Top 50 Mompreneurs, 2011
They cook, they clean and, between naptimes, they run kickass companies. For those who run their own mom-centric firms, the responsibilities of motherhood are only half the battle. Babble is running our first ever salute to the top 50 mompreneurs who pull all-nighters, suffer enormous financial set-backs, and balance business and baby every day to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Here's how they did it.
- Christina Couch
32 / 50
32
Karen Klayman | Student at the Wheel
Karen’s Rankings
bright idea
Company: Student at the Wheel
Location: Solebury, Pennsylvania
Children: Two sons, 20 and 22, daughter, 15 ⢠Age: 49
Inspiration: “What inspired me was having two boys going through the process of getting their drivers licenses, and having people honk, tailgate and bother them,” says Klayman. “When I talked to other parents, I heard that kids weren’t getting their licenses because they were too uncomfortable behind the wheel. I thought, ‘I can do something about this.’”
Perspiration: Klayman launched her business in 2008 – right in the middle of the recession. So while the product was easy to make, it was hard to find stores to sell it. “Everyone was scaling back. Nobody from the corporate world wanted to talk to us,” Klayman says.
Success: She finally hit it big with Cracker Barrel, a national store and restaurant chain that carried her product as part of a student driving promotion it was running. 29,000 of the 33,000 decals sold that year were sold through Cracker Barrel, Klayman says.
Two years after the company’s launch, she’s still fighting to get Student at the Wheel in front of the right people.
