 ENTREPRENEURSHIP
By DONNA HINKELMAN
Photography JEFF TRUITT
KLRN used to air a weekly program that profiled companies created by individuals. All had started as small businesses, but some had grown. The focus, however, was on the common characteristics, principles, and values of the companies — and of the people who had created them.
The intro and the closing were memorable. The ending credits showed a pair of not-so-new women’s pumps and a pair of men’s dress shoes, placed side by side on the multi-stories-high ledge of a building. This was the perfect bookend for the beginning, when the voice of the host declared something along the lines of "when you know that if you don’t do this, your life will never be complete."
This thought succinctly describes the itch that has to be scratched by entrepreneurs. The "what if I don’t do this?" passion at some point overpowers the "what if I do this and fail?" fear. The leap of faith follows the scratching.
But what makes a person reach that point, walk away from the relative security of an employer and leap into the unknown as an entrepreneur reaching out towards an opportunity that does not yet exist? What makes women become entrepreneurs?
According to a study by the Kauffman Foundation, the leading reason women start businesses today is for greater control:
1. Control over the end product
2. Control over client relationships
3. Control over work-life balance and integration
Control over the end product
Carol Bertsch is an elder law attorney with a solo practice; she helps individuals who need assistance for themselves or elderly parents. She started her own practice because she never wanted to work for anyone again; the experience she had before starting her own practice had been unsatisfactory. So she struck out on her own. And she has never looked back.
Another business owner who struck out on her own is Anne George. Working since she was 14 in various jobs, by the time she was 24, with a psychology degree from Trinity University, George had experienced only one good boss who actually valued her opinion. The need to have her ideas acknowledged and being accountable for her own decisions launched George into the small-business-ownership world. She started with a small store at The Shops at Artisans’ Alley, which has grown in stages. As of early September, George will have enlarged her store, Finders Keepers, to 2,000 square feet and expanded the stock from seasonal whimsy, gifts and candles to include new lines, custom cards and invitations. According to George, "Working for yourself is an addiction."
A native San Antonian, Gloria Andrade Merrell returned to her hometown after 12 years in California, where she had been a professor of business, a restaurateur, a consultant and had served on various boards and received numerous honors. In 2005 she launched Andrade Business Consultants, serving small and medium-sized businesses. It is already expanding into foreign management opportunities and, with a business partner, into the San Jose area. For Andrade Merrell, the independence and the opportunities to apply her knowledge and experience are what keep her on this path. She says, "There is nothing like being your own boss!"
Deborah Bauer and Diana Weems are both in the real estate business — making their marks in the development side, long dominated by males. Bauer owns Drake Commercial Group, a commercial real estate and development services firm she started in 1991. Her initial goal was to support her two children as a single mother, but she ended up loving the work with builders, developers, engineers and land planners. Today her son works by her side in growing the company for the next generation. Ironically, knowing how much and when to grow was one of her biggest business challenges, along with knowing how to delegate. She readily acknowledges that her most valuable guidance was in "watching and listening to peers that I respected."
For Weems, owner of Encino Real Estate Services, a brokerage company specializing in land and subdivision lot sales, there is also a true affinity for the field. She particularly likes the excitement of creating new communities and working with developers and home builders. Her current focus is as a custom lot broker, marketing high-end garden homes and townhomes — an area that she perceived had not been adequately addressed. Since it started in 1996, Encino has grossed $9 million. Weems feels that beyond the monetary recompense is the true reward of finding knowledge and wisdom, believing that you have to constantly correct yourself to stay on a good path. Her words of advice: "It’s not about you. If you put others first, it will invariably pay off."
Control over client relationships
When Jeanie Wyatt founded South Texas Money Management, Ltd., in 2000, her career in trust banking spanned 27 years with three bank holding companies. Her last position was managing the investment areas of nine trust departments around the state with approximately $13 billion in assets. Many would have felt this position was the apex of a very successful career. Instead, the vantage just showed Wyatt that investment firms were ignoring a specific niche: more moderate minimum investment levels and a higher degree of personal service. So she founded South Texas Money Management (STMM) to service the investment portfolio needs of high-net-worth individuals, endowments and institutional businesses with an account minimum of $500,000 aggregate per family relationship. In five years, STMM has grown from managing assets of $150 million to $825 million. It has become an employee-owned firm, with some of its 24 employees having earned partnership status; it is also 70 percent woman-owned. Although the growth of assets under management has been acknowledged by the industry, Wyatt and her team gauge the company’s success on the length of its relationships with clients and referrals of new clients from existing ones — the measurements of true success in Wyatt’s mind. Yet she notes that the biggest challenge is growth: "I always want our firm to have the feel of a small firm no matter how big we become."
