Category Archives: Women Entrepreneurship

Flourishing women with flourishing careers

Posted on by
Reply

Start your week with an article on women who continue building their careers in the age which is usually connected with retirement and taking care of grandchildren -> Clinton, Yellen, and Warren all reached their 60s having raised families and built long professional tracks as well.

Statistics also point to a significant rise in entrepreneurship during the “retirement years”. According to Kauffman stFlourishing womenudy, Americans in their fifties and sixties have started businesses at a faster pace over the last decade, while that pace has continuously slowed among Americans in their twenties and early thirties. The article puts a new perspective on the topic: “Perhaps having to wait awhile isn’t an entirely bad thing. If more people in professional and public life had to perform, and keep performing, before they got top posts, all of us might be better off.”

Whether building and expanding professional careers, entering public service, or building that dream business, retirement years are now years of opportunity and excitement for all of us.

Read the whole article here http://theatln.tc/1IF5GHi

ChallengeHER 2015 Tour Update

Posted on by
Reply

CH-LogoWomen Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) is happy to provide women business owners with the guidance to better compete for Federal Contracts under the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract Program. In order to educate and get women business owners together with federal buyers, ChallengeHER programs are being held in several cities and states throughout 2015. There have already been 3 events held – in Washington D.C., New York City, and Dallas and many more in the upcoming months. I’d like to share some highlights with you, as we have had many great hosts and speakers with outstanding presentations.

For those of you, who are not familiar with the program, here is some basic information:

ChallengeHER, an initiative from the U. S. Small Business Administration (SBA), WIPP, and American Express OPEN (OPEN), is designed to strengthen and promote the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contract Program. ChallengeHER offers women business owners important information to established and new businesses on working with the federal government. Further, these events enable more women business owners to take advantage of contracting opportunities so they can boost their businesses and help propel the success of the WOSB Procurement Program.

The agenda of the ChallengeHER events is structured to provide women around all the United States the most important, standardized knowledge and guidance in federal marketplace. In ChallengeHER, WOSB federal contractors have a unique opportunity to:

  • Learn about the WOSB set aside program and how to market their business using this set aside.
  • Learn from experiences of successful WOSBs working as federal contractors.
  • Learn from federal buyers how to do business with their agency in Contracting Officers Panel.
  • Network with peer mentors and other WOSB and Economically Disadvantaged Women-Owned Small Business (EDWOSB) firms.

In addition, each event is filled with different speakers and moderators with substantial insights and specific topics.

Washington D.C. hosted by SBA

The first event this year was held in Washington, D.C. on May 11 at the SBA Headquarters. We kicked off with WOSB Strategic Research and Marketing presented by Sean Crean from the SBA. A panel of successful women entrepreneurs shared their experiences and a panel of contracting officers provided insight on planning for federal contracting, underlining the core mission of ChallengeHER – to share and educate women in federal procurement business.

New York City filled with extraordinary speakers

Amex_ChallengeHer_2015-74After Washington, we moved to New York City where we had the great pleasure to listen to an armchair discussion between The Honorable Maria Contreras-Sweet, Administrator, U. S. Small Business Administration and Denise Pickett, President, American Express OPEN, on Fueling the Small Business Economy and Growing Women-Owned Small Business. The discussion was very informative and we learned many new facts regarding the WOSB program and about other SBA initiatives including guarantees for loans to small business owners and thus eliminating some of the risk to the lending partners under Guaranteed Loan Programs (Debt Financing).

Another highlight in NYC was one-to-one matchmaking sessions between Federal Buyers and Contractors, where on top of the panel discussions, women entrepreneurs had a unique opportunity to directly discuss their business proposals with federal contracting officers.

Dallas Questions & Answers Storm

Just a week later, we headed to stormy Dallas for a special ChallengeHER with the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Despite the severe weather forecasts the event day was bright and sunny and well attended! The Dallas audience was very interactive and we had more than 4 hours of sessions filled with questions and active discussions with the speakers and panelists.

We have had a great start to this year’s ChallengeHER “tour” and more summer events are announced for July in Atlanta and for August in Cincinnati and New Hampshire! We can’t wait to meet new women entrepreneurs and help them get new insights for enhancing their businesses.

Stay tuned for upcoming events and visit our website for more information and announcements.

Arianna’s world

Posted on by
Reply

Arianna Huffingtion profileToday I came across a very inspiring profile story on Arianna Huffington who we all recognize as an  “Internet Media Pioneer”. The article provides great overview of her story, explains why she is being known as “the Internet’s most improbable media pioneer” and how her career led to creation of the Huffington Post.
Great article for anyone who is interested in online news and wants to learn from one of the pioneers in the field! Read more in New York Times.

Help is on the way!

Posted on by
Reply

Export NOWIf you are the owner of a small business interested in the potential exporting opportunity, it’s not easy! There is no central point of entry, much less an easy step-by-step process to follow.   We hear over and over that it is overwhelming with trade development resources and guides often disbursed throughout several agencies and their departments.

Help is on the way for you with the Export NOW program developed by WIPP.   Whether you are considering export, or looking to expand your markets, we have the experts to guide you.   For more information check out our step by step curriculum and get started today.

“Dream Big” This National Small Business Week, May 4-8

Posted on by
Reply

MCS Photo

By Maria Contreras-Sweet
Administrator, U.S. Small Business Administration

With apologies to baseball and your mother’s apple pie, nothing is more American than National Small Business Week.

