Читать книгу Single. Women. Entrepreneurs. Second Edition - Erin Albert - Страница 4

On January 28, 1813, the now world famous book, Pride and Prejudice, was officially published by Jane Austen. It is one of my favorite books. In her book, she states the following: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” Nearly 200 years later, and very close to the same publishing date of Ms. Austen, I’m going to submit to you, the reader, the following quote in this book: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of a good fortune (or not), must be in want of…an enterprise. Perhaps it is not yet a universal truth, but I believe, after interviewing many single women entrepreneurs, that it is on its way to being true. I’m in hopes this book helps bring the idea of a universal truth closer to reality.

I promised myself I wouldn’t start my sixth book until I got back to the United States. But, it just sounds so much cooler to share with you that I’m sitting on a patio in a hotel in Beijing, China, writing to you my very first lines of a project that I hope will be a tremendous asset to the future of something I’m personally passionate about: entrepreneurship. It’s true! I really am in China, spending four weeks trying to understand how the law of China works, and comparatively—how law is similar and different between China and the United States.

Honestly, this study (a summer law program, of all things) lit the fire to start this book early for me. China is a developing country, and they are slowly but surely learning how to dominate the global business world. After seeing and appreciating how they live and work (the minimum wage here is around $1 an hour, and the college students get up at 6 a.m. each day to practice their English), I have to say, now is the best time ever for women who want to start a business not only in the U.S., but perhaps anywhere in the world. In China, they are eager and willing to work hard to become a super power. Are we as a country in the U.S.? I certainly hope so. We live in the greatest country on the planet, particularly for the innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial.

So you might be thinking, OK, I get it, but why are you only studying single women business owners? Well, that all comes back to home. I am divorced, and fell into my first business as the ‘accidental entrepreneur’ in 2005 as a single, and my second business a year later. As I’ve written in previous books, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing then, and honestly still don’t know if I fully understand what it is that I’m doing with my businesses now. However, I’m having a blast trying to figure things out! One of my current businesses (Yuspie, LLC) focuses primarily on the young urban single professional. Everywhere I look, there are single professionals paving their own way through life, but in my opinion, there is not enough support for their plight in the media, in books, and on television.

This, coupled with all the buzz about the lack of innovation in the world (be it back home in Indianapolis, Indiana, or even here in Beijing, China), and the report recently published by the Kauffman Foundation (a think tank that studies entrepreneurship) on gender and entrepreneurship, I was struck by a particular chart in the report, which (finally) explored the differences between men and women entrepreneurs. This table (Table 2, if you want to look it up, here: www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/successful_women_entrepreneurs_5-10.pdf) I found fascinating. It basically showed that more single, widowed, divorced and never married women than men started businesses. As I rifled through the text to find an explanation as to why, I frustratingly never found one.

That is the genesis of this book. I’m curious to know why more solo women than men start businesses. Also, are they having more success? Different success? What is success to a single woman business owner? Do they have some advantages that married women or men don’t have in order to start a business? Naturally, I did the token Amazon search on the topic and surprise—didn’t find anything there either. (Lesson learned: if you amazon.com search a book idea and can’t find it, it is your job to write it. My five other books utilized the same topic identification process, and I recently learned that Toni Morrison agrees with this notion of writing.)

So here I am, on a patio, in the northwest side of Beijing, China, drinking (imported) Budweiser, writing this intro as to why I’m taking this project on. In the end, here are my hypotheses (you can read the book and check me, but I’m not changing my mind until the end of my research):

1.Single people start more businesses because they have to. Multiple streams of income are the future. The new “safe” is to have multiple streams of income simultaneously.

2.Married people usually have a plan B: a spouse that can take care of them, when the fit hits the shan. Singles don’t have that. Therefore, singles must learn how to create their own individual plan Bs. A business can be a primary or secondary income stream.

3.Singles have some hidden advantages that may be exposed for the first time ever in this book. I’ll save what I think they are to see if they come through the interviews.

4.With those advantages, singles also have some disadvantages to owning a business. What are they, and do they actually lead to a detrimental effect on the success of the business? I think they might actually be advantages in some ways instead of disadvantages …

5.How does owning a business as a singleton affect one’s personal life? Does it actually lead to marriage, or are personal status and business status totally separate and independent factors from each other? My guess is that more singles actually marry after they start and establish their businesses than not.

6.People are living longer. People are also waiting to get married. This means more time solo. But the average person starting a business—are they older or younger than the average person with marriage on the mind? I don’t know.

7.What about social businesses, like low profit limited liability companies (L3Cs) and Benefit Corporations? What do women think about these forms of business, and do they fit the rationale for why single women are starting businesses?

It is also important to share with you what this book is NOT. If you want to learn more on how to start a business, there are PLENTY of books already out there on that topic. Furthermore, the following 30 interviews were conversations with single women business owners; therefore, the tone of the book is also conversational. (Grammar police: you’ve officially been warned.) I really wanted to stay as true to the tone of each entrepreneur as humanly possible.

My writing mentor always told me that writing a book is not a process, but instead a journey. After interviewing all thirty plus women (I did interview more than 30, but I have included 30 interviews in this book), I’ve concluded at the end of the book some things I learned as common ‘themes’ from these single women and their motives to start a business. I can’t wait to find out more about these fascinating women: the single women entrepreneurs!

The Single. Women. Entrepreneurs.