Women own or co-own 40 percent of US firms

WASHINGTON - Women entrepreneurs now own or co-own 40 percent of all businesses in the US and have created almost twice as many businesses as men between 2002 and 2007, say experts.

Currently, some 10.1 million firms are owned or co-owned by women, 40 percent of all businesses in the US, says the Centre for Women’s Business Research, a research group in McLean, Virginia.

Between 2002 and 2007, women created almost twice as many businesses as men, according to data from the Census Bureau.

If opening a business demands courage, opening one in the aftermath of the worst economic downturn demands a special steeliness, especially for female entrepreneurs.

Because women-owned businesses are concentrated in retail and service industries - think Estee Lauder, Coco Chanel, Mrs. Fields Cookies, even Zipcar - they were among the first to feel the downturn, reports Christian Science Monitor.

Now, in a fragile recovery, the business climate requires other qualities, like resourcefulness and patience.

“They’re rediscovering the art of ‘bootstrapping’ and keeping your overhead low and keeping your operating costs low so you can adjust to these economic shocks and keep adjusting,” says Jeffrey Cornwall, director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.

“It doesn’t mean they’re not growing their business or not starting their business, it means they’re finding another way to get there,” he said.

Ruth Marvin Webster and her tennis partner, Kathy Doherty, spent years making puns at their racquet club: “Love all,” “Get a grip,” “Tightly strung,” “Yours!” They’d even joked about turning their witticisms into a T-shirt business.

So after Webster was laid off in 2008 from her job as a features writer for a San Diego daily, the pair took the plunge and started Net Wit, a business so new that its website only went up in mid-November, the Monitor reports.

“The economy is the reason we started the company, absolutely,” says Webster. Of course, the sour economy hasn’t helped the bottom line. “It’s harder to make a sale because it’s frivolous,” she says. “You can live without a tennis shirt. Maybe not as happily, but you can live.”

Take Mary Frankie Forte, owner of the It’s a Grind coffee shop in downtown Oakland, California. “Customers are definitely cutting back,” she says. Some have downgraded from lattes to drip coffee, which costs half as much; others may get a muffin only twice a week instead of daily. “I’m just trying to make do with what I have…. Loans to pay back, I don’t need.”

This tendency of women entrepreneurs to take out fewer loans and grow more slowly is well known. “Women tend to be … more conservative and careful in their financial-management practices,” says Susan Coleman, professor of economics at Hartford University in Connecticut.

That may be the right strategy for this era, says Cornwall. “Those businesses that right now are taking on less debt are going to be those that are much stronger coming out of the recession.”

The number of women transitioning from the labour force to self-employment hit a two-decade low in 2007, just as the recession was about to hit, according to the Kauffman Foundation, a group based in Kansas City and devoted to entrepreneurship. By 2009, the rate was back to normal.

In addition, more women than men left the already small ranks of those taking out subsidized loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA) between 2007 and 2009. This year the number of SBA loans jumped for men, but kept falling for women.

“We haven’t taken one dime in loans,” says Heather Anderson, co-owner of Bulldogg’s Jersey Shop in Oceanside, California, which sells NFL, NBA, and other jerseys. “The idea from the beginning was to choose something that would still have a market in a down economy…. The last thing people will give up is their team.”