Juggling to raise a family and a career at the same time can be one of the hardest jobs in the world. This May, TekRevol is recognizing and celebrating stories of five stay-at-home mom entrepreneurs whose accomplishments stand as an inspiration to us and people everywhere.
Janice Bryant Howroyd
Janice is an entrepreneur, ambassador, educator, businesswoman, mentor, and author. With a $900 loan from her mother, Janice started her temporary employment staffing firm, Act-1, while taking care of her young son. From a small office with just a fax machine and telephone to the net worth of $520 million, as of 2018, Janice has come a long way.
Over 3 decades later ACT-1 is the largest company of its kind owned by a woman of color with more than 70 branches around the country. Janice is the first African-American woman to own a billion-dollar business and as a mom of two, she says her family has made their share of contribution to make sure ACT-1 continues to be a success.
JK Rowling
Most of us know JK Rowling as the author of popular Harry Potter stories, but today we will be talking about Rowling’s story of being a stay at home mom entrepreneur.
On her way from Manchester to London, Rowling first scribbled her idea for the smash-hit fantasy books on a napkin that she found on the train. What’s incredible is that the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was written in Edinburgh cafes, while Rowling was accompanied by her baby daughter Jessica. We can only imagine how challenging it must have been to write with a toddler in tow, but Rowling wasn’t just great at it, she became an entrepreneur and millionaire in the process.
Jen Smith
Our next stay at home mom entrepreneur, Jen Smith, more popularly known as “The Millionaire Mommy Next Door”, started with dabbling in half a dozen small online businesses from her home. Smith was researching the stock market, if she wasn’t working on her multiple small businesses. She would invest in the stock market with her profits and make her money do the work for her.
Learning how to smartly invest her profits helped Smith transition from earning minimum wage to gaining financial independence as a self-made millionaire, by the age of 40. She recently wrote a book called The Millionaire Mommy Next Door to help other moms who want to be more.
Victoria Knight-Mcdowell
After being a second-grade teacher for a while, Victoria was done getting sick from her constant contact with kids. This led her to invent the popular “Airborne” supplements. After using them herself, she thought other teachers might also benefit from her herbal remedy and that’s how she started her own business.
Eventually, Victoria quit her teaching job and started to run Airborne full-time, while taking care of her newborn son. By the year 2004, Airborne was on the shelves of all major retailers across the nation. Once annual sales had reached $100 million, she decided to sell the company to a private equity firm. Despite that, Victoria’s motherly instincts and entrepreneurial success remain an inspiration to mothers all around the world.
Cathy Hughes
Being a teenage mother, Cathy Hughes only started her career as a divorced single mom. Through real grit, she founded Radio One and built her empire. Today, her company includes 53 radio stations, the BET network, and the TV-One cable network.
Later on, Cathy also included her son Alfred Liggins in the business. Working with the family has its own challenges, but after working together for a long time now, Cathy and Alfred have fallen in sync. Recently, Cathy and her son were named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, and she was also acknowledged as the first African-American woman to lead a publicly traded corporation.
