Subscribe to our Business Entrepreneur RSS feed for more great small business ideas!

A found a great article, The 5 Challenges of the Intermediate Entrepreneur, which succinctly outlines five of the challenges that most entrepreneurs face. The blog post is written by Wendy Piersall, CEO and founder of Sparkplugging.com who has over 8 years’ of entrepreneurial experience and is a writer for the Entrepreneur Magazine Blog Network.

Go check it out…

If you are a women who is over six feet tall, you need to get to know Kathyrn Kerrigan and her latest entrepreneurial adventure - Kathryn Kerrigan Footwear

According to her website, Kathryn Kerrigan Footwear “offers stylish and fashionable ballet flats, pumps and boots for women with all shoe sizes.”

For our readers who follow famous women entrepreneurs you may know Kathryn’s history. Back in 2007, Kathryn Kerrigan was one of the top women entrepreneurs in the United States as ranked by Inc Magzine. In fact she was number 5 on the Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 list.

Related Articles:

Top Female Entrepreneur Kathryn Kerrigan Fills Big Need

Women who return to work part-time after having children have more difficulty juggling career and family than mothers in full-time jobs.

And those who think they can solve the problem by starting their own business are wrong, with self-employed women even more likely to be stressed because they lack time.

“It is a double whammy for part-time working women - their jobs aren’t the best career option and more is expected of them on the home front,” said Barbara Pocock, head of the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia.

Professor Pocock conducted in March the first national survey of work-life outcomes, called Work, Life and Time, polling 1435 male and female Australians.

The results, to be released today, “confirm that long work hours have a negative effect both on the individual in terms of health and in the broader context of friendships and community involvement”.

Professor Pocock said men tended to be more dissatisfied with how they managed their work and home life, but women were more stressed because of time pressures, particularly women with children.

“This is a significant finding given the uniquely Australian dependence on part-time work by women with children,” Professor Pocock said.

Australian

Linda Byerline hates to admit that her business experience is self-taught. She was a stay-at-home mom with a nursing background when she posted an image of an extra cloth diaper she had made for her daughter on eBay.

Four years later, Byerline runs Happy Heiny’s, which provides cloth diapers online and in retail stores across the world.

“It completely caught us off guard,” she said of the immediate success of the company.

Byerline is planning to open her first “brick-and-mortar” store in El Cajon later this summer after moving the business out of her home this year. The shop will also offer parenting classes but she is determined to keep Happy Heiny’s from having “that company feeling.”

San Diego Biz

Fear is a motivating factor in our lives. In some ways it’s healthy–it prevents us from driving too fast or stepping too close to the edge of a cliff. In other ways, though, it can inhibit us from doing things that’ll benefit us.

Many women who consider starting a business encounter unexpected mental roadblocks that prevent them from moving forward. Here are some of the most common fears experienced by women who want to launch their own businesses–and how you can overcome them.

Fear of Financial Consequences
This fear is natural and completely rational. After all, if you’re investing time and money in a business, you assume some level of risk. There’s the fear of losing money invested, the fear of losing collateral, such as a home, and the fear of being unemployed if the business fails.

How can you deal with these fears?
Arm yourself with knowledge. If you don’t understand the financial aspects of your business–how to read a balance sheet, how to forecast and how to price–fears can mount. While it may not be practical to go back to business school, mentors can help. Try contacting your local SCORE chapter, which provides counselors to small businesses. The National Association of Women Business Owners also offers resources. And don’t forget to ask for help from your accountant and read as many business books and magazines as you can.

Women Entrepreneur