Tanisha A. Sykes

Grrrrl Power - Top 10 Women-Run Businesses

Implementing "a paperless management system two years ago, allows our agents to manage real estate transactions online 24/7, so it is no longer necessary to come into an office," says Shoda, a real estate investor for the past 16 years, who sold several rental properties with significant equity for the start-up capital.

Meeting the Challenge

One of our experts says that the biggest challenge is the same for both males and females. "It's the same challenge that everyone faces -- access to capital," says Loretta Prescott, programs and communication manger for the Women's Business Resource Center in New Hampshire. "Entrepreneurs use personal savings, business and personal credit cards, business loans or lines of credit, and equity capital," to fund their ventures, explains Allison M. Gilmore, Director of Communications and Research Analysis for the National Women's Business Council in Washington, D.C. They're also tapping the SBA for grants and turning to angel investors, small business investment companies, and family and friends for a leg up.

Once funding is in place, "The next hurdle is figuring out who is going to buy what you sell and then figuring out the right marketing strategy to sell to your potential customer," says Prescott.

Extracting out the right customer was simple for Christie Lee, President of Oil Chem Technologies L.L.C. in Sugar Land, Texas, No. 142 on the Inc. 500 list this year (see "Has She Solved the Oil Crisis?"). A chemist by trade, it was her 17 years in the oil field working for Halliburton and Witco Chemical that helped her realize that there was a void to fill.

When oil companies are looking for new methods (like steam, carbon monoxide, or chemicals) to recover oil from reservoirs when conventional methods have been exhausted, they call Oil Chem, whose revenue over the past year has risen from $250,000 to $14 million in projected revenues for 2008.

For some entrepreneurs, capital and clients are not so much the issue as is sustained growth. For entrepreneurs like Leslie O'Connor, president and CEO of Atlanta, Georgia-based Search Wizards, a recruiting and sourcing firm, "the evolution from mom and pop" to corporation had its growing pains. "The growth happened before the infrastructure was ready for it." she says. When O'Connor started the firm in 2000, she initially did placements with minimal overhead, but once they added major clients in 2006 and 2007, it became necessary to hire an internal support staff. The company ranks at No. 89 on this year's Inc. 500 list.

Even with their level of success, some entrepreneurs still struggle. A 2007 study by the National Association of Women-Owned Businesses indicated that other issues for entrepreneurs were access to affordable healthcare insurance, fair and equitable tax treatment for small business, and business technology.

Making a career switch in the same field can be equally challenging. This was the case for Lisa G. Shaffer, Ph.D., president and CEO of Spokane, Washington-based Signature Genomic Laboratories, No. 114 on the Inc. 500 list.

"Many of my colleagues from academia feel that I have sold out to corporate America," says Shaffer, who started the company in 2004 to provide an answer as to why a child has a birth defect, has autism, or is having trouble learning. "The academic environment is very loyal. And for those who make the switch from a research facility to a corporate one, they can receive some backlash. Being corporate allows me to give back. I don't think that I could have influenced this field as significantly if I had remained in the constraints of academia," Shaffer says. "What my academic colleagues don't recognize is that Signature uses some of its profits to make better microarrays, do proper validation studies, and perform testing at no charge for those who can't afford it."

Signature Genomic Labs is the first lab in the United States to use microarray-based methods to detect chromosome abnormalities. This important research has helped her company grow into a $19 million corporation that expects 20 percent revenue growth every year for the next five years.

The Female Advantage

Here's an interesting fact: Women-owned businesses with $1 million or more in revenue are more likely to have large corporations (34%) and government (31%) as their primary clients. Catering to government clients was a wise move by Carol Craig, a former flight naval officer, who "learned that the government had programs designed to help women-owned and minority businesses after a couple of years of successful consulting," she says.

Her company, Craig Technologies, which grew 770 percent over the past year and had $8.7 million in revenue in 2007 and ranks at No. 75 on this year's Inc. 500 list, provides information technology support, training, and modeling and simulation to government customers.

Likewise, government contracts proved invaluable to Chiquita R. Young, President and CEO of Brentwood, Tennessee-base LeGacy Resource Corporation, which had 2007 revenues of $13.6 million and ranks at No. 57 on this year's Inc. 500 list.

"Having had a federal career, I decided that I would become a contractor to the federal government rather than continue as a civil servant," explains Young. LeGacy provides security (i.e., information and personnel) and administrative support to clients like the U.S. Department of Energy. Their biggest deal, a $35 million five-year contract with the department, was a significant part of their 600 percent growth rate in 2004.

The advantages to being a woman-owned business are great. To gain contracts with government agencies and corporations required to do business with minority-owned businesses, more women are getting qualified as a Woman Business Enterprise. This designation is helping more female entrepreneurs access to prime contracts, team up with larger companies for professional services such as technology or systems integration; and receive subcontract awards to those businesses that make products.

For all of these women, growth has meant the freedom to run organizations how they want, to grow at a sustainable pace, and to do so with an unwavering optimism. "I never fear failure," says Craig of Craig Technologies. "I have always had backup plans and I have continued to plan ahead for the 'worst case scenario.' Every experience is a success if you learn from it."