vendor for teachers in the Plano, Allen, McKinney, Dallas, Little Elm and Frisco school districts. There are currently more than 3,500 customers subscribed to the store’s monthly e-newsletter, all of which signed up at the register while purchasing supplies.
Both of Stewart’s children will be attending an elementary school in the Frisco school district in the fall. She is excited to be able to spend more time with the store.
The Teacher’s Depot recently celebrated its two-year anniversary and Stewart couldn’t be happier.
“It’s never been about the money,” Stewart said. “If someone does the right thing and pursues their passion, they will have rich lives.”
Some moms find a niche that needed to be filled.
After 15 successful years in corporate America, Rebekah Cooksey decided to become a stay-at-home mom during her second maternity leave. As vice president for a major company headquartered in Plano, Cooksey found it hard to be equally committed to both her employer and her two young children.
“Not many companies will accommodate a lot of time for working Moms to be with their children,” Cooksey said. “I felt that it was more beneficial to my kids to stay at home with them.”
Cooksey soon found that staying at home full-time is very isolating for a women and wanted to find a way to connect to other stay-at-home moms. When Cooksey searched the Internet, she found that there were not many Web communities for stay-at-home moms and immediately began work on MomsOutLoud.com.
Scheduled to officially launch in October, Cooksey created MomsOutLoud.com to “provide an avenue for moms and women to get information, connect to one another and celebrate being mothers.”
“I want to help moms to not lose their identity as a woman after having children,” Cooksey said. “Women can still lead very fulfilling lives and still be 100 percent attentive to their children.”
Targeted toward stay-at-home mothers who “live between the naps,” MomsOutLoud is great for moms who feel isolated, especially if she stopped her career to care for her family, Cooksey said.
Cooksey also found there were too few outlets for full-time moms to exchange ideas about certain products and businesses.
“Moms have the first-hand knowledge of products that work and don’t work,” Cooksey said. “MomsOutLoud is trying to provide that one, centralized place for moms to find that kind of information.”
The Web community will provide reviews of businesses and products, guest writers from professionals in the various vocations of childcare and a social networking tool for online discussions and forums. MomsOutLoud has compiled a “directory of more than 1,000 mom- and kid-focused companies in the North Dallas area, making it the largest free list available.”
To join the MomsOutLoud web community, subscribe to the weekly e-newsletter and read reviews about products and services — all while Little Billy is taking a nap, check out www.MomsOutLoud.com.
A recent Harris Interactive survey about entrepreneurial aspirations found that 57 percent of women either have started their own business or have thought about doing so. The results showed two major appeals for a woman’s entrepreneurship: to do work they are passionate about and to have more flexibility around the family.
The main attraction of working from home is being available for their kids. And running a home-based business means that Mom has the flexibility to do activities with her children without having to check with the boss.
Frustration in her former employer’s lack of flexibility is what inspired Plano resident Dawn Attebery to change careers.
The combination of the company changing the maternity leave requirements and her realization of the importance to stay at home with the children helped Attebery decide to stay at home full-time to care for her children after 12 years as a successful engineer.
Though she loved being at home with her five children, she soon ran into problems trying to keep her identity and being out of contact with her former co-workers.
“I think every mom should have something that is 100 percent theirs — something that she can do to take her mind off of everything because, as a mom, she has to do so much for other people that it’s easy to lose her identity,” Attebery said.
Attebery had always enjoyed taking photographs and decided to enroll in a photography course at Richland College. She soon found her passion and ultimately the best job she’s ever had.
“I truly love what I do and have learned so much about business in the process,” Attebery said. “Plus, since my schedule is so flexible, I get to spend time with my kids while they are little. What a blessing it has been!”
Attebery started Dawn Michelle Photography three years ago and has slowly built the business from the ground up. Specializing in children, family and senior portraits, Attebery travels around Dallas to meet and photograph clients.
“I missed working for my old company, I missed the routine of it, I missed being able to go to lunch with my friends and co-workers,” Attebery said. “But I wouldn’t change my decision to leave [the company].”
Information on Dawn Michelle Photography can be found online at www.DawnMichellePhoto.com.
According to a study done by Dun and Bradstreet in 2001, there are more than 9.1 million women-owned businesses, making up more than one-third of all companies in the United States.
McKinney resident Teresa Lusk started Homemaker CEO, L.L.C., a faith-based foundation that teaches women how to start their own businesses in 2007.
“Stay-at-home moms sometimes feel guilty for not contributing financially to the family,” Lusk said. “Many of them have outstanding hobbies or unique ideas but don’t have the means or know how to formulate the plan to make it into a small business.”
Lusk temporarily put earning a multi-disciplinary bachelor’s degree on hold to provide for her three children. She has always had a passion for helping women in business, decided to start Homemaker CEO and currently works out of her home office.
“I help the full-time moms start a business from one idea out of the hundreds that she may have,” Lusk said. “It doesn’t matter whether I help them to bring additional income to the household or just using their spare time, I really enjoy doing this. It’s my passion.”
Homemaker CEO teaches women business skills such as interviewing or organizing.
“We hold many self-esteem classes where I get my clients in touch with their best traits,” Lusk said. “I am giving a woman the tools to better prepare herself.”
Lusk uses the Bible to show her clients of examples of women as mothers and financial contributors as working women and business owners. She hopes that her clients feel inspired to go out into the world as a strong business woman.
Plano resident Linda West was a single mom and supported her two now-grown children as an office manager in Corporate America.
“I always hated the limitations that Corporate America posed in terms of a mother being available for her children,” West said. “But I had to provide for my kids, I really had no other choice.”
Like Lusk, West found her passion in helping other small businesses grow and succeed.
West eventually stepped down from her lucrative Corporate America job and founded The Executive Organizer in 2005. West provides services such as office managing, corporate administration, bookkeeping, on an “as needed” basis to small businesses that are having troubles starting up.
“Self-employment is a risky and frightening thing after so many years with a steady job,” West said. “But it has been worth it. I would rather have less money and be more challenged [as a businesswoman].”
West has found that her entrepreneurship gives her a more flexible schedule to spend time with her grown children.
“It’s my passion to help small businesses prosper. Having my own business gives me flexibility and encourages creative thinking.” West said. “If I would change anything, I would have done it sooner.”
Mary Stewart, Rebekah Cooksey, Dawn Attebery, Teresa Lusk and Linda West all credited some success of their business to the Small Business Development Center staff at the Collin County Community College District.
With the help of the counselors at the Small Business Development Center at the Collin County Community College District entrepreneurs are given the essential knowledge to become successful in their pursuit to business ownership.
Between cooking dinner, helping the children with homework assignments, shuttling them to and from extracurricular activities, “mompreneurs” have found the secret to jugging the demands of being both a Mom and a successful entrepreneur.
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