Meet the Mompreneurs

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And you can make serious money. In 2003, her first year in business, Jennifer Fleece sold $5,000 worth of her fleece--yes, she has the same last name as her fabric--crib sheets. The figure was $30,000 last year. She projects sales of $400,000 this year and has just hired a national sales team. Dads are also getting in on the act. Mike Gatten projects up to $3 million in sales this year for his Miracle Blanket, designed in desperation to calm a colicky infant. Rosie Herman, of Tomball, Texas, worked 15 years as a manicurist before giving birth to twin girls and then noticing that the tasks of motherhood were drying out her hands (imagine changing a dozen diapers a day). She cooked up an exfoliating, moisturizing formula in her kitchen, then juggled eight credit cards and even resorted to bartering to get her One Minute Manicure business off the ground. Back in 1999, a neighbor who owned a computer would place orders and print invoices for Herman and get home-cooked meals in return. Since then, Herman has sold $20 million worth of products, hired a staff of 25 and bought a few computers for herself.

Nowadays, a person with a parenting-inspired business concept doesn't have to take on the kind of start-up risks that Herman did. A mom-run business called Parents of Invention will take the idea, handle all the details of bringing a new product to market and give the inventors between 3% and 5% of the royalties. Los Angeles--based CEO Laine Caspi, who invented a baby carrier, receives about 200 ideas each month and has so far made 10 of them a reality. Projected sales this year: $1.5 million.

Nan Langowitz, director of the Center for Women's Leadership at Babson College, says one of the reasons for the success and growth of women-owned businesses is the focus on client satisfaction. "It's not that they don't care about financial performance, because they do," she says. "But focusing on customer satisfaction is a big driver." Stephanie Allen, whose Dream Dinners company grew out of a monthly date with a friend to cook and freeze nutritious meals for their families, says she receives 400 requests a week for a franchise application. She's sold only 76 because, she explains, she weeds out people who are in it just for the money: "We want people who are committed to the community, to helping moms get a healthy dinner on the table."

Jill Morgan quit her job as a software engineer at Motorola to stay at home with her three kids and started a publishing company purely to satisfy small customers. Fond memories of Mr. Pine's Purple House, her very favorite book as a child, had driven her to eBay, where she was shocked to find a single used copy selling for $300. "I could buy it for my children, but I couldn't let them hold it," she says. So Morgan founded Purple House Press and set about acquiring the rights to republish out-of-print children's classics, such as the Mad Scientists' Clubseries. Mr. Pine's Purple House was released in the fall of 2000, along with two other books, and by June 2003, the company was doing well enough for her husband to quit his job and for the whole family to move from Texas to their dream home, on a farm in Kentucky.