Our country was founded by risk-taking pioneers in search of new horizons. More than two centuries later, what sets America apart in the world is the willingness of our entrepreneurs to take risks. Small businesses allow Americans to be their own boss and improve their lot in life through hard work – a core American value.

Every year since 1963, the President of the United States has issued a proclamation declaring National Small Business Week to recognize the critical contributions of America’s entrepreneurs, who create nearly two out of every three net, new U.S. jobs each year. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said it was our small businesses that powered our recovery after the Great Recession.

National Small Business Week, themed “SBA: Dream Big, Start Small,” will be held May 4-8. Special events will take place in Miami/Boca Raton, Los Angeles, San Antonio, New York, and Washington. D.C.

Tune in all week for live-streaming, beginning at 1 p.m. ET Monday with a panel discussion on small business financing followed by a conversation with Joyce Rosenberg of the Associated Press. Or join me @MCS4Biz at #DreamSmallBiz. I promise you’ll learn a lot.

America is one of the few countries that give entrepreneurs a seat at the President’s cabinet table. This allows the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) to speak with one voice on behalf of 28 million small businesses with divergent interests.

The SBA also offers an extensive national network of small business lenders and counselors that’s unmatched anywhere in the world. Many entrepreneurs with great ideas and great potential do not begin with great wealth, so they need a great government partner to support their success.

The SBA offers the “three Cs” to help the best and brightest start or grow a business, secure capital, and commercialize their ideas to benefit society:

  • Capital: SBA fill gaps in the commercial lending marketplace so success in the small business sector is based on merit, not family wealth. To inquire about a small business loan, click here.
  • Counseling: SBA provides free consultation and advice to help businesses on Main Street succeed. To find a small business counselor near you, click here.
  • Contracts: SBA levels the playing field with big business by helping small businesses capture new revenue and new customers by winning government contracts, joining corporate supply chains, and exporting beyond our borders. To learn about contracting opportunities, click here.

This year, during National Small Business Week, we recommit ourselves to those fearless entrepreneurs who plan well, work hard, and dream big. Every business starts small. Nike, Apple, FedEx, Ben & Jerry’s, Under Armour and Outback Steakhouse were all once small businesses, until they found an SBA lender or investor to work with them.

I came to this country as a 5-year old immigrant who didn’t speak a word of English. Today, I serve in the cabinet of the President of the United States. My story is possible only because of the entrepreneurial spirit.

Success in business comes one small step at a time. So dream big, but take that next small step today, because the next great American success story could be staring back at you in the mirror.

SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet started three businesses in Los Angeles, including a community bank, before joining President Obama’s cabinet in April 2014.

National Women’s Business Council Releases 2014 Annual Report

Posted on by
Reply

NWBCThe dawn of the New Year provides an excellent opportunity to review the successes of 2014, and to assess areas of improvement for 2015. The National Women’s Business Council’s annual report, “Building Bridges: Leveraging Research and Relationships to Impact the Business Climate for Women” does exactly that, providing us with an overview of women entrepreneurship, including a summary of key research findings, policy recommendations and the Council’s agenda in the year ahead. The report rests on NWBC’s four pillar platform- access to capital, access to markets, job creation and growth, and data collection- and confirms what many of us already know, that the full economic participation of women is essential to economic growth in the U.S.

Access to capital remains a key issue for women business owners. In order to better understand the ways in which women business owners accessed capital, NWBC worked with the SBA to analyze loan data, partnered with Walker’s Legacy to host a round-table specific to women of color and access to capital, and commissioned new research on under-capitalization. The research shows a direct link between access to capital and revenue generation, with men starting their businesses with nearly twice as much capital as women, a disparity which increases among firms with high growth potential. The report highlights crowdfunding as an important new resource for women business owners seeking capital.
The NWBC also focused much research on access to markets for women business owners, using WIPP’s own ChallengeHER campaign as a building block for identifying best practices in government procurement. Thanks to the Women Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program, more and more federal contracts are being awarded to women owned small businesses. However, disparities still remain in regard to award amount between WOSBs and non-WOSBs, most likely as a result of different contract types.
In 2013, the Council called for an increase in the number of women owned or led firms in incubators and accelerators in an attempt to increase job creation and growth. In 2014, the Council honored this commitment, through championing the SBA’s Office of Investment and Innovation’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, convening a public meeting on STEM, entrepreneurship, and women, and commissioning new research on micro-businesses and accelerators and incubators. Research shows that women with dependent children are less likely to add additional employees, indicating that child care burdens are still a significant obstacle to the growth of women owned small businesses.
The report concludes with a number of different, concrete strategies for each pillar, building off of past success while also acknowledging areas for improvement. Among many other things, the NWBC recommends: tax credits for investors who finance women-owned and led firms; creating opportunities to align women business owners with government and corporate procurement officials; improvement of the availability and timeliness of government and private sector data on women owned small businesses; the implementation of the sole source authority for the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract Program (yay!).
The National Women’s Business Council is a crucial resource for women entrepreneurs and business owners. The research and recommendations they provide acts as a road map for the success of women entrepreneurs, success which is reached through hard work, partnerships and persistence. 2014 was a great year for women entrepreneurs, and 2015 looks just as promising.