entrepreneur

Maybe it's just the world I'm living in, but mommy-start-up businesses seem to be all the rage now.  Everyone says it's an easy way to spend more time with the family, make a few extra dollars and work for ourselves...

Author:    Sharon Hadary
Source:    The Center for Women's Business Research
May 22,2007

The other day I was driving my two daughters with me to Cubes & Crayons (www.cubesandcrayons.com), when my older one, a proud 2 1/2 year old, said to me "I love Cubes & Crayons." My heart melted. I built this endeavor, flexible office space in tandem with childcare, with parents like me in mind, but also for my children. While my daughter has been able to spout that the "cubes are for mommies and daddies and the crayons are for the kids," for months now, it has been a tough transition for everyone. Being a mom is the most important thing to me.

What do you do? Mother, teacher, student, designer, professional volunteer, business owner...??? My answer has varied over my short career years as I have searched for what it is I do. Always confident in my personal life, I have struggled for years with the career aspect through a series of bad choices, lack of self promotion and listening to bad advice.

With 48 days until Cubes & Crayons officially opens it doors and 41 days until our preview party, the pressure is on. I would be nowhere without my to do lists. Each day starts with one, often with many items from the previous day. The goal is not necessarily to get through every item each day, but to always have a picture of all the items that need to get done.

Since I decided to embark on founding my second company, Cubes & Crayons, life has been about balancing on a toothpick. I am standing on my tiptoes trying to stay up on a tiny point. While my 2 year old and I are marching in the "parade," I am frantically placing calls to find a t-bar ceiling specialist for the new campus and listening out of the other ear for my 2 month old to wake up.

I had the opportunity to catch-up with Emily He and Shazia Makhdumi, Co-founders of ColorfulStories.  They just launched their fabulous new site for creating personalized children's books.  Here's their story.

1.    What’s the best part about being an Entrepreneur/Mompreneur?  What’s the dark side?

Small business owners now have a wide variety of credit cards to choose from, and it makes it difficult to choose the best one for your small business. As a small business owner, you will need to decide which features you think that the company will use most often, and if they are worth using and having, before applying to a card. Many of the credit card companies now offer many attractive tools that can and will help each small business owner in their everyday spending and tracking.

Today we launch a weekly set of blog posts from our YourOnRamp team.  Now that our site is up we want to share with you our thoughts, trials and tribulations and the wonderful stories we've learned along the way.

We had a chance to speak with Bonnie Gray, Founder Just Peachy Baby.  Here's her story.