Women’s Entrepreneurship Day on November 19 celebrated business women everywhere. Many women have gone a step further and delved into the world of entrepreneurship, creating their own thriving and successful businesses. The following women invented products and launched businesses that improves the lives of others.
Jakki Liberman is one such woman. As a single mom of four kids, Liberman was searching for sustainable diapers that were effective while still being fun. Unable to find good quality cloth diapers, she decided to create her own. Her unique creations led her to found Bumkins, a successful brand that has since expanded from cloth diapers to a variety of baby and toddler items, including clothing, teething items, and much more. Her innovative waterproof fabric transferred onto multiple baby items, including splash mats and snack bags, and is lead, PVC, phthalate, and BPA free. Liberman has also partnered with many reputable brands such as Disney, DC Comics, and Dr. Seuss.
Maia Haag is another mom whose great idea led to a business. When her first son received a personalized storybook as gift, Haag and her husband were disappointed in the story and illustrations. They decided to pursue creating their own version, and founded I See Me!, an innovative brand offering personalization beyond just names. Since producing their first book, My Very Own Name, the line has expanded to include many different books and have sold millions of personalized items nationwide. Haag partakes in the story creation and design of each book, helping children star in their own storybooks.
Helping children in another way, Sharon Blumberg founded Chooze to help kids express themselves through unique and fun clothing designs. Blumberg noticed her daughter loved the individuality of mixing and matching clothing, and dressing in her own way brought her great happiness. Blumberg decided this was a great idea to help cultivate creativity and independence, and designed each piece to express that. Starting with mismatched shoes, the Chooze brand has since expanded to include clothing for kids and women, always with the motive in mind for allowing freedom of expression.
Expression was also the motivation behind Rebecca Michaels’ company, Violet Love Headbands. Struggling to find a fashionable yet functional headband, Michaels decided she would create her own. Leaving her career in civil engineering to pursue this creative passion, Michaels’ designed a stunning line of headbands with over 100 color and print options, made for kids and adults. She utilized her degree in environmental engineering from Penn State University to make her brand dedicated to eco-friendly practices, from an energy efficient printing process to environmentally friendly materials and inks.
Also emulating her values into her business, Rebecca Ballard created Maven Women with sustainability, fair trade, and worker’s rights at the core. Previously a public interest lawyer, Ballard saw firsthand how much the fashion industry impacted these values, and wanted to create a better option. Her solution is Maven Women, a unique line of elegant dresses designed to empower business women. Ballard’s unique design process allows for customer opinion right at the beginning, welcoming design preferences from women interested in purchasing the final design and reducing textile waste in the process.
Instead of reducing waste, Stacia Pache wanted to reduce pain. After finding out how much she loved running while training for a triathlon, Pache was disheartened by how much her knees hurt. Using other knee braces were ineffective, and they often fell off easily. Pache knew she could make a better brace, and used her 20 years of product development experience to design itBandz, a brand of fun and effective knee braces that reduce pain while having fun. Available in a variety of colors and designs, itBandz stays in place to support the knees and reduce pain.
Michele Mehl, another active entrepreneur, found herself disheartened as well after breaking her leg. She wanted an easy way to workout while still allowing her leg to heal. Unable to find anything that allowed for both, Mehl invented her own machine, called Excy. A lightweight and compact machine, it’s a total body cross training system in the form of an exercise cycle. It weighs a mere 10 lbs., allowing for portability to workout anyplace, any time. Excy combines mobile health technology with an all-in-one cycling machine to maximize targeted exercise.
Tina Hay found herself working with a different kind of exercise: a mental one. Struggling in her finance courses while getting her MBA at Harvard Business School, Hay found she understood the coursework better if she had a visual format of the concepts. She realized many visual learners would benefit from graphic representations, and created Napkin Finance, a visual way to learn everything about money in 30 seconds or less. The learning tools help people better understand finance, from student loans, to credit cards, to investing. Hay’s visual depictions have helped people learn finance topics that are traditionally very complex, and has since expanded to informational videos and even NapkinVersity, a ‘university’ which offers online courses on finances.
Instead of finances, Lisa Skeete Tatum wanted to help women learn how to manage their careers. After over a decade as a venture capitalist, Tatum wanted to start somewhere fresh, but wasn’t sure where to even begin. She felt stuck, and found that many women felt the same way. To combat career staunches, Tatum founded Landit, a technology platform designed to increase the success and engagement of women in the workplace. Along with Tatum, Landit helps women achieve their career goals, whether they want to excel in their current position, they’re looking for a new opportunity, or they are recently back in the formal workplace.
Happiness was something that Debra Stangl wanted to help others find. After 20 years as a divorce attorney, Stangl found she was stressed and ready for a change. She decided to go to Sedona for a retreat, and her experience changed her life. After she returned home, Stangl decided to close her law practice and move to Sedona to start Sedona Soul Adventures, a service offering spiritual retreats designed to provide life-changing and transformational experiences. The service expanded from Sedona in 2004 and now offers opportunities to travel to Egypt and Peru. Stangl also recently wrote a book, The Journey to Happy, on her experience and how others can find happiness.
To help bring happiness and comfort to others, Marti Wymer created Spoonful of Comfort, an innovative brand that allows homemade soup to be delivered to the door. After her mother fell ill to cancer, Wymer searched for something special to send her since she lived so far away. She felt flowers didn’t say what she wanted to, and instead wanted to send homemade soup, a traditional and heartwarming symbol of comfort. After coming up short, she decided to find a way for soup to be sent whenever it was needed. Spoonful of Comfort is now a $1 million business and allows people to send chicken noodle, mushroom, or tomato basil soup to loved ones, showing they care even when they can’t be there.
Women entrepreneurs everywhere should always be celebrated. All of these women have created flourishing businesses out of innovative ideas, and continually strive to serve their customers with strong values and a determination to fill a need.
