LLC) focuses primarily on the young urban single professional. Everywhere I look, there are single professionals paving their own way through life, but in my opinion, there is not enough support for their plight in the media, in books, and on television.
This, coupled with all the buzz about the lack of innovation in the world (be it back home in Indianapolis, Indiana, or even here in Beijing, China), and the report recently published by the Kauffman Foundation (a think tank that studies entrepreneurship) on gender and entrepreneurship, I was struck by a particular chart in the report, which (finally) explored the differences between men and women entrepreneurs. This table (Table 2, if you want to look it up, here: www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/successful_women_entrepreneurs_5-10.pdf) I found fascinating. It basically showed that more single, widowed, divorced and never married women than men started businesses. As I rifled through the text to find an explanation as to why, I frustratingly never found one.
That is the genesis of this book. I’m curious to know why more solo women than men start businesses. Also, are they having more success? Different success? What is success to a single woman business owner? Do they have some advantages that married women or men don’t have in order to start a business? Naturally, I did the token Amazon search on the topic and surprise—didn’t find anything there either. (Lesson learned: if you amazon.com search a book idea and can’t find it, it is your job to write it. My five other books utilized the same topic identification process, and I recently learned that Toni Morrison agrees with this notion of writing.)
So here I am, on a patio, in the northwest side of Beijing, China, drinking (imported) Budweiser, writing this intro as to why I’m taking this project on. In the end, here are my hypotheses (you can read the book and check me, but I’m not changing my mind until the end of my research):
1.Single people start more businesses because they have to. Multiple streams of income are the future. The new “safe” is to have multiple streams of income simultaneously.
2.Married people usually have a plan B: a spouse that can take care of them, when the fit hits the shan. Singles don’t have that. Therefore, singles must learn how to create their own individual plan Bs. A business can be a primary or secondary income stream.
3.Singles have some hidden advantages that may be exposed for the first time ever in this book. I’ll save what I think they are to see if they come through the interviews.
4.With those advantages, singles also have some disadvantages to owning a business. What are they, and do they actually lead to a detrimental effect on the success of the business? I think they might actually be advantages in some ways instead of disadvantages …
5.How does owning a business as a singleton affect one’s personal life? Does it actually lead to marriage, or are personal status and business status totally separate and independent factors from each other? My guess is that more singles actually marry after they start and establish their businesses than not.
6.People are living longer. People are also waiting to get married. This means more time solo. But the average person starting a business—are they older or younger than the average person with marriage on the mind? I don’t know.
7.What about social businesses, like low profit limited liability companies (L3Cs) and Benefit Corporations? What do women think about these forms of business, and do they fit the rationale for why single women are starting businesses?
It is also important to share with you what this book is NOT. If you want to learn more on how to start a business, there are PLENTY of books already out there on that topic. Furthermore, the following 30 interviews were conversations with single women business owners; therefore, the tone of the book is also conversational. (Grammar police: you’ve officially been warned.) I really wanted to stay as true to the tone of each entrepreneur as humanly possible.
My writing mentor always told me that writing a book is not a process, but instead a journey. After interviewing all thirty plus women (I did interview more than 30, but I have included 30 interviews in this book), I’ve concluded at the end of the book some things I learned as common ‘themes’ from these single women and their motives to start a business. I can’t wait to find out more about these fascinating women: the single women entrepreneurs!
The Single. Women. Entrepreneurs.
Kathryn Alexander, MA
Ethical Impact, L3C
Kathryn Alexander, president & CEO of Ethical Impact, L3C is a serial entrepreneur & author of the forthcoming book, Ethics of Sustainability. The creator of the Sustainable Values Set®, providing education on sustainability issues, and certifying sustainable businesses using the Forever Green™ certification process, she helps leaders and teams create and navigate their desired future. In her 16 years working with change in organizations ranging from start-ups to Fortune 50 companies, she has learned the secret that effective organizations are ethical organizations. Working with leaders and teams to think differently about their problems, she has been instrumental in co-creating significant shifts in her client companies. The alignment of a company from strategy to customer is a robust approach to long-term effectiveness, and integral to Kathryn’s approach. Her passion is developing leadership that generates enlightened business practices to create effective and sustainable business communities.
Her client list includes the Department of Public Works—City and County of San Francisco, Union Carbide, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Pacific Telesis, Mervyn’s, AT&T, and Rochester Telephone. Kathryn developed the Birds of a Feather™ model, a tool for strategically assessing organizational culture, the Strategic Values Set® model assessment, and with Verna Allee is the co-author of the Quality Tools Matrix™.
Ethical Impact L3C is a social benefit company that supports companies implementing strategic sustainable business practices through consulting, education, auditing and certification. They love life, the planet and people. Their joy is seeing their clients grab hold of their vision, join hands with Mother Nature and make a difference in the world. The company can be reached at www.ethicalimpact.com, by email at [email protected] and by phone at (888) 331-7492.
Can you describe your business in one sentence?
We are a consulting, auditing, and certification company, bringing companies to life by bringing the value of strategic sustainability to organizations.
Why did you start Ethical Impact, L3C, and how long has it been around?
I have spent years working with executives in a consulting capacity and learned from that how important leadership is, and how important values are in how leaders act. I developed proprietary tools to help leaders understand their own personal values and help them understand how those values actually control how they work versus how they think they are working. Originally, the business came into being in 2003 as a corporation. Then in 2009, I decided to make it a limited liability company (LLC), largely because I had been sick for 5 years. I had liver cancer, a punctured colon and had 2 hips replaced. When I returned to work in 2009, I made it a LLC. Then in 2010, I discovered the L3C and reincorporated it as a L3C.
Ethical Impact is a low profit limited liability company, or a L3C, which is a business form currently available in around 10 states in the U.S. What is a L3C, how is it different from traditional business models, like a LLC, and why did
