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Why mums make great entrepreneurs

Guest post by: Mandy Garner

Article Overview: Mums often make natural entrepreneurs and have the motivation to set up their own business to balance work and family needs, says a leading business expert who is promoting grassroots entrepreneurialism.

Why mums make great entrepreneurs

Why are an increasing number ofmums starting up their own businesses? For Tony Heywood, co-founder of Yoodoo.biz, the reason is not just because they need the flexibility that working for yourself allows.

He believes it is more to do with the fact that having childrenmeans they are ready for a challenge and helps themdevelop skills which are exactly the kind of skills needed to be an entrepreneur.

"They have to think like an entrepreneur running their own organisation. They know that the buck stops with them," he says.

UK-based business leader Heywood and serial entrepreneur Nick Saalfeld started up Yoodoo.biz, a website providing support and advice for anyone wanting to set up their own business. They have over 50 staff and offer the advice and support of over 80 experts. It is not aimed at the natural entrepreneur - the kid who could turn any event into a business opportunity. Nor is it aimed at those who have had the right mentors and family support. It is aimed at "the majority who have the aspiration, who would like to set up their own business if it wasn't for all sorts of obstacles", says Heywood.

He says that schemes aimed at would-be entrepreneurs often focus on role models who have become stratospherically successful, he says, rather than on your average business person. "This is usually a result of good luck rather than judgement," he adds, "and is not true of 99% of entrepreneurs."

First steps

The aim of Yoodoo.biz is to encourage the average person to discover they can set up in business. "It's about getting them to take that first step," says Saalfeld. Yoodoo.biz set up a pop-up shop just outside London over the summer, an area of relatively high unemployment. They said the people who seemed most enthusiastic and passionate were people from ethnic minorities and women with children. "For the women the common factor was that they were used to working things out for themselves outside of a big structured organisation," says Heywood.

The site provides them with a personalised experience. When you go on the website, you are asked to register. There is no sinister reason, says Heywood. It is so that they can tailor the service provided to you. If you are a working mum, for instance, you will not relate so well to webinars given by a grey-haired, pinstripe suited man. You will instead get directed to material which is hosted by women who are in or have been in a similar situation to yourself so that it seems more relevant.

Heywood calls the webinars episodes and says they are around 13 minutes long and are an interactive, multi-media experience with quizzes at the end. They are designed to engage and include episodes on businesses for working parents. It is not just around gender and age that the information provided is tailored. It is also personalised according to the type of business you want to set up, be that dog walking or being an insurance broker. "The concept is of a journey," says Heywood. "The journey is different depending on your business idea, your age, gender and whether you are setting up the business on your own or with people. The idea is that we make it enjoyable because if you are not engaged you won't do it."

The website provides practical sessions and exercises on everything from naming your business to costing things and is done in a way that encourages experimentation before you take the plunge, so reducing risk. "The vast majority of people have some germ of an idea about what they would want to do if they set up their own business. What they need is a process of refinement," says Heywood.

He and Saalfeld say that now could be the right time to start a business as the economy has gone downhill and has probably reached the bottom before it climbs back up again. Would-be entrepreneurs can get materials, rent and office equipment for cheaper and be ready to expand when the economy picks up. "If you can survive in this climate you will be so secure when things improve," says Saalfeld. "It's about creating real business, making things, selling things, building things. It's grassroots entrepreneurship."

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Article Tags: entrepreneurialism, mums



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