Mompreneur! We talk about it a lot here, but just who (or what) exactly is a mompreneur? Jenn Uren clears that up and defines the mompreneur.

 Podcast Episodes and Resources mentioned today

Episode 2: Michele Holmes with Homeschool Directive

Episode 21: Rachel Fahrenbach and Sabbath Rest

Episode 41: Melissa Tubergen with Give Hope RV

Episode 45: Amanda Cunningham and The Glory Days Co. Planner

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This is a transcript of the This Mom Knows Podcast - Episode - 52

Jennifer Uren
We spend a lot of time on This Mom Knows talking about mompreneurs. We talk about helping mompreneurs do all the things well, while recognizing that mompreneurs have some unique challenges. But you know what? We've never actually defined exactly who or what a mompreneur is. So today, that's exactly what we're going to do. We're going to discuss what a mompreneur is, isn't what a mompreneur is, and why there's a difference.

So let's start with what a mompreneur isn't. A mompreneur isn't a mom who works outside the home for an employer. This is usually a working mom. She holds a job that has set hours or expectations. And she's compensated with a regular income and sometimes some benefits.

A mompreneur also isn't a work from home mom. That again implies working for someone else in exchange for often times some flexibility with hours, which of course, is the perk of working from home and a regular income.

So what is a mompreneur? Well, a mompreneur is someone who is mom plus an entrepreneur. A mompreneur leans into her passions and giftings with a view to building a business that provides for her family financially, while at the same time she's providing, it's providing her the freedom and flexibility that's going to allow her to live out her priority of being present with her family during their years at home. So I want to make one distinction here, you can be a mompreneur who freelances or is associated with a direct marketing company without being a business owner. And the key difference is that a business is something that can be sold and continue in operation under new ownership without you're continuing on in that role. So if it brings in income, but if you stopped doing it, your only option is to stop, meaning you can't actually sell it, then you probably own a job rather than a business. And both are great both provide for families in a way that meet their needs.

But we're often, when we talk about mompreneurs here, we're often talking about the one who is owning a business. So what makes a mompreneur different from a work from home mom or working mom?

Well, one key difference is income. The mompreneur does not have a guaranteed paycheck in return for her work. Oftentimes, that's the risk. But the reward is when the business grows, the income can come in it can exceed what might have been earned with a negotiated salary in a regular job.

Another distinction is accountability. The mompreneur is her own boss. Yeah, she has, you know, probably clients or customers to whom she has an obligation to provide, you know, a purchased product or service. But at the end of the day, she gets to decide what she's going to do and when she is going to do it, she calls the shots. This is often the greatest attraction and the benefit of being a mompreneur because it often allows business to work around our families, rather than making our families work around business.

A third distinction is the working environment. The working mom goes somewhere outside of her home. And the work from home mom often is expected to have a dedicated private workspace, both usually with set hours, but the mompreneur is often working in the midst of family life. She might have a desk or an office, but her work time may not be as consistent or as predictable as a working mom. And if it is, it's often in the non traditional space of early morning or late evening.

Mompreneurs do lots of different things. They may enjoy being artistic or crafty and so they have an Etsy shop. They may be skilled or trained in a specific field and offer a service like bookkeeping or graphic design, or they may be proficient with a particular program like Pinterest and offer their services to other mompreneurs. Or maybe they know something well, and they share their knowledge through a blog, and or podcast, and they offer courses coaching or other resources for people. And that's how they make their income.

Sometimes a mompreneur sets out to start a business. And sometimes the thing she has that she does just turns into a business. So I think of these moms as mom plus. And what I mean is that she is a mom plus something that requires her full time attention that then is usually solving a problem. And it's in the solving of that problem that she creates a business and becomes a mompreneur.

So let me give you a few examples of this. Back in episode two way back at the beginning, I introduced you to Michele Holmes. Michele was mom plus homeschooling and she noticed that there weren't any Co Op resources for high school aged kids. So she started one. Now more than 20 years later, it's still operating, but over those 20 years, she has had lots of other homeschool moms ask her "How can I homeschool High School?" So she has taken all of that homeschooling high school experience and she has turned it into a business that helps families across the country have the tools and the resources that they need, so they can confidently homeschool their kids through high school graduation.

You met Rachel Fehrenbach in Episode 21. Rachel was a mom plus lots and lots of other things, including running a large food pantry that she co founded. And in the midst of all her busyness, she began to burn out. And she discovered that the power the power of rest, especially Sabbath rest, so she now has a business, teaching other busy moms through her blog, her podcasts, and some retreats, how to integrate Sabbath rest into their weekly rhythms and turn the burnout into a life giving practice.

Melissa Tubergen is a mompreneur who started a nonprofit that serves foster and adoptive families in a way that meets a very specific need that these families often have - a need that someone else met for her family when they adopted and she wanted to do the same for other families. And you can hear her story in Episode 41.

And another mompreneur to know is Amanda Cunningham. In Episode 45, she shares how the birth of a daughter with special needs had her looking for a resource that just didn't exist. So she made it and she used it for herself. And it dawned on her that other families might want it so she now offers it to other families, so that they can benefit from the solution that she created. She now has a thriving business that supports her as a special needs mama.

In fact, find a business that you love that is owned by a mom, and chances are she started it out of solving a problem or meeting a need.

So one thing that all mompreneurs have in common, regardless of what their business is, is that they are filling a dual role. They are the parent company, so to speak. They're the parent or the mom responsible for home and family. And they're the heart of the company responsible for the business that they're growing.

Now you've heard me say often, every business "yes" feels like a parenting "no". And that's when mom guilt kicks in. The one thing that every mompreneur needs to keep her priorities, top of mind and the mom guilt at bay is the structure and support of simple systems. Because when we have good systems, we have the recipe that lets us do it over and over again. And it lets us teach other people how to do it. And it lets us adapt when things change, like the kids are suddenly home for summer.

So leaning into systems is really the best thing that a mompreneur can do so that she can do well with the unique challenges and the unique opportunities that she has in serving both her family, while stewarding her own giftings and skills and serving her audience, her clients and customers. Now if you're not sure what I mean, when I say systems or you're just not sure where to start, go back and check out the three episodes prior to this one, where I talk about what a system is and three essential systems for your home and business. In the meantime, I have a tool to help you figure out how to create the right system to support you, which you can download over at ThisMomKnows.com/system