Barbara Greene started her business in 1996 following an earlier career path that included an MS in counseling and stints as a university administrator, a human resources development leader and an executive in a consulting firm. Greene and Associates, Inc. provides executive coaching, corporate mentoring and career transition counseling. Her motivation was the desire to have the freedom to provide services in a quality and customized manner. Regarding advice for a woman (or man) seeking to start her own business, Greene is clear: "Be passionate about your business, have at least a year’s worth of money in the bank, create lifelong relationships unconditionally, develop an organizational structure that lets you focus on what you enjoy most, and have fun."
In the evolution of her company over 10 years, Greene has seen a shift from individuals seeking her services to organizations seeking services for employees because they believe people are their best assets, and they are willing to invest in them and their growth. This very positive message brings to mind a statistic from the Center for Women’s Business Research: Since 1997, women-owned businesses have grown at twice the rate of all businesses in the United States, and this growth continues to be consistent. (Is there a correlation?)
Control over work-life balance and integration
As a corporate marketing executive, Gail Stouffer was smart, savvy and a producer of results for her team and its clients. But she became aware through industry downturns that external forces could impact her efforts and life, no matter how hard she had worked or how good the results had been. So she decided to strike out on her own, dusting off her art/business degree and turning a love of making jewelry into a career path. Her desire was to control her business’s growth and success and to create — what, when and for whom she wanted. In 2002, Wired Designs, Inc. was born and operated from Stouffer’s home. In 2003, partners Stacey Campbell and Susan Connors came on board, and the company incorporated and moved to The Shops at Artisans’ Alley. In 2005, the jewelry and art gallery, retail art supply store and workshop expanded into a larger space. As Stouffer notes, "This business chose me and developed a life of its own."
 And it’s a good life. At a projected growth rate of 25 to 30 percent, Wired Designs will generate more than $400,000 in sales in 2005. The five-year goals set forth in the company’s business plan will be met by the end of the partners’ second full year together. They work hard to keep a life balance in place. "Uncontrolled growth can create severe burnout. We vowed to manage our growth logically, not emotionally, and we all take extra time off each month to make sure that we feel WE are running the business instead of it running us!" says Stouffer.
Stouffer also gives credit to her sister, who set a strong example of how to make it all work. Iris Schimke started her company in 1989. Express Information Systems sells business software solutions that help its small and mid-market customers leverage technology to run their accounting and operational activities for growth and profitability. In a technology field, Schimke credits the success of her company to old-fashioned customer service and to valuing employees. This has helped Express Information Systems grow to $2.5 to $3 million in sales annually. What compelled her to start her business? Schimke says, "I didn’t know I couldn’t do it." She encourages women starting businesses today to ask for advice and opinions, adding "the more you know, the better you will be prepared for what lies ahead. Figure out what the worst-case scenario is, and if you can plan for that and then hope for the best as you move forward, you will never be caught unprepared. Surprises — mostly financial — will stop you in your tracks."
Dr. Patricia Adams is a licensed marriage and family therapist who leaped from a solo practice to found Zeitgeist Expressions in 2001. Zeitgeist provides federal, state, corporate and individual clients with counseling, training, mediation, crisis intervention and administrative and professional support in San Antonio and 18 states. With three children ages 12, 9 and 7, and a husband who joined the firm as CFO, Adams is adamant about staying involved in her children’s lives (she’s the cheerleading coach for her daughters) and finding time for herself and her relationship with her husband. One solution: she takes Fridays off —to regroup, refresh, re-energize.
Taking the leap
Common among all the interviewees is the sense that their lives really would NOT be as complete if they did not own their own businesses. The entrepreneurial spirit has hit them in a major way, and they are smitten. Clearly, this is not unique. It is why many universities now offer programs in entrepreneurialism. Globally, more than 500 courses on entrepreneurship are available. Harvard Business School’s three most popular courses are in entrepreneurship, and colleges throughout America receive endowments to grow their entrepreneurial programs.
In San Antonio, University of the Incarnate Word (UIW) is developing such a curriculum specifically for women, starting with a certification program, then expanding to a graduate degree. According to Dr. Michael Mulnix, dean of the School of Graduate Studies and Research, "The entire area of women’s entrepreneurial studies has begun to interest us greatly at UIW. Faculty in the H-E-B School of Business are exploring ways to bring a practical curriculum to women interested in expanding their knowledge in this area."
Dr. Mulnix gives credit for the beginning of UIW’s effort to Dr. Jack Davis, who has written a book on the topic, The Succeeding Personalities of Women Entrepreneurs. His research included interviews with 56 highly successful women who had been included in Working Woman magazine’s 1998 list of the top 500 women business owners in the United States (by sales). According to Dr. Davis, women are twice as likely as men to succeed in business. This is because women are more likely to have more of the characteristics defined as being needed to succeed, including being very ethical ("women cannot not tell the truth") and being quality conscious.
For many reasons — scientific, genetic, emotional — women entrepreneurs are here to stay. And in numbers that keep growing as we become more aware of the possibilities that are within us to make an impact on the world. It’s an impact that helps define our lives and ourselves.
Donna Hinkelman serves on the board of NAWBO-SA and is the owner of d!hinkelman marketing.pr.
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