When Jordan Lloyd Bookey became a mom, she suddenly felt overwhelmed by the options when it came to educating her children. Even with a teaching background, she wasn’t sure how to find the best books and other learning tools for her kids. As a result, she and her husband Felix Lloyd decided to create Zoobean, an online resource that helps families do just that.
Bookey, who calls herself the Chief Mom of the company, uses her own family, which includes a 2- and 4-year-old, as testing grounds. “I use our service personally, and it really does help me be a better parent. As a mom, I’m constantly thinking about the individual needs of our family,” she says. She says those “mom skills” — including managing and communicating — help her when it comes to running her business, too.
Bookey epitomizes a national trend of moms starting businesses. The National Women’s Business Council reports that there are about 7.8 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., and some of the most popular industries for women entrepreneurs include health care, educational services, retail and recreation.
According to an analysis from PayScale for U.S. News, the top 15 jobs for “mompreneurs” who worked part time from August 2013 to August 2014 feature many health care-related jobs, including family nurse practitioner (median hourly pay is $42.19), registered dental hygienist (median hourly pay is $32.26) and registered nurse (median hourly pay is $26.13). Other jobs on the list include staff accountant, office manager, retail store manager and bookkeeper.
If you’re thinking about joining the ranks of these mompreneurs, here are some tips from women who’ve been there:
[See: 11 Money Tips for Women.]
1. Find inspiration at home.
Many mompreneurs get their ideas from everyday interactions with their children. Tamara Monosoff, author of “The Mom Inventors Handbook,” got the idea for a device that stops toddlers from unrolling toilet paper from her own experiences as a mom. Her website, mominventors.com, is filled with more examples, from a sandwich-shaped sandwich box to sippy cup straw cleaners.
Dads can do the same thing. Nikko Grant, a father and mortgage sales manager, came up with the idea to invent a board game that imparts credit lessons while at Disney World with his family. As he watched his kids play, he realized that they should have fun, even when learning financial lessons. That day, he sketched out the initial plan for his board game called “Credit Scores,” which he’s now working on mass-producing and getting into retailers.
2. Know that work-life balance might be even harder to find.
When you’re starting your own business, it can be hard to establish boundaries over your time and work space, especially when you’re working from home. Consider setting up a dedicated area in your home that your children know to respect and avoid cluttering with toys. If you have babies or toddlers who are too young to follow those types of rules, then make sure important business papers and materials are kept out of reach — for your own sanity as well as their safety.
Much of the academic research on self-employed mothers presented at the June 2014 Work and Family Researchers Network conference focused on work-life conflict for moms. Some of the researchers pointed out that women who start businesses often do so because they feel they are unable to continue working in traditional jobs while fulfilling their parenting responsibilities, and these women are seeking an alternative way to combine work and family through self-employment.
Research presented by Nicholas Beutell, a professor of management at Iona College, and Joy A. Schneer, a professor of management at Rider University found that self-employed individuals generally report higher levels of autonomy and life satisfaction than those working at organizations, and they also tend to report higher levels of flexibility and family satisfaction. Hours worked, though, are similar for both groups.
Bookey says running Zoobean is actually much harder than her previous corporate job, largely because being an entrepreneur is all-consuming. Instead of getting overwhelmed by her endless to-do list, Bookey says she tries to just focus on what’s next, and she also gets up early to work before her children wake up.
3. Consider keeping your day job.
Entrepreneurs don’t often find overnight success, and, in fact, many small businesses fail in the early years. To protect your family’s financial security, consider holding onto your existing income (if you have a day job), while you continue to grow your business. On the same note, keep costs low in the early stages by testing the market through existing e-commerce sites like the handmade marketplace Etsy. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a fancy website in the beginning.
[See: The Best Side Business Ideas for Busy People.]
4. Team up.
Some mompreneurs prefer to work together, especially if their skills match well with a partner’s. Another option is hiring people on a freelance basis. If you’re great at creative work but struggle with bookkeeping, then you might want to hire someone with a financial background to handle that piece of the business for you, so you can zero in on what you do best.
Bookey, who used to head K-12 education outreach for Google, says her professional strengths differ from those of her husband and Zoobean co-founder, Felix Lloyd, a former teacher. “Sometimes it can be exhausting to wake up and go to sleep talking about Zoobean, but this is a labor of love for both of us,” she says.
5. Keep growing and experimenting.
Even big companies like Netflix are constantly innovating to meet shifting customer demands and environments. If you find early success with your idea, don’t stop there: Listen and respond to customer requests to search for ways to continue to grow. You might even decide to pursue outside funding, as Bookey did, through a competition like “Shark Tank” or a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter.
[Read: The New Mommy Track.]
After Bookey and her husband appeared on the ABC show “Shark Tank” in April, they not only scored a $250,000 investment from show star Mark Cuban, but they also raised an additional $400,000 afterward. Now, they continue to build their business together, curating a custom app and book picks for children, just as they envisioned from the beginning. Zoobean recently started partnering with libraries, as well, through a new service called Beanstack. “Our focus is on increasing library card use by reaching families wherever they are,” Bookey says.
With Zoobean, she’s boosting literacy and personalized learning, both in her own home and far beyond it.
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Tips From Successful Mompreneurs originally appeared on usnews.com
