Yes, Women Can Have It All

In honor of International Women’s Day, our post today is all about the power of the female entrepreneur. The debate over the last few years has been about whether women can really have it all. From the famous Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, to Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, everyone has an opinion to share.

Here are five of our favorite female entrepreneurs who weren't afraid to follow their dreams:

Oprah: Oprah has become a household name, no last name needed. She is a self-made woman who has founded not one, but three entities: Harpo Productions, the Oprah Winfrey Network, and the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. However, Oprah came from a troubled childhood. As a young girl she dealt with sexual abuse, poverty, and her own teenage pregnancy. It wasn’t until Oprah turned 17 that she caught her first big break by winning the Miss Black Tennessee beauty pageant, which led to her getting an on air job at a radio station in Nashville.

Sara Blakely: A true hustler, Sara Blakely’s success as the founder and owner of SPANX demonstrates that the keys to a successful business are a good product, persistence, and hard work. At 27 years old, Blakely came up with the idea for SPANX and decided to invest her entire life savings, $5,000, into the product. Whether she was modeling her own product in department stores in order to draw in a customer base, or spending nights researching patent law to write her own patent because she couldn’t afford a lawyer, Blakely did everything and anything necessary to get her product out there. SPANX is now a billion dollar company, which Blakely still 100% owns and has self-funded from the beginning.

Kristi Mailloux: The President of Molly Maid literally started at the bottom and worked her way up in her company. A farm girl from Michigan, Mailloux grew up working, both in cornfields and as a receptionist at Molly Maid, between college and graduate school. She decided to stay in the business world, specifically working in franchising, and soon rose up the ranks of Molly Maid until she was named President in 2006. However, Mailloux likes to remind entrepreneurs that no task should be beneath them when growing a business; as the receptionist at Molly Maid, she had to clean the bathrooms!

Zhang Xin: This billionaire is the definition of a rags to riches story. Born in Beijing, Zhang Xin spent her teenage years working as a factory girl, sewing collars and buttons onto dress shirts, saving money to leave China to go to university. After attending university on scholarship in England, she got a job with Goldman Sachs. After years of experience in the financial world, she decided to branch out and began her own property development company, SOHO, in 1995.

J.K. Rowling: This multi-millionaire author has made sure that her name will go down in history as a renowned children’s author with her Harry Potter series. However, Ms. Rowling had quite a rocky start to her writing career. She took on several secretarial jobs, but could never find satisfaction with the work. In fact, her habit of brainstorming story ideas and doodling character names instead of working lead to her being fired more than once. The idea for her first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, came to her while waiting on her delayed train. Rowling decided to forgo full time teaching to focus on her writing, and the fantastical world of Harry Potter was an escape from her reality of living off welfare payments in government housing. In the end, all of her hard work and dedication paid off, and her first book in the series was published in 1997.

These women risked it all to follow their entrepreneurial dreams. So, next time you’re wondering whether you should play it safe or take a risk and do what you love, remember that nothing worth having comes easy!