to always keep learning as well.
What about your education? Did that play a role in you becoming an entrepreneur?
Over half of the graduates of Harvard Business School start their own companies. That gave me a lot of confidence—that I was trained to do this—and at this point in my life, I knew I wanted to start a business. I also took an entrepreneurial management class at Harvard, and learned that I have the bootstrapping, startup mentality. Harvard also has a really strong outreach program to their alumni. They also offer a Virtual Learning Series to the alums, and broadcast the webinar series, which I attend. Recently, they had Lynda Applegate (a professor of entrepreneurial management at Harvard Business School) discuss entrepreneurship. That course gave me that extra momentum and encouragement to move forward and support my business idea. Although I earned my MBA when I was in my twenties (pre-marriage, pre-family), Harvard Business School continues to offer me great resources to start and move ahead with my business.
What about being a single WOMAN business owner? Do you think it is easier, the same, or harder than being a single man starting a business?
I think it is actually easier to be a woman business owner today than work in corporate America as woman. The pay/equity issue still exists. Also, the corporate environment is so inflexible on how the work is bundled, even today. It is very restrictive. In corporate America, in order to be on the fast track, a lot of face and travel time are required. Furthermore, people in corporate America make judgments on your gender, your marital status, whether or not you have kids relative to what they think you can do. It is very hard for a corporation to tap into your entire personal talent base because they decide what you can or cannot do, and it is very rigid.
I work just as hard if not harder than I did in corporate America now as a business owner, but I work on my schedule. I work when my kids are asleep, and now I have to be even more productive during my work time. I can schedule work around my family life and not have it negatively impact my work or my family life. I schedule my meetings with people I need to meet with and it is very fluid. I can work on a weekend when the kids are with their father, and it works much better with my life—and no one is judging me based on my parental responsibilities or how I spend my time.
I think this is a big piece of why entrepreneurship works well for women. Women plateau in corporate America at levels not fulfilling for them, because the corporation doesn’t maximize the skills of women with families by providing flexible work arrangements. Also, there are so many politics inside corporate America that you spend more time thinking about having to work through and around the internal system that work isn’t as efficient. As an entrepreneur, I just get things done! I get so much more work done by working at a faster and more productive pace this way—I don’t have to work through the politics.
What was the best training you received to prepare you as a business owner, other than your MBA?
I have role models in my family who are entrepreneurs. We’ve done this in our family for generations. I’m trained to be in corporate America, but I can transfer these skills to creating and growing my own business. My dad is a physician and started in group practice, then went into private practice. He broke out and started his own practice and then expanded it into a group practice partnership. They had a common vision of how to move it forward together. That was important to me. I could see how having his own practice gave him flexibility in his schedule to take more trips and spend time with his family. He wasn’t restricted by corporate philosophy.
I think this had an important influence on me, because I learned by watching him that entrepreneurs have more freedom to design their lives. As an entrepreneur, I feel like I have more control to design a total life; people are multi-dimensional. Corporate America is about getting a few weeks of vacation and that’s it, but entrepreneurship allows me to have this freedom to design my life and work in concert with all dimensions of my life.
Also, relative to my education gearing me for entrepreneurship, I went to UC Berkeley as an undergrad and currently live in the Bay Area. I tap into their alumni events as well. They offer a Women in Leadership conference with entrepreneurship and healthcare panels. Attending the panel discussions has been very helpful, as entrepreneurs are very willing to share their challenges and struggles. I love these panels, because they are encouraging and provide ideas to help you move forward rather than just telling you something won’t work.
How about being both a mom and an entrepreneur?
It is so much easier to be an entrepreneur and mom than being a mom in corporate America. People expect me to be a mom as an entrepreneur because my business is wellness. I talk a lot about kids and positive role modeling by adults around eating as part of creating an environment for successful wellness practices. I share the motherhood piece much more freely and comfortably as a business owner rather than I did in corporate America, because talking about being a mom in corporate America sounds like I’m not committed to the company. It has become an asset to be a mother as an entrepreneur, whereas in corporate America it was a liability.
Did you take on a partner in your business at any time?
My new business did not originally start with just me. I originally started this business with a neighbor, who was already an entrepreneur. We made some progress together, but she had other businesses going on at the time, and she decided to focus on them. I told her I was entirely committed to this concept, so I’d like to transfer the business to me, and bought her out of the business. Now, it is just me.
If you had to start another business, what have you learned that you might do differently—either about yourself, or about how to run a business in general?
I think the ownership piece I would do differently if I had to start over or start again. Knowing what I know now, it is hard to have a partnership. You need someone to set a strategic direction and having a partner sometimes slows you down. But, through this first business I started, having a partner initially was a blessing, because I don’t think I would have had the confidence to do this alone. I gained the confidence when I started to get more into the concept and by the time I bought my partner out of the business, I was able to reshape the vision of the business to a place that is a better fit with the market need. Starting with someone else gave me the confidence to drive the business on my own. Owning a business truly is experiential learning. You have to go through the experience in the real world to truly learn how to run a business. It is a process of doing, constantly learning, and understanding how you are going to assimilate new information into the business.
How important were mentors in your entrepreneurial career?
I wouldn’t say I have one mentor. I have different role models in my life. My father has been a good role model, as a business oriented physician—practicing good medicine and running a solid business. I find role models in a lot of places. For example, Harvard has outreach programs to women alumni who are in career transition. When I went to my 15-year business school reunion, I enrolled in the Charting Your Course program where I spent 2 days with 48 women, and they had good role models there; some were entrepreneurs. I have kept in touch with some women on those panels and ask them questions on occasion even now. That has been very helpful. Another good role model is my partner in life. As I previously mentioned, he’s an entrepreneur too. Even though I’m self-funding my own business and he has had venture capital for his, there are a lot of other issues around entrepreneurship that are similar between his business and mine. I’ve learned a lot just by watching him go through his experiences.
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