Enterprising women

Many of the entrepreneurs profiled in Enterprising Women will be names you'll recognize, like Mary Kay Ash, Liz Claiborne, Jenny Craig, Donna Karan, Muriel Siebert, and Lillian Vernon. Others may be new to you, such as Julie Brice ("I Can't Believe It's Yogurt"), Vinita Gupta (Digital Link), Gail Koff (Jacoby & Meyers), Lin W. Lan (Pacific Pioneer Insurance Co.), and Cheryl Shuman (Starry Eyes Optical Services). But they all share a common and remarkable achievement: Each created or built solid businesses worth at least $10 million in sales or $15 million in market value despite facing unique challenges in starting and sustaining her venture. Entrepreneurs with limited access to capital (a traditional hurdle for women, but one that increasingly applies to men as well) will find these accounts particularly useful. Only five of the subjects Silver profiles launched their businesses with professional venture capital; the rest got off the ground through sweat equity, supplier financing, and/or loans from family and friends. Their clear-eyed view of financing obstacles will help would-be entrepreneurs track down new sources of capital and steer clear of classic pitfalls. So too will the author's six-step process, which demonstrates how you can create value by identifying a problem, devise an innovative solution, and build the right team and system to deliver the solution. . Today, about half of all entrepreneurs in the United States are female; by the year 2000, women entrepreneurs are expected to be in the majority. These are the business-people who are rewriting the rules and taking control of events at critical moments in the histories of their markets. Their candid accounts will inspire any enterprising entrepreneur - male and female alike - to go off and do the same.