Excerpt From "Tapping Your Inner Entrepreneur"

Deciding Whether Entrepreneurship is Right for You

Why do women start businesses? What motivates anyone to dive into entrepreneurship with her heart and soul? How do you know whether business ownership is right for you?

The answers to these questions are as varied as the 10.6 million privately held businesses in the United States that are at least 50 percent woman-owned. These businesses generate $2.5 trillion in sales and employ 19.1 million people, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research in Washington, D.C., founded as the National Foundation for Women Business Owners. And each owner has her own story.

What will your story be? If you’re thinking of starting your own business, you’re in for a journey of self-exploration. The good news is that many, many people before you have tested the waters, and you can learn from their experience.

You’ll find some of their stories outlined in this book, along with statistical information, expert advice and checklists to use as guidelines as you explore a possible new career.

Today’s Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship in the United States is so widespread today that it’s “as common as getting married or the birth of a baby,” according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo.
Actually it’s more common. About 10.1 million U.S. adults are trying to start a business at any given time. Some are working in teams, so the number of businesses in formation is about 5.6 million, the Kauffman organization found in its 2002 report “The Entrepreneur Next Door: Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics,” published online at www.kauffman.org. By comparison, at the time of the study, the nation annually recorded about 3.9 million births and 2.4 million marriages.
You’re just as likely to start a business when you’re in your late 20s as you are in your 30s, 40s or early 50s, the study shows. If you’re involved in starting a business right now, you’re among about 4.5 in every 100 women in the United States. That compares with 8.1 in every 100 men – or an average of 6.2 in every 100 adults.

Why women start businesses

If you’re working for someone else right now, how does that figure into your decision? Let’s look at why other women in the United States leave their workplaces to start businesses.

It’s not necessarily because they lost their jobs and can’t find employment. Business owners are more likely to spring from the ranks of those who are working full ..

About the Author

Diane Sears is the founder and president of DiVerse Media in Orlando, Florida, which helps authors write and publish nonfiction books. She writes the monthly Travel and Tourism business column for Florida Trend magazine and is former editor-in-chief of Venture Woman, a national magazine for women business owners, and the former Workplace reporter for the Orlando Sentinel newspaper. She previously worked as an assistant city editor, a government reporter, a copy editor and a copy desk chief for daily newspapers including the Orlando Sentinel and Florida Today, and as marketing director for DigitalOwl, which developed copyright-protection software for the publishing industry. For 10 years, she co-owned DiAntiques, specializing in Civil War-era clothing and memorabilia. She was 2004-05 president of the Orlando Chapter of National Association of Women Business Owners.