By Sally Murdoch-King and Marne Maykowskyj Nordean

Been tossing a business idea around in your head but you don’t know if you’re ready to start your own business? There are all sorts of online readiness quizzes you can take (even the Small Business Administration has one) that will spit out an assessment of whether you’re ready to be your own boss. But as moms, you have some special considerations in being an entrepreneur; you may think you have enough on your plate with family so why add more and risk stability of starting your own business?
The answer to that question came easy for myself and another mom in Portland, Oregon.

I worked at adidas, TaylorMade Golf, DC Shoes and other large sports brands for 15 years before I quit; Marne Maykowskyj Nordean was an architect who decided to turn her design ability and instincts in another direction when she launched her kids’ apparel and accessories site Cat in a Apron. Four years later, each of us have grown our businesses into full time home-based careers.
This past summer, we met and began working together. We both share the opinion that working from home and being with family is exactly the reward to the risks of starting out on your own. Think you may be ready? See if any of these situations below sound familiar…

1. People seek out advice in your field of expertise constantly, even to the point of annoying you.
As I got close to reaching the end of working for corporations, I was tired of being bombarded with PR questions. People at other companies, friends, family, strangers, they all wanted PR tips and techniques I had spent a decade and a half gathering. And finally it hit me—I knew something about PR, maybe even quite a bit–and people were asking for my help. I realized that if people needed help, perhaps they would pay for it. This annoyance was my mother of invention.
As for Marne, she gave up her job in order to stay home with her newborn son. She and her husband split their yearly income in HALF while adding a person to her family, causing her to start sewing baby items out of necessity. Marne’s inspiration for Cat in an Apron came when her friends began having children and she had a hard time finding what she wanted to give as gifts, but she also couldn’t afford the few things out there she liked. Being trained as a designer, Marne wasn’t impressed with the mass produced low quality brands on the market. As she started to hunt for things she would be proud to give as gifts along with her handmade treasures, she found there was an amazing group of designers in Portland, Oregon, and she wanted to provide a place for these people to share their talents and products. This became Cat in an Apron.
In your own life, if you sew blankets for friends and people rave about them, that’s a good sign you are on the right path. If you bake cookies and everyone wants the recipe, you may be an entrepreneur. It sounds simple, but clueing into what people want from you is the spark of the entrepreneurial fire. For Marne, not only were her friends interested in the things she was making, but also they were always asking for help with bedrooms, nurseries, fabrics, and choosing gifts for people. She realized she could trust her eye and her taste, and that others would appreciate her doing the work of finding the products she liked.

2. Your morning ritual of showering, getting dressed, hopping in the car or on a bike, dealing with traffic, and getting to work is a huge pain - and then your workday begins. / Leaving your child with someone else is not an option.
After 20 years of working for the man, I knew I used almost all of my productive creative time in the shower, brewing coffee, picking an outfit and driving to work. By the time I got there, I felt my productive time was wasted, and I put out fires and sat in meetings the rest of the day.
Picture a work day that’s not 9 to 5—could you handle it? For the first year and a half of my daughter’s life, I wrote from 7 to 10 am, no car or shower required, then had business meetings over lunch, playdates or cocktails. Then the work muse hits me again from 9 to midnight. I still get productive work time in with playtime for baby during the normal workday.
Marne stayed home for those first couple of months on maternity leave, and she knew going back to work in an office full time was simply not an option. Even though she’d spent roughly 20 years of her life on her architectural career, it was a very clear decision not to return.
This is not to say it’s easy. Marne found working for herself successfully takes a lot of discipline. When you have a little one with you, you have to be diligent about separating work time from mommy time – it’s easy to get glued to your computer and the whole day with baby is gone.
However, if you’ve learned self-discipline over the years, being your own boss may be an easy transition.

