A Boost for Women Entrepreneurs
Patricia Kelly is determined to crack the $1-million revenue milestone within the next six months at her breast-pump company, Limerick Inc. of Burbank.
If she succeeds, she will be in remarkably scant company: Only 3% of the 10.6 million businesses in the U.S. owned by women have sales of $1 million a year or more, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research.
“I see a different future for us now, a bigger future,” said Kelly, who co-founded the company nine years ago with her daughter. She now has two employees and $700,000 in revenue.
The former dietitian got a major boost toward her goal this month when she won the Make Mine a $Million Business award for the western U.S., one of 20 women out of 505 applicants to do so.
Kelly will receive money, mentoring and marketing and technology assistance that would be the dream of many an entrepreneur.
There will be a $10,000 line of credit from American Express OPEN and a loan from nonprofit micro-lender Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, the New York-based group that created the Make Mine a $Million Business program.
QVC Inc. of West Chester, Pa., will provide marketing expertise to Kelly and the rest of the winners. Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose will do a technology assessment for each winner.
Perhaps most important, Kelly and the others will each be assigned a mentor from a national roster of women executives and entrepreneurs.
A round of awards for East Coast women entrepreneurs will be held in November. Online applications, which are open to women business owners throughout the U.S., will be available next month at www.makemineamillion.org.
This year’s awards follow a pilot program last year in five cities, which attracted 170 applicants.
The awards are a key part of the Make Mine a $Million Business initiative launched in March on International Women’s Day. The goal is to create a community of 1 million women who have declared their intent online to expand their companies beyond the $1-million mark by 2010.
“We noticed the women we loaned to had businesses that got to between $100,000 and $250,000 but didn’t know exactly how to grow their businesses beyond that,” said Nell Merlino, chief executive and co-founder of Count Me In Inc., an online micro-lender funded by donations and corporate investments.
Women-owned businesses are increasingly at the center of the country’s economic growth. As of 2004, nearly half -- 48% -- of all privately held firms were 50% or more owned by women, according to the Washington-based Center for Women’s Business Research.
The growth in the number of women-owned businesses was nearly twice that of all privately held businesses between 1997 and 2004: 17% versus 9%, the center’s figures show.
Yet their companies are usually small. Men own about seven times as many businesses that have passed the $1-million mark, according to the research group.
The potential economic benefit of increasing the number of large women-owned businesses is one of the messages of Count Me In and its corporate partners. They point out that the 3% of women-owned businesses that grossed more than $1 million in 2002, the latest figures available, which represents 279,000 companies, employed a hefty 58% of all of the workers at women-owned businesses.
These firms comprise “a small group that packs a lot of punch, and we see great potential in expanding that group,” said Susan Sobbett, president of OPEN, American Express’ small-business unit, and a member of the Count Me In mentor council.
Not every woman entrepreneur wants her company to become big, the program’s organizers acknowledge.
Women in particular often launch businesses with the idea that being their own bosses will give them the flexible schedules they need to take care of their families.
“Do we all own very small businesses because that’s what we like or that’s as far as we could get?” Merlino asked. “That’s a question I would like to know the answer to.”
Vanessa O’Neill is another woman determined to pass the $1-million revenue mark. O’Neill, founder and owner of Cedar Spring Inc. of Irvine, is also one of the five Southern California winners of the Make Mine a $Million Business awards program.
Her company, which had sales of $500,000 last year, is a value-added reseller now focusing on government agencies as potential buyers of the mobile surgical units for which it recently secured exclusive sales rights.
It also sells disaster-response shelters, diabetes diagnostic machines and infection-control products.
“It’s all about tenacity,” O’Neill said. She is one of 2,500 women who have signed the $1-million pledge online.
Marketing will be a core route to that goal for O’Neill and the other women determined to expand their companies, said Marilyn Montross, director of vendor relations at QVC.
Although she doesn’t think every award winner’s business is appropriate for QVC on-air product sales, she expects the women to benefit from QVC’s marketing expertise.
“If you have the absolutely most wonderful product in the world and nobody knows about it, you don’t have a business,” said Montross, who will be a mentor contact at QVC for the winners.
QVC, which already works with many women entrepreneurs, is excited about the chance to provide even more of them with a bigger playing field.
“This was really just something that was waiting to happen, with a little help from friends,” Montross said.
That support is expected to boost the confidence of the award winners and the business owners involved in the initiative, which Merlino believes is one of the crucial differences that will spur them to success.
Kelly, whose company received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in December for its 1.5-pound, soft-cup breast pump, is a good example.
“You feel like you can’t fail these people, and I know I won’t fail because I have them by my side,” she said. “They just make you feel like you are going to do it.”
Cyndia Zwahlen can be reached at cyndia.zwahlen@ latimes.com.
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
A winning line of credit
Here are the five Southern California winners of the Make Mine a $Million Business awards program for women. Winning makes them eligible for a $10,000 line of credit to help expand their businesses. For more information, visit www.makemineamillion.org
* Julie Fogg, Active Port, Long Beach. Authorized reseller of Nortel telephone and data technology. www.activeport.com
* Patricia Kelly, Limerick Inc., Burbank. Designs and manufactures a lightweight electric breast pump; provides lactation program consulting to major companies and municipal-
ities. www.limerickinc.com
* Diana Mercer, Peace Talks Mediation Services Inc., Playa del Rey. Teams attorneys and therapists to mediate family legal conflicts. www.peace-talks.com
* Garnett Newcombe, Human Potential Consulting, Carson. Project management support, staffing and management development for government and industry. www.hpcemployment.org
* Vanessa O’Neill, Cedar Spring Inc., Irvine. Mobile surgery units, infection control and diabetes diagnostics for government, nonprofits and industry. www.cspring.com
Source: Count Me In Inc.
