In The News

She caught the 7:37 a.m. bus to Scarsdale's train station, only to return home at midnight from her marketing executive position at Digitas Inc.

"I knew it was time to leave when I came home and I was hoping they (the kids) were sleeping because I didn't have energy," says Lichter.

Giving up work wasn't an appealing option — Lichter really enjoyed what she did. Like many other working mothers in the Lower Hudson Valley, Lichter left the commute, lack of family time and grueling hours of corporate America for mornings at the bus stop with the kids, dinners with the family and her home-based business, Bansom Marketing Strategies.

Lichter has lots of company. In 1997, there were 334,457 women-owned businesses in New York State with no employees, according to the Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy. (This makes the assumption that businesses with no employees are most likely home-based.) Five years later, when the most recent economic census was reported, that number jumped 31.5 percent to 439,857.

It's virtually impossible to get an exact number of how many women both nationally and locally own home-based businesses. The only study that asked that question was written by Dallas researcher Joanne Pratt in 1999; however, the data was from 1994. But anecdotal evidence points to the fact that there are many others like Lichter.

For instance, John Miller, a spokesperson for New York's Small Business Administration, said the number of women seeking guidance on starting a home-based business from retired executives who volunteer for the SBA is at record levels.

"I've seen more women here than ever before and that's over 20 years," Miller says.

Make no mistake, these home-based businesses are not hobbies. These women work just as diligently as they did when they were in corporate America. Often they work longer hours. The difference is, they do it on their own terms, which means leaving the corporate world behind.

"The idea of the mommy track at companies, that does not help women at all," Lichter, 48, of Scarsdale, says. "That's three days of pay for five days of work."

The only logical option, especially for highly educated women, is to strike out on their own, she says. Often, that's a scary choice, although many women like her are more entrepreneurial than people expect.

The payoff at home makes the transition worth it because now Lichter visits her children's school and joins them for dinner.

"It sounds very Doris Day, but I like going to pick my husband up from the train station. Now that I'm on my own I'd never go back," she says.

In 2004 Beth Schoenfeldt and Victoria Colligan co-founded Ladies Who Launch, a Manhattan organization that helps women business owners in all stages of a company's life. During research for a forthcoming book on the topic they interviewed 1,000 women business owners in the state and found that 70 percent of them are home-based. Their research also found that women start businesses at double the rate of men.

It's not that men love working in corporate America. In fact, their research shows men are similarly dissatisfied with corporations. But there's a social stigma on men that keeps them from going out on their own. They found that men base their self-esteem on what they're producing in the world more than women do.

Whether the women are single or married, flexibility is the key, Schoenfeldt says. She finds single women do it so they can travel and enjoy the freedom that comes with maintaining your own schedule. Many of the mothers do it in order to spend more time with their families.

"Feminists fought for the right to work in corporate America, but a lot of women don't get happiness from that," Schoenfeldt says. "Also, I don't think corporate America is all that stable right now. Corporations are down-sizing. It's almost less risky than working in corporate America. Technology has been a huge influence. Without technology a lot of this wouldn't be possible."

A major attraction to home-based business is the ability to start one without a lot of money. And the overhead is low.

Take Lisa Solomon. The 37-year-old Ardsley mother of two went to law school and worked in the corporate world. When she and her husband started discussing kids, Solomon considered a home business.

"My husband and I knew we wanted to have kids and dogs," says Solomon, also mother to three canines. "We felt that it was important for one of us to have flexibility. It was going to be me because I was more in transition. My husband had been working at a firm for longer."

Things fell into place in 1996 when she was contacted by the Boston law firm she worked at during school. The firm needed assistance with legal writing and research. All she needed was a computer, a fast Internet connection, a copy machine and a printer.

She developed a Web site (www.questionoflaw.net) and networked with legal organizations in the state and county to draw more business. Now she serves as a legal freelancer, doing projects for several firms.

"It allows me to take on as much as I want," Solomon says.

Lichter agrees. She picks only the projects that are most intriguing to her. Like Solomon, she developed a client base with the help of her former employer. Both women say their businesses are profitable.

When she left Digitas, her former colleagues referred prospective clients that weren't large enough for Digitas to Lichter's firm. She still gets a large portion of her business that way.

Since she enjoys bouncing ideas off other professionals, Lichter found a group of creative professionals in Connecticut that she partners with on many of her projects.

Like Solomon, she's strict about work. It's not something they do in between housework and carpools. Both women hired professionals to clean their homes and care for their children while they're working.

"I don't do housework during working hours," Solomon says. "Maybe I'll unload the dishwasher, but as a rule I don't stop in the middle of the day."

Entrepreneurship is addictive. Solomon and her husband recently founded another business (www.thebillablehour.com), which makes watches and clocks especially for lawyers. She says there's a third in the works but won't discuss it until plans are more firm.

Much of her work is spent behind the computer doing research and writing. It's the type of job she could do in her pajamas, but she doesn't.

"I don't think that would be a good role model for my kids," Solomon says. "It helps you get into the day."

Claudine Struck realized early on that corporate America wasn't the right fit for her. As an international business major at Northeastern University in Boston, she worked at internships for IBM and the software company Bull.

"I realized from those experiences that my spirit didn't flourish in the corporate environment," Struck, 38, of Garrison says. "I felt chained to my desk and I really felt like a number. I had no say or influence and it would take a long time to have any."

After working internationally as a model for her first two years out of school, Struck started a fitness business from her home. At the time she lived in Manhattan and she worked with clients in their homes. When her daughter was born (she is now 5 and her son is 1 1/2) she started thinking about children's parties and how boring they are for adults. She has lots of experience going to parties since her husband is a wedding photographer, so last fall she started a party planning business that does parties for young girls. They all have the same theme: fairies.

She has literally turned a part of her home into the business. While the kids try on dresses, makeup and play in a building on her property (it used to be a chicken coup), the adults are in a separate room chatting and munching on hors d'oeuvres.

Struck hired a Culinary Institute of America student to cater the parties and high-school students help dress the kids in their fairy costumes. She handles all aspects of the parties, from invites to thank-you notes. Parties start at $450.

She started the business with $7,000. It is not yet profitable, but Struck estimates that isn't far off. She still takes the train into Manhattan a few days a week, working with her fitness clients.

When Danit Ran Schreiber moved from Israel to Harrison with her husband and toddler twins almost five years ago, she had an Israeli law degree and several years experience in advertising. That wasn't enough to land her the type of job she desired.

"My accomplishments didn't carry a lot of weight, Ran Schreiber, 36, says. "I had to start from scratch. I wanted to do something, I don't want to be a stay-at-home mom. That's not for me. I didn't want to work for a big firm 12 hours a day. I wanted to create something new."

She used her background as an attorney and took classes on image. Through her firm, Image Democracy, she trains executives on the importance of non-verbal communication.

It's an ideal business for a working mother. She's able to control its size so she's home when she needs to be. That's particularly important since she gave birth to her third child a month ago.

"I'm very picky, I only pick clients that I want to work with," she says. "I'm very limited in time. I want to provide my kids with the maximum amount of time."

Much of her business involves traveling to clients. She decided that on weeks when she travels, even if she goes to the West coast, she takes the red eye after her engagement so she can be home with the children.

"My goal is to be lucrative, happy, love what I do and still have time with my kids," Ran Schreiber says. "I wouldn't be able to do that if I was working for someone else."

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