3. You are not afraid to fail (but don’t think you will).
When working for someone else, you can learn and make mistakes on someone else’s dime. But once it’s your back, it’s more daunting. I asked her Aunt Sukie the scary question: “What if I fail?” and her answer, perfect in it simplicity—“So what?” Together we walked through exit route scenarios and the answer became clear—I could just go work for someone else again. Big deal, right?

4. You need to put your family first but you also know you’ll have support.
As a mom, you provide a lot of emotional support to your family. And when you start a business, you need financial support. A bank, a partner, husband, parent, or even a forward amount from a client, you need financial support, especially as a mom. The rewards of entrepreneurship are obvious: you can see your kids’ school concerts, you can be with them when they’re sick and you can work less hours and spend more time with your kids.
Make sure you’ll have financial and emotional support while you launch your business for at least a year. The whole “make sure you have enough to survive for 6 months theory” never really rang true for me, but the fear of paying a mortgage and having money for travel were my impetus not to fail.

5. You know there is nothing else you’d rather be doing work-wise for the next five years.
You know how people say find your passion and then figure out how to get paid for it? It’s just true. If your heart and soul are not into your endeavor it will be clear to everyone from your customers to your consultants. This is way too much work to be doing something that you don’t truly love. Integrity is obvious.

Any of these sound like you? Here are a few things you can do to test the waters before taking the leap:

1. Summon the courage to ask friends and family for their opinion on starting your own business.
Tell a pessimist, an optimist and at least one person you would like as a customer that you’re thinking of starting your own business. What are their reactions? Do they look down at their feet and uncomfortably change the subject or do they want to know when you’re starting so they can join forces? Note what they say, their body language and write it down as feedback.
It’s scary to talk about the possibility of owning a business. Friends and family are perfect “pretend” customers. If you can summon the courage stick your neck out there by having these conversations, even if the answers hurt or surprise you, you are already acting like an entrepreneur wooing customers.

2. Write down your business details: anytime, anywhere, anything.
If you’re not willing to spend a few minutes to write down things like plans, thoughts, targeting potential customers, sources of income, will it work? scenarios, you may not be ready to start a business. We’re not talking the almighty business plan; we’re talking just notes and dreams. Make this your litmus test—buy a 99-cent spiral notebook. Write on the cover BUSINESS and jot down everything as it comes to mind, whenever it hits you, about your business. If you commit to this simple exercise, you can then use these notes in compiling your business plan.
I had a spiral notebook I toted everywhere. Once on a flight from San Diego, before I quit my day job, I met a fantastic person. In my excitement of actually meeting someone cool on a plane, I left my notebook in the pocket of the seat in front of me. I called the airline a number of times—the notebook was never recovered. Perhaps there was a reason this notebook was lost forever. Maybe my business was heading down a path it wasn’t intended to go with that notebook. But I bought a new one, started fresh, and one month later quit my job.
Marne had a professor in college who used to say great design should not come to you like a bowel movement in the night! She remembered the lesson to this day: if you rely on inspiration to strike you like lightening, you’ll never be able trust you’ll be inspired when called upon, she said. Her method: Every time you ARE inspired by something, take a picture of it, jot it down in your notebook or journal, sketch it right now. If you find yourself lacking at some point, you’ll have this whole breadth of ideas to call upon when you need it.

3. Gather people around you who could (and hopefully will) serve as mentors.
Look at five people around you. Do you have some creative entrepreneurs in your bunch? How about family? Is there a business owner in your family who you find yourself drawn to lately? Set yourself up with a support network for when you launch your business.
Both my parents founded their own businesses so it was in my blood. However I wasn’t in either of their fields. They warned me repeatedly how hard it was to own your own business, so I couldn’t count on them for much advice on breaking away. It was my aunt Sukie, a PR firm owner for decades that I summoned for help. The hours of conversation were priceless in the counsel and courage I received. And when I finally quit, I had three clients the next day.

Check out Sally Murdoch King’s site here. (Pictured left).
Check out Marne Maykowskyj Nordean’s site here.