Before becoming an entrepreneur

What was your education and professional experience?

I hold a BA in Studio Art and Theatre Arts from Mount Holyoke College.
I hold an MA in Art Education from Columbia University Teachers College.
I am a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (Coaches Training Institute).

When did you start your business?

I hung up my first [...]

Since it is the 5th Anniversary of the Womenandbiz.com website (Congratulations Elisa on your great success!), I decided to offer 5 tips on lessons I’ve learned in my business http://www.artnsoulinc.com/.  I hope you find them helpful.  Here’s to many more years for you in business, Elisa, and to you, the reader. Thank you for [...]

When I first started working right out of college, I would never have guessed I’d own my own business.  By the time I had my sixth job in seven years it was clear that working for myself was what I really wanted.  Those first few years in business were trying times.  I had very [...]

When we first interviewed you back in 2003 for WomenandBiz.com’s first issue, Zinc Bar was about to celebrate its 10th year anniversary and you had just opened Flatiron Lounge with your brother Alex. A few years later you opened Pegu Club.
How have your ventures changed, if in anyway, since you’ve established the first [...]

 A little while ago, one of my colleagues commented favorably on how many people I know and the fact that I’m always making introductions. She asked me how I did it.
I didn’t realize that I had really created a system of keeping in touch with people whom I felt would be influential for my career [...]

 Summer getaway vacations are a lot like business partnerships.  You need an outlook of adventure, a mindset for cooperation, and an attitude of mutual respect.  You also need to be mindful of your budget.  It’s a journey that you’re sharing together.
Like vacations, business partnerships can spoil for many reasons.  But the grounds often circle around [...]

Dear Entrepreneur,
As we celebrate our 5th year anniversary – bringing you articles to help you succeed and featuring many women in business to inspire you, we would like to thank you and all our guest writers!
The theme of this issue is Stay the Course – How can you keep going and growing your [...]

When I started my writing business three years ago, I was certain that I knew exactly what I wanted. After all, I’d been a writer for most of my life. Leaving the corporate world to become a freelance writer seemed like a natural extension. What I didn’t anticipate was that though I’d read [...]

 First of all, giving up is never an option.  Of course, this point could be argued into the ground, but if you are self-employed or a small business owner, you know the feeling well. The highs are high and the lows can be really low and sometimes it would  seem so much easier to just [...]

 Why most professionals and small business owners don’t attract the right target at networking events and complained that networking is not working. Most of them do the same mistakes.
The main reason why people don’t attract the right target at networking events is because they are so vague in describing their business or services that nobody [...]

What separates the people who are amazingly successful from those who struggle? Why is one person able to start a business or begin a new job in sales and succeed, while others with similar qualifications and abilities fail?
More and more I’ve come to realize that what makes the difference between those who succeed and those [...]

 Ever have one of those days when you feel very disorganized, aren’t getting anything accomplished and as a result find yourself getting extremely stressed out? Whether you feel this way because you spent an inordinate amount of time trying to locate an important file, or had to deal with constant interruptions while attempting to put [...]

 If you’re like many successful small business owners, you have more tasks to do each day than you have time to do them in.
In order to be able to stay the course in your business, you need to learn how to change this situation. This column will show you how you can have more time [...]

First off, what is a volatile market? Volatility is best described as the ups and downs of a market. These ups and downs are typically include irregular price fluctuations and increased trading.
However, except for the very obvious catalysts, like a natural disaster, there are no consensus views on what actually causes market volatility. We do [...]

What do they say, a good thing is worth working for?? Well, as a solopreneur in my third reincarnation, I can say without hesitation that all the effort, the stress and the sheer insanity of working for myself, is absolutely worth it. Here’s some things I learned along the way, which helped me stay the [...]

I started my business my junior year at Hofstra University.  As you can imagine, when you’re starting a business in college, I was short on capital.  I tried to do everything myself, and at 22 years of age, I thought I could do it. When I started out, I had about a million [...]

If you’re building and growing a business to provide for you for the rest of your life you have to make smart deals and seek strategic opportunities across international borders.
There is a distinct difference between those entrepreneurs who are business owners and those who are value innovators.  To put it simply:  To be [...]